CHAPTER VII
FROM EGYPT TO MOMBASA
At 2 a.m. on the following morning we stopped both engines just outside Valetta Harbour; the guard-boat came alongside and gave us instructions to proceed to Port Said, and there, after an uneventful voyage, we duly arrived three days later.
Entering the harbour at sunrise, and passing between the long breakwaters which run out into the sea to mark the dredged channel, we anchored close to the eastern shore. Then lighters, filled with coal and manned by natives, came alongside and were secured four to each side of the ship. Presently gang-planks were placed between the inboard lighters and the deck, and the natives filled little baskets with coal, balanced them on their heads, ran up the gang-planks and tipped the coal into the bunkers. It was our first experience of Eastern methods—frankly we thought them rather finicky! However they got the coaling finished by 2 o’clock and we asked the Commander for leave to go ashore. This, however, he firmly refused, and made us draw a section of the ship instead, which seemed adding insult to injury!
Note by Mother: Half-a-score of wild middies on the loose at Port Said of all places! What a wise commander!
In the evening we weighed anchor and, taking on a pilot, proceeded through the Canal. Great expanses of open water, broken occasionally by long sand-spits, stretched away on either side. The banks of the Canal are raised some six feet above the water level and are about twenty feet wide. On our starboard, or the Egyptian side, ran a caravan road overshadowed by plane and palm trees, and we saw several camels being driven along by Arabs in picturesque flowing garments. Presently the sun dipped below the horizon and turned the wide expanse of water to the colour of blood. Gradually this faded away and slowly disappeared, and only a beautiful rosy glow was left in the sky above us.
Little signal stations connected with each other by telephone are placed every mile or so along the Canal, and at each of these it has been widened to allow of two ships passing each other, but in order to do this it is necessary for one of the ships to tie up to the bank. We, being on special duty, were allowed to go straight through, and any craft we encountered was obliged to tie up and make way for us.
At this time we had taken to sleeping on deck because of the heat, and in the middle of that night I woke up just as we were passing three Indian troopships which were tied up to the eastern bank of the Canal.
A gorgeous full moon was shining down on the desert, silvering the sand, and making everything almost as clear as in daylight. There was no sound to break the silence save the gentle lippety-lap of our wash against the banks. I got up and leant over the shelter deck watching the desert as we slipped by. I used to imagine somehow that the desert was flat, but of course it isn’t!