1941-01-11 — Page 9

THE CHINA MAIL, JANUARY 11, 1941.

PLEASURE SHIP TAXI

KEEPS VIGIL

IN THE CHANNEL

(From A Special Correspondent) THOUGH GREY WAR PAINT now covers her peace-time white and gold, it cannot disguise the lines of an excursion steamer familiar to tens of thousands of holiday-makers.

BOMBING MYSTERY

This is the Mystery of the Taxi Cab, found aban- doned after a night raid on London, covered in de- bris dust from a bombed house, with the flag down in the engaged position, 65s. 6d showing on the

meter

and no driver.

In the beige dust with which the cab had been blanketed when

She is H.M.S. Anonymous now, and she shares with many other craft a ceaseless day and night a heavy bomb smushed the build- patrol around the coasts of Britain. Pom-pom guns and a searchlight complete her transformation from pleasure steamer to man-o'-war.

Her task is to watch for any signs of enemy move- ment and to report the passage of air raiders on their way coastwards.

i pent a night aboard the Anonymous, anchored out of sight of land farthest outpost off this part of the coast

Thanks largely to

and her namele

Vessel

sister ships con- 1

voys p safely alapra very day.

If any arate cones within range

Our Hum

L

searchlight Rie

rently. Cut then the ship is sil ent in

black out so complete that no man may even tanke Cigarette un deck

Unseen Watchers

Our de is to watch unseen,

GIRLS DEFY

RAIDS TO

HELP

OTHERS

(BY

A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT)

Two house-proud girls, one a bride of five weeks, are doing their bit to beat This night there is a stir of anti- the German raiders who cipation on board. Over the ship's bombed them out by wait. from IA F. reconnaissance airing on shelterers.

radio a report has been received

craft that there is "activity" off the enemy const. German vessels are on the move.

OWD coust

Perhaps they are only "prow- lers. Perhaps they are transports hugging their

But there possibility that they are headed this way. The thought gives an added keenness to the watch But though no surface craft is sighted the whole night through, we had not long to wait for activity in the air.

"Target" shouls the look-out man, and a couple of seconds later the officer of the watch calls out the raider's position to the captain, At intervals the utlicer reports its bearings and distance.

I sat in the cale under their wrecked homes

Mary as Mrs. Brian and Miss Kathleen Cunton, of south-east London worked through the blitz

Mary's husband

was due home for his first long leave just before her flat was hit. Kathleen courting a soldier.

is

Both have sworn to defeat the horrors and discomforts Hitler tries to inflict on helpless peo ple.

girls

Once, above our heads, there was a swishing sound and a crash. The ceiling shook.

Mary looked up from the tea she was brewing. “A bit more of The plane is crossing our bows my flat has fallen," she shrugged. from port to starboard, too dis-

In the first two hours. of the tant but coming nearer. As # night's "Alert," the two certain bearing and height are served scores of cups of tea and called the captain gives an order hot snacks. for one of the starboard guns tol be ready to fire. Two steel-hel- meted figures step quietly forward from the shadows below the bridge. The bomber is almost within range.

A tense thirty seconds pass. Then the officer of the watch gives a new position, with 2 shade of disappointment in his voice. "Stand easy," the captain calls in almost conversational tones, to the gun crew below. The 'plane has passed out of range.

Suddenly the midnight silence Is torn by the ringing of electric bells throughout the ship. Action stations Sleeping men spring to their feet, seize #ife Jackets and helmets and race for the com- panion way, agile shadows scam- per along the dark decks,

In a few seconds without an or der being given every man has reached his station. Every gun is manned and ready. The raider has at last come within range. Bearings are called and a binding beam leaps from our searchlight.

Slept on Floor

During a full, a frail woman came in and asked for a sausage and chips. Suddenly, the guns cracked overhead.

The woman,

white-faced, darted for the door, hesitated. "Don't worry. I'll bring it over

to you when it's Kathleen. The for the shelter.

cooked", sald woman

hurrled

When, just before midnight the girls were too tired to work on, they reluctantly shut up shop, curled themselves in blankets loaned them by A. R. P. wardens and slept on the floor.

They had to snatch a few hours sleep. They had to be at work in a big city restaurant before dawn. "This is our way of fighting Hitler," Mary told me..

"My hubby is going to take more riska than Lam. He is' going Into

bomb-disposal Equad.

a

of

One of the pom-poms opens a rattle of fire. Our target has been "When my home was shattered identified as a bomber making sea--I didn't save a. thing out ward, returning probably from al everything we had got together, raid on London, Struined seconds] and It was so sweet I decided pass as the gun shudders and the with Kath to do what we could to searchlight prods the sky. But in help others.": less than a minute the chance, of securing a hit has gone, Jerry is

lucky this time.

Night Raiders

which pass too high, for us are.

being tackled elsewhere.

,

Those who man this butpost of Britain's defences come from many So the night passes. Targets walks of life. All the officers are are heard and they fly onward out | reservists or volunteer reservists. of range. But all are reported to One of them, a former merchant the guns on shore, each report service officer, was stage-managing diminishing the raiders chances of a West End play when war broke. reaching his objective unhindered. out. Another, a young man, who From the distant shore, come had spent all his spare time sail- opntinual flashes of anti-airorafting, was accounting to a hotel in gunfire:showing. „that "targata". Portunata thrive

ing beside it, a finger had traced

the words, "I was there," twice.

Twenty hours after the bombing the driver had not claimed his cab. It was shrapnel-riddled, but the engine was in working order. The ignition key was missing.

The cab was parked in the fore- court of an imposing mansion from the rums of which dust was still rising when I arrived there at midday, writer a corespondent

a

The meter has ticked up 65s 6d and the petrol tauk is dry," policeman said. "It must have been there a long time to tick up over The 43 before the juice ran out. driver must have been caught by the blast after he left the cab to seek shelter."

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