Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 134
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[Page 134]
We went alongside the dockyard wall and next day were wafted into the floating dock.
The dock tanks are filled with water till the dock sinks to the required level which depends of course on the draught of the ship it is proposed to take and when sufficiently low the ship is floated in, shored up, and the water pumped out.
There was a proper panic. The docking officer - a dockyard official - takes charge and has numerous henchmen and wingers scattered along the wall. It is ticklish business for there is no margin room and the ship is eased in with a shoe horn as it were. Everybody shouts and yells and swears. The Captain is anxious for his ship the Commander for his decks and paintwork and the Gunnery jack for his precious guns. So between the orders of the dockyard people and the counter and supplementary orders of the ships officers and the sailors falling over each other trying to do their things at once the pandemonium is like Barnhams Circus.
The non executive officers who formed themselves into a Committee of taste to criticise the