AT ALEXANDRIA

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 153, 30 June 1936, Page 16

AT ALEXANDRIA

WITH BRITAIN'S FLEET SOME CHAPTERS FROM LIFE THE NAVY ASHORE In August, 1935, two months before Abyssinia began to be rewritten in red italics, a funnel and a mast sidled out of Swansea, deposited a clerical Supercargo at Gibraltar, and went on to the Bosphorus, prowling for dates and xaisins, writes the Rev. P. B. Clayton, of Toe H, in the "Daily Telegraph." The elderly vicar had a week to waste. He climbed to* some old haunts; nothing was doing. Water was therefore best; we bathed and picnicked. But if the Rock was breathless, it was happy. Gilbraltar has had good lpck with its Qovemors; if you ever knew the Second Army, you can guess why the Rock is now at unity in itself. On that August Saturday night, news came and orders followed. The real Rock stirred and wakened, quietly content that it was in wise hands. Down by Pearson's harbour-works lay H.M.S. Codrington, and a flotilla of the King's quick creatures watching her flags with earnest expectation.. The smaller the ship. the. better the fun; but these destroyers were then unbroken to a clerical invasion. Codrington herself therefore performed that chivalry.:

MEN ASHORE. . We came to Malta, thence to Alexandria; a city which lost St. Mark and broke St. Catherine; and has not since been reimbursed in holiness. The international rich have extended the length of Alexandria to twenty miles. Other inter-racial elements live unimaginably round the harbour; and the way from the Docks to Mahomed Ali Square is a mean maze. Later on, in September, we solved it ■with a fleet of naval 'buses, with books of tickets on sale in every ship's canteen. A cab to the square, cost seven piastres; these tickets sold at one "disaster" only. The Navy have a way of doing things. .■number Six Quay, which should have been- ours solely, resisted tidy treatment and exclusion. This ill-lit pen will long be in our memories. Here, when we first landed, we were besieged by the descendants of those who ceased work at Babel, or were dismissed for dishonesty from Vanity. Fair. The actual landing'place was subsequently cleared. But, on these first few nights,'none will forget the one tall ■gnpUsh civilian who never turned a hair; he was a jewel. Coming down "straight from work each evening, he stood beneath a dingy lamp-post for four hours every night. Men surged found him. He was the guide, adviser, dragoman to whom all turned, both officers and ratings. No .one who does not know the inside of a ditty box could credit the diversity of problems submitted for his good-humoured solution. This unpretentious man—an assistant dentist has a niche of his own in the matelots' memories. I am proud to think .he wore a badge I recognised. "VISITING CLARIDGE'S."

- Where should the men be taken by their 'buses? Those who aim high, shoot high; and we hit Claridge's, a vast hotel, then more than half shut down. ( , , . . ' Into this temple of departed magnificence we hastily consigned a naval chaplain to play mine host, as if again in Poperinghe. The chaplain who became this boniface was well acquainted with siTch mysteries as Naval Banns of Marriage and Scots. Theology for Engineers. He had, moreover, what Mr. Weller called " a priory attachment' for the sea, having done ten years as mate and master. Assisted by* the low cunning in arithmetic evinced by a Cambridge colleague, my companion, Claridge's has far more than> paid its way. . , ... „ A thousand men at least visit Claridge's each evening, 4000 simultaneously on a pay-day. It holds them all, and gives them full value; the wife of the tall man upon the quay rules the Club-shop, replete with souvenirs. Good beef deserves to be consumed at leisure; concerts and games and dancing help it down. Tables and teas with menus and with English lady waitresses, some of whom rule the men who rule the ships, fill a spacious chamber beyond the ballroom. Then there is the first floor, sedate with books selected" for their narcotic properties; and tables to write home;'ink, pens, and paper. So much for Claridge's; it has done nobly.

SILENT ASSEMBLY. Throughout the early autumn, the City of Silver Grey went on assembling. No earthly city could compare with it in dignity, or cleanliness, or concord. With silence and precision, both strange in modern Egypt, the Citystate ranged itself alongside Alexandria, in startling contrast to so shabby a setting. Noise, squalor, and bad odours constitute the trinity which rules the shore. Against this, in the harbour, Bhips come and go, on errands or for exercises, in twos or threes or dozens day by day. The sea lanes to the harbour's mouth are ruled with precision; while all the normal traffic of the port continues, Egyptian, Greek, Spanish, Dutch, American, Italian, what you wilL But cities are not mere walls; fleets are ships' companies. How stand the citizens of Silver Grey Town? Those who want secrets told will And none here; but when a man comes home from being with, them and living in the sharp end of small ships, he looks back at the exemplary patience of the men, and cannot but revere the steadiness of spirit which rose once more to meet the gravity of autumn circumstance These men desire no war. If need be, they would surely do their duty. Dictators make them smile upon occasions; bullying they detest; no men more kind. Wage-earners to a man, they supplement exiguous pay by habits of self-denial, and count in kiddies' shoes and frocks and trimmings; they live for the Home mail, out and return. • Since August last their duties have Tjeen as curious as those of a constable who may not intervene. Non-interfer-ence is a test of character when wrong 4 s being done on a big scale. GOOD-HUMOURED. The City of Silver Grey has goodhumoured citizens. In this, as in all else, their C.-in-C. never denied his men the magic of his understanding. His was a human touch which spanned in half a story any awkwardness. Deeper than, tact, he had what Paul calls charity, and tales against himself formed part of it. One night the master and the chiefs of oilers, store-ships, and other ships i not to be specified were bidden to the table of "tall Agrippa." Later, their host arose and told his guests that on that very morning he had been to a hospital ship, and therein found a most diminutive patient, aged 14. The boy, small for his years, was from a tanker, where he . was steward's boy. Questioned by Agrippa, he was compelled to admit that he had not tempted Neptune hitherto. "But what," said tall Agrippa with assumed solemnity, "what do you suppose that without you£' "God

knows, sir," said the boy, with unexpected piety.

I There was another night in Queen Elizabeth. A private cable came. The Commander-in-Chief, hearing of his son Neville—Pilot-officer Neville Fisher, aged 21, son of Admiral Sir William Fisher, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, was killed while flying near Sleaford on October 17 last year—rose and retired. The City of Silver Grey, a powerful assemblage, could not help him. Men in their hammocks, many of them fathers themselves, muttered for him that night. The public times were tense: Sanctions beginning. No man had more to bear, none must be readier or clearereyed tomorrow.

FIVE DAYS ABLAZE. Tomorrow came. Just before Colours, that white dream, the Ausonia, came in at speed, racing to reach a last consignment of war-wanted cotton. She was almost abreast of the flagship, threading the lane left clear, when bugles and pipes stiffened all figures in their working rigs for Colours, and the ensigns mounted slowly. Men thought of him, their friend, and of young Neville. • The pipes gave tongue again. Work was resumed; but in a moment thousands of the men were staring at the funnels of the Italian. A puff of vapour, followed by a torrent flecked with flame, then a dark mass of ominous smoke hanging like a pall. She was on fire?. What was there in her?* Within that moment of vast suspense nightmares raced through the minds of the beholders. One mind knew no delay. From the Queen Elizabeth ship's boats raced to the gangways of the doomed liner. They came as rescuers, observing every courtesy meanwhile. The Ausonia was handed over thankfully, her officers were escorted to the flagship, her passengers and their hand-luggage were transferred, her crew transhipped, the wounded into the Maine. , She had burst a feed pipe, pressed to a speed which should not have been asked of her Had it occurred at. sea an hour sooner, 200 lives would have been sacrificed. For five days more she blazed, a figure of fury which canopied the harbour. Men mourned for her, as for a fair thing fallen; for ships are ships, and men, who love them all, lament them impartially in destruction.

NEW generation; « One of the happiest fruits to be observed through times like these is the cemented friendship between the servants of the British taxpayer. The Navy admits by now that, while the Prayer Book ignores the Army as past praying for, the Army can. containno doubt by accident—men who are men; or let them pass as such! Bibbons have disappeared, beyond a rearguard. Some Flanders refrains linger, though no one knows even the chorus words; but then the Navy to a man believe Tom Bowling is a form of tombola. A few men here and there are quietly proud that a father or uncle, or even a grandfather, rests in the Somnie or in the Salient; but there are few interpreters today. To a man of 50, the personnel idf the three services is quaintly young. In, one sense this is true. On duty they are men; on leave they are children. Leave is a'sacred word, which does not cover the strict routine of periods of duty at Port Said, Suez, Haifa, and so on. Athens and Cyprus gave small ships some leisure, but nothing really counts beside their homes. Why is it that the most home-loving race should 'be the one whose .men see home most rarely?