'Chindwara' for one voyage II

'Chindwara's first Christmas card, 1950

I wrote home to say that our ship had been adopted by the Overseas League, and from what we saw of the members, they were all young (some not so young) ladies. In Sydney they arranged two cocktail parties, two picnics (all day ones) one yachting trip at night, one launch trip to a beach and a barbecue supper, which lasted all afternoon and up to midnight, and one big dance for which they hired the Showboat, which was a floating dance hall which cruised round the harbour.. All in the space of about a fortnight. Also we held a dance for them on board. Thus we were more or less booked up with them every other night. I went ashore every night, either to the pictures or the Overseas League, and on the second to last night we had an all night fight with our sister Cadet ship, the Chantala; all this on top of working hard every weekday.

In the same letter I wrote that I had been promoted to Lamp Trimmer! I was now in charge of winches, ropes, lamps, paints, brushes, soft soap, teepol and bathbrick, chipping hammers and scrapers, boiled and raw linseed oil and the oil navigation lamps.

The fight with 'Chantala' had originated in Melbourne. A bunch of 'Chantala' cadets came over to 'Chindwara', in port at the same time, for a chat and a cup of tea. Most of us were ashore, and those 'Chindwara' cadets still on board didn't realise that the 'Chantala' cadets were in the process of 'casing the joint'.

A night or two later I was woken up at the break of dawn by a great commotion. A large contingent of cadets from Chantala had stormed our gangway. They easily overcame the cadet on the gangway before he could do much about it. The other QM came below to give the alarm. I dressed hastily and went to our stairway to get up on deck. There was a stairway from the Port and Starboard alleyways, and they led up to a cross alleyway on the deck above. At the top of each stairway was a stout door that opened outwards. The Chantala cadets had closed these doors and kept them closed by the simple method of holding a baulk of timber (they had measured the length required) against each of the closed doors.

While four 'Chantala' cadets attended these baulks of timber, the rest removed our bell, flags, and our whaler which was conveniently slung outboard by a derrick. The whole raid was over in a few minutes and with the minimum of noise. The last to leave were the cadets holding our doors closed.

We chased after them along the quay, but couldn't catch up with them before they had got back on board 'Chantala'. They were ready for us with hoses rigged and plenty of water pressure. They raised their gangway as quickly as they could. A couple of us tried to climb up fender ropes, only to be beaten off, as were the couple of cadets who had dived in and swum round the ship get the whaler back. I slipped their insurance wire off the bollard, a futile gesture, but one which 'Chantala' complained about.

As far as I can remember, they flaunted their trophies by rowing the whaler past us, waving our flags and ringing our bridge bell.

Shortly afterwards we sailed for Brisbane to load frozen meat, and by that time I think that our flags, bell and whaler had been returned. I remember being on stations going down river, past the 'Chantala', listening to various taunts.

We wondered, of course, who had planned it. Certainly, the Cadets would not have got away with it without help and encouragement from someone in authority, and we were told that the Chief Officer and Cadet Instructor (old Cadet Ship types) had instigated it. Frankie Downer's name was mentioned.

Both ships were together again in Sydney, round about the end of December 1950, and we decided we needed to have a go at 'Chantala'.

This turned out to be an all night affair, with some of us waiting out of sight, coils of boat lacing about our waists, and picking off 'Chantala' cadets as they returned from their night ashore. We probably caught about five that way, taking them back to 'Chindwara' by car, and locking them up in our drying room (it had a steel door). During all this Henry Severs was hanging around, looking as incognito as possible in a mac, and with a hat pulled down over his face.

At around 0430 we made our assault. I seem to remember they had raised their gangway, but had lowered it for a latecomer, and we seized our chance. There were no doors at the top of their stairways, so half a dozen of us (me included) stationed ourselves in the cross alleyway and managed to keep them from getting out for a few valuable minutes. Meanwhile, others of us were going about the decks throwing paint around, cutting and ravaging as much as possible.

Our attack had been half expected, and very soon there were senior officers amongst us shouting "halt". Some of us escaped over the side using fender ropes and such like, while others (including me) were bundled down into the 'Chantala' cadet's dining room. The first order that came down from on high was that we were going to stay in 'Chantala' until we had cleaned up the mess we had made. Shortly after that a message came down to say "let bygones be bygones", and all Chindwara cadets should return to their ship.

From Sydney we went to Port Pirie (with its galahs, and a railway station in the middle of the main street) to load 5,000 tons of wheat concentrates, then on to Adelaide and finally Fremantle. Temperatures in Aelaide were over 100 fahrenheit in the shade, and up to 124 in the fo'cstle store. Fremantle was about the same.

In Fremantle Brian Agnew (a keen and experienced sailing man) and I prevailed upon Henry to allow us to take the rickety whaler for a sail, which he did after insisting that we put a wire round her near the drop keel, tightened up with a bottle screw. With a wind about Force 4 we had a couple of evenings' fine sailing.

On Sunday 4^th February half a dozen of us sailed the whaler up to Perth, doing really well with a following wind and tide, once we had negotiated the low bridge, for which we had to lower the lug sails. We had a good walk round Perth before setting off back. The return journey wasn't so successful; the wind had dropped and there was no current to assist us. Luckily we had a couple of oars. Night fell. At one stage, where the river opened right out, we found ourselves rowing toward some lights in the water, and when we got closer found that these were fishermen paddling in water only knee deep.

A fog had developed, and back on the ship Henry decided to lower a lifeboat and lead a search party. We met them a few hundred yards from the ship. It was midnight when we finally got back on board.

After Fremantle it was Home James via Aden and the Suez Canal. Our ports of call were Dunkirk, Antwerp, Bremen, Hull, and Bremen and London. In Dunkirk the Agent arranged for us to have a walk along the famous beaches, and one Cadet found a rusty bren gun magazine in the sand. The bullets could be seen through the rusted sides, stuck together with salt and verdigris

I remained with 'Chindwara" for the UK coastal voyage and left on the 30^th March 1951, in Swansea, having served just enough sea time (four fifths of my four years) by then to sit for my Second Mate's Certificate.