AT SEA ON THE HOOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18706, 12 May 1924, Page 11

AT SEA ON THE HOOD.

IPPASCHLIGHT DISPLAY. GREETING THE PIONEERS, v : ~ — ' >; " '•''-'■'■■'■'' l jlll'i MACHINERY and' MEN. |pf v '"■ :■;. \~ '■"■_■ : : .; ;; : ;^! -A ; r-GLIMPSE OF MYSTERIES. I • . , • NAVY AT WORK AND PLAY. | f ' " | : .■■■■.■..:-■ H i ? (By-the Herald's Special Representative | V t on- tap Hood). . ; . j .' After passing East Cape on'. Friday | |. night the Hood was travelling at j •I,"". over 20 knots .and she swept I I p '. ■' through the rising sea into the teeth of -' > the wind without any perceptible ' roll or pitch. Feeling the throb.of the accelerated engines one imagined that the ; great ': ,' ; monster was straining arid eager'to have : ££*'-'..'. her head and dare the sea and the wind to do their worst. But from the decks £-;.-' it was difficult to realise \ that she was ;%- travelling at about the speed of a New S '-'' Zealand express train. Her vast bulk destroys the impression of speed. It is not until one peeps through the port of a *'«■•"' darkened cabin : and sees the " white : horses" on which lights are reflected, ■;, rush by that one ' feels the speed. Down there too, one ;is near enough to the • four ,v' shafts to know that all the 24 oil furnaces are roaring and that it would require just a touch on the controls 'to set the vessel '-■;, y. ; leaping forward at her maximum which '-.' at her test, exceeded 32 knots although j ';: ■• she was designed to make 31 knots. '-■ Searchlights in Action. The Hood steamed throughout the night \: niraccompanied. From . Napier, the lignt , V cruisers had gone ahead to join the Septals© which had gone on to show herself at Gisbome. North of East Cape, the Hoed passed the Repulse, Dragon, Danae '•'•...' aid Adelaide well on the seaward side. "-• The Delhi had gone ahead. The foui ships were in line ahead blazing, as a sentry put it. like a " string of chemists' I. y. shops afloat. ' They were soon to lose t't>i . all likeness to chemists' shops. Rather did .they recall the nightly scene of London during the period of the air raids. {•' About .10 p.m. they gave a wonderful searchlight . display. The great beams of light "seemed to reach the blue. They chased each other \ across thfl sky, now crossing, now concentrating upon a patch - of cloud. A beam' would now flash ■ straight across the water and then leap _'-'■■:'-. to the heavens. It was a wonderful sight, and one could well imagine the impression that ii must have made on the station hands scattered over the back '-■;■■ ; hills of the land. . The Navy had not forgotten the lonely inhabitants of the bush. " Are ye c| : -.; there, Are ;ye there!."- The flashing wardships, seemed to be calling from the dark-'. ? ness of the deep the pioneering people of |' the distant hills. "Hullo! . Hullo! We «re pushing on to port but here's our hand in passing." ;-..-; * - ■ Watching the flashing beams, more h;V brilliant-than the aurora, a little war-.. . time incident came to mind. New Zea- • land transports had • dropped anchor for a few hours in an Eastern, port and around them paddled a tiny boat containing four sun-browned Englishmen who Bang a chorus .which ran - Here -we are.. here we are. here we are ■ tk?aia. '■-.'■' : "..' Hullo! Hullo J Hullo-o-o-o-o. Here we are- hero we are, here we are, • here we. are again. It was just a cheerful word in passing from Britons to Britishers, who under stood the true import of the little song very well indeed. ■' It meant more than a dozen speeches of welcome, more than the peoples of this race • can ever find ■words to say to one another. And so one feels those searchlight beams will be • understood by the bushmen and stockmen' of the East Coast stations. ' ■'.:'■: Crossing the Bay of Plenty. Throughout the night the Hood with ** a bone in her teeth," sped" across the ' Bay of Plenty. The lights of the Delhi could be discerned ahead and those oi the four ships in. the rear twinkled across the dark expanse of turbulent water. v The decks of the ship were strangely deserted. It might have : been thouc... that 'not even the Hood, with lie 1400 men, could ever appear to be d? I ' serted, but '[ this is • not, the case. Abou' 10 o'clock a J party of seamen wearing sea . "i . .....'. '.v. .... ....-■'..'

,boots ; and oilskins . appeared ajnder an 1 S ? k' *r h ° , 6ra Iris f dinner ? clothes/. I anaj battened down ? the ' companionway»on f 5 the quarterdeck and put * barriers across j trie ladders leading to it, so that no ' water might, find its ; way i below and no one un his wanderings ; could meet a s wave that might blunder,;, on a board aft Sentries were at ' their " stations^through *. the snip, but the great majority of the men on watch could not be seen. ; One has to descend ; the •;steep!' long ladders :i tocthe engine ■:, rooms, or .» to > the . boiler rooms, by way of ; the two-man " lifts, or through manholes to the deep -and mysterious electric ; nerve : centres .; to realise J i how great a company keep watch ' upon ■ the myriad dials and gauges and keep the giant in perfect control. So 1 vast is the machine- that a layman lies if- he says he understands anything about it. He can only walk about and marvel. : He may have felt .the rush :of wind that is being sucked down through gratings, and he may know that the air is required for the combustion of the roaring oil fires that he has seen through a piece of ; red glass, fires , that > make one : dream ■ of t the furnaces of j Vulcan, where the armour of the war gods is forged and thunder is made. But he does not know how science controls it. Did perspiring men feed these fires with coal there -would- be a familiarity about the scene that would detract from the wonder and- awe of it. These modern stokers and engineers stand' by their con- i trols down in the depths of the ship, with their hand upon her pulse, which must beat precisely as lis ; ordered by: a being who, in some lofty eyrie, peers into the night. It is just the, work of the day or \ the night, but the war is sufficiently near to make the spectator pause and picture what might happen should a torpedo get home. What chance of escape would there he for these men who go to their duty lown a lift and enter it through iron doors!_ As in the gun turrets, in the magazines, one feels the unconscious courage of the race, the atmosphere in which, •nder ; any conditions of danger, duty is done instinctively. This young ; man, one 's told, was in such-and-such a ship at lutland. Another had an amazing adventure in ; a submarine. But the moment >ne begins to expect to hear some of the details, the curtain drops. It is the way of the Navy. The Navy is too busy perfecting itself to have time or inclination f o, talk about Jutland. He who joins it has a priceless inheritance. Above the busy departments below the water-line there are flats where hundreds and hundreds of hammocks hang, and men sleep the deep, sleep of sailormen. And it the moment when a watch must turn out one hears a petty officer, not out of the twenties,, say, "What about it, my son," and "my son" tumbles out and dresses automatically. The human machine on the ship seems almost as automatic as the power machine, and is just as'interesting. The midshipman who "dresses" the.squad is surely not the young barbarian of the previous night who put a bayonet in his comrade's bed and hauled him forth in a glorious rag, nor even the youngster who made a wondrous caricature in colour. That must surely be a dream. . The boy who stands so strictly at attention cannot be the bugler who chased another . youth round the boat deck and when the quarry made a thrilling getaway by disappearing into a void beneath, tried to brain him with a bugle on a long cord. Of course not. If one" should dare try to give an impression of the humanity encountered in every corner of the Hood one should say that it was very "full of beans," very gay and light-hearted, very contented vith the job of the moment, and in its 'eneral attitude toward life, very proud and satisfied with the feeling of mutual .•espect : existing between each part: of the ship's company. LONDONERS' CLUB CONCERT. A number of petty officers and men of he fleet were among their own - folk on ■Saturday evening, when they attended a oncert in the Town Hall concert cham>er, arranged by the Auckland Lonloners' Club., . ..',, .;'.-",,...,•/'..'..'!../ iv,. •>, .. " Where. From " is the club's motto, •nd prior to the. commencement of the oncert, and during the interval, "Where rom'•" was asked of the visitors, with he result that many of • the club mem- ' bers found they were able to renew associations with their own particular part of London through the • visitors from the leet. The president of the club, Mr. H. i. W. King, in welcoming the visitors, tated that the Auckland Londoners' Club vas, so far as was known, the only one i the Empire.