Chain Gang

After 28 days at sea and I was back in Bangalore for a week before I made a return trip to London and onwards to Southampton. We were put up in a hotel for a week’s training in understanding the layout and procedures of a new ship that was being built in Germany. We proceeded to Hamburg from London’s second busiest airport, Gatwick and took a coach to the ship building yard (Meyer Werft) at Papenberg, a two and a half hour ride. This was to be our home for the next 45 days or so.

Life on the dry dock was more regulated as the ship got herself ready to travel to Soton (short for Southampton) for its inauguration in April. The housekeeping team of 45 members had but one job to do. Stock up the ship and we were the Chain Gang. Every day, there would be multiple announcement in the ships tannoy (speaker system generic term named after its manufacturer like Xerox) and we had to present ourselves at the dock as and when the truck arrived to be unloaded.

The original term of the Chain Gang was in reference to prisoners chained to one another as they went about doing heavy labour like laying railway tracks or working the mines and the only difference that we were not chained but the feeling was similar. We would stand a few feet apart and as extended as possible in order to cover the longest distance and pass items one at a time till it is stacked at the last person, re-form the chain and repeat the process till it reached its intended location. We practically stocked all the material in the ship by physical labour.

Felt like the Indian coolie under the British raj.

Since there was a ban on bringing in cardboard cartons, they had to be unpacked at the dock and the contents transferred separately. We only had a few luggage trolleys to help us transfer the heavier items

It was in this dry dock that i managed to spot the massive brass pair of 38 ft. propellers that moved this new ship that was being built. And it was here that I saw an Indian scratch his name on this propeller leaving his mark permanently. I also got to see the efficiency of the German workmen as they rushed about with nary any talking to ensure the ship is delivered on the day it was promised a couple of years ago.

The little bit of German that I learnt did come in handy in this part of my journey for which I am thankful to Herr Basu of Shekhar’s Commercial Institute on Sardar Shankar Road (now an Annamalai Study center, I think).

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