1 64 CHALLENGER 



day and had already landed armed patrols to which Challenger^ s 

 modest party was now added. 



Captain Southern, as the senior naval officer present, conducted 

 the naval side of the operations ashore, wdiere the Navy were 

 assisted by the Royal Air Force and the Aden Protectorate Levies. 



Gradually the situation began to come under control and it was 

 not long before the sailors on the barricades in the Crater area 

 were receiving coffee and tea from both Arab and Jew, the very 

 people upon whom they had been firing, without, it must be said, 

 much lethal effect, only 24 hours before. 



One night, however, one of the naval sentries saw a figure 

 moving stealthily towards him through the darkness. He called 

 to the figure to halt, but this order went unheeded. A shot rang 

 out in the night and the figure stumbled and fell. The officer in 

 charge of this section of the towoi hurried to the spot and, with 

 the sentry, went forward to see whether Jew or Arab had fallen. 

 The figure which had ignored the order to halt, and had moved 

 unconcernedly during the hours of curfew, proved to be a goat. 



The survey off the coast of Qatar was being continued north- 

 eastwards in order that a route mi^ht be located from the centre 

 of the Gulf into the port of Umm Said, which was already under 

 construction in the lee of the Fasht al Arrif reef. 



A new ship's Medical Officer was on his way as relief for 

 Rutherford, who was to return to England. This was Surgeon- 

 Lieutenant F. S. Preston, R.N.V.R., who was travelling in 

 H.M.S. Wren — one of the frigates forming the Persian Gulf 

 squadron — and Challenger made a suitable rendezvous with Wren 

 so that Preston might be transferred. As none of the officers was 

 known to Preston, it was decided that they should exchange 

 uniforms before he came onboard. The Paymaster became Doc. 

 Rutherford, awaiting relief, while the others exchanged uniforms 

 as they could ; General Gordon was too small and the Boatswain 

 too large to wear anyone else's clothes. Bill Ashton was in civilian 

 clothes and represented an American oil man who was taking 

 passage to Doha in the ship. 



Preston came onboard before lunch and at once felt that he 

 was amongst a jolly but somewhat peculiar crowd of officers. 

 Doubtless they were suffering from too long a period stationed 



