A MATTER OF DRESS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 140, 15 June 1936, Page 7

A MATTER OF DRESS

THE ENGINEER'S TALE

A WAR-TIME MEMORY

. - The North Atlantic Trade in tramp steamers in winter is the worst in the world. It is cold, miserable, and most of the time bad weather (writes Murdo Mac Donald in the "Cape Times"). The majority of the tramps are dirty, badly-found, and badly-kept. When your cargo is coal there's coal dust everywhere. I left Leith one time as a passenger on a ship like that; "we were bound round the North of Scotland to Montreal. We were due to make the St. Lawrence port just before the Canadian freeze-up and our landfall on the other side was Cape Race. We sailed from Leith just before high tide at 6 pan. From Leith to Cape Wrath we got miserable Scottish weather. Drizzle, drizzle, and as cold as could be. From Cape Wrath to the Butt of Lewis there was quite a sea running and we took a few of them aboard. The old girl squeaked and groaned like a woman in pain. We got the Butt light abeam just after supper and I turned in to have a read. The cabin boy knocked at the door and told me that the "old man" would -like'to see-me. I dressed and went up to his room.' .' The "old man" , sat warming himself in front' of a glowing stove. On the table stood a bottle and two glasses. He was a friendly old soul and we helped ourselves to a drink and started to yarn. INCREDIBLE. To him it. seemed incredible that anyone l could earn a good living writing for newspapers. I tried to explain. I also tried to get a sea yarn out of him. I got it. Here it is:— For a decade.he had been on that trade and in that company—outwards ■ with coal, homewards with grain and general. . ' . In the company there were two engineers, brothers—Donald and Andrew MacPhie. They came from a small east of Scotland village. - Both had held office in. the local; Masonic Lodge. Both had. been town councillors at one time or another. Both were chief engineers. Both took a great pride in their craft. . The the war came. Homeward bound one trip the "jerries" got Andrew MacPhie's ship with.in twelve hours of home. Just off the-Aberdeenshire coast it was. The old chief was in the engine-room at the time. They had had a bad trip. Poor coal, poor firemen—the usual wartime conditions. A destroyer picked them up. The old chief in dirty overalls tried to introduce himself to the naval commander. He was at once rebuffed and told to get with the rest of the rescued crew. This constituted the worst insult of his career to the. old chief, who had held a Board of Trade ticket for over thirty years. HIS DECISION. A week after his rescue he wrote - an indignant letter to his brother Donald telling him of the awful indignities which were being inflicted on the offl•eers -of the merchant service by the Navy. ■ " Donald received the epistle in Montreal. He swore there and then that from that moment he would wear his 1 blue Sunday suit, his bowler hat, and s watch chain-jjresentedKhini by « the lodge, from the jjiinute they sighted Cape Wrath until they entered s the Forth. From the Cape it was considered the danger zone by the Admiralty. Two voyages running he kept ■; this up. The third trip the old ship got an awful smashing. She finally made her land-' ; fall at dawn one morning. Late that : night she rounded Duncansby Head i and was off the coast of Sutherland. J It was blowing a hurricane. The old chief came up for a dram with the skipper. He was tired and weary and he told the "old man" so. He had also decided that the weather > was too bad to permit any German "tin can," as he called them, to operate. Therefore he had decided to turn in. Fifteen minutes after he left the skipper a submarine got the'ship. , . PICKED UP. The old skipper, after- swimming around until his strength was almost exhausted, heard the sound of .rowlocks. ' He swam, towards the sound. Then he found that his voice had gone. He was too cold to shout. He managed , to catch hold of a gunwale. - Just then one of the boys caught a crab, and as he was feeling along the gunwale for ■ the rowlock , he touched - the old man's hands in the darkness. He shouted to the rest and. they hauled the skipper into the boat, where he immediately Japsed into unconsciousnessi. . Half an hour later , the old man lay on : the wardroom deck of a British destroyer. ~ His sub-conscious mind heard a voice speaking to him. "Speak to your old shipmate, Captain;' Thirty years we've been shipmates. You got your master's ticket the day I got my chiefs." There was anguish in the tones. , : The skipper's eye opened to see, standing above' him, Chief Engineer Donald former town councillor of an' East "of Scotland town, former office-bearer of a Masonic Lodge, ex-engineer of a Scottish tramp, standing above him—garbed in red flannel underwear and a bowler hat!