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.