Primary tabs
Transcription
[Page 36]
made an honorary member of the Ward Room Mess for the passage.
There were several other questions mooted at the meeting but being more or less of a frivolous character need no further comment except to say their propoundus were promptly and sternly squashed.
It was finally settled that the Eng. Lieut. having no watch to keep and no confidential documents worth mentioning in his charge should relinquish his cabin to our prospective quarry and as regards the bath she must do the best she could with the hand basin in the cabin while the third question was left for the lady herself to decide.
Well to cut a long story short three days after the -- had left Singapore she fell in with and boarded the "Van Hoorn". Number One not feeling a little bit pleased with the job in hand went away in charge of the boarding boat. If this were a tale of fiction instead of the cold solid truth how easy it would be to work up a dramatic situation reaching to a fitting climax. But, I set out to tell the truth and the truth is, that to the utter disgust of the crew who, to a man were leaning eagerly over the rail anxiously hoping to see the lady stepping daintily down the "Van Hoorn's" gangway perhaps sided by the arm of their ever gallant Number One, the lady was not there. A very close scrutiny of the passengers and crew and an exhaustive search of the ship itself failed to reveal anyone remotely resembling the lady described in the orders and so without more ado the -- returned to Singapore to report her mission unaccomplished.
A few days later found all the Destoyers rushing through a hurried refit preparatory to making the long trip across the Indian Ocean and thence Via Suez to Europe. Needless to say we were glad to have done with the monotony of relieving Dutch mail ships of their mails and searching junks for the contraband which was never there and so it was that on July 2nd, 1917 we set out with light hearts from Singapore for pastures new and the Great Adventure.