A Night in the Med.; Nestor; Boy with "tin iggis".

Sunderland Crew by Stella Bowen

A NIGHT IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

Guns are blazing to right and left-by now the enemy has got over his surprise and is starting to fire back, but in vain.

Merchant ships and one destroyer are already blazing merrily. Suddenly one of the cruiser's searchlights beams out and lights up an Italian destroyer making a smoke screen. In the foreground an E-boat is outlined against the glow. Guns blaze, hell is let loose and by now the second enemy destroyer is blazing.

Our fire is accurate. Nothing escapes the deadly hail of shells. Quiberon goes in for a torpedo attack on the remaining destroyer, but at the same time an E-boat fires torpedoes at us. The captain sees her and alters course just in time to see them go past our stern.

We then concentrate all our guns on the destroyer. One salvo hits her below the after tubes and she starts sending shells at us, but her gunnery is very poor. Her shells pass right over us.

Then again we give her a broadside and hit her below the funnel. She stops, crippled by our shells. By now she is a blazing inferno and soon sinks. The whole area is lit up like day with star shells and ships can be seen dodging in all directions to avoid our fire, there is no escape.

Another huge liner is hit by the cruisers and as we come through behind them she gradually settles to the bottom.

Cries can be heard from the unfortunate troops in the water, for it is a convoy of troopships, but we dare not stop to pick them up. We remember Dunkirk and Crete and our soldiers who perished there.

The next to loom up in front of us is a big trooper, burning, but not completely destroyed. We pour round after round into her, until we are sure she will never be able to, return to Italy again. Only one ship now remains, but we get her position and soon leave her a mass of flames.

The moon is just rising and the sea is dotted with burning ships. We set our course for home, leaving Hitler's 10th Panzer Division to swim, or at least what is left of them.

We can see the dim outline of Sicily in the moonlight, and have the satisfaction of knowing we sank the convoy right under the enemy's nose. Another good night's work done, with no damage or casualties sustained by our force.

But all is not finished yet. We know that we will not be able to reach our base by daylight and can therefore expect aerial attacks at dawn. With the first grey streaks we are attacked by dive bombers and torpedo bombers. The sky is peppered with shell bursts and again and again they make their runs at us. One plane drops his torpedo, which hits Quentin. Immediately we turn to stand by her while the cruisers make for port. They are not to hang around in the face of an aerial attack. We soon find that there is no hope or Quentin and our skipper decides to go alongside to take off survivors, but the planes think differently.

They attack us with all their fury as we pull alongside Quentin. Our guns run hot firing at them, but we cannot hold them off. Our fire only succeeds in making their aim very poor. Although bombs fall very close and we think our number is up, we manage to cheat them. We succeed in getting off about 185 men out of 200. Some are wounded and die before we reach port. Those few left on board have to fend for themselves as the attacks are becoming too severe.

Our skipper orders full astern as he sees a plane release its eggs. They fall where our bows were a couple of seconds before. From full astern we go to full ahead as another Jerry comes in on our stem quarter. His eggs, I could swear, are going to fall right on me as I watch them, lying flat on the deck; luckily they just miss us again. We now make off at full speed, turning and twisting to avoid them.

It starts to rain and we think they may not be able to see us very well, but no such luck. There, coming at us at sea level, is a torpedo bomber, using the rain as cover to get in close. Our guns open up again and we alter course. The fire is too hot for him and he turns off, dropping his "fish" as he goes, which, however, misses us.

In a few moments the rain clears. They have abandoned us now and are concentrating on the stationary Quentin. They make several runs at her but miss. Then, having used up all their bombs, they start shooting her up. The men left on board have by this time got away in a boat. As we sail over the horizon Quentin is still proudly withstanding their guns, but is later sunk. Within an hour we are steaming into port again, proudly displaying our battle ensign at the masthead.

JOHN C. YARLOW, R.A.N.

NESTOR OF THE "N's"

Nizam, Norman, Napier, Nepal and Nestor were lent to the R.A.N. Manned entirely by Australians they fought throughout the war variously with the British Home Fleet, in Arctic convoys, with Cunningham and Somerville in the Mediterranean, with the British Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean, and with the British Pacific Fleet in the final stages of the Japanese war. Napier and Nizam were among the first Allied craft into Tokyo Bay.

Throughout the vicissitudes of years of war our "N" class destroyers emerged triumphant, still stout ships, still fighting. Except one. Nestor was bombed to death off Crete. In telling her gallant story a representative picture of the "N" ships' adventures will be obtained for her experiences encompassed pretty well the work of, all of them.

She was commissioned in February 1941, at Govern shipyard, near Glasgow, by a crew despatched from Australia in the merchantman Nestor. They'd no sooner boarded her, casting appreciative stares along her heavily gunned length, than she was ordered to raise steam to undergo acceptance trials.

Machinery is tested to the limit of its capabilities on a warship's trials. She was still in dockyard hands. Off Scapa Flow dockyard officials, her captain (Commander G. S. Stewart, R.A.N.) and her crew watched the experts try their best to tear her apart. Oerlikons and pom-poms raked fore and aft, elevated and depressed their tracer hose-piping in graceful curves as layers and trainers swung the weapons. A couple of Spitfires playing over the sea drew off in concern and vanished shorewards. An Oerlikon whamming away was trained at full speed on to the bridge; the safety training gear worked and she cut out just in time.

Then the 4.7's had their innings. At thirty degrees, twenty, ten, and full depression they were fired with full charges, the deck thrust (in the neighbourhood of forty tons), length of recoil and pressure in the recoil cylinders carefully noted. Then the cylinders were packed to reduce cubic area and the guns fired again. The pressure inside was tremendous, much more than the guns would be normally required to bear. Depth charges were hurled from their throwers on the quarter deck. The engines were opened out to full speed ahead, then reversed suddenly to full astern. The whole ship shuddered, her sides streaming with boiling froth. When steaming ahead flat out the wheel was spun hard over to starb'd; then, while she was heeling to the pressure of rudder and thrusting screws the wheel was suddenly thrown hard-a-port. The destroyer faltered, staggered, then came gamely upright.

To test anchors, cables and capstan the anchor was slipped in deep water. Its cable jumped after it through the hawsepipe with a din like trip hammers. The capstan was braked hard. Fifty fathoms of iron cable with a two-ton lump of steel on its end heading for the bottom were brought to an abrupt standstill. You'd think the plates would tear out of her, but she bowed her head, shook it and ploughed steadily on.

It was a gruelling test; but Nestor's strength was soon to be tested far above her trials.

Perfect human co-operation and preparedness for any contingency are main necessities in a ship of war, and day after day Nestor's men trained and sweated, striving always forth that perfection in gunnery which natural pride and the pressing urge of self-preservation inexorably demanded.

Her first operation of importance was a Malta convoy-a fierce baptism of fire for a new destroyer. But she came to know the littoral of North Africa as well as she knew the bleak approaches of Scapa Flow.

It was on such a convoy, from Alexandria to Malta, that Nestor steamed to her fate. Commander A. S. Rosenthal, R.A.N., was her captain then, having assumed command in May 1941

On the third day out guns' crews were fully closed up, working round their guns, making sure everything possible was done to meet the vicious threat of air attack which all knew must eventuate.

Suddenly the crew of "B" gun below the bridge stood immobile. Above the whisper of the wind in the foremast rigging, the swish and gurgle of the water along her sides, the cry carried from the bridge:

"Port lookout, compass platform. Bearing red 45, aircraft!"

Crews manned their guns.

The enemy planes were barely visible when sighted. Flying very high, minute black dots, they crept slowly up the dome of the sky from the direction of Sicily. Rapidly they gained position, the muted sound of their engines a pregnant throb.

Then suddenly the two leading destroyers broke into flame and wreathed themselves in clouds of tawny cordite smoke. Up among the bombers a cluster of black puffs burst, a vicious flick of flame in the centre of each. As though in answer to the crash of guns a whine started high up in the sky-a whine growing with heart-stopping intensity into a scream of sound. 'They were directed at a tanker to port, and they got her. She went up as the bombs hit in a stabbing sheet of flame that developed into an inferno of fuel-driven fire wrapping her from end to end.

Then two JU 87's picked the 6-in. cruiser Birmingham. Kicking over on one black-crossed wing they dropped headlong out of the sky upon her. Black puffs of flak followed them in and you could see the glowing lacework of tracer as the cruiser and bomber exchanged fire.

They let go, a stick of three each. The bombs exploded all around her, lifting from the sea a wall of water that erupted over her like a liquid avalanche. But, miraculously, Birmingham shook it off and steamed reassuringly clear of the mist of spray which had hidden her.

The attacks were growing fiercer and heavier every minute. It was decided to turn back to Alexandria. Till then Nestor was untouched, but now her turn had come.

There came suddenly the bull-throated roar of a supercharged engine. A vicious moth-winged shape rocketed across the ship. There was a whoosh and a wham and a gout of oil-streaked foam belched into the air from her port side. She shuddered from end to end with the sudden upthrust of bursting steel. Boiler-rooms blown open to the sea, she heeled over, a black scum of fuel oil spreading from her wound.

The next bomb hurtled down, a black blob resolving into a streak too fast to follow as it neared them, smacked the top of the foremast, ricocheted, and, its fuse started, hit the water to explode with shattering force against the starb'd side for'ard. The third one missed. But she was done.

Engines stopped, listing so that her 4.7's were cocked up at an impossible angle, the little ship was helpless. Yet the meticulous training and rigid discipline of the Service ensured organization even in this chaos. The mess-deck bulkhead was shored by repair parties, and, though it bellied like a sail with
the pressure of water behind it, it held. The funnel was roaring with the full force of the boiler-room furnaces, s outing rolling tongues of flame that threatened fire to the whole ship - and her magazines.

So a working party was formed to heave wet hammocks down its flaming mouth. When this failed, the quarter-deck awning, incredible though it seems, was drawn over the funnel's top and, stopping the draught, effectively quenched the fires.

Sister ship Javelin took her in tow-what supreme understatement there is in that phrase only a seaman will appreciate - and torpedo bombers had a crack, fortunately missing ahead. But she was low in the water, a dead weight, and the tow parted three times. The Senior Officer signalled:

"If Nestor cannot make her own way, sink her."

This was at 0600. It didn't take long. Faces coppery black with fumes, her crew abandoned her; then depth charges set in the Asdic compartment blew her apart.

Aboard Javelin they watched her go - transformed in a matter of minutes from a proud fighting ship to a twisted tangle of iron falling through the sunlit upper waters of the Mediterranean down into the freezing darkness of the unfathomed bottom.

She lies there now-mute evidence of the savagery of a lustful foe and a deathless tribute to the men who built her and fought her against insuperable odds. Little Nestor had died-but she'd sent her men back.

J. E. MACDONNELL, RAN.

THE BOY WITH THE "TIN IGGIS"

The note was signed: "Sorbi Mahomed", "Abdul" and "Achmed" and their signatures followed in Arabic.

I forgot all about the fishing. I forgot all about the friends with me. My mind went winging back through the years to Palestine and to the day in 1940 when Sorbi Mahomed, Abdul and Achmed came to my tent at Deir Suneld for the first time and Sorbi asked me whether I wanted to buy "tin iggis" tomorrow.

I liked Sorbi from the moment I saw him. He was a spindly boy of twelve who had a sullen set to his lips and wore a pair of old shorts, a dirty sweater with one stripe sewn on the right arm and a grey woollen skull-cap.  Abdul, who was thickset, and Achmed, who had buck teeth, grinned at me from behind him. "Tin iggis?" I asked. "Ana mush aref Arabee" (I don't understand Arabic). Sorbi Mahomed frowned. "No Arabee," he said. "Inglisi. Tin iggis."

"Tin iggis?" I asked, frowning too. "No understand 'tin iggis'."

"Tin iggis," repeated Sorbi Mahomed, becoming angry at what he evidently thought was my mocking obtuseness. "Tin iggis. Tin iggis."

Achmed and Abdul began to giggle but Sorbi Mahomed turned on them with a blast of Arabic that must have been terrific because they became silent and glared at him.

"Tin iggis," said Sorbi, trying again. "Tin -iggis."

I thought that if I took it one word at a time I might be able to understand it. Iggis?

I asked. "What you mean 'Iggis'? Mush aref 'Iggis'.

"Iggis," said Sorbi. "Iggis. Tin iggis. Iggis. Iggis. Iggis."

I shook my head. I was baffled. "No understand," I said.

Sorbi wriggled his bare toes in the dust and glared. "Shufti" (look), he said. He picked up a knife from my bed and pretended to cut the top off something. Then he took a spoon and went through the dumb show of putting it into something and lifting it to his mouth. "Iggis," he said. Iggis."

"I hate to seem like a moron," I said, "but your meaning still eludes me."

"No'," he asked, trying to look hopeful.

"No," I said.

Suddenly Sorbi began to flap his arms and Jump around, crowing like a rooster. Then he looked
down at the floor. "Iggis," he said. "One iggis."

A great light broke upon me. "Oh," I said. "You mean 'eggs'."

The teeth of the three Arab boys gleamed as they smiled. "Aywah!" (yes) cried Sorbi .Mahomed. "Iggis."

"O.K.," I said. "Eggs. But what's this 'Tin' ?

"Tin," said Sorbi, and began to count in Arabic. "Walied, erneen, tarlata, arbar, khamsa, sitta, sabba, tamanya, tissah, arshara," ,he said. "Arshara. Tin."

"Oh," I said. "Ten. You mean 'ten'."

"Aywah," said Sorbi, grinning. "Tin. Tin iggis."

We became firm friends after that and the first question he asked when he arrived at the camp each day was always: "Lesson Glessip? Feyn (where) Lesson Glessip?"

I gave him bread, chocolates, stamps and "'backsheesh" and he gave me oranges but he always came back next day and asked for the money for them. Like all Arabs, he could not pronounce "g" as in "oranges". He always pronounced it as in "geese' .

Bill Newman and I agreed to go to Abdul's home in Dimra Village for dinner one Sunday. The three boys waited on the outskirts of the camp all morning and when I told them I could not go, Sorbi's surly expression became more pronounced. He was on the verge of tears and he muttered Arabic obscenities under his breath.

Fearful that my refusal would provoke an international incident, I agreed to go. Sorbi's face cleared and he wrung my hand, babbling his thanks in Arabic.

When we arrived at the village the usual horde of "Wog" children dashed up to us, held out hands and cried "Backsheesh!" but Sorbi, Abdul and Achmed drove them away with a choice selection of invective. There was a code to be observed and they intended to observe it.

Abdul's father, a villainous-looking man who could not speak a word of English and wore a hook where his left hand should have been made us welcome to his mud hut and brought us coffee.

"Wash"' asked Abdul, and grinned mischievously when we laughed at the cake of Australian Comforts Fund soap he handed us.

"I'll read the Herald while you have a wash," said Bill, grinning and picking up a copy of the paper from a table.

Abdul's father, who smiled and nodded at us every time we looked at him, cooked two emaciated fowls and he and the three boys sat in a circle and stared at us while we ate. They refused to have anything themselves.

"All right?" asked Sorbi anxiously when we had finished.

"Kwyess," I said. "Kwyess kateer owie owie owie" (Good. Very good, very, very, very).

The four worried faces broke into smiles and Abdul's father said "Enter aref Arabee kwyess" (You understand Arabic well).

I left for Mersa Matruh a week later and it was more than a year before I was camped in the Gaza area again. I was at the Services Training Regiment at Nuseirat and had strolled down to Deiralballah Cemetery with a couple of friends. An Arab boy of about twelve came up to us and began to talk about the graves. He had a small, peaked face and a scar shaped like a "T' above his right eye.

"You speak remarkably good English," I said. "Do you go to school?"

"Yes, sergeant," he said. "I go to school at Jaffa. I am in sixth class."

"What are you going to be when you grow up?" I asked.

"I am getting a good education," he said. "I am going to be someone in the world. I am ambitious. Not like these stupid boys." He indicated two grinning Arab yokels who had come over to us and were listening although they did not understand a word. "Fools," he said. "They look after the cemetery and earn a few mils. I am going to be a policeman or a schoolteacher. I am ambitious, sergeant. I have read good books."

I looked closely at his face. Yes, although he was only a boy I believed I could see signs of the intellectual already.

"In English?" I asked.

"Of course. I have read Robinson Crusoe and David Copperfield and The Water Babies. I have read good books. They are really good books."

I looked at him in amazement. "Who wrote David Copperfield?" I asked.

He smiled. "I see you do not believe me," he said- "Charles Dickens, of course"

I felt humiliated. "Have you read Treasure Island?" I asked.

"No. I have never heard of it. Who wrote that? "

"Robert Louis Stevenson. I will send you a copy when I get back to Cairo if I can buy one there."

His little face was aglow. "You will? I would appreciate it, sir. I would enjoy it and look after it very well. It is a good book?"

"The best boys' book in the world. I will send it to you.

What is your name?"

"Abdul Azeem. It means the Servant of the Big God'."

"All right. The Servant the Big God will have his copy of Treasure Island. Deiralballah Village is the address, I suppose? "

"Yes. Thank you again, sergeant."

"Tell me this," I said. "I been worried since I to Palestine to see the tension, the hatred that exists between the Arabs and the Jews. You an intelligent boy. Can you see any way out of this grim problem?"

The boy's eyes; became hard and he said, "Yes, there is one way out."

Yes? What is it?"

It is for us to kill the Jews, to kill every one of them."

I stared at him. "You do not mean that," I said. "You are joking."

His eyes were gleaming fanatically. "No," he said. "We will kill them. As soon as you soldiers go we will kill them all. This is our country. It belongs to the Arabs. The Jews come here and take our land. The way out is simple. We will kill them, kill every one of them."

"No," I said, outraged. "That is wrong. It is wrong to kill."

"It is wrong? Well why do you kill Germans and Italians then if it is wrong?"

I could not help smiling. "You've got me there, Abdul Azeem," I said.

"It is the same. They want to take your land so you kill them. The Jews are taking ours so we will kill them. I will be a great soldier when I grow up and I will lead the Arabs in their fight against the Jews."

"You will lead them to Jerusalem, like General Allenby leading the Allied troops into the city in the last war," said one of the other soldiers.

"That is right," said Abdul Azeem. "I will lead the Arabs and we will kill, kill, kill".

I turned away, sick at heart. A little hand plucked at my sleeve. I turned and looked into the merry eyes of Abdul Azeem. "Do not be sad, sergeant," he said. "I am only being funny. I could not kill anybody. I could not hurt a fly."

Next day I sent him to Dimra Village with a pound for Sorbi Mahomed, Abdul and Achmed and gave him enough money for his bus fares there and back, for a meal at Gaza and for their fares to Nuseirat and back and a meal at Gaza.

"I will bring them back with me, sir," he said. "You can rely on me. The Servant of the Big God has become the servant of the sergeant." "Good," I said. "I am looking forward to seeing my friends." I was sergeant of the guard that day and I waited impatiently for him to return with the boys. It was dusk before a message was brought to me in the guardhouse that a "Wog kid" wanted to see me. It was Abdul Azeem, but he was alone. "Where are Sorbi Mahomed, Abdul and Achmed?" I asked. "Where are my friends?" "I am sorry, sergeant," he said. "They could not come. Read this." He handed me the piece of cardboard and I read the message on it. "Dead! " I cried. "Sorbi Mahomed dead!" It was like hearing of the death of my own son. "That is wrong, sir," said Abdul. "The old man in the village who wrote the note, he does not understand English very well. The Arabic word for 'dead' is like that for 'sick' and he has got it mixed up. He is sick, sir, but will be all right tomorrow. They will come tomorrow."

I read the note again and smiled to myself. "You have done well, 0 Servant of the Big God," I said. "Here are a hundred mils."

"Oh thank you, sir," said Abdul, taking the money. "You will see that I have given the boys the pound. You see that all night?"

"Nothing could be more clear, Abdul Azeem," I said. "You have been a faithful servant of mine, as well as of the big God."

Abdul looked down to where he was wriggling his bare toes in the dust. "'Not many boys would have delivered the money, sir," he said. "I am sorry to say, sir, that Arab boys are not honest."

"Abdul Azeem," I said. "You speak with the wisdom of the ages. I am well aware of that tragic fact. I knew you were different the moment you said you liked David Copperfield. Don't you worry, Abdul Azeem. You'll be a policeman or a schoolteacher one of these days. Nothing will stop you."

"Thank you, sir," said Abdul Azeem.

Next afternoon I saw Sorbi Mahomed, Abdul and Achmed trooping across the green grass towards me and I hurried over to them. They were grinning in delight. They did not seem any different, except that Sorbi Mahomed had two stripes on his greasy sweater instead of one. I clapped them on the back and cried a welcome. "Ah, Sorbi," I said. "Corporal. Bardin (later) sergeant."

Sorbi's smile beneath his grey woollen skull-cap became even wider. "Lesson Glessip," he said and, pointing to my right arm, he continued, "Sergeant Lesson Glessip. Bardin zahbut" (Later officer).

I shook my head deprecatingly. "Abadin" (never), I said.

They looked at one another and gabbled in Arabic. "You-learn-much-Arabic," said Sorbi haltingly in English.

"Enter aref cooloo Inglisi" (You understand all English), I said, and they screamed in delight. I went through my entire stock of Arabic phrases. I said good morning and goodbye, wished them a happy New Year, said I hoped all their years would be happy and told them there was no God but Allah and Sorbi Mahomed was his prophet. They roared with laughter at that.

I asked Sorbi whether he still played two-up. Achmed's grin exposed his buck teeth. "Sorbi muskeen" (poor), he said. "Sorbi win much money two-up. Lose all. Back head. Come tall."

Sorbi's lips set in their old sullen line and he tried to cuff Achmed but Achmed ducked. Sorbi spoke quickly and bitterly to Achmed and his tone crackled with anger. Then he thrust a wicker basket into my hand. It was full of oranges.

. I was touched. "Thanks," I said. "It is very nice of you boys to bring me such a gift."

Three hands were thrust out towards me. "Backsheesh!" three voices cried. I realized then that my friends had not changed at all.

I sent Abdul Azeem a copy of Treasure Island from Cairo and, because I liked him more than any of the others, I sent one to Sorbi Mahomed, too.

When I read these days of the bloodshed in Palestine I hope my friend Abdul Azeem does not become a policeman. I'm sure he would have a longer career in the Education Department.

I am really worried about Sorbi Mahomed. I wonder what has become of him, particularly when I remember the sullen set of his lips, his fits of temper and the bitter way he used to cry the universal Arab expression of hatred against the Jews. I know he could not read it but I am glad now that I sent him Treasure Island. It is a thick book and if he liked me as much as I liked him he might carry it with him. It might help to stop a bullet. Who knows?

LAWSON GLASSOP, Second A.I.F.

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