Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 120
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[Page 120]
make a call at Trinidad imperative.
At Trinidad one must know there is a good Hospital and at St Lucia there is none.
Curiously enough on April 22nd a stoker developed an acute appendix, and was in urgent need of operation. In a ship one doesn't feel justified in doing a major operation if there is a possibility of giving the patient the advantage of a Hospital. So with grave and solemn faces the Surgeons saw the Captain and put the position before him. The Captain quite realised the urgency of the matter and asked sent for the Engineer Commander and asked what speed he could do with the coal available.
The answer was apparently satisfactory for soon the Sydney was doing had increased from eleven to eighteen knots and was making straight for the Trinidad Club and Queens Park Hotel.
No wonder there is a super tax on incomes in Australia. As soon as the ship moored at Port of Spain all hands rushed for the beach, made for the above named hostelry and had a glorious shoregoing feed - the first for weeks.
The writer dwells unduly perhaps on food and the joys of eating but when one has lived on puree of cockroaches, chatty beef from the frying cut from parts of the bullock it is considered unconventional to roast, eaten bread with flies in it made from sour flour, and toyed with eggs whose inmates shouted almost for burial, the reader will agree that a good clean well cooked dinner was a rite to be gone through with no mean ceremony.
We stayed two days in Trinidad and then left for St Lucia a few hours steam away.
In St Lucia we sat down properly and prepared to give all hands a rest and make good defects. Fires were drawn and boilers cleaned and for four or five days the Sydney was helpless.
Since our last visit A Canadian artillery regiment had come down and installed themselves in the old port and barracks at the entrance to the Harbour.