Swinging the Lamp pt2

Harry on watch

I’ve woke up from a big dream to do with breaking through into an alternative universe.
I notice a rolling motion and see the curtains moving. It dawned on me that I am at sea and have a watch to keep. Confused, and still living partly in the dream, I shoot upstairs and am relieved to find the wireless room door intact. I’m sure I chopped it down with a fire-axe.
I open the hatch to the chartroom and a smart officer in blues wishes me a good morning. I ask about the aircraft carrier we hit last night.  He gives me a queer look and says I should take more water with it.
I switch on the gear and sit down; the calendar on the bulkhead says, 13th November 1972. Signals came through the CR 300:  GNI de MRSQ at a crashing level. I look out of the porthole and there is the “Maskeliya” going by at a clip! And I’m young again!
A steward in a pink sweater minces in with coffee and sandwiches and wants to know if I want anything on my bar bill. I sign a chit for a bottle of each, a tin of Anton Justman’s Long Shag, papers and a block of Fair Maid for the pipe.
I unwrap the sandwiches and a cockroach scurries out, they are cold beef and rare. I am confused, in 20 years time I’ll become
vegetarian . . . But not yet – so I eat them. The coffee is awful.

Who is in charge? Who is the Captain? I don’t recall meeting him.     There’s a lot of noise from the engine room; I hope we have proper engineers down there, not just Glasgow sea-lawyers and bicycle fitters.
I’d assumed we were past Ushant by now. I’ve been doing cocked hats with the Direction Finder and handing them through to the chartroom; there have been no complaints about the cocked hats since I scraped the paint off the DF loop’s insulators and dropped the engineers’ private aerial rigs.
But I’m happy. Now I’ve cleared the vermin out of the gear I’m enjoying talking to old friends with the Morse key.
It was good to eat in the saloon today for the first time, I’d been living on Daphne’s sandwiches up to then.

Will the surgeon come up to the wireless room please? I don’t feel very well.
(Switches on the rotary transformer, switches on TX. The bottle neon on the bulkhead is glowing a lovely pink and flickers when I press the key. The ships cat is sitting on the RX trying to catch the flickering with its paw.)
It was blowing a bit last night with that wind coming up from the Southwest; we were heading straight into it, so it wasn’t too bad. Even so, there was not much call for bacon and eggs this morning. The cat spent most of the storm curled up in a bed I’ve made for her in the motor cupboard, she doesn’t seem to mind when the rotary transformer starts up next to her.
We are now passing Cape Finisterre. A number of well-wrapped passengers are taking the fresh air and gazing at those massive black cliffs.
With glasses, you can just make out the remains of that Liberian who steamed straight into them last year, its radar going round and round and, no doubt, the ship’s dog barking at the lighthouse-keeper as the tanker thumped the beach.
The Purser’s Office has been busy giving the passengers a running commentary over the Tannoy; it gets a bit like Butlin’s.
I get Daphne to take a note to the engine-room: ‘I’m having trouble with one of the generators; the brushes are sparking more than I care for. When I get a chance to strip it down can I bring the rotor to the engine room and ask some kind chap to put it on the lathe and, ever so gently, skim the commutator?’
Daphne comes back with a flushed face. ‘The nice engineer says he’ll be happy to, ever so gently, skim your commutator, anytime.’

As it’s a fine day I’m checking the installations in the two motor lifeboats. This causes some interest and I have an audience of passengers. One of them is an Australian divorcee by the name of Enid Clump.
I have to tell you that I’m on a rota of officers and have to dine with the passengers sometimes. Since dinner last night, Mrs. Clump seems to have taken an interest in me. Anyway, I am checking the specific gravity of the electrolyte in the lifeboat batteries when she calls up to me.
‘Hey Sparky dear,’ she shouts.
This causes me to knock the hydrometer against the lifeboat gunwale. The rubber bulb comes off the end and the front of my battledress is sprayed with sulphuric acid. I know from experience that in a few days time the front of the jacket will fall to bits.
Fortunately, we get into Lisbon tomorrow morning. I will need to see if there’s a naval outfitters in town. I only have my doe-skin uniform for best, it used to belong to my brother in law, he gave it to me when he left Elder Dempster’s, but it has seen better days. I’m a bit ashamed to say that the Purser has called on me with a message. The captain has noticed that I look a bit shabby and, as this is P&O, demands that I do something about it. I found some scissors in the wireless room and spent time on watch trimming the raggy bits off the cuffs.
I never had this sort of thing on Brocklebanks – Captain Saxty would not have said such a thing. I’m only on secondment to this ship because they are short handed and Brocks have surplus staff just now. I keep getting messages from Marconi’s office in Chelmsford asking all sorts of questions. I try to be polite, but I told them to stuff their job years ago.

Strange that! Went on watch at 1000 hrs. and found the wireless room locked! Went to the wheelhouse and asked why, but no one would talk to me; everyone on duty was focused on the fact that we were about to enter Lisbon and the pilot was in charge.
I should have been on duty, at least to contact the local Radio, but I was up most of the night and am worn out. When I went back to the wireless room, I found it open again . . . About 0200 this morning we had picked up three Portuguese fishermen from a capsized sardine boat. They were in a bit of a state and are in the hospital now being warmed up. They say they were run down in the dark by something huge. That object had been dead ahead on the radar for a while.
At 0330 we passed it, a massive Russian floating dock attended by a swarm of tugs, moving slowly to the Black Sea from the Baltic.
I tried to make contact, but it’s a waste of effort, the Russians rarely speak unless they’re in trouble. They’re still not signatories to the International Communication Charter and don’t keep the same watches as the rest of the world. You rarely hear them on 500 k/cs. They even have a different Morse code – just to keep everyone confused. The bridge called them up on the Aldis, but got no reply.

The coffee is a good deal better now.

Lisbon
There was a long line of gharries waiting as we tied up, they filled with passengers and trotted off to town, harnesses jangling and red tassels bouncing. It was easy finding a naval outfitters, up a back street near the waterside. The man who ran it was a decent sort, quiet and silver haired.
In the back, he had a good deal of second hand stuff which I poked around in. Some of the ‘blues’ looked rakish and unBritish; he said he’d got them years ago off the officers of the “Altmark”. What I came away with will do but might need taking in a bit.
I had a look round town, a handsome place totally rebuilt after the great earthquake. Walked back and in a gritty area was drawn to singing I heard coming from a bar. A lot of our engine room crowd was inside and I was grabbed and pushed among them. They were having a good time and the place was full, everyone off the street was drawn in by the singing. At one point we tried to leave for pastures new, but the barman stopped us. He said, “Gentlemen, please stay, all I ask is you keep singing. So long as you sing – you drink on the house. You bring me much good business”.
I am a bit frayed round the edges now but happy to be told by the Fifth engineer that he would be pleased to skim my commutators anytime.

Sparks Journal… Arcadia 24 Jan 1972

We should have sailed an hour ago but apparently, not everyone is back aboard (how they know that is a mystery). For the last hour, the steam horn has been blaring loud and deep in the hope that people will get a move on. A group of passengers has just scurried aboard looking very sheepish and behind them, a couple of deckhands, with a lady passenger on each arm, are tottering along the quay singing: ‘Take my tip, pack your grip, I’m not coming back next trip, blackbird bye bye . . .’ etc.
Before that, the Purser came back from the police station, in the Dutch consul’s car, having defused a diplomatic incident. Our Dutch carpenter Gustav Van Tromp and the Maltese donkeyman, in a cafe/bar had apparently insulted a picture of the dictator Salazar and then spent the night in the police station under interrogation.
I see we are now casting off even though one two passengers, an elderly Belgian detective and his frail secretary, have not appeared.

Et In Arcadia Ego