Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎40r] (79/118)

was inevitably curtailed by lack of outlets for goods and of ships to carry
them. The result was that even better off areas of the country stagnated
(except when Allied expenditures on buying supplies or employing labour on ports
or roads compensated) and poor areas grew still more wretched. It was the
fault of the war but at least we did our best to assure essential supplies at
cost in British and Allied lives and ships, and it was sad that many Persians
suffered while a few waxed rich.
On an excursion to explore a remote inlet between Chahbar and Jask we took
the dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. too close inshore and grounded. Four of the crew and I, leaving the
engine-hand on board, dropped into the water to fix our anchor well to seaward
so that the engine could pull on it as the five of us tugged on ropes attached
to the bow of the ship. Only hours later with the help of the small tidal
movement in the area could we slowly shift the dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. and make for Bandar Abbas
using the sail to make up for the loss of speed from damaged gearing. Although
I knew nothing of ships or sailing - indeed perhaps because of it - I fancy my
name would have been mud if I had been found guilty of hazarding even my
diminutive vessel, and even in the cause of thwarting enemy activity, by the naval
authority which had put it at my disposal. For I later understood, when a sloop
took me to look into an incident on the other side of the Gulf and stood, as I
thought, an incredibly long distance offshore how extremely careful naval
captains are to avoid the slightest risk of grounding their ship. I was much
relieved not to have presided over the shipwreck of my dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. .
While repairs kept my dhow A term adopted by British officials to refer to local sailing vessels in the western Indian Ocean. out of action I hired a small local launch with a
three man crew to cross the Gulf to Dubai near where, at Sharjah, I was to contact
the R.A.F. squadron of Blenheim bombers which patrolled the strait of Hormuz. The
two hundred-mile passage that night for a 24-foot launch was pretty rough with