Todd war diary, 3 August 1914-29 February 1916 / Arthur Todd - Page 327
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[Page 327]
faces the surgeons saw the Captain and put the position before him. The Captain quite realised the urgency of the matter, 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 had increased from eleven to eighteen knots and was making straight for the Trinidad Club and Queen's 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 shore-going 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, and chatty beef from the "frigory" cut from parts of the bullock which it is considered unconventional to roast, eaten bread with flies in it and made from sour flour, and toyed with eggs whose inmates shouted aloud for burial, the reader will agree that a good clean well-cooked dinner was a rite to be gone through with all due 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 fort and barracks at the entrance to the harbour. Guns had been mounted, and now that all hostile ships were safely where they ought to be St. Lucia was quite a stronghold. St. Lucia was just itself - charmingly dull - but we appreciated the