We Joined The Navy by John Winton Page B

hose or line to another vessel you would hoist them. Right now.. ..’
    Maconochie had the unfortunate faculty of being, when out of sight, out of mind also. Half an hour later, the Matron of the College was surprised to see a cadet approaching a state of exhaustion staggering round the parade ground, muttering.
    ‘I’m sorry, Matron,’ panted Maconochie. ‘But I’ve got to exhibit two black balls when I’m out of control.’
     
    Lieutenant Mathewson was divisional officer for the Quarterdeck and responsible for the Beattys’ engineering instruction. He lectured on one morning a week to all the Beattys at once. The sight of eighty cadets gathered together in one room would have daunted most men. Lieutenant Mathewson was in the position of lecturing on subjects which he had never quite understood himself. He found the Beattys awkward. Nor was he such a facile speaker as The Bodger.
    ‘The Closed Feed System,’ he said, ‘is the main artery of the ship’s main engines. If anything happens to the Closed Feed System the ship immediately comes to a grinding halt, all the lights go out and there’s a great shouting and tumult.’
    Lieutenant Mathewson paused. It had been a good opening. He wondered how to go on.
    ‘In the old days ships had Open Feed Systems but they found that the stokers used to tip fag ends and whatnot into it so they scrubbed round and fitted a Closed Feed System. We’ll deal with the feed system in the Boiler Room first. You all know the difference between a Boiler Room and Engine Room, I suppose? I told you last week? Good. Now if you look at the drawing on the board you’ll see. . . . It’s no good asking me questions, you at the back, I haven’t told you anything to ask questions about yet. Where was I? Feed System in the Boiler Room. First of all, you’ve got a doofah thing, this valve which admits feed water to the boiler. . . . Yes, what is it? Do you want to go outside or something?’
    ‘Sir, that drawing on the board says Feed System in the Engine Room , sir.’
    ‘So it does. Sandy must have got the drawings mixed up. Sandy !’
    An elderly man wearing blue overalls looked through a small door at the side of the lecture room. Sandy was one of the battalion of pensioners, the hall-porters, gardeners, boilermen, storekeepers, boats’ crews, stewards and sweepers without whom the internal domestic workings of Dartmouth and of every other shore establishment in the Navy would quietly, but surely, have come to a halt. They were the men who knew the local tides and the local tradesmen. They remembered where the swings and slides had been put after last year’s children’s party. They also knew where the drawings for Lieutenant Mathewson’s lectures were kept.
    ‘Never mind, Sandy. I’ll make do with this one.’
    ‘No, I’ll get it, sir, I’ll get it,’
    Sandy ferreted about in a small cupboard behind his door. He took out a rolled drawing, carried it across to the blackboard, and hung it over the other drawing.
    ‘Sorry, Sandy.’
    ‘If yew doan’t tell me, sir, how kin I know? I say, if yew doan’t tell me nothin’, how’m I to know?’
    Sandy retreated behind the small door.
    ‘Well, we’re all set now. Feed system in the Boiler Room. You know, I’ve changed my mind. I think we’ll do the Engine Room first, after all. You at the end of the front row. Come up and take this drawing down. Don’t let Sandy hear you, for God’s sake.
    ‘That’s right. Engine Room. In the Engine Room you have a condenser, that’s this doofah here, a closed feed controller, that’s this little widger here, and an extraction pump. The condenser, as its name implies, condenses steam into water after it’s left the turbine. I forget now whether I told you about turbines? I did? Good. These whatsits here are tubes. The main circulators push sea water through the tubes to condense the steam. If you get a leak in one of those tubes there’s a real nausea. You get salt water in the