After “the twelve” was up, a man could sign on for an additional ten years, at the end of which he was entitled to draw a pension. Seamen in their second period of service, and there were many of them in the Hood during these years, were trained and experienced men with a finger-tip knowledge of their profession. The old expression applied to dyed-in- the-wool sailors, “Every finger a marlinspike and every hair a bunch of spunyamcould really applied to such men. They were a living tradition, and without them the incredible expansion of the Navy during the last war could never have taken place.

I remember a typical figure, “Shined White, who was a three- badge able seaman aboard the Harrow in 1941. In a ship’s company composed almost entirely of “H.O.’s”—Hostilities Only ratings—Shiner was worth six ordinary men. He taught their trade to youths unfamiliar with the sea, and he taught them how to live cleanly and tidily in the close quarters of a small ship. Shiner had served as a boy aboard the Hood, and had finished his second period of service when the war began. By the time that it was over—if he survived—he must have spent some twenty- eight years in the Navy.

Life aboard a great warship had its own special unity. Fleet regattas, sports, football, and boxing matches, all conspired to weld men into a dedication to their ship. Within the ship, of course, there were similar friendly rivalries which led to efficiency: the topmen, for instance, would always consider that they could manage all evolutions and drills more efficiently than fo’c’slemen; the starboard watch that they could handle things better than the port; and the stokers that seamen were only carried aboard by courtesy of the engine-room staff. The Marines, somewhat naturally, considered that “Anything you can do we can do better.” Overriding everything came the loyalty to the ship, so that a cap tally glimpsed ashore in some port or large city, bearing the name TH.M.S. Hood,” meant not only a shipmate, but a friend.

By shoreside standards the sailor s life, whether he was officer or rating, might seem limited. They had their compensations, though, and they were many. “Come,” wrote Corbiere, "on board their ships they have their poetry!” and, when I think back on some of these men, I would echo another line of his:

 

C’est plus qu’un homme aussi devant la mer g6ante,

Ce matelot entler!

 

 

Imagine a soft day in the September of 1922. The coast of Brazil lies ahead, the Carioca mountains lifting out of the morning haze. Seen from this distance, the three peaks round which Bio de Janeiro is built have the shape of a sleeping giant. Dividing the white houses and the skyscrapers rises the peak known as The Hunchback. At the entrance to the bay the conical Sugar Loaf mountain needles the sky.

Six o’clock and the hands have just fallen in at their parts of ship. There is dew on the deck, for the humidity off this coast is high and the wind is drawing from the land—bringing with it a heavy smell of damp earth and tropical flowers, of heat and the city. Soon the steady trade winds will pick up with the day and begin to blow from astern, lifting the sea that has been with us all night and sending flickers of spray high over the long sheer of the quarterdeck. The Hood sits easily in a sea like this and the Atlantic swell does not bother her as it does the smaller ships.

“In the Hood,” wrote one of her officers, “we don’t feel the weather very much. She takes sixteen seconds in rolling her normal arc, whereas in the Atlantic and most oceans the period of roll is eleven seconds. The happy result is that our broad- beamed lady is little more than halfway through her roll when

the next wave catches her and steadies her. I find all this very palatial after destroyers. .. . It’s much the same when we have a head or a stem sea—the period between the average Atlantic wave crest is about 400 feet, but the fact that the Hood is over 800 feet long means she is always on two waves, or sometimes on three. ... As you know,” he went on, “we’re on our way to Brazil for the centenary celebrations of their independence. Well be there today—well, within a few hours; the coast is already in sight.”

One thing you would notice is that, while the long fo’c’s’le is completely dry, not a flicker of water reaching it, there are times when the stem settles down in a trough and seems to take a long time to rise.