Bid for Freedom

My latest book entitled Bid for Freedom is now available as an ebook on Amazon. If you're interested it's here https://kdp.amazon.com/dashboard?language=en_US

Struggling

I've been struggling for over six months to get back to my dashboard. Somewhere along the line I logged in with a new email address and password. There is nothing in that dashboard yet it will not let me change back to my old email and password. This morning I had been trying for an hour and gave up in disgust. Now I spot a bookmark for blogger and am straight in to my dashboard. I hope this is the start of my new session with blogger. Cheers, everyone.

Rhymes are fun.

Check out my new site and read some of my rhymes. They're sure to bring a smile. https://sites.google.com/site/rhymestogo/

Savoury cabbage rolls

This is a different way to make savoury cabbage rolls. http://scarytaff.hubpages.com/hub/Savoury-cabbage-rolls

National Heroes

Deric Barry has serialised his book, The National Heroes.' Worth a read http://scarytaff.hubpages.com/hub/The-National-Heroes-Part1

Innocent on the run. Part 44

The Bosun hadn't changed though, he was still a hard task master and he rarely had a good word to say about anything. Ricky was his usual clumsy self, knocking over trays of paint and managing to get the Bosun's wrath down on his head on numerous occasions. He laughed it off nowadays, determined not to let the Bosun spoil his exhilaration at going home. Not only was he going home, but he was taking enough money with him to set his folks up for life, if they would accept it. Every night he turned in after an exhausting day, dreaming of his homecoming, one day closer. Mac said to him one day, 'If you've got anything you don't want the Customs to find when we get to London, you'd better hide it somewhere safe. If they send the Black Gang down to search the ship, they'll rip everything apart, including the wall panelling, deckheads, lighting, everything.' Ricky was taken aback. He hadn't thought about the Customs. If they found the money he had, he would probably end up in jail. It would be hard to explain where all that money came from. If it was legally his, they'd want to know why he hadn't flown home with a replacement passport from the consul. He'd have to find a safe hiding place on board. For days he wracked his brains, trying to think where he could put it. He asked people in a round about way, where the best hiding places were. He was working in the engine room one day and he said to the Fourth engineer, 'Have the Customs ever caught you with anything?' 'No,' he said. ` I've got a great hiding place. Forget about under the plates in the bilges, or down the stern under the prop shaft, this is somewhere they'll never find.' He beckoned Ricky to follow him, and they went into the generator room. One of the huge generators was stripped down for maintenance work. 'This is what I do,' he said. 'Put smallish things like cartons of cigarettes on top of the pistons. There's a hollow in the cylinder head, and they fit in perfectly. Bolt the cylinder head back down and connect all the pipework up. The Customs are not going to strip all the machinery down, it would take them forever. But, you've got to make sure first that the generator won't be used, cos if someone fires it up, all your fags go up the funnel.' Ricky asked him if they would be reassembling the generator before getting in to port, and the Fourth grinned at him. `Want to smuggle some fags in for your old man do you ?' `Yes,' Ricky answered. `O.K. I'll be putting the cylinder head on just before we get to the English Channel, so I'll give you a shout and you can hide them in there.' 'Great, thanks.' Ricky went to bed that night happy that he would be able to get the money stowed away safely. The Fourth would know of his hiding place, and would help him take the cylinder head off again once they'd cleared Customs. The ship ploughed on, making heavy weather in the Bay of Biscay and slowing down to everyone's frustration. They were willing the weather to change, for the wind to stop blowing the seas into mountainous waves, and to get behind the ship and blow it into British waters. Ricky felt quite sick again as the ship heaved and rolled in the swells. It had been a long time since he'd experienced bad weather. The smell of the oil in the engine room was nauseating in itself, without the ship's movement adding to it. He didn't eat anything for twenty-four hours, until suddenly the wind died away and the swells lessened. The sun came out and everyone was cheerful again. People were deliriously happy when the ship turned into the English Channel, and the Fourth Engineer had them in stitches down on the plates, doing a tap dance in his engine room boots, and singing at the top of his voice. He had reassembled the generator and Ricky had stowed his bundles of money in cigarette cartons, in the cylinder head as planned. Ricky now underwent the strange malady that effects all seamen when they enter the Channel after being away for months, Channel fever. Commonly called the channels, it makes people so restless that they can't eat or sleep properly. They pace up and down the decks, dreaming of home and the wonderful reception they'll get from their loved ones. The excitement spreads throughout the crew and the problems of yesterday disappear. People who have been sick get well. Others who have fallen out with each other, forget their differences. Tasks become easier and everyone works with a will. The crew cheered loud and long when they saw the white cliffs of Dover, and everyone came out on deck to see them. Even the Bosun was seen to smile. They picked up the pilot and entered the River Thames, everyone in a party mood. It was the happiest they'd been in months. Ricky was leaning over the rails as the ship slowed in the river and the Fourth came out to join him. He leaned over the rail. 'Great to be home again,' he said. 'Oh, by the way,' he added. The Second's down below taking her in to port, and I forgot to tell him about your stuff in the generator. Better nip down and tell him.' 'Right,' Ricky answered and went inside. He climbed down to the plates but the Second wasn't there. The Fireman pointed at the generator room and Ricky went in, just in time to see the Second Engineer about to start up the generator where Ricky's money was hidden. Ricky shouted, but his voice was drowned by the noise of the compressed air starter bursting into life. The generator faltered for a second, then fired up and raced away for a minute before settling down to a steady rhythm. Outside on deck, the crew looked up in amazement as a shower of green confetti burst from the funnel, danced around their heads and was swept away in the breeze. Copyright Deric Barry 2005 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the copyright owner.

Innocent on the run. Part 43.

The engine room was huge and the network of pipes like enormous spaghetti, winding around the machinery spaces and disappearing through bulkheads into other compartments. The engineers and greasers were cleaning up after some major overhaul, as the deck plates were up and people were lying face down taking tools from others who could not be seen, in the bowels of the ship. The noise was incredible, and the main engines were not running yet. Ricky reported to an engineer in a white boiler suit and shouted that the Bosun had sent him to help. He nodded and led Ricky off to one side where there was a pile of black, oily, cotton waste in a pile, with oil oozing out from under it. He shouted in Ricky's ear to stuff it in a bag, then clean the deck up under it. When he'd done that he was to carry it up the ladders and dump it in the waste bin on the jetty. It was a filthy, disgusting job, as Ricky found out that it was not just oil that had been cleaned out of the bilges underneath the plates, it smelled strongly of urine as well. He struggled up the ladders with the bags of waste and dumped them in the bin alongside the ship. He leaned on the hand rails of the ship for a breather and a voice shouted, 'I thought I told you to get down the engine room.' The Bosun had come outside and spotted him. 'I'm dumping the rubbish.' Ricky retorted. 'No you're not ! You're wasting time leaning over the side. Now get below.' Ricky turned and went back to the engine room, boiling with anger. He wiped the decks clear of oil and muck, and polished the steel plates until they shone. He vented all his anger on the job, and felt a little better when the Second Engineer saw him rubbing the plates furiously and came over. He grinned and shouted, ` Don't rub the plates away, they're only thin.' He beckoned Ricky to follow him and led the way into the boiler room. There were two enormous boilers in there, and the temperature must have been in the nineties. One boiler was working supplying steam to the pumps and machinery and the other was open at the front. The Second indicated that Ricky should climb inside the boiler into the firebox, and help the firemen drag out the sacks of scale and soot that were being filled. He sweated streams and got dirtier and dirtier as the soot stuck to his skin. The firemen were stripped to the waist, and had cloths tied around their foreheads to stop the sweat dripping into their eyes. Ricky found some rag and did the same. At the end of two hours the boiler was finished and the bags out on the deck plates. The Engineers started reassembling the front of the boiler, and the Second told Ricky to carry some of the bags up top and ditch them in the bin. After that, he bellowed, 'knock off,' and he thanked Ricky for his help. By the time he'd manhandled two of the bags up to the deck and thrown them in the bin, he was black, soot and boiler scale in his hair and clogging up his nose, and streaks of dirt running down his body. He didn't waste time, but went down to the cabin and found a towel in among the linen that Mac had left for him. He stripped off all his clothes and hid the belt of money under his pillow. The bathroom was opposite the cabin and he showered the muck off, before washing his clothes by hand in the large china sink. There was a drying room off the bathroom, heated by pipes from the boiler room and he hung his clothes up to dry. When he got back to the cabin, Mac was already in bed reading, and Ricky was surprised to discover that it was eleven thirty. `What did they get you doing ?' he asked. `Boiler cleaning, and bilge work.' Mac laughed. `They won't let you rest, you'll see. They'll work you all the way to the U.K.' `Well, as long as I'm going home, I don't care.' He made up his bunk and turned in, relaxing and thinking that it wouldn't be long before he was home. It seemed like he'd been away for years. The engines starting up woke him later, but he turned over and went back to sleep. Chapter 16. At six a.m. Ricky and Mac were called to start work, and they got themselves ready and made their way up to the mess room for a cup of tea. The crew started drifting in, and by six thirty those not on watch were ready for work. The Bosun got them out on deck and they started painting. The weather was beautiful, the sun already shining in a clear blue sky. The ship steamed through the calm waters of the Caribbean at full speed, with no cargo to slow her down, just the necessary ballast to keep her trim. After lunch the Bosun told Ricky to go back to the engine room as they needed help. He spent the rest of that day down in the generator room helping the engineers strip down a generator. It was hot, dirty work and the sweat poured out of him. The noise in the machinery spaces was so loud that they had to communicate by hand signals. It was like heaven to come out of the noise for dinner, and once they had eaten, in the special little mess room set aside for the engineers, they went back down again. The generator that they were working on was stripped down to the main bearings, and the engineers fitted new shell bearings to it, and then measured up the wear in the cylinders. They found that they had to fit a new set of piston rings to each of the pistons, and as the time was nearly midnight, decided to resume the work the following day. The Second told Ricky to come back down at eight in the morning, so he dragged himself up the ladders, showered and turned in. The exhausting work and the heat took their toll, and Ricky found it hard to get out of his bunk when the Bosun called him at six a.m. He washed and dressed and sat in the mess room with a cup of tea. At six-thirty, the Bosun had them out on deck painting again. After breakfast, Ricky told the Bosun that the Second Engineer needed him down below again, and he let him go, scowling in bad temper. Ricky enjoyed working in the engine room. It was hot and noisy, but at least the men were happy and liked to have a joke. They taught him how to use tools properly, how to recognise different types of threads on the nuts and bolts, and to use the appropriate spanners. They taught him not to rush the job, work methodically and efficiently. It took them four days to overhaul the generator, but it was done properly, and when the time came to run it up , it started first time and ran like a sewing machine. The Second showed him how to increase the voltage output from it, and when it was producing exactly the same voltage as the others on the electrical switchboard, to throw the breaker and bring it into operation. He learned to take the temperatures of the main engine and the ancillaries, keep a check on the oil pressures and water levels used for cooling, and to watch the water pressure and temperature in the boilers. The burners in the front of the boiler were regularly changed, and the used ones had to be stripped down and cleaned, scraping carbon out, and re - seating the atomisers after soaking them in diesel oil. Work continued around the clock, the regular routine making the days flash by. Ricky continued helping out on deck when he wasn't needed down below in the engine room, and he noticed the weather changing as they got further North into the Atlantic. The swells were getting bigger and the wind picking up. The temperature was several degrees lower, and they started running into rain squalls. People working outside changed from their tropical wear into shirts and trousers again. The mood of the men had changed as they got nearer to their home country, and people were actually smiling as they went about their tasks on deck. Copyright Deric Barry 2005.