XIV 



Cyprus Interlude 



yt s new vessels with modem amenities joined the Fleet, 

 / \ Challenger was rapidly becoming old fashioned and life on 

 J. jLthe mess decks was far from comfortable. As the years had 

 gone by more and more equipment had found its way into the 

 little ship and less and less space was consequently available for 

 purely recreational purposes. The men were messed on an old- 

 fashioned system knowTi on the Lower Deck as 'Canteen Messing' , 

 in which each mess plans its own menus according to the meat 

 it has received as its ration from the butcher, and the delicacies 

 it is able to buy at the ship's canteen. The dishes were made up 

 by the amateur cooks in the mess, the only duty of the two ship's 

 cooks being to see that they received the correct treatment when 

 they reached the galley. Life was always something of a picnic as 

 these dishes were served out on the mess deck to the members 

 of the mess. The men longed to get ashore from time to time to 

 eat and drink in more spacious surroundings, and with different 

 company from that of their shipmates with whom they jostled 

 day in and day out in the narrow passages or on the minute 

 quarterdeck which formed their recreation space. In the Persian 

 Gulf this was almost impossible, for Bahrein was the fortnightly 

 port of call, and this being a strictly Moslem state, the men could 

 only get beer, and that only in the little canteen within the naval 

 area where the laws against alcohol were relaxed to this extent. 

 But each spring, as the weather began to warm up, the last 

 floating beacon was weighed, the camp parties with their jeeps 

 and tents were embarked, and to the delight of every man on- 

 board the ship's bows turned eastwards, barren, humped Jezirat 

 Halul sinking below the western horizon as the ship headed for 

 the Indian Ocean and the long route to the Mediterranean. 



The survey of the coasts of Cyprus had been pushed forward 

 slowly for a number of years before the War, this work being 



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