Reminds me of the time on my first trip when we carried a pair of Barbary Rock Apes from Gibraltar to the UK for Chessington Zoo. The cadets in Fort Beuaharnois were put in charge - David Aubrey and myself, and they were handed over to us by a hairy sergeant just as if they were a pair of hapless squaddie recruits ! They were quite a handful but fitted in very well in "the half-deck", and fortunately it is only a four day voyage in a ten knotter ! This would be mid-1955.
