We Saw The Sea (8 page)

“But what kind of refit
was
this? It couldn’t have been a full-scale one.”

“God no, they just put that Thing on B gun-deck. Nobody’s seen it yet. It’s been covered with a tarpaulin ever since it’s been on board. The boffins insisted that the ship go through all her party tricks. Of course we had them on board as well, crawling all over the place, most of them looking for the heads. I’ve never known anyone like boffins for looking for the heads, they must all have bladders like paper bags.”

“You must have had quite a time. . .

“But wait. Behold, the half has not been told you. We repelled aircraft attacks, surface attacks, frogmen attacks and submarine attacks. We replenished a destroyer and a tanker replenished us. We’ve taken in oil fuel, fresh water, ammunition, potatoes. . .”

“Potatoes. . .”

“Vital, boy, vital. Must have potatoes. As I was saying, we took in stuff and gave out stuff at every point of the compass. We defended ourselves from attacks from above, below, right, left, north, south and up the chuff. We had ourselves a
whale
of a time.”

“Sounds like it,” said Michael admiringly. He knew that Tubby Rowlands was being anything but enthusiastic but, in spite of that, Michael found himself looking forward to
Carousel
. She sounded the sort of ship where at least something was happening all the time.

Michael looked around him. It was past twelve o’clock and the wardroom was filling up. It occurred to Michael that, though the actors were different, this same scene was being enacted at that time of day in every ship throughout the Navy. Just beside Michael a stout Gunner was reaching for his first gin of the day as eagerly as Tantalus grasping for the wine. Beyond him, two doctors were throwing dice for the first round and in the corner three lieutenant-commanders, one fat, one thin, and one with red hair, were staring bitterly into their glasses; occasionally one would direct on the others a stare of extreme loathing. Commander (S) was writing painfully in the mess suggestion book, sucking a stub of pencil and gaping at the deckhead for inspiration. The stewards were servings drinks as hostilely as though they hoped that they were arsenic. The Chief Steward was watching the chit book as closely as though it were drawn from his own bank account. A burst of laughter rose from a group which included The Bodger. The general level of talk began to rise.

“We’ve got a good crowd here on the whole,” Tubby Rowlands said. “The Commander’s quite a bright spark. The two and a halfs are a bit promotion-conscious but they’re not a bad shower really. The new Jimmy’s got quite a reputation as a player. . . .”

“The Bodger, you mean?”

“Yes. This is the first time I’ve met him. I left Dartmouth before he arrived. I think he’s an old chum of the Commander’s.”

“He’s certainly a player,” Michael said.

“We can’t have too many of them. Well, let’s go and eat and then I’ll show you the whole works. The laundry shouldn’t worry you too much. All you’ve go to do is humour Number One Boy. He does all the work. Just see that the bloody Chinese don’t start knocking each other off one dark night.”

On the way out Michael saw Paul talking to a bunch of officers whom he guessed were engineers.

“I hope you’ve got all the usual vices, Vincent?” Ginger Piggant, the Senior Engineer, was saying.

“I think so, sir.”

“Good. I must go and talk to The Bodger.”

“What’s he like as Senior?” Paul asked.

“Bloody good,” said Cardew. “Doesn’t mess you about. He has a hard time of it sometimes, explaining things to Commander (E) in words of one syllable. Chief’s not a bad old stick but they didn’t have most of the stuff we’ve got in this vessel in the
Victory
or the
Ark
, or wherever he got his ticket. Chief’s one of the people commonly referred to as ‘the old school’. I sometimes think he lost faith in the service when they dropped coal. He and Pilgrim get on like twin souls. . .

“Mr Pilgrim? Is he here?”

“Oh, yes. He and Commander (E) were boy artificers together. On guest nights they get drunk and tell each other what Jackie Fisher said to Nelson the day they introduced steam into the Navy. Let’s go and see what enormity the Messman has perpetrated on us today and then I’ll show you around. Everything’s going like a box of birds at the moment so you shouldn’t have too much trouble.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to give me a pretty good run through,” Paul said. “I’m not exactly an expert on steering gear and things like that.”

“Oh, you’ll learn, boy, you’ll learn.”

Top Flat (Back),
1003A Gloucester Road,
Hong Kong.

Dear Commander Royal Navy,

There is much happy joy with me in writing to you. Myself and fourteen nieces have many happy customers (navy officers special) in years gone by. Always I have tried to make satisfaction for my customers. For the rubbish of your ship myself and fourteen nieces clean your bottom. This is very special offer for navy ships for in normal times we take money for rubbish as well as bottom.

We make bottoms specially clean than all other for Royal Navy ship.

Myself and fourteen nieces,
Joan
(Mrs J. Ah Loo Tuck).

The Commander put down the letter and went next door to Commander (S)’s cabin.

“Cyril,” he said, “how many nieces did Joan have when you were last out here?”

Commander (S) thought back to the high and palmy days when he had been a young lieutenant on the China Station. Life had been more leisurely, the girls had been prettier, and money had gone farther.

“I couldn’t say off-hand,” he said. “But I rather think it was about a dozen. Perhaps a few more. Why, how many has she got now?”

“Fourteen.”

“These Chinese live a long time you know, Jimmy.” “Obviously. Joan’s nieces last as long as Number One Boy’s nephews.”

The Commander went back to his cabin and found The Bodger waiting.

“What can I do for you, Bodger?”

“I had a compassionate requestman this morning. I wondered if you had any back history.”

The Commander took out a massive file from a drawer and laid it on his desk. “Let’s have a look at my Domesday Book,” he said.

“God, that’s some tome you’ve got there, Jimmy!”

“It’s got everyone in the ship’s company in it.”

“What are the numbers for, by some of the names?”

“Aha, that’s their code rating in the Forster-Jones Scale for compassionate leave. It works like the Beaufort Scale. It’s a quick way of letting the Old Man and me know what we’re in for. Care to have a copy?”

“Surely.” The Bodger picked up the sheet and studied it. It was headed “The Forster-Jones Scale for the Assessment of Nervousness in Wives. Why be in doubt, when you can know the worst?” The sheet was ruled off in columns, with a number and a corresponding explanation.

1. Married for years. No illusions left; likes the money but no use for hubby who can go abroad for as long as he likes, as often as he likes, and the best of British luck to him, provided he keeps up his allotment.

2. Happy on her own; can manage house and children herself. All relatives healthy and self-supporting. Realizes her husband is in the Navy and does not object to him doing his share of foreign service.

“To give ’em credit,” said the Commander, “most of them are like that.”

3. Can’t manage the children but otherwise O.K. Needs husband to bash the brats periodically.

4. All right by day, but definitely misses something at night. Wants husband kept in easy bus distance with no night duty. Will suffer from the vapours unless this is done.

5. Lonely, hysterical and maladjusted; pregnant for Nth time (where N tends to infinity). Friendless in heart of overcrowded industrial town. Cancellation of foreign draft and immediate posting home recommended by a Dr Yehudi.

“Now you’re getting warmer,” said the Commander.

6. Going to end it all. Hears burglars in the house every night. No neighbours closer than next door. Requires husband (a key rating) flown home at once.

7. Knows what she married for and it was not for her husband to go gallivanting about with unmentionable Chinese girls. Wants him back the day before yesterday. (Doctor certifies return will be “most advisable and beneficial.”) Will write to MP if not accommodated.

“Wait for it,” said the Commander.

8. Has been going round with a Pole. Husband has anonymous letter. Horrible language, hard lying, divorce. Husband to be kept at home for court case.

9. Very naughty girl but has turned over new leaf. Husband has promised to accept and grow to love little blessing now on way. However, must be flown home now and stopped draft for five years to “cement” relationship.

“Then,” said the Commander sadly, “will I strip my sleeve and show my scars and say, ‘These wounds had I from compassionate cases’.”

10. Psycho-neurotic, suicidal, nymphomaniac. Husband required day and night. No time for naval duties but must have pay. Constituent of Labour M.P.

“Jimmy, this is a masterpiece! “ cried The Bodger. “Every divisional officer should have one. You should put it up for the old Herbert Lott Fund. You might get an award. Can I keep this?”

“By all means. Who is this bloke you’re enquiring about?”

“Ordinary Seaman Gawn. He’s in young Hobbes’s division.”

The Commander consulted his file.

“It’s all right. He’s number three. Ask Hobbes to come and see me.”

Michael, however, was not thinking of compassionate cases. He was taking a shore telephone call on the ship’s exchange. After the normal exhortations and reassurances from the ship’s exchange operator, Michael heard a thin far-away voice, like a voice from the past.

“Hello. Hellohello. Is that Michael Hobbes? Operator, I thought you said I was through now? Hello?”

“Lieutenant Hobbes speaking,” Michael said.

“That you, Mike? Spink here.”

“Who?”

“Freddie!
Freddie Spink!
”

“Freddie!“

“The same. Tommy Mitchell told me you were out here now. It’s about the only sensible thing he’s said since he got here. Keeps burbling about women. What?”

“I thought he was supposed to relieve you days ago?”

“I know, old boy, that was the official plan but things are a bit complicated with the Barracks at the moment. They keep agitating about a wine audit we should have done. It’s a long story and I won’t bore you with it. What I really wanted to ask you was whether you can come ashore tonight? Have you seen anything of Honkers yet?”

“We had a few drinks last night. . .

“You come ashore with me and I’ll show you around.”

“I’d be delighted, Freddie.”

“I’ll see you in the Gloucester Lounge at half after seven, then.”

“Can’t you come on board here first and get up some flying speed?”

“I won’t if you don’t mind, old boy. I’m a bit fed up with the Grey Funnel Line at the moment and your vessel is a hot-bed of it. Is Paul there?”

“He’s around.”

“Ask him if he can come too.”

“That’ll be splendid, Freddie!”

“See you.”

Carousel
had a long naval tradition behind her in Hong Kong. Joan and her nieces had cleaned the boot-topping of every warship on the station within living memory and the Chinese tradesmen who came on board and set up stalls of lacquer work, brocades, silks and ivory in the Canteen Flat had orders from naval officers and ratings in their books dating back for more than thirty years. The tradesmen who came on board were merely the advance guard of a mighty battalion of shopkeepers who waited in the narrow teeming streets off the Gloucester Road for the Navy to come ashore. Hong Kong was the gateway to Communist China, a bright oasis on the extreme edge of a dark forbidden continent. It was the only port open to the Navy between Singapore to the south-west, and Japan to the north-east.

Neither Michael nor Paul had seen Frederick Augustus Spink for over three years. When they did see him, they hardly recognized him. He was wearing a pale beige Irish linen suit, a silk tie, light green nylon socks and white leather open sandals. As he sat in the Gloucester Lounge negligently sipping a German lager and smoking an American cigarette he seemed to Michael and Paul, in their heavy English clothes, the picture of the leisured oriental lounge lizard who may be observed in his natural surroundings in any first-class hotel lounge from Colombo to Honolulu. Fie had lost the greater part of his hair and the dome of his head was bronzed by the sun of Repulse Bay. He rose when he saw them.

“Michael! Paul! How nice to see you again! “

A Chinese waiter hurried to their table with two more lagers; Paul guessed that Freddie Spink was an old and valued customer.

“I can recommend this stuff,” said Freddie.

“God, Freddie,” said Paul, “what’s happened to your hair?”

“Gone with the wind, dear boy. Penalty of the Orient. Now, how are you both? Well, I hope? Apart from being in love, of course. How’s Mary? Does she still love you?”

“Yes,” said Michael. “I hope so.”

“And how about your light o’love, Paul? I’ve forgotten her name for the minute. I only got it through the grapevine the other day. Anne?”

“Bouncing,” said Paul. He was intrigued by the new Freddie Spink. This was not the shy nervous boy who had been so frightened by everything that happened to him in
Barsetshire
and about whom The Bodger had had so many misgivings. He was now a mature man, so mature that Paul thought that perhaps he had gone to seed; there was a lassitude about Freddie Spink which suggested that he had already tried everything and found none of it worth finishing. He was blasé. Paul found himself more surprised and interested by the present Freddie Spink than he had ever been by the old; Paul could say with truth that he had never really noticed Freddie Spink as a cadet.

“Anybody I know in your mighty ark?” Freddie asked.

“You might remember The Bodger,” Michael said, casually.

“Is he really here? I heard he was. What a pity I’m just leaving. We need someone like him to brighten the place up.”

“What about you, Freddie,” said Paul. “What’s this we hear about you marrying a Chinese girl?”