Shore liberty at Brest was diverting as a respite from the crowded ship and its routine, but the novelty was soon dispelled. It was picturesque and colorful to ramble in the Rue de Siam where the soldiers and sailors of many races jostled each other, but until the Y.M.C.A. established its social centre in the port there was not much else to do than eat and loaf and drink white wine and red. Of the three days in port, coaling ship consumed so much time and energy that leisure hours ashore were brief. There was no coaling machinery at this important French naval base, and the American yachts had the back-breaking job of filling baskets from barges alongside and heaving the fuel aboard to be stowed in the bunkers. The grimy slaves of the shovel envied the Queenstown destroyers when these smart, immaculate craft tarried to fill their fuel tanks with oil by inserting a hose in the deck and then fled back to their own base.
Among the songs inspired by the day’s work it is no wonder that the fo’castle or the “black gang” quartets should have led the close harmony in such stentorian plaints as the following:
C-O-R-S-A-I-R,
Spells the old Corsair.
At home she used to be hard to coal,
And always made us swear;
But since we crossed the ocean
We have coaled at Saint-Nazaire!!
Wow!
C-O-R-S-A-I-R,