”
ACCORDING TO BART
A shipping news reporter putting together a piece to entertain readers and get syndicated isn’t going to be shy about a little embellishment. It’s not “fake news”; it’s harmless tall-tale fun. And there’s a reasonable amount of fact in the fiction.
Not to let the cat out of the bag, but it is highly unlikely this ship’s cat arrived gift wrapped (and silent!) in a suspicious bag with a label saying “Open beyond three-mile limit” in October 1929. However, she certainly arrived just before Discovery left Cape Town and was the much loved and written-about mascot for both British Australian New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition voyages in 1929–30 and 1930–31. It’s not clear who had naming rights, but Sir Douglas Mawson always called her Blackie, as did a number of the scientists.
As for the account of the dramatic rescue, the cat wasn’t “navigating the ice-strewn seas”; Discovery was stopped at the time, according to Captain Davis, and no boat was lowered. As Harold Fletcher told it, what actually happened is the stuff of a “get me outta here” reality show, where a lot of things go wrong before something goes right:
One of the crew happened to see Blackie, the ship’s cat, jump from the gunwale into the sloping-out rubbish chute. Frantically clawing at the sides to save herself, she finally shot out into the sea. A cry of “cat overboard” brought all hands on deck and attempts were made to rescue Blackie as she swam alongside the drifting ship. Frustrated by the ineffectual efforts at rescue, Lofty Martin jumped overboard to save his pet, but the water was so cold he barely had time to tie a rope around his waist before succumbing to the cold. Dragged to the side, he was hauled on board half frozen, but soon recovered after a change of clothes and a good nip of rum provided by Captain Davis. In the meantime, Falla [the onboard ornithologist] had rescued Blackie by scooping her out of the water with a long-handled net.
In a follow-up radiogram, Sir Douglas Mawson clarified a number of things about what happened next, and what went before, which is what great leaders do:
This diversion did not affect Martin but the cat which was waterlogged was revived with great difficulty after many hours heating in the engine room. Blackie now quite restored will have no wish to essay world beyond ship. Blackie had never been ashore, as very small kitten was transferred to Discovery at Cape Town Docks direct from research ship William Scoresby.
No surprise package.
INCIDENT 36: Brush with Fame
Atlantic Conference August 1941,
War Office Second World War Official Collection,
photo by War Office official photographer
ACCORDING TO BART
The official caption for this photo reads: “Churchill restrains ‘Blackie’ the cat, the mascot of HMS PRINCE OF WALES, from joining an American destroyer, while the ship’s company stand to attention during the playing of the National Anthem.” That’s clearly not what’s going on. No restraint. No one standing to attention. All eyes on the great man patting the cat minutes before one of the key events of the Second World War, the Atlantic Charter Conference—the first top-secret meeting between British prime minister Winston Churchill and US president Franklin D. Roosevelt, held off the coast of Newfoundland, August 9 to 12, 1941.
The War Office official photographer, Captain William Horton, deserves a big pat on the back for getting such a meaningful and informal shot when most mascot shots are posed. But Churchill was chided when the photograph published. Why? He patted the cat the wrong way, according to Cat, the monthly publication of the Cats’ Protective League. Cat (or its editor) made the official pronouncement that cats abhor head patting, adding: “He should have conformed to the etiquette demanded by the occasion, offering his hand and then awaiting a sign of approval before taking liberties.”
This must be up there with the all-time greats of petty remarks. Winston Churchill needed to go into that first meeting with FDR cool as the proverbial cucumber. There was a lot at stake at this point in the war. It’s quite possible Blackie sensed this and reached out to the great man at this pivotal moment, thus playing a key role in contributing to the successful outcome of talks, where there would be some pretty tough bargaining. One of a seafurrer’s regular jobs is to help keep things calm. Studies show that simply petting a cat raises the levels of three key chemicals in the human brain that help a person feel more relaxed—serotonin, dopamine, and oxytocin.
What happened next? Churchill and FDR came to terms, Blackie got a new name (Churchill), and HMS Prince of Wales steamed out to Singapore. On December 10, 1941, three days after their surprise military strike on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, a strong force of Japanese high-level bombers and torpedo planes attacked and sank Prince of Wales along with HMS Repulse. More than 830 lives were lost. Churchill was among the survivors who made it to Singapore and safety, but he couldn’t be found when orders came to evacuate Singapore two months later. The crew believed he had gone out hunting, but it’s possible he decided it was time to disembark and stick with terra firma.
Incidentally . . .
The Atlantic Charter was negotiated at the Atlantic Conference (codenamed RIVIERA) by Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt, aboard their respective war ships in a secure anchorage site just several hundred yards from land near a small community called Ship Harbour, Newfoundland. It was issued as a joint declaration on August 14, 1941, and is considered to be one of the key steps toward the establishment of the United Nations in 1945.
The opening paragraph reads:
The President of the United States of America and the Prime Minister, Mr. Churchill, representing His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom, being met together, deem it right to make known certain common principles in the national policies of their respective countries on which they base their hopes for a better future for the world.
The eight points are, in brief:
1. No territorial gains sought by the United States or the United Kingdom
2. Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the people
3. The right to self-determination of peoples
4. Trade barriers lowered
5. Global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare
6. Freedom from want and fear
7. Freedom of the seas
8. Disarmament of aggressor nations, postwar common disarmament.
The governments of Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia, and representatives of General Charles de Gaulle, leader of the Free French, unanimously adopted adherence to these common principles at the subsequent Inter-Allied Meeting in London on September 24, 1941.
INCIDENT 37: Red Lead
Ship’s Log, February 28, 1942
“
Red Lead, ship’s kitten, endeavoured to desert, but was brought back on board, despite vigorous protests.
”
Proud Echo
Ronald McKie, 1953
“
Perth was due to sail at 6 p.m., but delay in reassembling the native labour and disconnecting the fuel lines put sailing time back to 7 p.m. And that hour, which the Zero took from them, may have meant the difference between escape and destruction, between life and death for nearly two men in every three of that gallant company.
But something else happened that afternoon [February 28, 1942] which not one Perth survivor has forgotten. They talked about it in the mines of northern Japan, in Changi jail in Singapore, on the Burma railway, in the teak forests of Siam. They still talk about it when they meet, still shake their heads, for sailor superstition is strong and almost a religion of its own.
In Perth was a cat—a small black undistinguished cat not much older than a kitten. A girl gave him to one of Perth’s crew after a party on New Year’s Eve, 1941, in Sydney. The sailor brought him aboard, where one of the first things he did was to upset a pot of red lead and christen himself to his own discomfort and the satisfac
tion of all. At this time Perth had a commander who disliked cats, and particularly disliked cats on His Majesty’s Australian ships. So during daily rounds—that formal and terrifying walkabout commanders make—the sailors hid Red Lead in lockers, behind steam pipes, and even in kit bags. But keeping the cat quiet was not always easy, and one day a sailor had a brainwave. He decided that if Captain Waller approved their cat, then no commander, however prejudiced, would dare object, and Red Lead would be free to walk even the sacred quarterdeck without fear of being kicked overboard. But the sailor didn’t ask the captain’s permission to keep Red Lead.
He was much more subtle than that. He waited. And one day, when the word went through the grapevine that the captain was on the bridge, the sailor took the cat up topside and strategically released him. Red Lead did the rest. He seemed to know exactly what was expected of him. He wandered round the bridge, stropped himself against Waller’s legs, and Waller picked him up and played with him. From that moment Perth would not have been Perth without her mascot. From that moment, too, Red Lead, with freedom from engine-room to turret, never attempted to leave the ship, but . . . That Saturday at Tanjong Priok Red Lead tried to escape. Three times he went down the gangway to the wharf and made for the godowns, and three times sailors chased him and brought him back. The news soon got about, and men shook their heads and began to remember other things, significant things, and with the superstition of men of the sea to add them up.
”
ACCORDING TO BART
On February 28, 1942, HMAS Perth and USS Houston were making for the southern coast of Java after the fall of Singapore two weeks earlier. They were the only large Allied ships to have survived the Battle of the Java Sea the day before. Late that evening of the twenty-eighth, they encountered the Japanese western invasion convoy at the northern entrance to the Sunda Strait. Heavily outnumbered, Perth was sunk, as was Houston.
Of Perth’s ship’s company of 681 men, 353 were lost during or just after the attack, along with Red Lead. Those who survived were gradually picked up by Japanese warships and became prisoners of war. They were held at first in Java, then sent north to work on the Burma-Thailand railway. Two hundred and eighteen men finally made it back home to Australia.
Of the 1,008 officers and men aboard USS Houston, approximately 350 escaped their sinking ship. Only 266 survived Japanese prisoner of war camps.
INCIDENT 38: Disembarking
Statutory Instruments 1974 No. 2211
Animals—Diseases of Animals
The Rabies (Importation of Dogs, Cats and Other Mammals) Order 1974
“
Detention of animals on board vessels in harbour
12.—(1) Subject to paragraph (2) below, it shall be the duty of the master of a vessel in harbour in Great Britain to ensure that an animal to which this Article applies—
(a) is at all times securely confined within an enclosed part of the vessel from which it cannot escape;
(b) does not come into contact with any other animal or any contact animal (other than an animal or contact animal with which it has been transported to Great Britain); and
(c) is in no circumstances permitted to land.
. . .
(5) The provisions of this Article shall apply to any animal which has, within the preceding six calendar months, been in a place outside Great Britain, Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man.
”
ACCORDING TO BART
This may look like the end of a way of life at the stroke of a pen. But it had been in the cards for years with tougher quarantine regulations. As early as 1908, the UK Board of the Admiralty was insisting Board of Agriculture regs be strictly obeyed:
In consequence of complaints made to the Board of Admiralty from the Board of Agriculture that goats, dogs, and other animals are brought to Great Britain from abroad in His Majesty’s ships, and are detained on board for considerable periods, the Admiralty have issued a circular to commanding officers intimating that they are to discourage as far as possible the practice of bringing Home such pet animals from abroad on His Majesty’s ships.
What happened next? Most seafurrers disembarked. Some disappeared dockside; others did time in quarantine and resettled on shore with old shipmates’ families. A few lucky ones stayed on board, as the Sun reported in January 1976:
A ship’s cat has been saved from death by a special clause in a boat buying contract. Furness Withy, the British ship owners, insist that the Italian buyers should do their best to keep the Siamese cat Princess Truban Tao-Tai, happy in her old age. That means the cat, who has never left the 15,500-ton SAGAMORE since she joined the crew in 1959, will continue to have the run of the Captain’s cabin. The Princess has travelled more than 1.5 million miles in the SAGAMORE and Furness Withy pleaded with the Italians not to have her put down. They eventually agreed. A Furness Withy spokesman said “She is coming to the twilight of her life now and we didn’t want to see her destroyed.”
Doors close. Doors open. The seafurrer’s story has always been one of embracing change. There are still seafurrers. Now equipped with passports and vaccinations, they sail as shipmates to round-the-world sailors. But that’s another tale for another chapter and another book.
Incidentally . . .
Fear that rabies might cross the English Channel prompted this 1974 British order. Fox rabies was on the move. It first occurred in Poland in the 1940s, crossed Germany, and by 1969 was in eastern France. But it was the death from rabies of Fritz the terrier, which an army family brought back to the UK from Germany, that made it front-page news, precipitating panic, a government inquiry, and calls for tough measures.
Acknowledgments
Embarking on a book is like embarking on a voyage—there’s a lot of prep, and you can’t do it on your own. Just as sapiens needed seafurrers to help them lap and map the world, this seafurrer needed sapiens to help research and write this book and is most grateful for their help. There are many to thank:
For staunch support and inspiring designs: Clare Forte and Ky Long
For boosting when all seemed becalmed: editor Bernadette Foley of Broadcast Books (broadcastbooks.com.au); illustrator Ad Long; and marketing guru Brett Osmond of Leading Hand Design (leadinghand.com.au)
For picture research: Walter Alvarez, University of California, Berkeley, and Henrique Leitão, University of Lisbon; Brian Buckberry; Paul Restall, photographic archivist at the National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy; Kat Southwell and Susie Raymond, the Australian War Memorial; Inger Sheil, Australian National Maritime Museum; Neera Puttapipat, Imperial War Museum, London; and Emily Beech, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich
For leads, feedback, fact checking, or permission: Roy and Lesley Adkins; David Campbell, Grinnell College; Matthew Ehrlich, University of Illinois; Frank Fish, West Chester University; Anna Holloway, maritime historian; David Hunt; Lisette Flinders Petrie and John Flinders; André B. Sobocinski, Communications Directorate Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, US Navy; James Delgado, maritime archaeologist, explorer, author; Gillian Dooley, honorary senior research fellow at Flinders University; Heather Farley, historian, US Coast Guard Historians Office; Peggy Gavan, The Hatching Cat (hatchingcatnyc.com); Richard King, research associate with Williams-Mystic; Iain McKie; Lindsey Shaw, navy curator; Cindy Vallar, pirate history buff (cindyvallar.com/pirates.html); John Weale, Montreal; and Michael Wynd, researcher, National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy
For freely accessible digitized newspaper resources: Trove (National Library of Australia) and California Digital Newspa
per Collection
For creating this book: The Experiment Publishing team—
Matthew Lore, publisher; Jeanne Tao, editor; Liana Willis, editorial assistant; Sarah Smith, art director; and Jennifer Hergenroeder, publicity and marketing director; as well as freelance copy editor Suzanne Fass and proofreader Sally Knapp
For maps: John Frith
For being a word detective: Alan Kirkness; and for translating: Alison Kirkness
For being there: Richard Sandall and Emma Sandall
For endless hours of chair warming: Silkie Sandall
Silkie Sandall
Permissions Acknowledgments
Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright holders. If an error or omission is brought to our notice, we will be pleased to correct the situation in future editions of this book. For further information, please contact the publisher.
Illustration Credits
Maps here, here, here, here, and here copyright © 2018 by John Frith.
Ad’s illustrations are cobbled together from his own photographs and drawings, and from clipped, flipped, and scribbled-on images in the public domain with no known restrictions on publication. Credit is due to the original photographers/artists/sources for the following images:
The successful explorers at the South Pole (Roald Amundsen, Olav Olavson Bjaaland, Hilmer Hanssen, Sverre H. Hassel, and Oscar Wisting), December 17, 1911. Photo: Olav Bjaaland, courtesy of the National Library of Norway, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Amundsen_Expedition_at_South_Pole.jpg.