Approach of the storm - Chapter 15

This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Roger Marsh of the ‘Action Desk — Sheffield’ Team on behalf of Thomas Arthur Russell, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.

Approach of the storm Chapter 15
By
Thomas Arthur Russell

The three weeks passed and the day came to say goodbye to my family. Mother kept a brave face although I knew she was near to tears. I never kissed my mother goodbye, I used to think it seemed too final, just, "So long Ma," then quickly through the door with a last, "so long, I’ll be seeing you," with my dad’s, "Mind tha does Lad." That was it, no dramatics, no tears, that was the way I preferred it, no hanging about.

Over to my fiancé’s by bus, past the woods I'd roamed in as a kid. Past the tip I'd slipped down with my raggy arsed bottom parked on a shovel shouting, "Watch out," as I skated down in a cloud of dust. Memories with every glance from the window. Then onto the cold Courthouse Station platform with a solitary red chocolate machine, still carrying the legend, ‘Nestlé’s Milk Chocolate, 2d a bar.’ Alas empty, never to be filled again and certainly not at that price.

Bill had gone off to one side amid a few more couples, one or two soldiers with wives or sweethearts, the inevitable gas mask, kitbag and rifle weighing them down seemed bad enough. But to be accompanied by the tears and trauma of saying goodbye amid the clouds of hissing steam, seemed an added burden. We spoke briefly and said all the little inadequate things you say at times like this, as the guard’s red flag waved, a quick kiss and, "Take care Love." Then his quick step clattering along the platform, checking the doors. A shrill of his whistle answered by the train’s own whistle, the chuff chuff of steam to the cylinders and three weeks of heaven disappeared round the bend of the track.

I waved till she was out of sight then sat down with Bill, Well that's over, but I wonder how long we'd be again before we see old Barnsley.

“If we don't stop a bloody tin fish, maybe a couple of years,” I said. That was the thing at the back of every service man's mind. The unthinkable, would he return or only a scrap of paper to announce he'd died as a result of enemy action? For myself, I was hoping the bombers wouldn’t visit Barnsley. After all, it was an important coalfield, vital to the war effort.

Strenuous efforts had been made to minimise the burning slag heaps, all too easy a mark for bombers, by equipping them with piped water from the collieries pumps and sprays it was hoped to dull their nightly glare. What I saw of them, it didn't always look a success though as flames broke through the clouds of steam in many places.

Changing at Penistone didn't take long. Silence had settled on us now and in between catnapping, I gazed at the brown and tawny colour of weeds and grass as the embankment sped past with an occasional wisp of white steam from the engine, and the monotonous tone of the wheels passing over the joints. Bopoty - Bopoty - bop and the slow rocking movement that could soon lull one to sleep.

We arrived safely back. Nothing had changed. The same old smell of heated metal, paint, tar and a slight sea weedy smell from the dock itself, the ship’s bottom had been scraped and repainted with a tarry mixture. She'd gain maybe a couple of knots now on her speed since her barnacles had disappeared. She was a mass of red leaded patches where her rust had been chipped away and it now had the rakish funnel cowl of her sister ships and her RDF gear had been fitted. Two additions to her fighting efficiency. New additions to the close range AA defence in the shape of a large number of round steel enclosures, each containing an Oerlikon cannon in a tier like formation. This gun had proved itself. Its fitting now was standard on warships and merchantmen. Its rate of fire was terrific, pouring out a stream of glowing tracer shells from a round magazine, easily reloaded in quick time by replacing the empty one, which took nothing more than seconds. The seamen gunners could soon refill the empty mags to by using a kind of key to ratchet them round.

I was to see the effectiveness of this weapon later on. I tried one myself to see how the rubber padded shoulder holders and straps worked, you could lie right back gaining a nearly vertical position. The sight was a round spider web type, and a square metal shield helped to protect the gunner. It swivelled swiftly round by leg power alone, giving a simple ease of operation. We now had to move to get the new 15" barrels fitted. They were fitted over at New Brighton, so the dry dock was flooded and with the help of tugs, we were shepherded across the Mersey. Shore leave in Liverpool now meant a trip across on the ferry to disembark at the pier head opposite the Liver Buildings. Good old Scouseland. As a Yorkie, I had grown a strange affection for the place, these down to earth people with their different slang, the Liverpool humour, after all the punishment they'd received, I felt my "scouse" mates could say with pride, I’d come from Liverpool.

They were great folks. The guns had been finished, the ship looked sparkling new under her fresh coat of light and dark battleship grey, dazzle painting, to break her outline up and confuse enemy gunners. All had been tidied up. Down below, everything in boiler rooms, and engine room spaces, had been painted and brass work sparkled in the electric light. The boilers had been cleaned, a tough, dirty, warm job we stokers didn't relish. Confined in the steam drums, we had to wire scrub them, then black lead and polish them till they practically shone. To the laymen, this might seem an unnecessary operation, but the rollers of a warship had to use water free from impurities to avoid pitting and damage, which would cause a loss in operational values. Steam was re-used and as you'd say these days recycled, from boilers to superheaters and engine room turbines. It was used in condensers and evaporators to produce a supply of distilled water, for re-use in the boilers and what could be spared could supplement the drinking and washing water we got from shore supplies, via a lighter towed alongside by tug, or if in dock, from dockside hydrants.

The density was tested regularly each hour when auxiliary machinery was running in harbour or by the men on watch at sea, or means of a draw off cock run off into a carefully swilled brass pot and then tested for salinity with an hydrometer, results being carefully logged. The working of all machinery was carefully logged hourly by stokers and ERAS to keep a general picture of the efficiency overall of the ships fitness as a fighting unit. The innards of a battleship reminded one of a large engineering factory. Soon the day dawned to leave Liverpool again and to test the new guns and AA armament. We had lost a few faces from the ship’s company, and new ones had taken their place. The testing and working up was short, and we sailed for an unknown destination. Rumours were rife, we were going to Russia, back to the Med. Some said back on the North Atlantic run.

It soon became obvious that none of these was true, for we were steaming south with a small destroyer escort and we had had a tropical kit muster. This pointed to the fact we could expect some very warm weather soon.

Sure enough the days grew steadily warmer. The wind itself was warmer now, the sun shone steadily over a beautiful blue white capped sea. The destroyers seemed to stand out startlingly white in the sun throwing a cascade of foam from their knife edged bows, with an occasional flurry from the decks as they took an occasional sea inboard.

You looked at this with a feeling of pride, wishing the people at home could see this picture of power and beauty. A few days out and we picked a convoy up, big ships mostly, decks lined by a motley of khaki and white, troopers with some large cargo ships and a fleet auxiliary tanker. They had a good-sized escort, something was brewing, but we didn't know.

The days now were much warmer. The sea seemed to settle down too, not as much wind to cool the air. The sun shone its rays deep down in long shafts into the cool depths. I saw an array of creatures new to me, the rainbow hued sails of Portuguese Men of War, the jelly fish of those warm seas, flying fish now appeared, skimming over the surface like birds to disappear into the swell in a splash of foam. Boiler room and engine room temperatures were very hot. The mess decks themselves were very warm. Men sweated, just sat around in shorts or rolled down boiler suits. To stay very long exposed to the tropical sun was asking for trouble in more ways than one. For besides the painful effects of bad sun burn, was the threat of punishment for ignoring the warnings circulated over the ships tannoy system on mess decks and notice boards by the Surgeon Commander.
We found that a steady exposure to the sun gradually gave a tan you couldn't have got in Civvy Street without spending a lot of money. Also, one found that the good old cup of hot tea was the best drink for quenching thirst and cooling the body. In any case, iced drinks were forbidden for it could cause colic, although I knew of some ratings whose buddies were watch keeping in the for'd CO2 rooms.

The refrigerator space several decks down, and these guys used to sneak along with a mess kettle passing the small round aluminium pot and making a perilous, descent and ascent, for after all, you'd a drop of about 50 or 60ft, for all the access hatches to it were open. They'd go along in the middle watch when they thought everyone off watch was asleep. Besides the popular pre-dinner rum ration drawn about 11.30a.m., we also had a lime juice allocation It was a strange mixture of lime juice and water with a sweetening of brown Demerara sugar. We also had an issue of oatmeal to mix with our drinking water while on watch down below in the machinery spaces and engine and boiler rooms, these were all provided to keep our health intact.

The fact is that the old R class battleships were never really meant for the tropics at all. I remember at one period we were rationed to a half hour bath time and dhobeing time between, watches coming at a time when sweat sodden clothing with its peculiar ammonia-like smell had to be washed after every period down below.
We stokers suffered particularly, that very irritating prickly heat in which the skin producers a bright red heavy rash, soon accrued if you defaulted on your washing and ablutions.

I was lucky, but I saw men tormented by it who had to have medical treatment at the sick bay. It was no joke. A buzz now passed the rounds of the mess deck. We were putting in to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to refuel and to take some more stores on board. It was a chance to get ashore, for a few, to sample the dubious delights of the place. We arrived just before Christmas.

It was very hot, a humid heat, sweat ran down the body and drenched the waistband of our shorts. It dripped off nose and chin. We longed to get back out to sea. You had at least the breeze of your passage. We did enjoy a good Christmas dinner. The cooks in the ship's galley had done a great job; we had roast pork with apple sauce and the usual vegetables and roast spuds, preceded by soup, which was out of this world.

I've never tasted soup like the cooks of the old "Rami” could make, never before or since. Then came "plum-duff" with plenty of white custardy sauce. If was hot but we did justice to that meal. There were several amusing incidents during our short stay at Freetown, I remember three of the natives came out in dugout canoes; they were stripped naked except for wearing old frayed shorts. They were powerful well-muscled men, no doubt years of paddling the heavy log built canoes had built a physique the envy of many of us. In the bows of one was perched a small squat figure wearing a red fez, like the one’s I'd seen worn in the Fleet club in Alex.

As it drew nearer I saw a chimp like ape. He looked utterly miserable, for there was quite a chop on the water and he was getting a wetting every time a paddle thrust shoved the Canoe forward. A voice said, "F****** hell, look. I think it's the "'Jonty", a reference to the Provost C.P.U. not always loved by the big shipmen. Then we had dug-outs alongside with black faces upturned and pleading for us to throw a "Glasgow Tanner Johnie" or a "Liverpool penny Johnie". One of our lads obliged with the old penny, they'd let it sink and sit there looking innocent then one would pop over the side with hardly a splash. All one would see would be the pale flesh of rapidly disappearing pink soles into the depths, we'd wait and wonder where he'd gone, "Christ the poor b******* must have drowned," but he'd pop up with a big flash of grinning white teeth. Now "Johnie Glasgow Tanner me poor, lots of kids." They seemed a happy-go-lucky crowd although the odd argument would break out if someone tried to muscle in on another’s pitch.
We had a load of Maconochie's oval tins of herrings in tomato sauce, for some reason no one would eat them. The people at home would have been glad of them. It was decided to ditch them. They'd sit there, the tin flashed as it undulated lower and lower underneath. Then with a little sigh, over one would go, to appear after quite a while grinning all over. "Bloody big eats Johnie, some more. You throw more?"

The time came to put to sea again, and as we prepared to weigh two of the cooks appeared by the guardrails amidships. In a large cardboard box was a large quantity of pork crackling, it was rapidly going off and had to go over the side, two dug-outs had come up and they were just in time to see the box with its contents go over the side.

Well this was a naval battle with a difference. They lashed out at one another with paddles and fists, till it ended up with one from each canoe in the water having a tug of war with each other for the box, how it ended I don't know.

Pr-BR

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