by Carl Muller
‘What? Sir, what did you say?’
‘Shhhhh . . . sooooftly. Don’t wan’th’other to ‘ear.’
Carloboy would lean towards him. ‘Can’t understand what you’re saying, sir.’
‘Shhhhh. Hummuch mon’y’yu got?’
‘Money!’
Seraphin would nod vigorously, look around quickly. ‘Erbout fifty iffu’have?’
‘What?’ (Loud and clear).
‘Shhhhh!’
‘How can I have fifty bucks?’
‘You haven’t?’
‘No.’
‘Then thirty even? Twenty?’
‘I haven’t, sir.’
The man straightens up, ‘Get on with your work. Only asked to see what you will say. Come on, put some vim into it!’
‘Yes sir.’
‘No need to tell anyone about this, I think.’
‘Yes sir.’
He would move away, seeking another quarry.
Todwell had sauntered up. ‘I saw that bugger kuchu-kuchu-ing1. Came to ask money?’
Carloboy nodded. ‘Pukka bloody officer. Last week took twenty from Wimal and another ten from Stembo. Came to ask fifty.’
‘So you gave.’
‘You’re mad? Where have I got fifty?’
Todwell had grinned. ‘When have you got fifty?’
‘Never, I think.’
The boys were not particularly enchanted. The road they were cutting was a downgrade and everybody kept getting in anybody’s way while Seraphin got crosser and crosser, being unable to single out any of the miscreants for a little chat. Dollops of earth and clods flew in all directions and, because of the incline, the heavy roller acquired the knack of suddenly shooting off on its own while everybody scattered whooping like banshees round a Maypole.
Of real progress there was little, and the day did come when even the CO decided to cry quits. It was all Petty Officer Dayaratne’s fault, actually. He had to go and kick Ordinary Seaman Jayasinghe. Nothing would have mattered if he did, but he missed by a mile (Jayasinghe being very nimble when it comes to evasive action), and sent the cookhouse dustbin into orbit. Unfortunately for the PO, the lid of the trash can, which had a most jagged edge, slid off and sliced into his leg. It took some time before he stopped hopping. He then hobbled to the sick bay, told Winnie to do something, anything, before he bled to death.
Winnie was eager to please. He laid the injured man on a bunk, pulled down the blood-soaked stocking, cleaned the wound and applied a pressure pad. He then reached blindly for a bottle from an array on a rack.
He was in his element. His first casualty; his first real action as a Navy SBA. He never checked . . . and emptied a bottle of Sloane’s liniment over the raw gash.
PO Dayaratne shot out of bed as though he had been prodded with a hot poker. His eyes screwed up. His mouth fell apart. The yell of pure agony was heard, doubtless in Bandarawela. Winnie gasped, paled, dropped the bottle of Sloane’s and took off.
The tortured PO leaped after him, still howling, seized a firebucket. It was the only weapon he chanced upon.
The civil engineers of Rangalla stopped not-building their road to watch open-mouthed, as Winnie, singing something from Verdi, raced down the slope. Hard behind came the PO. Somewhere along the way he had exchanged the firebucket for a fire axe. Seraphin blanched and trotted away. He know his duty. The regulating officer had to be brought abreast.
Carloboy put down his spade. At last, he thought, the climax of naval training was upon him. ‘Look and learn,’ he sang, ‘This is how to commit murder in a seamanlike manner.’ The boys yelled encouragement.
The fire axe turned in the sun, missed Winnie by half an inch and thunked on the heavy roller. Winnie accelerated, shot down the slope like a rocket. The PO shot past like two rockets. Then Yusuf let the roller join the parade. It rumbled after the PO like a tank with a stomach ulcer, caught him deftly behind the knees and pitched him forward. It then left the road in a smart navigational wheel and sank into a patch of soft, waterlogged grass. There it wallowed until enough men and rope were commissioned to haul it out. Two down, one to go.
They found Winnie having a nervous fit in a disused bathroom and all but carried him to the hut. PO Dayaratne was gently transported to the Army hospital where he clutched an orderly’s hand and swore that when he was dead, if ever he was cut open, the name ‘Winnie’ would be found engraved on his heart!
14
The ‘Overdue Tyke’ and the End of the CRNVR
Truly could it be said that HMS Overdale Wyke was the Ceylon Navy’s first historic ship. The next to be sailed into Colombo by an all-Ceylon crew was the Royal Canadian minesweeper, HMCS Flying Fish. She was a beauty, imposing with her forty-foot mast and a displacement of just 1,040 tons. Light. So light that when at sea only the strongest stomachs could stomach her. Also, she was on indefinite loan from the Royal Navy and remained so until a cyclone drove her inland from her anchorage at Talaimannar and broke her heart and her bottom.
Carloboy actually mourned her passing. Never had he enjoyed sealife more than on her pitching, bucking decks.
The government then purchased another minesweeper and called her HMCyS Parakrama. Vijaya was, according to tradition, the first Aryan king of Lanka. He came in from north India where his father was happy to see him go. He sailed in with 700 brigands and, with the help of a local witch, raised a kingdom, having put the locals to the sword. That was over five hundred years before Christ.
Gemunu was named after the southern hero-king Duttha Gamani (later softened to Dutugemunu). This man, in the first century BC, drove the Dravidians and Damilas (Tamils) out of the country and made of Lanka a single Sinhalese land.
Parakrama was another great Sinhala king who made of the country a veritable granary.
But HMCyS Parakrama came later. So did HMCyS Vijaya. What the CRNVR regarded with great affection and respect was the ‘Overdue Tyke’. She had an executive commanding officer and two other officers (one the First Lieutenant and the other the engineering brass). There was also an engineer, three signalmen, three telegraphists, four special duty men, fourteen seamen, three cook-stewards and eleven stokers. Her main area of operations were the Colombo, Galle and Trincomalee harbour approaches which she swept diligently, and also provided escort and conducted patrol duties as well as serving as a guardship at Port T—the code name for Addu Attol, where a considerable part of the British East Indies Squadron was based.
Her day of glory came when on Indian Ocean patrol in 1945. The Italian Navy had been instructed to surrender to the Allies. Even as the Overdale Wyke steamed south, the ten-inch signals projector of an approaching warship began a flurry of dots and dashes. It was the Italian light cruiser Eritri.
The Italians had realized, long ago, that the Benito-Adolf relationship was getting their country nowhere. They were, they knew, on the wrong side and were suffering much for their choice. They welcomed the thought of surrender. They grew most excitable about the prospect, but then, the Italians by and large are a very excitable lot. When they are not getting all steamed up they sign Neapolitan love songs.
The Commandante of the Eritria was anxious to get the business over. He could have blown the Overdale Wyke out of the water. Instead he began a flurry of signals. He had his orders. He surrendered.
The Ceylonese boarding party was oh, so proud. They had captured a cruiser, fourteen big guns and all, without a shot. They accepted the Eritria