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BREAKDOWN AT SEA
The complete voyage from Bombay to Mombassa, because of the
"zig zag" route we had to take to avoid submarines, took us about
two weeks. It was all smooth sailing, and we had become used to the
noise of the half immersed propeller splashing at the stern of the
ship as we slept. We were awoken one evening to discover complete
silence. Not even the beat of the propeller as it lashed the waters in
its efforts to drive the ship forward could be heard. We knew that we
were not due to arrive in Mombassa for another three or four days,
yet this "quiet" was the quiet that we experience when the ship
arrives in port overnight, and all the engines stop.
The engines had indeed, stopped. The problem was not an engine
breakdown as such. What had happened was that the pump that
pumped the oil to the burners in the furnaces had broken down.
Even the hand operated emergency pump was out of action. The
engineers had concluded that it would be just as quick to repair the
steam pump, as it would be to repair the hand pump. The only
problem then would be getting up a sufficient head of steam to re
start the steam pump. The phrase hadn't been invented yet, but it
was a sort of a "Catch Twenty Two" situation.
With no power at all, the ship just lay there, high in the water, with
no steam for propulsion, and no steam for the generators, which
gave us our electric lighting. Since we didn't use any Navigational
lights, (i.e., port, starboard, masthead or stern lights,) because of the
war situation, at least they were not a problem. Fortunately, the
weather was really calm. The sea was like a sheet of glass, and
unfortunately, the moon "lightened" things up considerably!
Certainly, we were a "sitting duck" for any raider that happened to
come upon us where the ship was between the moon and the raider!
We would have given them a splendid silhouette to shoot at!
All Hands were called out. The engineers had decided that the oil
pump could be repaired with in a couple of hours, and in the
meantime, all the dunnage on the ship was to be brought to the
bunker hatch, and cut into useable size pieces to be thrown into the
furnaces in order to generate a sufficient head of steam to start the
oil pump once it had been repaired. The magical figure for a
"sufficient head of steam" we were told, was twenty pounds per
square inch. Even this seemingly straightforward task required a fair
bit of organisation. Our priorities were to arrange for lights, first for
the engineers to work by as they repaired the pump, and then for us
in the 'tween decks as we collected and delivered the dunnage to the
bunker hatch.
Most ships carry several "Storm Lanterns" for all sorts of
emergencies. We had half a dozen or more in the Lamp Room in the
forward mast house. Storm Lanterns are sturdy, all purpose lights
that can either be hung up, or stand on their own bases, We found
quite a few in the Lamp Room, but they all had to be filled with
paraffin, and their wicks checked. These lamps were soon
distributed to the 'tween decks so that we could locate the stacks of
dunnage, and carry it to the bunker hatch. Unfortunately, whilst all
the other hatches are accessible from the 'tween decks, the bunker
hatch is not. This being the case, all the timber had to be first passed
up on to the main deck from the 'tween decks, and then carried
along the main deck to the bunker hatch where it was dropped down
to the waiting firemen below.
This also had its problems. The noise made by dropping the timber
down about thirty feet, was considerable. Since the ship was
virtually becalmed and empty, the empty hull amplified any heavy
noise we made. These noises we were told, could be picked up by
any lurking submarine, and traced back to their source! We were
ordered to pass the timber down by rope in order to make less noise.
Even with our heightened awareness of the need to keep quiet,
planks were dropped, and metal objects made resounding noises as
the engineers repaired the oil pump. Each separate noise echoing
round the empty hull, and sounding probably much louder than it
actually was.
Whilst all this was going on, the "Watch on Deck" (the regular duty
watch) were kept on lookout. The man on the wheel was put on
lookout on the wing of the bridge, whilst the other two were put, one
on lookout on the fo'c's'le head, and one on lookout at the stern of
the ship respectively. I think we were all somewhat apprehensive,
and it was known that the Captain was also a bit jittery. At one
stage, someone spotted what he thought was a light, but nothing
came of it. In the part of the world we were in, many Arab Dhows
operate between Aden, the Persian Gulf, India, and East Africa as
they have done for centuries. Since no merchant ship would dare
show a light, it was assumed that it had been an Arab Dhow.
The collection of timber went on for some time. Hauling it up from
one part of the ship and carrying it to the bunker hatch whilst trying
not to make any noise, made the task much harder than it really was.
Once the furnaces were started up, (they were not started up until the
engineers were confident of a result) the Mate started speculating as
to whether the timber we had collected was enough to raise the
required head of steam. As a contingency measure, we were told to
gather a few of the older hatch boards from the 'tween decks, and
have them ready to heave up on to the main deck, ready to be
dropped down the bunker hatch for burning.
They were not needed; as daylight came, we on deck could actually
hear the oil pump start up as the magical figure of twenty pounds per
square inch of steam was raised, and the oil pump started pumping
oil once more to the burners. With one boiler back on burning oil, it
took some time further before that boiler could raise enough steam
to take over from the wood burning boiler, and so it went on until all
the boilers (I think there were three) were fully "back on line", and
enough steam could be raised to start the main turbine. I think we all
heaved a sigh of relief as we heard and felt the main engine start up,
and the familiar "splash - splash" of the propeller blades striking the
water could once more be heard. We returned the hatch boards we
had collected to their proper places, and battened down the bunker
and main hatches as the ship got under way again, heading for
Mombassa.
After all the excitement in Bombay about "getting the ship ready for
an important cargo", Mombassa was something of an anti climax!
We lay alongside for a day or two, then we were directed to steam to
Dar es Salaam, a port just a few hundred miles to the south, and the
main port for the Tanganyika Territory, an ex German Colony that
Britain had taken over after the Great War of 1914 - 1918. (Now
known as Tanzania, after its Independence from Britain, and some
sort of political and territorial amalgamation with the island of
Zanzibar.) I can't remember what (if anything) we loaded at
Mombassa, but it can't have been much.
Dar es Salaam is one of those really picturesque places, with an
inner harbour, reached by sailing through a narrow waterway from
the outside ocean. We went alongside, and started loading what we
understood to be NAAFI Stores for various ports between Dar es
Salaam and Suez. Whilst we were there, it turned out that a British
Merchant Ship had been torpedoed recently, not far from Dar es
Salaam, and the survivors had been picked up and brought there. We
really knew no more than rumour about all this, but whilst some of
our crew were in a bar one evening, they were approached by some
locals and asked if "…they were from "that ship"…". (One didn't
mention ship's names in those times, and it was unlikely they would
have known the name of the ship anyhow - we certainly didn't.)
Since we were the only ship in the harbour at the time, they replied
"Yes" whereupon they were treated to all they needed, and offered
all sorts of hospitality by the locals. It was only later that they made
the connection with what we had heard, and they quickly pointed
out to their benefactors that they may not, indeed, be the people they
were thought to be! Even so, the locals gave our crew members a
good time before seeing them back to the ship.
We left Dar es Salaam, and once again I experienced the pleasure of
sailing through a narrow waterway. I wasn't on the wheel this time,
but I enjoyed sailing in the close proximity to the shore. Once we
had dropped the pilot, we headed to the north and east. It wasn't
long before the coast line was out of sight. With the recent
knowledge of a British (or any) ship sunk in the area, we were extra
careful on lookout. It is surprising what you think you see in such
circumstances. Even on the darkest nights, the horizon is usually
visible, and keeping one's eyes glued to the horizon can be quite
tiring. In renewed efforts not to miss anything, it is as if lights were
appearing from all over the place - but then, anything that was going
to be a threat to us would hardly be displaying lights!
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