by John Winton
The Bodger courteously picked up the queen and handed it to Goldilocks. The spectators, knowing The Bodger’s predicament, appreciated the gesture.
Goldilocks threw, covered the dice, and called five aces.
“Cut-throat stuff this,” said The Bodger. “I’ll lift that on principle.”
The Bodger lifted the cup. Five aces lay on the table. A murmur of awe ran round the spectators. They had just witnessed The Bodger eliminated from a liar dice game in seven rounds. Goldilocks could not stop himself smirking.
Instead of getting up from the table, The Bodger bent down and took off a shoe. Sharply, he cracked the heel down on the fifth ace.
The impact split the dice in half and a bead of mercury glittered across the table and fell on the deck where it splashed into several shining globules.
The Bodger stared at the shattered dice. Then, white-lipped, he rose from his seat and walked away. He was followed in order by the rest of the Navy and the R.A.F. teams.
Michael had a letter from Mary at Aden and he took it up to his favourite spot on the boat deck to read. When he had nearly finished it he was joined by Paul.
“Lonely heart’s corner,” said Paul.
“. . . Then Anne came for tea on Sunday afternoon and we sat and talked. It was one of those times when you said you’d like to be a fly on the wall. . . .”
“Cedric’s been invited to do a radio programme on his collections,” Paul said.
“Oh, do shut up, Paul.”
“. . . I think of you every day at the funniest times, with all my love, from Mary.”
Michael looked up and saw Paul regarding him intently.
“Does she still love you?”
“Yes.”
“I gather Anne feels the same way about me. She sends you her love.”
“Good.”
Paul tucked away his letters and lay back in his deck chair.
“How peaceful it all is,” he said, “now we’ve curbed the frumious Goldilocks.”
“Did the Purser get his cards back?”
“The Bodger collected them afterwards. It was a pity about the dice. The Bodger said it nearly broke his heart to smash such a perfect specimen.”
“It was in a good cause.”
“Goldilocks had a terrific blast from O.C. Troops. Old Bushy went on about the honour of the regiment and being blackballed from any decent club and so on. Pibroch told me about it. Goldilocks kept on saying, ‘But Sir . . ‘ but Bushy wouldn’t let him finish and drowned him out with ‘making an apology to the Senior Service’ and ‘what would Kitchener have said.’ He droned on for about half an hour.”
“That’ll teach him to ask The Bodger to play deck tennis on hot afternoons.”
Goldilocks’s eclipse left a gap in the ship’s life, like the lancing of a boil. The passengers walked the decks without fear, confident at last that the next corner would not reveal Goldilocks with a new scheme. Goldilocks himself led a sheltered, almost monastic, existence. He read a library book a day and was exceptionally polite to the Feather-days. Best of all, he stopped calling the menu a scoffcard.
“Just as well,” said Tommy Mitchell. “A few more days of it and I would have upped with my soup plate and fitted it over his ears.”
Goldilocks’s fall had another side effect. It left the younger male passengers more time to enjoy a traditional trooper entertainment which needed no organizing. Boat-deck romances were born, flourished and faded in a single night; the lifeboats were the scene of innumerable rendezvous, estrangements and reconciliations.
Tommy Mitchell was the foremost of the lifeboat cavaliers and his especial partner was a young blonde named Dolly who was on her way to Singapore to join her husband. Although Tommy Mitchell was never given any more information but that he was big and had a red face, the question of Dolly’s husband fascinated him; he returned to it like a moth to a candle.
“But what does your husband do?” he asked one night. “Oh, never mind about him, Tommy. Put your arms round me.”
“All right. But why did you get married?”
“I got fed up with being at home and he asked me so I said yes.”
“Gosh.” Tommy Mitchell had thought that a proposal of marriage was a special, almost a holy, moment; this casual attitude awed him.
“He was always about the place on his last leave. I really had to marry him or Daddy would have gone quite mad. It made a change.”
“Is he in the Army?”
“Tommy, don’t worry about that. Kiss me.”
“All right. But how long had you known him before you married him?”
“Oh, about six weeks.”
“Gosh.” Again, Tommy Mitchell rapidly readjusted his conceptions of a proposal; he had always thought one had to wait a decent interval. Tommy Mitchell thought vaguely about banns and things.
“What’s he doing in Singapore?”
“Oh, let’s not think about that. Undo me here.”
“All right. But he will be meeting you when you get off the ship?”
“I expect so. If he’s not there I’ll hang around until he comes. Now kiss me.”
“Gosh.” Another of Tommy Mitchell’s favourite mental pictures, that of a sweet young wife hanging on the rail for the first glimpse of her husband, vanished with the rest. “Oh, you’re so clumsy.”
“But doesn’t he write to you and all that?”
“Every day. They’re terribly boring. Now kiss me properly.”
“Gosh,” said Tommy Mitchell, “all right.”
The Bodger had overheard the entire conversation through his cabin scuttle. “For God’s sake, Mitchell,” he muttered irritably, “get in there and put the poor girl out of her misery.”
Three nights out of Aden The Bodger and Sam Crayshaw were walking the boat deck when they heard a slap and a wail. A slap was hardly worth comment but a wail made them prick up their ears. A woman’s voice came out of the night.
“No you can't be a Jack the Ripper. You’re going to be a Pierrot and like it, so stop your snivelling.”
“What’s that?” The Bodger asked.
“The Children’s Fancy Dress Party, sir,” said Sam Crayshaw.
The words struck like a knell. Of all the social functions enjoyed by the passengers between Southampton and Hong Kong, the Children’s Fancy Dress Party was the most dreaded. The Party made itself felt long before the event. The ship’s shop sold out of papier mâché, string, thread, tape and pins. Curtains disappeared from the lounge and cloths from the dining tables. The cotton wool in the sick bay was guarded day and night by a staff who had endured fancy dress parties before.
The children were divided into categories according to age and prizes were awarded for the best dresses. Entries of twins, triplets or any higher multiples were permitted as single entries but in such cases the winners received a prize each. (None of the ship’s officers would soon forget the scene on the previous voyage when the twin sons of a R.E.M.E. sergeant received a prize of one rubber ball.) Judging was done by the Captain himself and there had been occasions, according to the Purser, when even the Captain had barely made his escape from the lounge in time.
The question of what Phyllis Featherday should wear for the party provided a fresh and welcome subject of conversation at the table. Paul proposed Mata Hari. Captain Featherday was charmed with the idea but himself preferred Alice in Wonderland. Michael said that he had heard that the last prize for Phyllis’s age group had been won by a Florence Nightingale. Pibroch did not agree with fancy dress on principle. Goldilocks, with a touch of his old self, suggested Lady Godiva or Salome. This for some reason annoyed Mrs Featherday who said that it was supposed to be a secret and Phyllis would go as Joan of Arc. Phyllis herself said that she did not want to wear anything; it was a prophetic remark.
The Bodger was persuaded by an evening’s free whisky on the O.C. Troops to be in general charge of the party and he ordered the other naval officers to help him. The task of controlling the entrants
and presenting them in the correct order was given to Sam Crayshaw, the Commissioned Master at Arms.
“Just corral them outside, Sam,” said The Bodger. “Unleash them one by one as I read out their names. You’ll have some mothers to help you with the young ones and I’ve detailed Vincent and Hobbes as a fisting party to help you with the older ones. And for heaven’s sake don’t make them cry or anything. This is a lynching crowd we’ve got aboard this vessel.”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Sam Crayshaw.
“If you need help, shout. The fisting party will be just inside the door.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
On the afternoon of the Party, the first-class lounge was crowded with parents. Michael and Paul stood on either side of the door like night-club bouncers. The Bodger took up his position in the middle of the floor.
“Ladies and gentlemen! Your attention please! The first class is for boys and girls under five. The first entry is . . .” The Bodger glanced down at his list “. . . David and Kirstie MacGregor, The Bisto Kids!”
A large hand forcibly propelled two bashful but quite recognizable facsimiles of the Bisto Kids through the door. There was some applause, determinedly led by Sergeant Major and Mrs MacGregor, Welsh Guards.
“Christine Summerfield! Little Bo-Peep!”
There was more clapping and a cheer from the back where Fusilier and Mrs Summerfield, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, were sitting.
“Beryl Frogat. . . .”
Beryl was wearing a small seaman’s jersey and trousers made specially to her size with the words “Enos” chalked across the front of her jersey.
“. . An Old Salt!”
Beryl skipped across to join her mother Mrs Frogat, wife of Commander Frogat, R.N., in a general shout of laughter.
The next entries were a small boy and his sister. The small boy wore a pair of his father’s grey flannel trousers rolled up and one of his father’s sports jackets which came down below his knees. His face was covered in boot blacking and shaving cream and he carried a pipe in one hand. His sister wore one of her mother’s dresses with a brassiere outside it. Her face was smeared with lipstick and face cream.
“John and Deirdre Hampton. Left Alone for Five Minutes! “
Friends leaned forward to clap the backs of Squadron Leader and Mrs Hampton in the front row.
The Fancy Dress Party followed its ancient and traditional pattern. There was a Little Miss Muffet, a Dick Whittington, two Aladdins, several Little Jack Horners and some Sinbads, Robin Floods and Cinderellas. There were also Pierrots, Gypsies, the inevitable Cowboys and Indians, and one Spaceman. Historical characters were represented by Nell Gwynn, Gandhi and Nelson. On the side of Natural History, there were several Brer Rabbits, a White Rabbit, and one Space-Animal. The Stage was upheld by Punch and Judy and by Charlie Chaplin. There was also a small bespectacled Matador.
The last class was for boys and girls between eleven and sixteen. The Bodger’s voice had long grown hoarse. The Captain showed signs of strain. The bachelor passengers and ship’s officers ranged round the walls began to despair of any excitement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” croaked The Bodger. “The last class is for boys and girls over eleven. Phyllis Featherday. . .
There was a scuffle by the door and Michael heard Sam Crayshaw’s despairing voice.
“Please, Mr Hobbes, sir, give me a hand with this one! “
Michael and Paul swung round to see Sam Crayshaw and Phyllis Featherday in an apparently intimate embrace.
“. . . Joan of Arc! “
“No, I’m not! “ Phyllis cried. “I’m Salome! “
Wrestling herself from Sam Crayshaw’s grasp, Phyllis Featherday sprang past Michael and Paul. She had a nightdress clasped about her and, throwing it away, she began to dance, shaking her hips and wriggling in a manner which The Bodger afterwards admitted was a first-class rendering, considering the girl's age and experience, of an Algerian danse du ventre.
While the lounge remained thunderstruck, Phyllis cavorted across the floor, flexed her body in front of the Captain’s astonished nose and disappeared back the way she had come.
At once, Mrs Featherday rose up and struck the amazed Goldilocks with her handbag.
“You satyr! “ she hissed.
Recovered from their first stupefaction, the bachelors round the walls found their voices.
“Encore!”
The Bodger struggled to make himself heard above the uproar.
“Ladies and gentlemen! The next entry. . .”
“We want Salome!”
“The next entry!” shouted The Bodger.
“To hell with the next entry! “ roared back the bachelors round the walls. “We want Salome!”
The tumult died a little as the Captain was seen to bend and whisper to the O.C. Troops.
“That girl’s got a future, Bushy.”
“I should say so, sir. Shall we go on with the show?”
“No. Anything else would be an anticlimax, don’t you think?”
The Purser, who had watched the show from a strategic position near the door, went away to the Chief Steward’s cabin and drank whisky with him. Their shouts of “We want Salome! “ and the drunken squawkings and flutterings of the six parrots kept officers in the neighbouring cabins awake until early the next morning.
Phyllis Featherday’s danse du ventre was the sensation of the voyage. (It was judged by the ship’s officers the best entertainment put on by the passengers since the night before Southampton when the wife of an R.A.M.C. captain did a strip-tease in the lounge and inadvertently sneezed off her brassiere.) Mrs Featherday was mortified and obscurely blamed Goldilocks. Phyllis herself became a ship’s celebrity and was surrounded by interested young men whenever she appeared. Tommy Mitchell was interested enough to suggest that Phyllis give a repeat performance of her danse du ventre in the privacy of his cabin. Goldilocks had another lecture from O.C. Troops.
With Goldilocks as impotent as Napoleon in exile and the Fancy Dress Party over, there were no more social events until the ship reached Singapore.
No leave was allowed until the families had cleared the jetty and the young bloods who were going on to Hong Kong watched the disembarkation with cynical eyes.
“Makes you think what a two-timing lot of twisters they all are,” said Sandy, the Olympic torch bearer, bitterly. “Get Delilah there. Dig that shark skin outfit. It’s about twenty times as much as I saw her wearing the night before last.”
“Don’t get all bitter and twisted,” Paul said. “Put yourself in her husband’s place. He wants to see his wife come down the gangway calm, chaste and exquisite. Not dashing down in her dressing-gown as though the lecherous lascars were still after her. Besides, he’s got plenty of time to put two and two together and find out just what did go on in the good ship Astrakhan”
A huge Major appeared on the gangway and embraced Dolly. Tommy Mitchell blenched.
“Santa Maria! Is that her husband? Thank God I didn’t shout good-bye!”
Dolly disengaged herself neatly and tripped away on her husband’s arm without a backward glance at Astrakhan, for which Tommy Mitchell was grateful.
The Bodger came up on the boat deck.
“All right, men,” he said. “Put your eyeballs back in their sockets. You can get ashore now. The ship leaves at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”
From the sea Singapore had looked a modern city but behind the tall buildings there were warrens of narrow streets with deep gutters and washing hung in lines from the rib-tiled roofs. There were sky-scrapers and sampans, barefoot beggars and American convertibles, Sikh taxi-drivers, Malayan girls with paper sunshades and traffic policemen with white boards like wings on their backs.
It was a city where so many different races lived that they could, and did, form a football league.
The party from Astrakhan started at the Raffles Hotel, the most luxurious hotel the city offered and the hub of fashionable Singapore, the kind of place, Pa
ul thought, from which George Dewberry would have been thrown out.
They ended in a dirty bar separated from the street by a chain curtain in a quarter of the city which they suspected was out of bounds, the kind of place, Paul thought, where George Dewberry would have felt at home.
It was not a successful run ashore.
“They’re all the same all over the world,” said Paul. “You go ashore looking for a few drinks and some excitement. You don’t know the place so you have to play it off the cuff. You get the drinks but you’d get more excitement in a morgue.”
“We could try a bit further on,” said Sandy in a tone of voice which made everyone say, “Let’s go back to the ship.”
A last bingo night and dance was held on the night before the ship reached Hong Kong. Bingo nights were afterwards one of Michael’s chief memories of Astrakhan. Sam Crayshaw’s voice calling out the numbers in an expert monotone voice:
“Eyes down for the next house. Sixty-six clickety click fifty-nine five and nine the Brighton line twenty-six two and six bed and breakfast shake’em up one and six sweet sixteen never been kissed seventy-six seven and six was she worth it oh dear me it’s number three legs eleven line! Lady there says she’s got a line check the numbers Bob.”
In the party afterwards The Bodger recited “Eskimo Nell,” a Q.A.R.A.N.C. girl lost part of her skirt, a Wing Commander received a black eye. Goldilocks was summoned before the O.C. Troops in the morning.
4
H.M.S. Carousel was a ship with a name and a history. She was the tenth ship of her name and her battle honours included both Sluys and Guadalcanal. In the period from 1939 to 1945 her bows were blown off by a bomb in Malta, her back broken by a mine at Tobruk, and her stern cut in half by a suicide bomber in the Java Sea. Her other war damage was, for her, comparatively local; her foremast and gun direction position were shot away by a German armed merchant cruiser in the Indian Ocean, her wardroom was wrecked by a shell from a shore battery on the Normandy coast, and her forward seamen’s messdeck was burned out when the projector burst into flames during a showing of “In Which We Serve.”
