Non-Combatants by Alexander Fullerton

Author:Alexander Fullerton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781788630825
Publisher: Canelo Digital Publishing Ltd
Published: 2018-02-20T16:00:00+00:00

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His job when the ship was berthing was to take charge of things on her stern, the passing of ropes and wires, so forth. There was a tug up for’ard pushing her bow in – flood tide if still running making such assistance more or less essential for a ship with only a single screw.

Stern-line over now, anyway: Patterson and Pettigrew taking it to the winch on the centre-line abaft number five, Stone and Walker backing it up while Pettigrew put steam on the winch to warp her in. The double-decker pier looming over them was thronged with people, a lot of whom would no doubt be swarming over – or trying to – as soon as a gangway was rigged. Sightseers and reporters probably (who’d be barred, initially at any rate, by Harve Brown and the bosun plus quartermasters) as well as those who’d be welcomed – recipient families, consular staff, immigration officials, maybe the Sea Transport Officer with news of the dry docking programme.

For Sam, the next hour or so was likely to be hectic. Her priority and anxiety would be to get the right children safely into the right hands, and with the doctor’s help ensure that those in need of specialist attention were set to get it. Consular officials might be expected to play a part in this, especially in the case of children who were being removed to distant parts of this huge country.

Quilla was now alongside and the tug was backing off: hemp breasts secured for’ard and aft, wire springs being passed. Tide slackening, by the look of it, a comparative stillness around the timber piles, arrival alongside seemingly having coincided with the height of the flood. In any case, Quilla’s screw was now at rest, Patterson and co. taking in the slack on the after backspring, Andy at the ship’s side signalling OK, make it fast, while up for’ard longshoremen were swinging a gangway into place.

Now for bedlam…

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