My enjoyment of the three weeks I spent in this service was due in no little measure to the personal charm of my skipper, who was not only the most considerate and tactful officer to serve under, but a most charming and interesting companion. The work was mainly routine on the lines indicated above, and although there was plenty of variety, and at times no little excitement, to enlarge further on our doings would be waste of pen and ink, as any more detailed account would probably be “omitted by order of the censor”!
It had not occurred to me that those august, and occasionally paternally minded, powers who preside over the sailor-man’s earthly destiny, would think it necessary to send me home on leave. “Leave” had long since been relegated in my mind to that dim and distant future “after the war.” Doubtless the said powers in their wisdom realised—as at that time I certainly did not—the inevitable strain following on my narrow escape from the sinking ship.
It was, however, with some surprise and much regret that I heard from the Commander on the 1st of June, that he had been ordered to send me at once to the auxiliary cruiser Carmania, on which ship I was to proceed to England.
Very reluctantly I took leave of the T.B. and her genial Commander, and went on board the armed liner, where I found most of the survivors from my old ship. Alas! they were tragically few, for out of a ship’s company of 760, only 160 men and 20 officers had been saved.
The Carmania, which still bore scars resulting from her tremendous battle with the Cap Trafalgar earlier in the war, weighed anchor on the following day, and four days later reached Malta, where she coaled. Here I went ashore and managed to buy a ready-made reefer suit and other necessary garments; and I was uncommonly glad to feel once more respectably clad.
Our voyage was uneventful. Now that there was no duty to be performed I think most of us began to feel a bit slack, but our spirits rose as they turned homewards. We had not seen our people for nearly thirteen months, and the necessarily strict censorship of all our letters had of course increased the sense of separation.
On June 12 we arrived at Devonport, and our Commander went ashore and shortly afterwards returned with the welcome information that we had all been granted a fortnight’s leave.
Leave! Cheer-o! We wasted no time in getting ashore, and I at once wired to my home telling my mother that I had arrived, and was going straight to London to the house of some cousins who had offered me hospitality whenever I might need it, and that I would there await instructions as I did not know where she might be. A fast train landed us at Paddington about 5 o’clock, and I took a taxi to S—— Place.
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The Admiralty had informed me that he had sailed for England on the 2nd, and I knew he would go to London according to instruction, so I was able to be there to meet him.