I can still remember my first sight of a lone palm tree emerging from the early morning mist just before we made Freetown. Some ships of the convoy entered Freetown but we lay off and paused for a while a half mile from the coast; we believed that mosquitoes couldn't make that distance but just to be on the safe side we tried out our mosquito-repellent ointment. The air was hot and very humid and soon we decided that we preferred mosquito bites to the discomfort of trapped perspiration. By this time we had changed into our tropical uniforms and this did nothing to improve our appearance; our cork topees were reminiscent of those worn during the Boer War and were probably surplus to that conflict. There was nothing remarkable about our shirts but the shorts were something else; worn in their extended form they reached down to mid-calf, the lower hems were fitted with three buttonholes while at mid-thigh there were three buttons. The idea was that in the bright sunlight hours they would be buttoned up to let our knees feel the breeze and get tanned but in the evening they would be worn at full length to frustrate the mosquitoes. To economise in footwear the army supplied knitted hose-tops, tubes, near khaki in colour that covered the socks just above the ankle while the tops were turned down just below the knee. Webbing gaiters covered the junction of boots and hose-tops; whether the gaiters were aesthetic or functional I don't know, either way they were two more items to be blancoed; perhaps they would deter an aggressive snake. Duties on board were no different than before but there were free periods when we could indulge in the only gambling game permitted by the army, Housey, or Bingo as it is more usually called today. We spent a lot of hours gazing out to sea, I didn't find that boring, there was always something fresh to see, even when looking at nothing in particular there was the ever-changing pattern of the waves, not unlike the changing patterns in a glowing coal fire. For the first time we saw Portuguese men-of-war, jellyfish, with their little sails unfurled, and flying fish played around the ship. At night time another phenomenon was revealed, looking over the side the phosphorescent creatures disturbed by the ship's passage brightly illuminated the ship's hull, so much so that we thought the portholes were unshielded; it made a mockery of our strict instructions not to show any light. In this context I put my foot in it once again; seeing a flashlight beam waving about the deck on a black night I yelled, "Put that light out." "Who said that?" asked flashlight. "Who are you?" I countered. "I am the Orderly Officer," said flashlight, "what's your name and number?" somewhat chastened I obliged and realised once again that even when you're right you can't win an argument when you're outranked.