Part of the
Acorn Archive
Hearts of Oak
Charles Lewis
Royal Navy [1891-1905]
West Africa Station
1900-1904
Part 5
Written 1900-1904 on HMS BLANCHE
After the Storm; and the
last tour of duty
[The
experience Charles Lewis had in the storm must have had a profound effect on
him, since his Diary stops there; So far he had avidly written down everything
daily in that same evening; from here, everything is what he wrote in 1944;
it is a series of memories]
When one of our men-of-war HMS
SYBILLE ran on the rocks during a dense fog and became a total wreck, we were
sent to her to help salvage her guns, stores, etc., we had on board a large
party of negroes to help in the salvage work, sometimes the ship would be
submerged. One day the divers were down, sending up projectiles and ammunition,
it was the negroes job to pass the ammunition from one to the other into the
waiting lighters. All went well until knocking off time; the Officer in Charge
gave the signal for the divers to come up. As soon as the divers appeared above
water, the negroes gave a yell and over the side they went and swam ashore in
record time; it was quite a job to persuade them to return, for no hurt would
befall them.
The incident gave my chum and
I an idea. We had on board a Krooman from Sierra Leone, a proper sneak, he was
continually splitting on us chaps to the Officers, and was the means of getting
several of our chaps into trouble. So we waited our chance, one evening, Tom
Congo, he was employed as Cook’s mate, was cleaning the paintwork over the
range in the galley, so my mate and I put on diver’s helmets and crept along to
the skylight above the galley, and when Tom looked up to clean the upper part
we poked our heads through the opening of the skylight, never dreaming of what
woul happen. Poor Tom, when he saw us, gave a shriek and let go of everything,
falling right down on the hot plate of the range.. Fortunately Cooky was in the
galley, or goodness knows what would have happened, as it was Tom got several
severe burns and had to be attended by the doctor for quite along time. There was hue and cry, but it
was never discovered what frightened him, and my chum and I took jolly good
care not to enlighten them.
We discharged our Kroomen at
Cape and embarked Seedy Boys; they are East Coast Negroes, mainly from Zanzibar
and Mombassa. the Kroomen work on the West Coast ships, the Seedy Boys on the
East Coast. The Seedy Boys are of splendid physique. they were all Mohmmedans.
We had to be careful we did not offend them with our food, pork, etc., but on
the whole we got on very well together.
We were continually on the
cruise on the watch for slave dhows, it is an exacting job for ships. We would
sometimes be away for days searching for a dhow, my ship was never lucky enough
to catch any, we did the extra work all right. Once we took on board several
leaders of the slave trade which our Navy had put out of business, we had them
on board for several days, shifting them from on port to another; during the
time when they were on board the Ship’s Company had orders not to serve pork in
any shape or form; I would dearly loved to have served them the same as they
served the poor blacks.
One Sunday afternoon we were
laying off Mombassa; most of the Ship’s Company [each time Charles Lewis is
writing of his own ship’s company, he uses Title Case] were reading or
sleeping on the upper deck, when a fire was reported on shore. The poor
sleeping Matloes were soon roused to action and landed as a fire brigade,
saying anything but their prayers; the Natives’ water supply and fire fighting
appliances were non-existent; so the inhabitants of the village did a sensible
thing – they sat down and watched the perspiring Matloes struggling with
buckets of water which the got from the sea, and passed them from hand to hand,
to the seta of the fire, which had as much effect as pouring a bucket of water
on a blazing petrol dump would have. The huts were made of dried grass so it
was not long before they were burnt out and we were able to return on board,
spoiling what should have been a very pleasant afternoon.
Poor old Navy comes in for
some rotten jobs.
Just after the fire incident, news came to us that one of our Merchant Ships SS WINNIE was ashore at Milindi, so off we had to go to her assistance. For over a week we struggled in the scorching sun, before we got her refloated and towed her to Kilindi, where we left her, our ship proceeded to Mombassa. Just to let you know how generous our Government was, we worked on that ship, day and night, until we got her off, for that we were paid a shilling a day “hard” laying money, very hard at that.
HMS
BLANCHE’s Tour of Duty 17th Jan 1902 to 14th April 1904
as
recorded by Charles Lewis, giving arrival, place and departure dates.
1902
17 Jan, Hondeclip, 17 Jan [Hondeklip]
17 Jan, Port Nolloth, 11 Feb
12 Feb, Lambert’s Bay, 12 Feb
12 Feb, St Helena Bay, 13 Feb
14 Feb, Saldhana Bay, 15 Feb
15 Feb, Simon’s Town, 17 Feb
17 Feb, Capetown, 18 Feb
19 Feb, Saldahana, 1 May
1 May, Lambert’s Bay, 8 May
8 May, Thorne Bay, 11 May
11 May, Lambert’s Bay, 11 May
12 May, Port Nolloth, 20 May
21 May, Lambert’s Bay, 22 May
23 May, Port Nolloth, 27 May
28 May, Lambert’s Bay, 29 May
30 May, Saldahana, 2 Jun 1715
3 Jun, Simon’s town, 11 Jun
16 Jun, Delagoa Bay, 17 jun
22 Jun, Zanzibar, 11 Jul
14 Jul, Mozambique, 17 Jul
20 Jul, Zanzibar, 29 Jul
30 Jul, Oza Bay, 31 Jul
31 Jul, Lamu, 2 Aug
5 Aug, Zanzibar, 12 Aug
13 Aug, Mombassa, 21 Aug
29 Aug, Charki Charki, 24 Aug
24 Aug, Zanzibar, 26 Aug
30 Aug, Mozambique, 1 Sep
3 Sep, Beira, 5 Sep
7 Sep, Delagoa Bay, 9 Sep
10 Sep, Durban,11 Sep
13 Sep, Port Elizabeth, 16 Sep
17 Sep, Mossel Bay, 17 Sep
18 Sep, Cape Agullis, 18 Sep
19 Sep, Simon’s Town, 15 Oct
15 Oct, Saldhana Bay, 19 Oct
22 Oct, Walfisch Bay, 25 Oct [Walvisbaai]
27 Oct, Great Fish Bay, 27 Oct
28 Oct, Mossamunde, 28 Oct
29 Oct, Elephant’s Bay, 1 Nov
2 Nov, St Pauls De Loanda, 5 Nov
8 Nov, Cape Lopas, 9 Nov Guinea
10 Nov, Gaboon, 11 Nov
19 Nov, Bonny, 21 Nov
23 Nov, Jella Coffee, 24 Nov [Dzelukope]
24 Nov, Cape Coast Castle, 26 Nov
1 Dec, Sierra Leone, 19 Dec
24 Dec, Ascension, 7 Jan 1903
1903
12 Jan, Sierra Leone, 17 Jan
18 Jan, Honarkie, 19 Jan
21 Jan, Bathurst, 2 Feb
4 Feb, Honarkie, 6 Feb
7 Feb, Sierra Leone, 13 Feb
20 Feb, Anna Bon, 21 Feb [Annobon, Gulf of Guinea]
24 Feb, St Pauls de Loanda, 27 Feb
1 Mar, Elephant’s Bay, 3 Mar
6 Mar, Walfish Bay, 8 Mar
13 mar, Simon’s Town, 25 May
25 May, Capetown, 30 May
30 May, Simon’s Town, 4 Jun
11 Jun, Beira, 20 Jun
23 Jun, Mozambique, 25 Jun
26 Jun, Pemba, 27 Jun
29 Jun, Zanzibar, 21 Jul
22 Jul, Kilidina, 30 Jul
30 Jul, Melinda, 31 Jul
31 Jul, Lamu, 6 Aug
7 Aug, Mombassa, 23 Aug
24 Aug, Zanzibar, 25 Aug
28 Aug, Mozambique, 29 Aug
2 Sep, Delagoa Bay, 4 Sep
9 Sep, Simons Town, 1 Oct
9 Oct, St Helena, 14 Oct
22 Oct, Sierra Leone, 16 Nov
16 Nov, Isle De Los, 18 Nov
20 Nov, Bathurst, 26 Dec
28 Dec, Sierra Leone, 4 Feb 1904
1904
7 Feb, Bathurst, 10 Feb
11 Feb, Dukar, 13 Feb
13 Feb, Bathurst, 29 Feb
4 Mar, Sierra Leone, 18 Mar
21 Mar, Bathurst, 1 Apr
6 Apr, Las Palmas, 7 Apr
13 Apr, Plymouth
14 Apr, Keyham – Paid Off.
[This
last section has taken them 39,952 nautical miles;
with
the first section 17, 976 nautical miles,
that
is 57,928 nautical miles altogether.]
Raymond Forward