by John W Green
After Rangoon it was back across the Bay of Bengal, round the tip of India and Ceylon and up the Arabian Sea to Bombay for a brief call. It was during this brief call in the evening that I went ashore with the third officer, not to visit any bars but to go to the cinema. I had discovered that the cinemas in the big cities in India were very good, and so were the films. In Calcutta I had previously seen The Robe in Cinemascope. This deck officer hadn’t been on the ship very long, and he seemed to be rather young and unworldly: initially I thought that he had been recently made up from midshipman, but this was not the case. As we came out of the cinema, we were approached by a young lad of about twelve or thirteen. In some places it was quite common to be pestered by those involved in the trade that Dad had warned me about. ‘You like nice clean girl? ’ ‘Jow !’ I said, which was the word we used to get rid of any unwanted pesterer. (We had been told it meant ‘go away!’). It didn’t work for the young pimp. He then continued with a line of the most bizarre sales patter that I had ever heard. ‘All same inside, just like Queen Victoria.’ It must have been one of his great-grandfather’s fantasies that had produced such a sales patter, and it must have been passed-down through several generations. The youngster could have had no idea how ludicrous and ridiculous his pitch was. The image that most ‘Brits’ had of Queen Victoria was a stern-looking grandmother figure, with a floor-sweeping voluminous skirt, glowering out from one of the many statues that inhabited all the major towns in the UK.
Nevertheless, despite the ridiculous sales pitch, about which Queen Victoria would have been quite justified in saying ‘WE are not amused’, the Third Mate had taken the bait. I tried to dissuade him, but he said that he just wanted to go and have a look, so I accompanied him for moral - or should that be immoral? - support to ‘the premises’. When he saw the goods on sale he still wanted to stay; I certainly did not. Apart from the fact that I didn’t have any money, and you don’t get those services on tick, I was not at all interested. Perhaps Japan had spoilt me for any escapades of that nature, so I left him there. ‘See you on board,’ I said and made my way back to the ship. I was disappointed that the Third Mate had stayed, not because the place where I had left him didn’t look too salubrious, but because I didn’t have any money for a taxi. I had been depending on him. Consequently I had to walk about a mile and a half back to the port, through what was not the safest of areas.
Early next morning we left Bombay, the Third Mate had arrived back on board safely. The Padana now made its way up the Persian Gulf to Bhavnagar in the Gulf of Kutch. When we arrived a day later, it really did look like the back of beyond. It was some way along a narrow inlet, where we tied up to what looked like the only ramshackle berth alongside the jetty. Next to the jetty there were some semi-derelict warehouses and behind these you could see salt pans glaring at you, as they stretched for miles to a small town glistening in the distance. There were no visible signs of vegetation and the scene immediately conjured up the word arid, because that’s exactly what it was. Before I shut down the transmitter for our stay in port, I invited the local radio station operator to come on board at the weekend for a drink. As there was only room for one ship, he would have had no difficulty in finding me.
The next morning when I awoke, I couldn’t work out what had happened; it was quite dark in my cabin, which was more or less in the bowels of the ship. I went up on deck and the sun was blazing, but instead of being able to see for miles across the salt pans, the tide had dropped by what appeared to be about twenty five feet and, as I gazed out, I was looking at the muddy banks of the inlet. Crawling all over these mud-banks were some large lizard-like amphibians, and on average they looked to be about eighteen inches to two feet long. The ship was now sitting on the muddy bottom of the inlet. Resting on the bottom caused a bit of a problem: every time a toilet was flushed, the water flowing into the toilet pan would be a muddy brown. So for the two weeks that we were tied up in Bhavnagar, we had to avoid flushing the toilets during the periods when the ship was on the bottom.
The local radio operator did turn up and had a few beers onboard with me. He was a young chap, spoke good English and had a wife and young family. He proudly showed me a picture of them. As he was leaving, he invited me back to his home in the town or village, the following Saturday, but unfortunately the Padana sailed on the Friday and I didn’t get a chance to take him up on that invitation. It was back to Bombay for a brief stopover and then off to Rangoon again.
A Platonic Episode
In Rangoon I went to see its most famous building, the Shwedagon Pagoda where, unlike the pagodas in Moulmein, I was not impressed by the cleanliness. Before you could enter the pagoda you had to remove your footwear, as was customary. Once inside there was a wide set of steps leading up to various terraces. The problem was that pariah dogs were allowed inside, and on the steps they had, not to put too fine a point on it, ‘crapped all over the place’. Despite careful and calculated stepping, and all of my youthful training in barefoot doggy do-do dodging, it was impossible not to put your foot in it, which I did at least once.
On what was probably the top terrace there was a large gong, very much like the one used in the introduction of J Arthur Rank Films. I was invited by one of the monks to strike the gong which, I was told, was the making of a prayer. It was too late to ask for guidance not to step in the crap. Nevertheless, I did strike the gong, not with a splendid hammer as used in the film introduction, but with a tatty old piece of timber that looked as if it had escaped from a building site.
Even though the Shwedagon Pagoda was impressive with its gilded 300-foot high pointed dome which was surrounded by a number of smaller gilded pointed domes, all glistening and shining in the sunlight, for me it was nowhere near as beautiful as some of the pagodas that I had visited in Moulmein. Probably it was the presence of the pariah dogs that had influenced my opinion.
The first thing that I did after sightseeing was to make my way ‘hot foot’ back to the ship and soak my feet in a dilute solution of Dettol. Despite this, I still developed an infection in one foot which took a couple of weeks to clear up.
Being a tramp-ship with no regular run, the ship’s itinerary was dictated by whatever trade the agents procured. So as trade would have it, it was once more back to Bombay, where the Third Mate was transferred to another ship. No, not because of what he had got up to ashore in Bombay. Apparently he had already passed the required Second Mate certificate and he took up a post of Second Mate on another of the BI ships. It occurred to me, during this two-week stay in Bombay, how different it was to when I had been here before on the Orna. Then the officers were granted temporary membership of the exclusive Breach Candy Club. I never took a taxi there to see if I could get in, because I seriously doubted that the Padana would be listed as one of the ships whose crew could be accepted. This time I hardly went ashore, and certainly not at night.
Our cargo commitment took us back to Rangoon again. What I liked about this port was the absence of locals pestering you with offers of anything from dirty postcards to a night of pleasure with a local beauty. I went ashore on the first day and found a small indoor swimming pool which also had table-tennis facilities. As I had time on my hands, I decided to try to have a swim there each morning; only a few people appeared to frequent the pool at that time. On the second day I had just had a swim and was about to leave when I saw a Burmese, or mixed-race, young woman in European dress, about twenty years old, standing near the table-tennis area. On the spur of the moment I said ‘would you care for a game?’ and she said ‘OK.’ So we had a couple of games, and she was quite good, and beat me on both occasions. Two or three times after that, during the following week, I met her again at the pool where we had a swim and a game of table tennis. It was, much to my surprise and pleasure, a totally platonic episode. On what turned out to be the last time that I saw the young woman, just before I left to return to the ship, she asked me if I would like join her and her
sister’s family for Christmas dinner. I thanked her and her sister and said that I would be pleased to accept their kind invitation. It was not to be. On Christmas Eve, out of the blue, we sailed for Mauritius - cargo called.
The ship stopped briefly at Colombo to collect some cargo, supplies and fuel before setting out across the Indian Ocean. We arrived at Port Louis on 9 January just nine days after leaving Colombo, which was pretty good going for the Padana.
Elevenses on The Padana in Mauritius
What Are Your Intentions?
I liked Mauritius very much indeed, but was soon to experience a rather unnerving incident. Not long after we arrived, the captain arranged a sun-downer and invited some local dignitaries to the party. Among the guests there was a rather attractive-looking young Creole lady, and at the earliest opportunity I started talking to her. OK, I was chatting her up. My problem was that I had not yet developed sufficient social etiquette skills, so I spent rather too long talking to her and not circulating enough. Eventually I asked her if she would like to have a guided tour of the ship, and she said that she would. Therefore I gave her the grand tour, which included my cabin. When we returned to the party ... well, have you ever been in a situation when suddenly all conversation stops and everyone is looking at you? It was one of those moments. The silence was broken only when someone said ‘would you like to show me round the ship now?’ It was a rhetorical question and it caused a few laughs, especially as it was one of the male guests that said it ... well, I think it was a rhetorical question.
The truth of the matter was that I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t even touched her hand. I certainly had not been ‘showing her the golden rivet’ as the nautical saying goes, although everyone assumed that I had, including the captain who did not look too pleased. Nevertheless, I did arrange to meet the young lady the next day to go swimming. I had heard that there were some very beautiful beaches on the island.
The next day I went ashore with two other officers, the Third Mate and the Third Engineer and we shared a taxi. They were going sightseeing, and it was agreed that I should be dropped off on the way. When we arrived at the young lady’s address, I was not particularly impressed with the building and its tin roof, so I said to my companions: ‘drive on - I‘ll come with you two.’ They were enjoying my discomfort too much and said ‘No!’ And with that, they shoved me out of the taxi.
There I was, with my towel and bathers tucked under my arm, in a kind of no-man’s land. I made my way to the front door and discovered that the house was much better than my first impression. I was met at the door by the young lady, who said she would not be able to go swimming, as it was the wrong time of the month. She then invited me inside and showed me into a room, and asked me to take a seat, indicating what could be best described as a kitchen chair in the middle of the room.
When I had sat down, she called in two people who I guessed were her grandmother and grandfather, I stood up, shook hands with them, and was introduced. (It was indeed the grandparents). Next she asked her mother to come in, again an introduction was made and again I sat down. Finally she asked her father to come in and the introduction process was repeated. Then the ‘interrogation’ began, but all very pleasantly. How old was I? Where in England did I live? What were my prospects? What kind of salary did I receive? And could I support a family? It was a nice hot day, but suddenly the room temperature appeared to drop by several degrees. My only thoughts were ‘I never touched her.’ Once the interrogation was over, we had tea and cakes. After this I was taken sightseeing in their car, up to the reservoir in the extinct volcano and through the sugar cane fields, then to a local school. It turned out that the young lady was a teacher in the school that we drove past. Her father was a fairly important person; he was in charge of the water supplies for the whole island, which was why we had visited the reservoir. The father drove the car and in the front seat was a man that I took to be the young lady’s brother. I was in the back seat with the young lady, with what I believe was another brother who sat between us. From the conversations, I gathered that there were a further two brothers, both in England - one was a university lecturer, and the other was a flying officer in the RAF at Thorney Island. That was a bit close to home!
In the evening after the sightseeing, I was taken to a restaurant in town. Don’t forget, I was still dressed for the beach. This time one of the brothers drove the car, the other sat in the front, and I was in the back with the young lady. I don’t know we were drinking - probably it was the locally produced white rum, the neat raw stuff, not Bacardi. Whatever it was, it was pretty potent. As I had been on the Padana for over a year, sailing here there and everywhere around the Indian Ocean, drinking whisky and gin had been the main way of passing the time at sea. In fact it was customary for me, like all of the officers, to ‘get through’ several bottles of each a week. Consequently, I was quite used to strong drink. Even though we had only had a few, I soon realised that I was beginning to get a bit inebriated, because on the occasions when they lapsed into speaking Creole French, I was able to follow the gist of what they were talking about from my schoolboy French. Although at school I had been quite good at French reading, writing, and grammar, I had struggled with spoken French. But the local alcohol, with its inhibition-reducing effect, was working its magic.
The evening passed by very pleasantly, but I still had made no physical contact with the young lady. They dropped me at the docks, and we made arrangements to meet the next evening. I deliberately kept it vague, saying something to the effect that I would if I could, but it might not be possible. Then I shook hand with them all ... first physical contact, said cheerio, and caught a bumboat back to a safe haven on the ship.
I didn’t go ashore again for the rest of the week. I never got to the beach. I don’t mind telling you that I was very pleased when we sailed from Mauritius. Don‘t get me wrong - she was a very attractive young lady, but I would soon be going home to the one that I was in love with and who, for me, was even more attractive.
From Port Louis we made our way to Mozambique, then on to Nacala and Beira. It was at Beira that for the first time since leaving London on the Corfu, I experienced a real feeling of loneliness and isolation. Was I getting homesick? One late afternoon when it was pressing on towards evening, just before sunset, I went for a walk to where I had been informed there was a swimming pool that we were allowed to use. It was a walk of over a mile along a coastal road.
Armed with my bathers and towel, I set off along this dirt-edged road. There was no traffic or pedestrians and as I approached the pool, which was alongside the road with no fencing - in fact it was completely open on all sides - there was just one young female (most likely Portuguese) in the water. When I was about fifty yards from the pool, she got out and walked off towards one of the rather splendid houses on the opposite side of the road facing the sea. After I had had a swim and dried myself, the sun was just about to hide itself behind the horizon and the lights were going on in the houses. There were no street lights on this stretch of road, but it was not difficult for me to find my way back to the ship, because of the light coming from the coastal houses, and the lights in the distance near the port. As I walked back, I could hear the sounds of people sitting down for their evening meal, occasional laughter and music. Suddenly I remembered my own family, and became acutely aware that they were thousands of miles away, and I wondered what they were doing at that moment. I never came across another living soul until I reached the entrance to the port.
In all of the major towns in Mozambique there was a curfew for the Africans who worked in them. By nightfall they were banished to their own townships, leaving the towns to the Portuguese, who lived there. It was not until dawn that they were allowed to return to do all the menial work that enabled the towns to exist.
After leaving Beira, we once more made our way northward along the east coast of Africa, calling at Mtwara which was near Mikandani, and
then to Mombasa.
Oh Dear! John!
I would like to relate something that had occurred a few years earlier because it is pertinent to what happened next. It concerns the matter of close encounters of the amorous kind. Before joining the Merchant Navy, it must have been the Christmas of 1951: I was at a dance at Lee Tower on my own. I was ‘going out’ with Jean at the time, but she was not there because she was working. When I say I was at a dance, to be truthful I can’t dance - being short has always been my excuse. Anyhow, I was not exactly on my own; I was having drinks with a group of young men and women in the bar while the dance was taking place. Towards the end of the evening there were just three of us left: Roy, Margaret and me. We were not drunk, but well into the ‘reduced inhibition’ stage. Roy and I flipped a coin to decide who should walk Margaret back to where she worked in Hill Head. Roy won.
This episode was quite important, because if I had won that spin of a coin, my life might have followed a completely different path. Roy told me later that the ‘walking home’ involved rather more than walking. Perhaps it is the brashness of youth that makes young men keen to talk of their conquests ... well, he said that they ended-up on the cliffs tops towards the Hill Head end of Lee. There were no bright street-lights at that time to inhibit them. According to Roy, Margaret was very keen and when they were at the climatic point of their activity, Margaret suddenly exclaimed ‘Oooooh Look, the seven sisters!’ She was referring to the constellation of stars, and was obviously looking skywards at the time. It goes without saying that he was not. He never made it clear whether she was disinterested in the proceedings or if it was the equivalent of the modern ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’ Nine months later she became a mother. They never got married. In fact, I am not sure if they ever went out again, and I don’t think that she ever named the father.
