Firemen Jeer as Port Darwin Sails

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 512, 15 November 1928, Page 15

Firemen Jeer as Port Darwin Sails

1 “GAME OLD COCK” FAREWELL TO CAPT. HOLLIS A genuine tribute to the manner which he handled a difficult situ,tion was paid to Captain Hollis. New Zealand superintendent of the Commonwealth and Dominion Line Shipping Company, when the Port Darwin drew away from the Queen’s Wharf at 5.30 last evening, after a series of riots in which the j stokehold crew attacked the officers. Though further outbursts seemed robable. the trimmers contented themselves with fierce arguing until sailing tin-e arrived. Then, as the stand-by hell sounded, those men not on duty Hed to the rail and one diminutive clasping a copy of The Sun a n account of the riot in it. kept ' a running fire of pointed remarks mainly directed toward a cluster of white helmets at ono side of the wharf. The ringleader of this barracking was hn same man that had complained of njustice when he and his companions were lined at the Police Court on Tues- . v A worthy seconder, of the remarks "which grew more pointed as the hio drew further out into the stream. " s a fireman who had evidently just , omo aboard. Dressed in a well-cut ~it and carrying an overcoat. he offered a startling contrast to his mates, whose attire was, to say the yast of it, scanty. Walking along the deck toward the ■tern and thus keeping level with the 'not of policemen and spectators, the men kept up their running fire of comm The original leader of the group on the ship caught sight of Captain Hollis standing on the wharf. -You’re a game old cock, he cried. ■•There'll be no more trouble. You’ll do me, mate.” The master, Captain I. \V. R. Sawbridge, his collar still dappled with the blood of recent combat, smiled hack, and the ship slid away until the voices of the men were lost in the distance.