FROM EGYPT TO MOMBASA

At 2 a.m. on the following morning we stopped both engines just outside Valetta Harbour; the guard-boat came alongside and gave us instructions to proceed to Port Said, and there, after an uneventful voyage, we duly arrived three days later.

Entering the harbour at sunrise, and passing between the long breakwaters which run out into the sea to mark the dredged channel, we anchored close to the eastern shore. Then lighters, filled with coal and manned by natives, came alongside and were secured four to each side of the ship. Presently gang-planks were placed between the inboard lighters and the deck, and the natives filled little baskets with coal, balanced them on their heads, ran up the gang-planks and tipped the coal into the bunkers. It was our first experience of Eastern methods—frankly we thought them rather finicky! However they got the coaling finished by 2 o’clock and we asked the Commander for leave to go ashore. This, however, he firmly refused, and made us draw a section of the ship instead, which seemed adding insult to injury!

Note by Mother: Half-a-score of wild middies on the loose at Port Said of all places! What a wise commander!

In the evening we weighed anchor and, taking on a pilot, proceeded through the Canal. Great expanses of open water, broken occasionally by long sand-spits, stretched away on either side. The banks of the Canal are raised some six feet above the water level and are about twenty feet wide. On our starboard, or the Egyptian side, ran a caravan road overshadowed by plane and palm trees, and we saw several camels being driven along by Arabs in picturesque flowing garments. Presently the sun dipped below the horizon and turned the wide expanse of water to the colour of blood. Gradually this faded away and slowly disappeared, and only a beautiful rosy glow was left in the sky above us.

Little signal stations connected with each other by telephone are placed every mile or so along the Canal, and at each of these it has been widened to allow of two ships passing each other, but in order to do this it is necessary for one of the ships to tie up to the bank. We, being on special duty, were allowed to go straight through, and any craft we encountered was obliged to tie up and make way for us.

At this time we had taken to sleeping on deck because of the heat, and in the middle of that night I woke up just as we were passing three Indian troopships which were tied up to the eastern bank of the Canal.

A gorgeous full moon was shining down on the desert, silvering the sand, and making everything almost as clear as in daylight. There was no sound to break the silence save the gentle lippety-lap of our wash against the banks. I got up and leant over the shelter deck watching the desert as we slipped by. I used to imagine somehow that the desert was flat, but of course it isn’t!

Every now and then we would pass a tall palm tree showing up in deep relief against the rolling sand-hills, and sometimes a sleeping Arab and his camel. Presently we passed into the Bitter Lakes, when all around us stretched placid water, the channel being marked out with red and green lights dwindling away in dim perspective to the horizon. Towards dawn a little chill, sighing breeze sprang up, and I returned to my slumbers.

Next morning, as we drew near Suez, the view was glorious. Mile on mile of billowing sand, golden now in the fierce rays of the sun, stretched away on either side, the banks being clothed with sparse vegetation.

Soon after breakfast we passed out of the Canal and into Suez Bay, where a large convoy lay at anchor waiting to proceed to Port Said.

That evening found us far down the Gulf of Suez, and Mount Sinai appeared on our starboard beam. Next day we were in the Red Sea, where we found it appallingly hot. Every morning we used to bathe in a canvas bath which was rigged up on the quarter-deck and filled with sea-water. We had our first experience of that most objectionable thing called “prickly heat” here, and did not like it at all!

Three days later we received a wireless message saying that it was believed that the Koenigsberg, a German raiding cruiser, was coaling in Jidda, a port in Arabia, on the banks of the Red Sea. At the time that we received this message, Jidda bore about six points on our starboard bow, so setting our course straight for it, we arrived off this little harbour about 4 p.m. It is the port for Mecca, and is very difficult to navigate owing to its many shifting sandbanks.

By 5 o’clock, having worked our way in as far as it was advisable to go, we lowered our pinnace, which, under the command of one of our lieutenants who was accompanied by a subaltern of marines, proceeded into the harbour. All eyes were eagerly fixed on the one steamer visible in the harbour, but even the most sanguine among us could see that it was not a war-ship of any description. However, we all hoped for some definite news from the British Consul as to the whereabouts of the German cruiser. But we were doomed to disappointment, for soon after dark the pinnace returned, and the Lieutenant reported that the said Consul—a rather sly Arab—denied that the German ship had been there. The Lieutenant had also interviewed the port authorities, but they could—or would—give no news, and he had examined the solitary steamer, which proved to be a British cargo-boat which had come in the day before. So we hoisted the pinnace, weighed anchor, and proceeded on our way, horribly disappointed and rather disheartened. We felt it was high time that something other than mere voyaging, however pleasant, should come our way.

Two days later we sighted H.M.S. “——,” and shortly after passing Perim Island we went through the “Gates of Hell” in her company.

The narrow straits bearing this sulphurous nickname, and properly called the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, are situated at the end of the Red Sea and at the entrance to the Gulf of Aden.

When we got clear into the gulf we sighted a steamer and our consort went in chase of it, leaving us to continue our course for Aden, which we reached at 5 o’clock.

Here we had to anchor by the bows and moor our stern to a buoy, but by the time we had lowered the cutter, which was to take the wire hawser to the buoy in question, our stern had swung round and was nearly half a mile away from it, and the crew could not pull against the long length of sagging wire behind them.

The picket boat was lowered as quickly as possible and took the cutter in tow, but by this time our stern had nearly drifted aground. Rapid orders were passed from the bridge to the quarter-deck, and at last we saw one of the cutter’s crew leap on to the buoy and shackle the hawser to the ring. Then the after capstan began to heave round, and slowly the wire rose out of the water and tautened. Very gradually the stern began to swing back; but it was a long, slow job, as much care was needed to prevent the hawser from parting. By 9 o’clock, however, everything was secured, the ship lay peacefully on the still waters of the harbour, and we all went down to dinner.

We were up early next morning for our first good look at Aden. What an arid place! Great mountains tower above the town to a height of several thousand feet. Not a leaf, not a tree to be seen—no crap of vegetation, no glimpse of green save only a small patch of some kind of grass, just opposite the landing stage. Truly the place is suitably immortalised in the name of that famous pipe-tune, “The Barren Rocks of Aden!”

In the afternoon we went ashore to have a look at the town. The streets are very dusty and camels provide practically the only means of transport. The houses are mostly built of stone quarried out of the mountains behind, and in the native quarter the architecture is somewhat after the pagoda style. We returned to the ship to find natives already busy coaling her, and that night, as the wind was blowing the right way to carry the coal-dust over the bow, we thought we might safely sleep on the quarter-deck.

Coaling went on all night and the wind must have shifted, for, when I woke in the morning, the first thing I saw was my next-door neighbour with a face like a sweep’s! He looked most awfully funny, and I started roaring with laughter at him before suddenly realising that I was myself in a similar plight! So, indeed, were we all. You never saw such a disreputable, dirty-looking lot of ruffians in your life! Hair, hands, faces and clothes simply smothered in coal-dust; and amid much mutual chaff and laughter we went below to wash.

That afternoon we weighed anchor and sailed for Bombay, arrived there about a week later, and dropped anchor in the early morning while it was still dark; and coaling by native labour began again at once.

Daylight revealed a huge convoy of over sixty ships assembled in the harbour and shepherded by one of our battle-ships.

In the afternoon native merchants came aboard bringing deck-chairs, mosquito-nets and other less useful things for sale. By the advice of the surgeons we all supplied ourselves with mosquito-nets, and many of us also bought deck-chairs and mats.

That evening the whole of the convoy mentioned above got under way, and we, together with H.M.S. “——,” formed their escort. After a voyage of little more than a week we sighted H.M.S. “——,” who took our place, while we, separating from the main body, took half the convoy down towards Tanga. One of the troopships was very slow and could only do about seven-and-a-half knots, which delayed the convoy a lot.

Four days later we crossed the Equator, and here the time-honoured ceremony of “crossing the line” took place. All who have not been over the line before, officers and men alike, have to be ducked and submitted to various other indignities before they can be considered “freemen” of the Sea King’s domain.

On the previous night officers and men impersonating Neptune and his Court had paraded the ship with an impromptu band, and in the morning a huge canvas bath was rigged up on the fo’c’sle, with a rude throne for Neptune at one end. After lunch the fun began. The bears were already splashing about in the bath ready to duck the neophytes when Neptune and his staff had finished with them. One of our lieutenants was the first victim. The Sea King, gorgeously arrayed in red and yellow bunting, with a cardboard crown set on his hempen wig, asks each in turn if he has ever crossed the line before, but no sooner does the unfortunate open his mouth to reply, than a large brush dripping with whitewash is slapped in his face! He is then liberally whitewashed all over by Neptune’s merry men and tipped over backwards into the bath.

Here the bears seize upon him and pass him along to the other end, each one ducking him as he goes, after which his ordeal is finished, and he can watch his messmates being served in the same way.

Our Gunnery Lieutenant at first hid, but he was soon routed out and carried, kicking and struggling, before the tribunal. He had reason to regret his attempt to shirk, for by this time the whitewash had run out, so he was treated to a plastering of black paint, sand, and water instead; and, further, given a spoonful of “medicine” made up of mustard, pepper, salt, oil, and sea-water all mixed together, after which he was duly tipped backwards into the bath!

•••••••

Maybe sober-minded people will think all this very silly—childish—almost improper in view of the serious business on which they were engaged. But let it be remembered that, in the words of Kipling: “The Navy is very old and very wise.” She cherishes her traditions, and knows well that the observance of an old ceremony in which officers and men take part without distinction of class tends to foster that immortal spirit of comradeship which is one of the most valuable assets of the service, and by no means the least important secret of our sea-power. For the rest, time enough to think of War when the call to “action” has been sounded off. They work best who know how to play.

•••••••

The performance lasted until 4 o’clock, when we all went below, changed, and had tea.

We had now been at sea for a little over a fortnight, and fresh water was getting very scarce. By order of the Commander all washing of clothes had already been forbidden; but on the next day the rain came. It was practically the first since we left Bombay, and it rained in a truly tropical manner, coming down literally in sheets.

All officers who were not on duty turned up on the quarter-deck in a state of nature, with large bundles of dirty clothes under their arms, which they promptly set to work to scrub and wash. Our quarter-deck awning was spread, and soon quite a lot of water collected in it. When I had finished washing my clothes it occurred to me that the awning would be a good place for an impromptu bath. I had just finished and surrendered my place to Wenton when the Commander came through the battery door, and was considerably annoyed at finding the awning being put to this use, and he promptly gave orders that no one else should bathe there.

The welcome downpour lasted for a little over an hour, and was greatly appreciated.

On the following day our starboard condenser developed several leaky tubes, and for that day we had to draw out of line to port and paddle along with only one engine while it was repaired. Unfortunately, no sooner was this completed than the other condenser gave out, and we had to haul out of line again on the other side, with only our starboard engine working. This left us with only two days’ boiler, and three days’ drinking-water, and we were still a good four days from Tanga, so we sent out a wireless message to H.M.S. “——,” a cruiser which we knew was in the vicinity, to come and relieve us.

As the Captain had to go over on business to the s.s. Karmala, one of the convoy, we were lowering a cutter to take him there when the forward falls parted and the boat promptly swung down perpendicularly, hurling the crew out. All but one of the men managed to grab hold of the life-lines and haul themselves into safety; but for the one in question the life-buoys were immediately let go, and the other cutter in charge of the navigator was hastily lowered. However, after all, the man had managed to grab one of the bottom lines, and clambered up the side of the ship, safe and sound; but it took us a long time to recover all our life-buoys!

Next morning the cruiser to which we had wired appeared on the horizon in answer to our summons, and steamed towards us. She lay to about half-a-mile away, and our Captain, with the captain of marines, went away in a boat to the Karmala, to confer with her captain and the captain of the cruiser. They returned about 11.30 a.m., and that evening we got under way and proceeded to Mombasa, which was two days’ voyage distant, the convoy being left in charge of the cruiser.

On the following morning Barton and I were fallen in on the quarter-deck, and the Captain rated us midshipmen, which entitled us to wear the coveted white patches, indicative of that rank, on the collars of our uniform. Up till then we had only been rated as naval cadets, though some of the seniors had received their step earlier. It also entitled us to a slight—very slight—increase in the rate of our not too munificent pay! On that day, too, we all changed round duties, the messengers becoming watch-keepers, and vice versa.

I was appointed messenger to the Gunnery Lieutenant, who sent for me next morning and told me that our ship was going to act as defence ship to the harbour while she was in Mombasa, and, since it was impossible to see anything of the open sea from the port, it had been decided to send three officers out to Ras Kilmain, the lighthouse point, and that they should camp there and set up a range-finder and dumaresque. They would be able to communicate with the ship by telephone to Kilindini, the landing-place in the harbour, where signalmen would be posted to pass on any messages. “Guns” said he was sending the assistant gunnery lieutenant on this job, as well as Browne, who had been his messenger for the first three months of the cruise, and myself. I was delighted with this information, as it promised to be an interesting job, and camp-life would in any case be a very pleasant change after the long weeks we had been on board ship. Then he told me to help him to make a large map of the island. The plan was that one of us should take the range and bearing of any enemy ship that appeared, another should plot it on the chart, which was divided into squares, while the third telephoned through to our ship, saying what square the enemy vessel was in. Each square was lettered, and one spread salvo from our ship’s guns would cover its area, so that at least one of the shells was bound to hit.

That evening we entered Mombasa. The approach is exceedingly difficult to navigate owing to two large reefs which run out on either side of the island, having only a narrow passage of deep water, forty yards wide, lying between them. Along this channel we advanced until we were within little more than a stone’s-throw of the lighthouse; then, turning sharply to port, we went along parallel with the shore of the island, keeping so close in that we could see every pebble on the beach. After continuing on this course for about four hundred yards we turned to starboard and steamed between the mainland and the island. On both sides the shore was fringed with palm trees right down to the water’s edge. Beautiful little bays opened out, revealing still, deep, blue water; and as the channel gradually twisted to starboard, the open sea was soon completely lost to view.

When we had gone about a quarter of a mile, the banks slowly receded, and we entered the harbour, which in its widest part is about half-a-mile across. Another large harbour, which is about a mile wide and two miles long, opens out further on and stretches away inland. The channel surrounding the island is not navigable all the way for big ships, but small ones can quite easily go right round it. Further on there are two more islands, called respectively Port Tudor and Port Mombasa, but H.M.’s ships rarely make use of these ports. Port Kilindini consists only of the Customs House, one or two railway offices, and a large coal-shed.

The day after our arrival the three of us who were to be stationed at the lighthouse packed our tin cases and disembarked, taking with us a portable range-finder, a dumaresque, and some cooking utensils. Having piled all the luggage on a taxi which had been hired for us, we started for the lighthouse, which was on the other side of the island.

At first the road, bounded on one side by a high embankment and on the other by the harbour, was slightly uphill, but presently we passed into a grove of trees and then under the Uganda railway bridge, and so along a straight and level road bordered by palm and various other tropical trees. Then came a native village composed of mud huts set back in a clearing to the left. Here a foolish ostrich, which I imagine belonged to the natives, fled across the road in front of the car and narrowly escaped being run over. A little later we reached the outskirts of the town, and after passing through it for a short distance turned to the right, and leaving the native barracks and the prison on our left, proceeded along a level track raised above the surrounding scrub, and flanked by trees wherein hundreds of birds’-nests hung, until we came to the hospital. Here we again turned to the right, and shortly afterwards we arrived at the lighthouse, where we unloaded our luggage and dismissed the taxi.

Finding that the tent in which we were to live was still in possession of the soldiers who had lived in it hitherto, we left a message with the native look-out boy, requesting them to remove themselves before nightfall, and we went off to the town for some tea. After tea the Lieutenant and Browne went to buy a stove and a kettle and one or two other things we required, while I walked back to the camp to look after our gear. I found the soldiers had gone and the tent was ready for us, so I set about moving in our things. Presently the Gunnery Lieutenant came up to see the camping place and to arrange with us where we should set up the range-finder, etc. I told him the others were shopping in the town, and we sat down and talked until they turned up. Then it was decided to set up our instruments on top of the look-out house, and to carry the flexible voice-pipe from there through the window below to the plotting-table where the chart was. This done “Guns” departed, and we set to and arranged our beds and made the tent ship-shape and habitable.

When in town Browne and the Lieutenant had bought some shorts and some navy-blue putties, which they thought would be much cooler and more serviceable than duck suits; so during our time in camp our uniform consisted of shorts, putties, and shirts, and of course sun helmets, which are indispensable in that climate. At half-past seven we cooked some eggs we had brought with us and got our supper ready. Browne caused us much amusement, as his only idea of cooking eggs was to put them all into a saucepan full of cold water and stir them vigorously until they boiled! However, I must admit that none of us knew much about cooking, and we conducted some fearful and wonderful experiments in that line while we were in camp! After supper we were quite ready for bed, so we turned in.

Next morning there was much to be done, so we were up by 6 o’clock; and before breakfast we fixed up our range-finder and dumaresque on the roof of the observation hut and rigged up the flexible voice-pipe. After breakfast we repitched the tent a little further round, where the prevailing breeze would blow through it and keep it a bit cooler. Apparently the “Tommies” who preceded us were a stuffy lot with no undue craving for fresh air!

Then we contrived a pantry in the back of the tent on a wooden table, and here we installed the filter we had brought from the ship, as well as all our plates and dishes and the stove. Further, we engaged a native boy as general factotum to help with our mÉnage and do such cooking as we could not manage on the stove.

We also hired a bike from the ordnance officer at the port.

When all this was accomplished a trial run of ranges and deflections with the ship occupied us until lunch-time.

During the day a native kept the look-out from the watch-hut, reporting to us as soon as anything was sighted at sea.

Next morning I was sent to the pier on the bicycle to catch the 11.30 boat and to go to our ship and obtain from the bo’sun a broom and one or two other things we needed. I caught the boat all right, lunched on the “——” after putting in a “chit” for the broom, etc., and returned to the shore in the 1.30 boat.

The broom proved a most awkward thing to convey by bike, and it was horribly in the way of my knees. When I was about halfway to the camp I got so tied up with the beastly thing that I fell off, bike and broom on top of me! When I picked myself up I found that the crank of the left pedal had been bent in the fall. However, the machine, though more wobbly than ever, was still ridable, so I finished the journey gingerly and without further accident.

Perhaps it might be well here to describe the camp and its surroundings more minutely. It was pitched about two hundred yards back from the cliffs; and the watch-house, past which the road ran, was about ten yards in front of our tent. The lighthouse was situated some three hundred yards from the cliff’s edge to our left; and right opposite it, on a small point running out into the sea, stood a green beacon some fifteen feet high. Our native boy had built his kitchen of sand-bags on the cliffs just in front of the watch-hut.

The soldiers were now encamped in tents some hundred yards away to the right, and immediately behind our tent was a sort of large stone reservoir for water, with, in front of it, the flagstaff. Rough paths connected the beacon with the lighthouse and the watch-hut.

On our third morning in camp we received a telephone message from a port a long way up the coast, saying that a hostile war-ship was coming down in our direction. We did not attach much importance to this information until the following day, when the enemy was again reported—this time off Kismayne; and as the next morning she was stated to be passing Malindi, we calculated that she ought to be in sight by 3 p.m. Sure enough, almost exactly at 3 I saw smoke on the horizon, and immediately telephoned our ship.

Now we were all three eagerly watching the smoke, and presently the stranger’s masts came into view. They certainly appeared to have “tops,” so she might well be a war-ship of some kind, and our excitement grew until a single funnel hove in sight, whereat our spirits drooped a little, for very few ships of war have only one funnel. Still, as the lower parts of her masts lifted above the horizon, they looked at the distance so like tripods that hope rose high again. Very slowly her hull emerged, and in another ten minutes she was wholly visible. Then the powerful magnifying lens of the range-finder revealed her as unmistakably a collier.

We telephoned the information through to our ship, and very shortly afterwards saw our picket boat manned by an armed crew, and with a 3-pounder in her bows, coming at full speed out of the harbour.

Despite the fact that she was seventeen years old the picket was a very fast boat, and as we watched through our telescopes we soon saw her run alongside the collier, and several figures in duck suits jumped out and ran up the stranger’s gangway. Then our boat shoved off again, and they both came steaming towards the harbour. Shortly afterwards the collier hoisted the code-flag for the day, thereby proving that she was not after all an enemy, and she asked permission to proceed into Kilindini. What a sell! After all our excitement, too! But one gets accustomed to that sort of disappointment; and, after all, there was always the chance that the next alarm would prove genuine.

The collier could not be allowed into Kilindini for some time, as there were already at the moment two ships in the channel on their way out, but as soon as the course was clear she rounded the curve of the island and anchored in the harbour—and that incident was ingloriously closed.

We tried that night, I remember, to communicate with our ship by means of an electric flash-lamp fixed to the top of the flagstaff, but it was not a success, for the key was so badly insulated that after getting many violent shocks we had to give it up.

We had heard from the soldiers that somewhere to the left of the watch-hut there was a cave containing a deep pool of water in which it was quite safe to bathe, so Browne and I, being off duty, one morning went down to try and find it. We crossed the road, and going downhill for a bit over long grass and through various stunted shrubs, came presently to a large rectangular hole in the ground, which, by a long slope, very slippery and covered with loose stones, communicated with the said cave. At the end of the slope was a very small hole, through which we crawled on hands and knees, and found, when our eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness, that we were standing on a little ledge of rocks. At our feet lay a small sandy cove, which extended for some fifty yards to the mouth of the cave, across which stretched a reef about three feet high. As the waves rolled in the water every now and then poured over this reef into a large pool, and the ledge on which we were standing ran round the cave at a height of about three feet above the sand.

We soon stripped and had a delightful bathe in the pool.

About a quarter of a mile away we could see a large French liner stranded on the reef. I don’t know how long she had been there, but there is something awfully forlorn and desolate-looking about a wrecked vessel. Her stern had broken away and fallen off into deep water; and there was a great hole in her side through which every now and then the waves splashed, as though purposely deriding her and mocking at her downfall.

On the following day the whole convoy came in from Tanga after having disembarked the troops. It was my morning watch, and I saw them on the horizon just as the dawn was breaking.