Page 129 - Bulletin 15 2011

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turret-ship, so built because of the dues levied by the Suez Canal Company. These dues were

calculated on the breadth of the beam.

It was a dark night and people ashore were drawn to the wreck on hearing the rocket-gun firing
and seeing the rockets. In a desperate effort to draw attention to their plight the crew had thrown

life-buoys overboard, which had floated ashore. On the one side they bore the inscription: “SS
Clan Monroe aground, send assistance”, and on the other side “Telephone Cape Town send

assistance. Inform Simon’s Town.” These messages received a great deal of attention.

The news became known in Cape Town at about 06h00 the next morning and shortly afterwards

the bugles at the Castle sounded The Assembly with the result that in a short space of time a
th
rocket-apparatus and thirty men of the 84 Coy. Royal Garrison Artillery, under the charge of
Lieutenant Rashleigh, were on their way by special train to Kalk Bay, setting off at about 09h00.
The Table Bay Port Captain telephoned Kalk Bay to ask that all possible assistance be rendered

to the party but horses were unobtainable and the men had to haul their three-ton apparatus from

Fish Hoek siding along the wet and muddy Kommetjie gravel road until near Imhoff’s Gift where
a pair of mules was obtained. They reached the scene of the wreck at approximately 15h30. She

lay 250 metres from the shore, broadside to the waves. (Fig. 4.6).

The Port Captain had also sent the tug Sir Charles Elliott with some men and a rocket-apparatus

to see if assistance could be rendered from the sea, but she returned to Cape Town at 14h00 with
Captain Prince reporting that no assistance from the sea was possible.

The weather on the night of 2 July was atrocious. It was cold with driving rain and a stiff north-

wester. Those on board collected in the captain’s or second engineer’s cabin or huddled in the lee

of the deckhouse, without food, for the galley and pantry had been washed away.

Ashore the drenched soldiers and sailors from HMSs Crescent and Forte gathered round bonfires
to withstand the winter cold, while local residents supplied them with hot coffee and food.