I was on a large transport (normally a freighter), which had just
arrived at a port on the East African coast, very rusty, and with a
very un-naval-looking crew. We were taken in charge by a very small but
immaculate gun-boat.
Orders were shouted to us by megaphone, and our men were leaning over
the side watching the gun-boat rather enviously, when a Poplar stoker
came up from below for a "breather," and summed up his mates' feelings
in eight words.
[Illustration: "Do yer stop aht all night in 'er?"]
Cupping his hands about his mouth, he shouted in a voice of thunder:
"_Do yer stop aht all night in 'er?_"--_R. N. Spence (late Lieutenant,
R.N.V.R.), 214 Croydon Road, Beckenham._