Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 245
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[Page 245]
this were the fire parties waiting with hoses, ammunition bearers, some of the doctor's party: in fact, nearly all those who were not required to man the guns. Down there in the intense heat made by the funnel uptakes and in an atmosphere filled with fumes of ammonia from the discharged refrigerator, waiting in semi-darkness were over a hundred men with one small escape should anything go wrong. One shell into that crowded space, and the majority would have been killed; and the stress of anxious waiting was reflected in each man's face. It is hardest of all, I think, to stand inactive amidst the pandemonium of battle, not knowing how the tide is going and unable to push into the fray and help. Further down still in the Hades of the stokeholds were the black brigade shovelling for their lives in a red glare and heat like those imagined of Hell. These men and their officers, our friends the Engineers, must always have our greatest admiration. They know each man of them that whoever may be saved from the ship if defeat comes they in all probability will not. For them there is practically no escape. A shell or, worse, a torpedo adds burning and salding to the other terrors. Fortunatley none of these calamities befel; but it speaks well for many of our young stokers not long recruited from civil employment ashore that they never once let up or yielded, and drove the ship faster than she had ever steamed before.
Early in the action the surgeons became busy. They were in two stations in stokers' bathrooms opening off the tube, one forward and the other aft. Equipment and assistants