Apprentices Jim Paton and Horace Hayward taking a break from coal trimming on board the Bank Line cargo vessel Tymeric (1919) while at sea off the African coast. They are having a well-earned mug of tea and are sitting on a liferaft on the starboard side of the upper deck abreast the engine room house. The African crew members taken on at Durban proved unable to do coal trimming and the apprentices had to do the job as far as Freetown, Sierra Leone, where new crew were taken on. The photographer was also an apprentice and he is looking aft, showing the mainmast and the poop.