1915_ The Death of Innocence - Lyn Macdonald [16]
Mrs Clopet, who had been confined to her cabin on her husband’s orders for most of the last two days, was now released and accompanied Captain Clopet when he went ashore to visit King Sigrah to negotiate food supplies. He took the German order with him – for all the good it was likely to do! While the Captain was gone and the deck crew passed the time by fishing over the side in the hope of a tasty catch to augment the meagre rations, the engine-room crew got down to more serious business. Chief Engineer Harold Cox was no novice when it came to engines. He had served on ships far older than the Southport, and had repaired and nursed and cosseted engines that were on their last legs. Given a hammer, a hacksaw, a soldering iron, a length of tow, even a ball of string, he could repair anything and make a faltering engine sing sweetly enough to bring a ship to port. He was determined not to be defeated now and Harris and Griffiths, the 2nd and 3rd engineers, were of the same mind. While the Captain was ashore they investigated the damage.
The Captain was not in a happy frame of mind. The negotiations had been long and wearisome and the outcome only partly satisfactory. Faced with the German order, King Sigrah had been obliged, with great reluctance, to hand over supplies, but he could give no more than he had got, and all he had (and could ill spare at that) was coconuts and the roots of trees which, ground up and mixed with coconut milk, were all that his own people had to eat. Equally reluctantly the captain agreed. It was Hobson’s choice. He arranged to send a party of men ashore the following day to supervise the loading of the native long-boats that would ferry this miserable provender to his ship, and returned gloomily on board. But his gloom was quickly dispelled by his chief engineer who met him with the happy news that the damage to the engines was not so great as they had feared. He believed it might just be possible to manufacture some of the missing parts and to contrive makeshift parts to replace some others, and thought that, with a little time and patience, they could get the Southport on the move.
It took more than time and patience. It took working round the clock, monumental effort, plus liberal applications of ingenuity and elbow grease. And it took ten days, with the thud and clanging of hammers echoing across the bay, the rasp of saws on metal, while lookouts fearfully scanned the horizon for signs of the Geier’s return. On the afternoon of the tenth day they managed to get up steam – the fact that it was a poor head of steam was a good deal less important than the fact that the engines would take the ship ahead, but not astern. The Captain thought he could manage. It would have been worse after all, he remarked, if it had been the other way round.
It was a feat even to get her to face outwards from the anchorage but that night in the darkness, with all her own lights extinguished, the Southport limped out to sea. It took them twelve days to reach Brisbane, sailing via the Solomon Islands – partly in German hands, but they had to take the risk – and they sailed at quarter power, with the crew on quarter rations. It was better than subsisting on roots.
The welcome they received in Australia almost made up for the hazards and privations of the voyage. The people of Brisbane showered them with gifts. Food was brought aboard – sacks of rice, dozens of loaves, butter, sugar and flour by the stone, ducks and chickens, whole sides of beef. In their elation the crew were, with difficulty, restrained from dumping the loathsome roots and coco-nuts into the harbour and persuaded to unload them in the conventional way. They were fêted and petted and treated