CASK, HO!

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 235, 3 October 1936, Page 11

CASK, HO!

SPRINGS ASUNDER. ALL HANDS MOP THE DECK. SCENE ON PRINCE'S WHARF. .. Strong men wept like children on the Prince's wharf this morning. "The waste of it," they said to each other. "Oh! the wicked waste," But was there a man dismayed, that is after the first shock had passed? Xot.a one. They gathered their pannikins, they found cups. One man even found a bucket. Some, again, had recourse to liandker-, chiefs, some again only their fingers.

And with these they did the best they could to garner the unexpected "harvest." This morning the Kairanga arrived with a most valuable and delectable cargo. She berthed at Prince's wharf. Then she began to unload, and it was in this process that the accident happened. Part of the cargo fell out of the sling and crashed to the ship's deck. It broke, and its contents began to ebb away. Work on the Wharf Ceases. Then it was that operations on the ships on the wharf ceased. The call went along from the Kairanga to the other vessels, and like bees to the lioney >>o + m n n came running. An onlooker might have seen them carrying all tliesi .-ontinners, and the same onlooker might have seen them leaning over the bulwarks of the vessel with dismay tempered with stern resolution depicted on their faces. One man sprang into activity. He dipped his cup into the ebb. Others

followed his example. The man with the bucket found himself in the position of the child who hangs up a pillow case for Santa Claus to fill, and finds in the morning that it has shrunk to the dimensions of the unenterprising stocking. His bucket was too unwieldy. Others, with less enterprise but considerable success, leaned over and dipped with their handkerchiefs. The sodden cloths they lifted to their mouths; then the dipping and the lifting action became accelerated. But do not let it be said that they were' selfish. To those who had neither handkerchief nor cup, neither bucket nor pannikin, they selflessly loaned their sodden piece of rag that others might participate and rejoice. Some time this went on, some considerable time, though it was measured in brief 'but fleeting seconds. The first hiatus came when someone called, "Hey, you fools, that deck has just been redleaded!" Some paused to- think; but the Scotsmen among the number who lined the bulwarks heard never a word. This was a moment to be snatched from eternity, a moment which concentrated centuries of racial tradition hade them make the most of. Red lead! Red lead, indeed! Hoots, mon! > : > ■ t "The Second Hiatus. The second hiatus was more effective. It came in the form of a loud voice, a compelling voice, a stentorian voice, in fact. And that voice wanted to know what in the blank-blank the men were doing away from their other ships, and the workaday wear of a Saturday morning. The words -were not precisely those; but there are- some phrases of which the best journalism does not permit the use. Suffice it to say that they were effective. The light died from the eyes of even the Scotsmen. A crowd of men crept a little shamefacedly, like boys caught playing truant, 'back along the wharf to a normal and commonplace Saturday morning.

And the answer is so simple and so complete. It is whisky. One of the.lo6gallon casks which the Kairanga was carrying to be transhipped to the Tamaroa on a round-the-world voyage to accelerate maturity, slipped from its sling and broke its ba-ck on the bulwarks. There it burst and gallons and gallons fled through the scuppers into the uncaring sea. The tale is finished; but on the wharf to-day a memorable odour-lingers • an.