of Palestine Maritime Lloyd, owned by a group of Jewish businessmen based in Haifa, Palestine. He was sceptical of signing a woman engineer until he saw her papers. Palestine Maritime Lloyd operated mostly coasters of to , but had also one small deep-sea cargo and passenger ship, the (Mount Zion), that which could carry both cargo and 110 passengers. Har Zion needed a new Second Engineer so he immediately offered Drummond a berth at a salary of £41 10s. Har Zion was registered at Famagusta in the British Protectorate of Cyprus. Her officers and crew were a mixture of Arab, Czech, Egyptian, German, Hungarian, Russian, Spanish, and the ship's dog was Polish. She was built in 1907 and by 1940 was in poor condition. Drummond mastered disciplinary problems among the engine room crew and then in drydock in Antwerp completed enough furnace and boiler repairs for Har Zion to pass its Lloyd's Certificate inspection. In Antwerp Har Zion took on a Greek Third Engineer who clashed with Drummond. The ship worked to Beirut, Haifa and back, and on its return trip evacuated the British Consul and part of the British Expeditionary Force from Marseille to Gibraltar. When the ship returned to London in July 1940 Drummond left to get away from the Third Engineer. About a month later, in August 1940, Har Zion was sunk in the Western Approaches by the , with the loss of 36 of the 37 people aboard. Bonita In August 1940 a Panamanian company, Compañía Arena Limitada, gave Drummond a berth on its cargo ship at a salary of £46 10s — £5 a month more than on Har Zion. Drummond joined her at Fowey in Cornwall where the ship loaded china clay for the USA. Being a neutral ship she was not offered the protection of a place in a convoy. On the morning of Sunday 25 August 1940 Bonita was in the North Atlantic about from land when Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft attacked. Drummond was on watch and immediately ordered the fireman and greaser to join her on the starting platform ready in case they needed to escape. Near misses from bombs blew all the lagging off the pipes in the engine room and split the main water service pipe feeding the boilers. Fuel oil started leaking from somewhere, hitting Drummond in the face and closing one of her eyes. She