THE COVENANTER
and beside it in a small cubicle, with only a The other thing was a set of what looked
small curtain for a door was the toilet. This like old wartime gasmasks hanging in a box
was a wondrous machine and I had to be on the wall , the kind with a tube leading to
instructed in its’ use. a chest pack. These turned out to be some
It was a nicely made affair of stainless steel, kind of escape breathing device. If we got
the bottom being sealed by a highly polished stuck on the bottom; all you had to do was
plate of the same material. put this on , flood the fore-end, open the
Once a deposit had been made the drill was hatch in the roof and float serenely to the
to pull a lever which dropped the plate and surface where no doubt a large rescue ship
allowed the contents to fall into a space would be waiting with hot towels and a nice
below. If this didn’t happen there was a cup of tea. “Not to worry” they said. “We’ll
stick with a scraper at the end with which show you how to put it on if we need to use
to encourage it. The lever pulled back again them.”
sealed the base. Beside the bowl were
two gauges. One showed water pressure on I was getting quite used to this navy lark by
the outside of the hull and the other had now and they tried to teach me the naval
a valve beneath it. You had to check the ranks ( seamen, not officers ) but there were
outside pressure gauge and use the valve on so many variations by trade or qualification
the other one to set the ejection pressure at and so on it was hard to get a handle on
least ten it. There didn’t seem to be any similarity
pounds higher and pull yet another lever to army ranks and many of the ranks were
which sent air to the set value through the more often referred to by a nick name or job
system and ejected the stuff through the description. The two guys I got to know best
hull vent. If you forgot to seal the base you and even become friends with were always
could expect the contents of the toilet to be called Killick and Slinger.
fired back at you. Too much pressure and The Killick being a rank nickname I think
the stuff could go airborne and too little and Slinger being a job description. They
pressure could let water into the boat. It were the main men of the torpedo section
made flushing a toilet on land a bit of a limp with responsibility for the weapons and all
wristed affair. the assosciated tubes and firing gear. They
spent much time on this but also took turns
There is no daylight in a submarine of course at other jobs like steering the boat when
and it is a twenty four hour job just running they were on watch.
the boat with the crew operating a watch
system of four hours on and four hours off. I Between them these two taught me
found it hard to tell what time it was. There everything about the boat and let me help(?)
wasn’t really a concept of day time /night them as they went about the maintenaince
time, the only thing that was fairly regular of their charges, which seemed to consist
was meal time and from what was served mostly of continual cleaning and greasing.
then I knew it was breakfast or dinner time. By the time we were nearing Cape Wrath I
Since I had no useful purpose to serve on was starting to feel like one of them, more so
the boat I just slept when I thought it was since I had no “steaming gear”and somebody
bedtime . It was a bit disconcerting that first had found me an old pair of black overalls
night(?) when I got into my cot and realised to wear. There was a deeper level in the
my head was no more than a foot away from boat underneath the fore-end where there
the warhead of a whacking big torpedo. It was storage space for various parts. Slinger
got more interesting when I noted that I was was down there once and came back with an
sleeping in a steel tube lined with sixteen of ancient Lee Enfield 303 rifle. “ I think this
them. needs a bit of looking at” he says, “Pongos
know about this kind of stuff, What do you
There were a couple of other things that gave think?”
me food for thought . One was a piece of This rifle was not regarded as a weapon. It
machinery bolted to the hull which was to was used with an attachment in the muzzle
be used to fire messages up to the surface in to which a light line was tied and when a
the event of underwater troubles. It leaked blank round was fired the thing shot across
water all the time but when I pointed this to another boat carrying the line which was
out to the crew they said it needed glands then attached to a heavier one and pulled
and gaskets renewed and that could only be in. The idea seemed to be that once a rope
done back at base. was between them they could pass things
66
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