Quartermaster on the SS Northern Prince
Heroes Remember
Quartermaster on the SS Northern Prince
There was a few rough spots in my education
that had to rounded out because my
intention was to become a ship's officer,
a navigator in the merchant navy.
At a point I had enough coaching,
tutoring in trigonometry to say,
to realize well I can carry on now and
at about that time I had a call from an
Alec McFarlane, who was the assistant
manger of the local branch of the
Furness Withy Company, which was
the company I had sailed with previously,
“Can you come to see me?” I said, “Yes.”
So I went to see him and he said,
“We have the Northern Prince in New York.
She's loaded. She's ready to go to London
and the crew has walked off,
” that is the deck crew.
He said, “We need sixteen men.”
Well I said, he said, “Are you interested?”,
I said, “Yes I am.”
I said, “Put me down as quartermaster.”
which he did. And about the,
about the 15th of December, this is 1939,
we left Saint John's on a passenger ship
called the Fort Amherst and six or seven
days later we were in New York.
We went from the Fort Amherst straight
aboard the Northern Prince and
in the purser's square which is where the
purser is in his office and things, who'd be
standing there but Captain Jefferies Davis,
now Captain Davis was the master on the
Queen of Bermuda when I was there and
he remembered me as a young quartermaster.
He come over and he shook hands,
and I was as proud as punch to think that
he would remember me but he did and
he introduced me to Captain Bucklam,
master of the Northern Prince and he says,
“Now this young fellow”, he says,
“I can recommend him.” He says,
“He was quartermaster with me
on the Queen of Bermuda.”
So within the hour, we were underway,
signed on, on our way down the Hudson River
and we, two hours later we got out,
we got out to the Ambrose Light Ship.
That is the pilot's station, discharged the pilot
and got underway. And I got a shock,
it was a shock in that the first thing
that happened as soon as the pilot was
dropped all lights on the ships turned off.
Not a light left there,
not even the port and starboard light.
Not a light, but off on the starboard,
on the port quarter the lights of New York
like you've never seen it before,
everything a blaze of light there and
us going off into the darkness.
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