Kelly was by far the worst - always in trouble. It was not surprising in the least that trouble should be around when Kelly was in the drink. One evening when nearly everyone but the duty watches were gone ashore and those off watch were settled down writing letters or playing crib, there was a commotion on the stairs. We heard a group of Stoker P.O's coming down the stairs physically escorting Kelly and threatening what was going to happen if he didn't stay away
from their mess. Threats were of little consequence to Kelly in his state, especially when he knew they had more
booze in their mess and he wanted it.

After a few of these trips back to our mess with Kelly, the P.O's laid it on the line  - keep  him in our mess or its "Irons" for him for the the night. Needless to say, this was disturbing for us but we didn't know what to do.  Someone came up with the idea of lashing him into his mick and with five or six of us quickly buying into the plan. We had him lashed in for the night - we thought. We all went back to our crib games or our letter writing.

All was well until we heard a grunt and a few squeaks which brought us all to attention and immediate action. Kelly had managed to wiggle out of most of the lashing - that is all but his head.  He was hanging there with the ropes lashed around his neck  but he couldn't reach the deck with his feet. So there he hung, slowly strangling to death. It didn't take long to get him out of that predicament and fortunately it sobered him up so we didn't have any more trouble that night.

I'm sure we all thought of the "Mess" we would have been in if things had gone wrong and he had actually hung himself.
K.R. and A.I. didn't take hanging your shipmate very lightly!