TNA MT 40 36 Pt 2

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was down there as correspondent for a well-known paper and who
wanted to see the show for himself. This was about the only
effort made by this wretched boat in the Government service, it
had a
konked out within a few yards of leaving moorings and refused to
eat it
fire so I had to anchor to prevent drifting #Pen other ships
and ABet a. rowing boat to come out and fetch me off so that I
wer, of course
could report the trouble. Within an hour, a good deal less I
should say, we had an Engineer-Lieutenant Commander, ReNoV.R.,
an Engineer Sub-Lieutenant, R.N., two Petty Officers Artificers
and one leading Artificer, investigating the question of our
engine trouble.
One not unimportant item was that the magneto was simply
dripping away, and here I rather suspect the activities of my
stoker rating who was the senior again of my crew, who had been
using the oil can I know, but he seemed to be quite familiar
with petrol engines and I certainly did not see trying to
oil the magneto, but I noticed a change of expression on his
face when the Mag. was tached and foynd to be actually oozing
oil. This, however, was not the only trouble and it is a mystery
to me that that boat was ever brought round to Ramsgate from
the Thames as the experts worked on her until 20.00 that night,
by which time they had succeeded in getting a spark, and we
got the engine running again. We raised anchor and tarted to
take her for a trial run round the harbour. This went all
right so long as we were going dead slow but on getting a clear
space between two ships at anchor and opening throttle, there
was no increase in speed but a most terrible noise from the
clutch which was obviously slipping badly. The Engineer-Lieutenart
Commanded who was with me on the little bridge was very amused,
he had identified the engine on sight as a very old Camel Lorry
engine converted and I think he realised that all my efforts at
joggling the clutch lever and putting the gear lever in and out
of neutral were not going to have the least effect as the thing
was pretty hopeless. As it was quite clear that nothing could
be done except move her ahead at dead slow, I brought her over
to the side and tied up out of the fairway.
While the gear was in neutral and the fore and aft ropes
were already being secured, I had, as an additional precaution,
kept my foot hard down on the clutch pedal which was right
down on the deck, so that the clutch should have been well
out with a good al to spare; in spite of this she suddenly
commenced to go gently astern and bisk no amount of clutch
joggling or verification of the fact that the gear lever was
most clearly in neutral, seemed to have any effect for a moment
or two, when she started to go slowly ahead. It was clearly
unsafe in a crowded harbour to have this wretched engine running
at all so I called down to the stoker to switch off the engine
and have her manhandled for the little adjustment that was
required to get her tied up securely. Again the engineers
worked on her until 23.50 that night and all day Sunday, 2nd
June, they took down pretty well everything. The final report
was that the engine was worth about £10 and it would cost £20
to repair it,so they did not propose to do any more about it,
and I found myself living on a house boat with my own crew of
four ratings and a lodger in the shape of another stoker rating
whose original boat had been lost somehow with his kit. He
had been supplied with a new kit at Merrie England, the
temporary Naval barracks, and being a friend of my stoker rating
thought he might as well throw in his luck with us.
By this time the beach show was well over and the last
contingents were being brought off from Dunkirk Jetty itself
by destroyers, etc., this being a deep water job.
There was a rumour round the harbour precincts just before
lunch time on Sunday that volunteers were wanted to fetch the
last of the Dunkirk troops off the Jetty, this cleared all the