130 CHALLENGER 



work outside the harbour. At night the surveyors had an immense 

 amount of work to ink in before they fell, wearied, into their 

 bunks for the short night's sleep. But the pace of the survey did 

 not constrain the Captain to lower his standards of ship cleanliness ; 

 the regular weekly rounds of the mess-decks were carried out and 

 the upper deck was inspected on Sundays with the same attention 

 to detail as he had shown when inspecting the ship on her West 

 Indies commissions in those far-off peaceful pre-war years. The 

 white of her hull, the yellow of her funnel and upperworks, 

 were no more, but the Captain expected even a camouflaged 

 vessel to be 'ship-shape and Bristol fashion'. A war-time habit of 

 plastering the decks with lime to whiten them had replaced, 

 in many ships with wooden decks, the age-old holystone, but 

 only once did the Chief Bosun's Mate attempt this short-cut to 

 cleanliness. 



As one of H.M. ships comes to anchor the Union Jack is hoisted 

 at the flagstaff on the forecastle head, the gangway is lowered and 

 the lower booms to which the boats will be moored are swung 

 out; all should happen in one synchronised movement as the 

 first rumble of the anchor chain is heard. This was not always so 

 in time of war but it certainly was so in Challenger. Despite a 

 week's arduous work behind her, if the booms did not go out 

 instantly as the ship let go her anchor, then she weighed and came 

 into anchor again. Not only did she thug earn for herself a reputa- 

 tion as a 'tiddly' ship within the Fleet but the seniority of her 

 captain was soon widely knowoi. 



It is the custom in the Service that when one of H.M. ships 

 passes or is passed by another, the ship having the junior com- 

 manding officer pipes the 'Still' upon the boatswain's call and 

 the crew stand to attention. The 'Still' is then piped in the senior 

 ship, followed a minute or so later by the 'Carry On', when the 

 junior ship may then do likewise. Captain Wyatt was by now a 

 very senior captain in the Navy List. One day a cruiser coming in 

 from seaward passed Challenger working at the harbour entrance ; 

 it never crossed the mind of the cruiser's captain or the members 

 of his signals staff that such a small craft could be senior to their 

 own great ship, and no piping took place in either vessel. With- 

 out further thought the cruiser's captain sent a sharp signal ad- 

 monishing Challenger for her failure to pay the traditional marks 



