A Soup Bowl Full of Rum
Heroes Remember
A Soup Bowl Full of Rum
I remember having an awful time in the wireless office. I was
on reading a routine, when this … when it broke into plain
language to all ships at sea. I had the message for years and
years that I copied down. I don’t know where it is now, but …
“To all ships at sea, the war in Europe is over. Splice the
main brace. God bless the King.” And that was it. Everybody
gathered in the mess deck and the rum was ladled out to all from
an oaken cask with, “God bless the King” on the side of it. And
the old man at that point said that he didn’t believe that the
water was entirely free because he said there’s some hot heads
out there that are just waiting for a chance to do their thing.
So he said, “If you hold off on splicing the main brace, I’ll
make it up to you when we get into port.” So, that’s what
happened. We didn’t splice the main brace until we got into
port. Now at that time, they had the riots in Halifax and we
couldn’t get into Halifax. So they sent us down to Shelburne,
Nova Scotia where we tied up in the middle of the harbour. And
the old man had - I don’t know whether they were kegs of beer or
milk cans of beer - brought aboard and spotted aboard, around
the ship in strategic places. So you could drink the beer. And
that’s when we spliced the main brace and everybody lined up in
the seamen’s mess. And the paymaster was there and he was
ladling it out as if it came out of his own pocket. And every
time somebody showed up that was on the captain’s good books,
he’d give his arm a little nudge and he’d get a little more rum.
So I had, I think by this time, the paymaster was a little
cheesed off and he figured why fight it? And he was ladling it
out as hard as he could and I got a soup bowl full of rum. And
I remember leaving, and the navigating officer was officer of
the watch that night, and he said to me, “Don’t, please don’t
get too loaded, ‘cause,” he said, “If I have to get a message
ashore” he said, "I'm going to need you." So I locked myself in
the wireless office with my bowl of rum, turned on one of the
receivers to some nice music and proceeded to write a letter to
my fiancé, ‘cause when I got home on leave the next time, she
hands me this letter and says, "What does this say?" I said, "I
don’t know." She said, “How come you don’t know?” I said,
“Well, it was pretty rough at sea that day." So I said, "I
can’t read it, forget it." I guess I’d had a little more to
drink than what I thought, ‘cause I couldn’t read the letter.
I don’t know what I said.
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