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We had no intercom system, so orders were piped in the traditional way. The quartermaster would come to the hatch, sound his pipe for attention, and shout his message. When a group was piped for, some might be exempted by a stand fast addition; for example, Starboard Watch fall in on the Fo'c'sle - Stand fast cooks of the mess. The sailors' favourite message of the day is Up Spirits, (with its delightful and legitimate alternative meaning) when one from each mess goes to collect the rum-ration, ceremonially mixed with water and served in the presence of an officer, and the quartermaster's traditional sotto voce addition to Up Spirits was, Stand Fast the Holy Ghost. The most vital of the letters which appear after a sailor's name are G, T, or UA, signifying Grog, Temperance, or Under Age. (20) Grog was the nickname of Admiral Edward Vernon who, in 1740, incurred the everlasting displeasure of the Lower Deck by instituting the practice of mixing their rum with water, and was called Old Grog because he wore a cloak of the coarse fabric known as grogram. I was UA until I reached my twentieth birthday, and left Watchman about that time, and being registered as T, I received 3d per day in lieu of rum. Grog is not served in shore establishments, and I was serving ashore in Australia, so the only official tot I received was when the King ordered the Fleet to Splice the Main Brace to celebrate Victory in Europe.
It would often happen, just before dinner, that two men would be playing Crib for sippers - the winner to take a sip of the loser's tot. The raised stake of gulpers would take half the tot, and if the games ran close, and the whole tot were staked, matters became very serious.
On the 14th we oiled in the forenoon and sailed from Liverpool to Birkenhead. When leaving port or harbour, the first orders were, Special Sea-Dutymen to your stations - Close all scuttles and deadlights. The Special Sea-Dutymen included the Engine-Room Artificers, the cable party, the Coxswain, and the Signalmen. A scuttle is a round watertight brass-framed window of very thick glass which covers a port-hole, and is hinged on the left and screwed in place on the right. The deadlight is the slightly larger solid steel scuttle-cover, hinged at the top and screwed in place below. These closures are effected in order to keep out water, and to strengthen the side of the ship in case of collision, serving also in wartime as a black-out precaution.
On the16th we sailed to the bar to swing for compass correction, and to make preliminary engine-trials, and returned to Gladstone Dock, Liverpool. On the 18th we had full-power trials up to 30 knots, fired all guns, and returned to Gladstone Dock. Harry Copeland lived, and still lived, until about 1990, at 20 Baythorne Road, Walton, in Liverpool. I occasionally undertook his duty so that he could go ashore, and he invited me home with him once or twice to meet his wife Amy and their two little boys. On the 24th we joined a convoy southward, and arrived in Londonderry on the 25th, and on the 26th sailed to an anchorage just outside the Bar for HFDF and MFDF (High- and Middle-Frequency Direction-Finding) calibration.
We sailed that night for Tobermory, where I had my first sight of the bonny purple heather, and went ashore next morning for a film and the Commodore's talk. He explained that we were working-up for two weeks - practising our own various skills, accustoming ourselves to the ship, and learning a little about everybody else's jobs too. The Western Isles, an old merchantman, moored in the Harbour, served as the Commodore's Flagship. We had lectures on shells, charges, rockets, Verey Pistols and grenades. I fired a red Verey Light, and set off a white rocket using a port-light, - a sort of fire-stick about a foot long - though the normal method when available was by pulling the cord of an attached detonator. We also had flashing, semaphore, flag, and coding exercises. On the 30th the Captain and Jimmy and twenty ratings were invited to the Wrens' Hallowe'en party ashore, where I had my first taste of punch. Almost exactly two years later, one of the Wrens working on teleprinters at the Signal Office in Sydney said to me, Were you ever in Tobermory? and it turned out that she had been at that party. It seemed to me remarkable that two who met on that occasion should meet again on the other side of the globe, and that she should have remembered me. I suppose I had been the centre of some attention in a small way because I had played the piano.
The Sloop Black Swan, Avon, the Corvette Hadleigh Castle, and Rosebay were in harbour with us and on November 1st, in company with Black Swan, we began exercises in anti-submarine warfare, which would be our major task. Submarine PO9 was at sea, sailing around within sight of Staffa and Fingal's Cave, and we had to hunt her down by ASDICS. The ASDIC cabin was just abaft the bridge. The operators listened with headphones, but the sounds of our transmissions could be broadcast for the officers on the bridge to hear. The transmission of a pulse gave a Ping, and if it encountered the hull of a submarine we also heard the return of the pulse - Ping - Pick. Range could be assessed from the speed of return, - the shorter the time, the nearer the target. The motion of the submarine, closing upon us or retreating, could be assessed from the Doppler effect, a higher Pick indicating closing, a lower, retreating. In a real situation, when we had ascertained the submarine's position, we would increase to full speed ahead for the attack, so that by the time our depth-charges detonated we would be clear of the explosions, which would make the whole sea seem to rise a foot, and heave and boil. A whale, and particularly a shoal of fish, could produce echoes indistinguishable from those from a submarine, and this was for us a very pleasant aspect of the technology. More than once after an attack we beheld not the surfacing of a crippled submarine but of a fine catch of cod, and a boat would be lowered, and a fine fish-supper provided. On exercise, we merely dropped over the side a hand-grenade, the explosion of which enabled the friendly submariners to report on the efficiency of our attack, though it produced no free suppers.
We also carried out a test-firing of our Hedgehog, one of the three secret weapons we carried. Hedgehog consisted of a grid of twenty-four short steel rods, set in a pattern of six by four on the foredeck. Twenty-four bombs were set upon the rods, which could be together angled in various directions so that when the bombs were electrically fired they fell in a pre-determined pattern, according to the disposition of the target as determined by the ASDIC operators. Two or three hits out of the twenty-four were expected to punch holes in the pressure-hull and cripple the submarine. Squid was a set of three such bombs, of larger calibre. A submarine on the surface, when broadside-on, presents a very narrow target for gunfire as to range, so Shark was a special very long 4" shell designed to skim the surface in an almost torpedo-like manner, rendering accurate range-setting unnecessary.
Hedgehog was found to be a highly dangerous weapon to handle, and after it was reported that one set of bombs had exploded on a ship's deck, it was ordered that, upon returning to port, no attempt must be made to unship the bombs from their rods, but that they must be fired off before entry. Unfortunately it always happened that this firing had to be delayed until the last possible moment after which their deployment against an enemy would be likely to be needed, which meant that we had reached comparatively shallow water, so the whole twenty-four would detonate with a mighty sharp crack right under the ship, making our crockery jump and causing pieces of debris from the deckhead to fall into our tea.
We went on night-shoots, first firing star-shell to illuminate the target, which resembled a cricket sight-screen, towed by a small craft, and then attempting to score hits. We did not envy the crew of the towing-vessel, though we never actually hit it. One night our ASDIC door was blown off by a 4" gun-blast.
There are five watches of four hours each, and two of two hours each, in every twentyfour hours. The two-hour watches are called dog-watches, because by making an odd number of watches -seven instead of six- they allow the watchkeepers to dog, and so prevent anyone from being perpetually on the same few watches. The First Watch is from 2000 to midnight, the Middle from midnight until 0400, the Morning from 0400 until 0800, the Forenoon from 0800 until noon, (in practice extended until 1230, to allow the next watch time to eat their dinner), the Afternoon from noon until 1600, the First Dog from 1600 until 1800, and the Second Dog from 1800 until 2000. By these tokens a sailor considers that anyone who rises after 0800 does not get up in the Morning. In each Watch, one bell is rung after half an hour, two together after one hour, three (ding-ding, ding) after an hour and a half, and so on up to four bells in the Dog Watches and eight in the remainder, except that eight o'clock, including the end of the second Dog, is always eight bells. Shore leave was usually piped as, Leave to the ___ Watch from 1600 until 0800, Chiefs and Petty Officers 0830, and one usually had to rise very early in order to be on board in time, but sometimes one might be granted the privilege of seven-bell leave, that is, until 1130.
We signalmen worked in three watches at sea, using the West-Country-Three variant, by which we followed the sequence, for ever seared into my memory, Afternoon, Last Dog, Morning, First Dog, Middle, Forenoon, First. This resulted in our serving 3陆 hours on and 2 off, 2 on and 8 off, 4 on and 8 off, 2 on and 6 off, 4 on and 4 off, 4陆 on and 7陆 off, and 4 on and 12陆 off, which totals 24 hours on and 48 hours off in every three days. By this method one had the inestimable advantage, one night in three, of an all night in - unbroken sleep from midnight until breakfast at 0730 - paid for on the previous day by the dreary disadvantage of rising at midnight, keeping the Middle Watch, and then having only 3陆 hours' sleep before breakfast, and standing the long Forenoon Watch.
In harbour it was normal to work about the ship during the day and for some to be granted leave in the evening. In safe anchorage and suitable weather a boom might be lowered, and boat lowered and crewed, and the order piped, Hands to bathe and skylark. At sea it was normal to work during the forenoon, and for the order, Hands to Make and Mend (signifying free choice of occupation) to be piped after dinner. Sleeping was then allowed, though hammocks were not to be slung, and although I was often very tired from watch-keeping, so strong is my biological clock that I have never been able to sleep during the day. Perhaps the table below may make all these matters more clear.
DAY WATCH TIMES ON OFF SLEEP
Day 1 Middle 0000-0400 4
Morning 0400-0800 4 3陆
Forenoon 0800-1230 4陆
Afternoon 1230-1600 3陆 2?
First Dog 1600-1800 +2
Last Dog 1800-2000 +2
First 2000-2400 4
Day 2 Middle 0000-0400 4
Morning 0400-0800 +4 7陆
Forenoon 0800-1230 +4陆
Afternoon 1230-1600 3陆
First Dog 1600-1800 2
Last Dog 1800-2000 2
First 2000-2400 4
Day 3 Middle 0000-0400 +4 6
Morning 0400-0800 4
Forenoon 0800-1230 4陆
Afternoon 1230-1600 +3陆 2?
First Dog 1600-1800 2
Last Dog 1800-2000 2
First 2000-2400 +4 2
Totals 24 48 23 maximum
(Maximum for one not able to sleep during the day - 19)
When one greeted one's relief at the end of a watch one did not leave the bridge until one had turned over the watch. This meant imparting to him all the necessary information, such as the names and positions of all ships in company and the nature of anything to be watched for - another ship joining, a coastal feature, a navigational light, buoy, or beacon, and the gist of any signals received or sent during the watch, or subsequently expected.
Of course, when at Action-Stations, all off-watch time and all sleep was cancelled.
On watch on the bridge it was a matter of professional pride that the Signalman should see everything, and especially any signalling, before the look-outs stationed around just below the bridge, all furnished with binoculars. The Signalman was also responsible for handing radio-messages to the Officer of the Watch. The radio-cabin was immediately below the bridge, just abaft the wheelhouse, and connected with the bridge by a copper voice-pipe. Inside the pipe hung a length of codline, to the lower end of which was tied a small leather cylinder. The sparker below would insert the message into the cylinder and sound the whistle at the top by blowing at his end, and when the Signalman lifted the lid, would tell him a message was ready to be hauled up. On cold nights I was made aware, from the warmth rising in the tube, how much cosier (though less healthy) a berth the sparkers had in comparison with my own.
Navy cocoa was issued as large blocks of hard gritty chocolate bearing a pattern of impressions of a triangular flag. Scraped into thin flakes and boiled in evaporated milk it made a most satisfying and warming drink. I found that when I sensed that it was time for my mug of hot cocoa I could smell it by applying my nose to the tube, and soon afterwards one of the sparkers would bring it up to me. Any article of official issue was called Pusser's (from Purser's?) and cocoa was called Kye, so this drink was known as Pusser's Kye.
We finished our Working-Up on November 15th, and sailed at 0600 next day for Londonderry.

(A copy of this chapter was deposited amongst the archives of the Department of Documents in the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ, in 1995.)

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