Awakening With the Dawn

Wanganui Chronicle, 24 December 1947, Page 7

Awakening With the Dawn

I was an apprentice that first Christmas day. I opened sleepy eyes at the shout of the stand-by quartermaster at 5 a.m. and for a moment was back in childhood at home (I was little more than a child, anyway, even then). But the-roll of the ship and the interminable creak of the beams, and the wash and crash of the sea outside soon brought me back to realities. The deck below me was awash with water, and th e sea came in at the edges of the tightly shut ports each tim e the old ship rolled her side under. It was cold on deck when we gathered for orders from the Mate. We were a silent, unfriendly lot in the grey light of the early dawn. And as I slumped there in oilskins and seaboots the cold spray that was whipped from the w-hite tops of the waves stung my face. But even now I can remember the sudden sharp thrill I got as I passed my tongue over my lips and tasted the salt. And then in a moment we were “washing down” —scrubbing the decks with brooms held upside down, rhythmically in a line that moved slowly backwards, as well trained as any stage chorus. And the spray came over us and the seas washed the decks around our knees. But breakfast that day was not tripe and onions, nor Irish stew, nor fish kedgeree, but a wonderful spread of porridge and very watery milk, and real bacon and a water-glassed egg. And there was real butter in a dish in place of the usual unshapely mass of margarine. Morning work about the decks was only cursory and at lunch there were again surprises—soup, roast lamb and tinned peas, and some tinned fruit to follow. Afterwards, for those who had no bridge watch, there was a free afternoon. But even so the Christmas spirit was still little in evidence. Everything was so unreal.