From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles: A Midshipman's LogForester, Wolston B. C. W. (Wolston Beaumont Charles Weld)
History
From Dartmouth to the Dardanelles: A Midshipman's Log
Forester, Wolston B. C. W. (Wolston Beaumont Charles Weld)
World War, 1914-1918 -- Personal narratives, English
The day after our arrival the three of us who were to be stationed at
the lighthouse packed our tin cases and disembarked, taking with us a
portable range-finder, a dumaresque, and some cooking utensils. Having
piled all the luggage on a taxi which had been hired for us, we started
for the lighthouse, which was on the other side of the island.
At first the road, bounded on one side by a high embankment and on the
other by the harbour, was slightly uphill, but presently we passed into
a grove of trees and then under the Uganda railway bridge, and so along
a straight and level road bordered by palm and various other tropical
trees. Then came a native village composed of mud huts set back in a
clearing to the left. Here a foolish ostrich, which I imagine belonged
to the natives, fled across the road in front of the car and narrowly
escaped being run over. A little later we reached the outskirts of the
town, and after passing through it for a short distance turned to the
right, and leaving the native barracks and the prison on our left,
proceeded along a level track raised above the surrounding scrub,
and flanked by trees wherein hundreds of birds’-nests hung, until we
came to the hospital. Here we again turned to the right, and shortly
afterwards we arrived at the lighthouse, where we unloaded our luggage
and dismissed the taxi.
Finding that the tent in which we were to live was still in possession
of the soldiers who had lived in it hitherto, we left a message with
the native look-out boy, requesting them to remove themselves before
nightfall, and we went off to the town for some tea. After tea the
Lieutenant and Browne went to buy a stove and a kettle and one or two
other things we required, while I walked back to the camp to look
after our gear. I found the soldiers had gone and the tent was ready
for us, so I set about moving in our things. Presently the Gunnery
Lieutenant came up to see the camping place and to arrange with us
where we should set up the range-finder, etc. I told him the others
were shopping in the town, and we sat down and talked until they
turned up. Then it was decided to set up our instruments on top of the
look-out house, and to carry the flexible voice-pipe from there through
the window below to the plotting-table where the chart was. This done
“Guns” departed, and we set to and arranged our beds and made the tent
ship-shape and habitable.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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