Page:Jack Heaton, Wireless Operator (Collins, 1919).djvu/224

 it from me there were precious few of the others of our crew besides the commanding officer and Bill who were sure-enough tars of the old Neptune stripe. I’ll bet you a dollar to a glass of grape-juice that of the thirty-six men on board—or shall I say in board—thirty of them were sea-sick. Of all the rolling and pitching a boat ever did I’ll give the cake to H-24.

Not only that but when we were running light, that is when she was as high out of the water as she could get with all the water out of her ballast tanks, and we had rough weather I had to strap myself in my chair to keep from being thrown around the room. As one of the torpedo men used to sing, “Mr. Captain, stop the ship I want to get out and walk,” and, indeed, I would have given my pay and the bonus to boot to have had my old job back again on the chaser. It was all Bill’s fault and I didn’t mind telling him so either.

“I should worry, matey,” he would say, and that’s all the satisfaction I could get out of him.

After the rookies got over being seasick we went out on practise trips when each man was taught all about the machinery and how to