Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 271
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[Page 271]
"cease fire" sounded the ship was being steered by hand by a party of bluejackets waist-deep in water in the after steerage flat. She bore every evidence of her close call. Inside she was a wreck, and outside one could only look at her sieve-like sides and wonder that she floated. When one remembers that the Carmania's guns were very old, the sweepings of forgotten ordnance stores, and her crew mainly merchant sailors untrained for the most part in war, one can only admire the sheer grit and determination which finally overcame and sank her more powerful antagonist.
The Melbourne as usual was in harbour when we arrived and soon afterwards departed on her lawful occasions. She gave us one of her boats in exchange for one of ours which had been damaged by shell fire. The enterprising blacksmith of the Melbourne, finding a shell fragment in our boat, promptly made a cast and turned out replicas in dozens to the delight of the ship's company and to his own profit. The innocents in the Melbourne believed the souvenirs to be the genuine article.
The three weeks in Gibraltar one contrived to make pass pleasantly. There was the delight, beloved of Navy men, of a feed ashore; and there was the hospitality of the Mediterranean Club, from the balconies of whose fine house just above the town one could look across the straits to Ceuta. Gib itself consists of a rock with its forts and galleries, a harbour, a main street, and a racecourse. As it was war time the last was not in commission; and for recreation one made daily jaunts across the neutral ground, with its British sen-