Navy life - the hard way

Wrens play a major role in the Royal Navy

By Emma-Jane Kirby

We had already been awake for more than 24 hours by the time our Sea King helicopter landed on the flight deck of the Australian warship HMAS Sydney.

The heat in the helicopter had been stifling and it was a relief to get out into the air of the South China Sea.

A long line of grinning, grey boiler suited crew was on the deck to greet us.

"You're a female," said one observantly as I jogged towards him.

"We hadn't expected any of your sort."

He stepped back and showed me eight stretcher cots just inside the flight deck doors.

Roughing it

We hadn't expected any of your sort

Crew member

"We thought you'd all be guys so we just shoved a few camp beds down here for you. But don't worry, " he said reassuringly as I began to protest that I didn't care - " I know you females don't like roughing it - you can hot bed with Neral who's on defence watch.

"She'll be up in a couple of hours and that means you can have her bed till 6."

I spent that evening recording interviews with some of the crew, desperate for sleep and hoping that Neral did not like a lie in.

I knew that my turn in her bunk would be a brief one - we'd already been told that at 0500 we were to take a boat transfer from the Sydney to a Royal Navy frigate, HMS Cornwall.

The ship's chaplain, a cheery Tasmanian known simply as the Padre asked us all what time we would like to be shaken awake.

I told him I would like to shower and wash my hair before we left and asked for a wake up call at 0400.

He teased me good-humouredly about my vanity and asked whether I would be drying my hair in the South China Sea breeze or whether I had brought a hairdryer. I assured him I never went anywhere without my super salon blow dryer.

I had not expected it would still be dark at 0500, so when I climbed out on deck I was shocked to see everything was pitch black.

The deck was swarming with grey boiler suits, most of whom were busy loading the transfer boat, a sort of motorised rubber dinghy, with our suitcases and recording equipment.

Capsizing

HMS Cornwall: where the drama took place

I watched as the boat was lowered over the deck and onto the water and I noted with some alarm, quite how rough the sea was.

The waves were whipping the side of the boat and from time to time smashed across the open top, soaking our luggage and the two Australians who were already on board.

I am not a good sailor and when I saw the flimsy rope ladder we had to climb down being thrashed and twisted into knots by the wind, I began to feel very uncomfortable.

I found Adrian our BBC cameraman and we started to explain to an officer that we wanted our equipment out of the boat - that if it got wet, it would be ruined, but we were told that we had to follow orders.

We looked in horror at our luggage which was now submerged in water, crashing from one end of the boat to the other as the sea tipped up the boat and flung about its contents.

By now water was pouring into the boat and every grey boiler suit seemed to be shouting.

I did not see the boat capsize but I heard the bang as it went over. In the brief, shocked second of silence that followed I understood the whole picture - I had lost everything.

My equipment, my microphones, my clothes, my documents, my money were all on their way to the bottom of sea. But the thought was interrupted.

Six short blasts tore across the deck from the ship's horn and the tannoy screamed the warning signal.

Men overboard

The two sailors from the dinghy had gone overboard and were now somewhere in the warm, but shark-infested waters of the South China Sea and we no longer had a boat with which to rescue them.

It was 15 minutes before we learned that both men were safe and that the Royal Navy ship HMS Newcastle had rescued them.

Much later that day I met them on deck and talked to them about what had happened.

One of them, a very young sailor called Troy, told me he'd been trapped under the dinghy when it flipped over and that he had been caught up in its ropes and our luggage.

Matt, the other man, was shivering as he talked to me - he could only think about what was swimming underneath the big black waves - from the bridge, just the day before, he'd been watching two huge sharks follow the frigate in search of waste.

That afternoon, as we waited for the Royal Navy helicopters to take us back to the High Commission in Singapore so we could renew our passports, I was somewhat subdued.

I had come on this trip expecting to watch the Navy in role play but in my brief stay on HMAS Sydney, I'd seen the Navy do it for real. And it had almost been me in the water.

I shuddered and put my head in my hands. The Padre leaned towards me and touched my arm - "Would it help EJ," he asked gently. "Would it help if we talked about your hairdryer?"