LIFE IN A DESTROYER.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XL, Issue 12541, 12 May 1915, Page 2

LIFE IN A DESTROYER.

Tho following (says •'•The Times") is taken from a letter of a young naval officer serving in the Eastern Mediterranean :

"I must tell you what life in a destroyer ; is like in war." Here wo have no land- j base of any kind, so never get ashore — j now and then we anchor for a day or night rest, under the lee of an island which we arc blockading, and e.very- night when on patrol, and even when at anchor fur our so-called rests, we are in sight of the enemv's batteries and searchlights. We have to keep a very good look-out for drifting mines: the Turks, like the Germans, push them' out into the sea wherever they can ; three have been picked up at our anchorage. We have men armed with rifles to watch for them all night: at present no one has been actually caught laying them. ""Now it is blowing a south-westerly gale, with sleet squalls every hour—it's pitch dark—you can't see an inch—away on tho black" horizon you keep seeing the gleam of the enemy's searchlights, which light up the thickness of the wind with driving spray and sleet. AVe are steaming dead slow, head to wind and sea, sometimes going into it at about 10 knots in order to keep in the same patrol billet. Each time the ship plunges she chucks tho top of the wave right over her bridge, forecastle, and foremost 12-pounder gun. Each time she gets a few degrees off her course. She gives a great roll, and a solid black wave (we call them 'seas') washes right over her after gun-platforms and torpedo-tube. At each gun and tube is a man on watch, trying to see. through the blackness and spray, holding on for all lie's worth each time a 'sea' breaks over her. At each gun and tube is a huddled heap of oilskin (or . sometimes two or three, according to the position of the gun or tube) —this is an officer or seaman asleep or trying to sleep at his station, ready to be full awake and at his station the second I yell out .'Night action !'

"This is the routine the man has; he goes on w,atch at 6 p.m. till 8 p.m., when he has half an hour for supper (sometimes the galley fire has been washed out by the breaking seas and there is no supper bar cold meat and ship's biscuit). At half-past 8 p.m. he goes back to his gun and endeavours to sleep there till midnight, when he does a four hours' watch.. At 4 a.m. he again tries to sleep till 7 a.m., when it is daylight and he goes below for a rest. Well, this, mark you, is 13 hours on end in one'continual howling gale, as often as not with seas breaking over him and sleet storms at intervals. 1 have the ship's cook and the wardroom steward told off to make cocoa all night for the men on watch —hot, thick, oily ship's cocoa; and once every hour a staggering oilskin form is seen on the reeling decks, hanging on with one hand and balancing a bucket of"cocoa with the other (the ship's cook is a fat man and it is a hard job), and as often as not half gets spilt. When the galley is washed out by the sea, then there is no cocoa, and one feels like death about 4 to 6 a.m. When daylight appears you see soddenlooking, pale-faced men, begrimed with 'stokers' (what gets in the eye when one looks out of an express train window), staggering foiward to get dry. eat, and then sleep on a stuify, battened-down. over-crowded mess deck, where they have to jam themselves in on the deck to keep from rolling about "On the bridge are two seaichlight-meu (watch and watchl and the two signalmen. When it is their 'standby' they sleep tm the deck of the bridge. There you also find the captain, who stops up there the whole night, except for ten minutes or so now and then, when he goes down to look at the chait or get some cocoa at the chart-house under the bridge. From 6 p.m. till midnight, and from 4 aim. the gunner or the sub is. on the watch. When we three officers are not on watch we are asleep ( '!) at our guns with our men, with practically no protection at all from the cold spray, sleet, and rain all over one while one sleeps. Glued to the wheel is the helmsman (there are two of them who split the night), who lor 6i of these 13. black weary hours keeps the little lubber's point glued to whichever point of the compass the captain may direct; for the other 65 hours he is asleep on the deck at the foot of the bridge. "The.captain and officer of the watch arc on tho bridge peering; put.,-oyer the, 'dodgers' (canvass screens), aria "seem always to have a pair of glasses glued to the opening of their Balaclava helmets, or else trying trying to wipe the lenses clean with a black and sodden handkerchief. Every now and then all 011 the bridge duck instinctively, following the motions of whoever is looking out right ahead; tins is when w-e get an 'extra big green one .over.' When daylight conies we patrol and have look-outs by day as well. From a quarter to 9 till noon the men are hard at work repairing tiie damage done by the seas to the upper deck gear and cleaning Up the guns and torpedoes. Then every day at 5 p.m. the whole of the fighting mechanisms of the ship are tested and got ready for the night. We get- in for about eight hours' rest as a rule onco after twenty-four hours' patrol, but one out of every three rests is spent coaling. Sometimes we get a whole night at anchor a.nd sheltered from the told black seas, looking out for mines or the enemy, whom we expect any second of our lives here. It is the suspense and the waiting and watching that tells! Still, in spite of this and the truly awful weather and great haidships, we are. a very happy family, full of beans "to get at 'em,' and 1 would not be anywhere else for the worlds."