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DOG, 1st CLASS, DISGRACED

H.M.S. “MANCHESTER”

ADMIRAL BURST INTO VERSE

This is a perfectly true, but unimportant story about the war at sea. There is nothing in it about strategy and tactics, nothing about bomb ranges and gun sights.

But that is not my fault. You must blame, if you want to throw any blame, the officers of H.M.S. “MANCHESTER”. They thought the story had “what you writing chaps call news value”.

It all began at Dunkirk, so far as the “MANCHESTER” is concerned. Among the many hundreds of living creatures rescued from the inferno of the beaches there last May by one of our destroyers was a waif, presumed to be a native of Dunkirk, of uncertain parentage, lacking any identity papers and bale to answer questions only by a timid insinuating little shrug of his squat body.

In other words, a dog – one lost, bewildered dog among 333,000 momentarily bewildered humans.

SAILORS SAVED HIM

Now a pedigree dog, with all his papers in order, has certain difficulties about landing in this country. This poor refugee might well have ended up in the lethal chamber, but some of the “MANCHESTER’S” crew heard of his plight, the necessary formalities were attended to, and in due course, the dog arrived on board the “MANCHESTER”

He was given a proper official registration, and a conduct sheet. His name, it was decided, should be ‘SHRAPNELL’. He was started in the rating of “Ordinary Dog, First Class”, and told that if he was a good dog he might be promoted.

Shrapnell settled down to sea life very well, once he had got accustomed to sharing quarters with the ship’s oldest inhabitant, one LESLIE, a most ladylike cat who joined when the ship was still building.

He takes proper pride in the ship’s doings. When the “MANCHESTER” was steaming at the head of the line towards the Italian Fleet at the Battle of Spartivento on November 27th, Shrapnell trotted around carrying out a minor “Admiral’s inspection” of his own.

OUTRAGEOUS BINGE

And I have it on the authority of the Captain that that morning, for the first and only time in his career afloat, Shrapnell went up to the bridge to see that things were all right there.

But such conduct was too good to last. When next the ship was in port Shrapnell, with an “excellent” on his conduct sheet, was given shore leave. And he went on a most outrageous binge. Not only did he fail to come back on board at night, thus overstaying his leave by eight hours, but he was missing the whole of the next day and the next night.

And when he ultimately reappeared at the gangway, 48 hours overdue, he was a sad and sorry sight, thus aggravating his offence by coming on board in a disgraceful condition.

There was nothing for it but a court-martial. With proper solemnity the accused was produced in court. There were four separate and distinct charges, as required by King,s Regulations. Poor Shrapnell was found guilty on all four. I forgot what were all the punishments.

DEPRIVED OF BONES.

I know that one was “deprived of bones – 14 days”.

The findings of the court were in due course submitted to the Admiral for confirmation, and he was so moved by Shrapnell’s lapse that he burst into five stanzas of verse in which he rang some most ingenious changes on the rhymes to “Shrapnell”.

Does it all sound just the least bit infantile? Not if you know what life in war time can be like in a cruiser, patrolling the sea week after week, now in the Red Sea, now somewhere off Iceland, with only the newspaper of some fourteen days ago to re-read for the fourteenth time, with no mail from home for the past three weeks because somehow the mail missed you the last time you were in harbour.

I think Shrapnell’s binge was a real good job of work. It was his little effort to cheer things up and prevent anyone on board getting too mouldy. And anyway, it is a long time since anything in the navy caused an Admiral to burst into verse.

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(By H.C.Ferraby, of the MANCHESTER GUARDIAN.)

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