We Saw The Sea

by John Winton

  “Old Jellyroll was quite a character,” said the Navigating Officer. “He was one of the few naval officers who’re members of the Athenaeum and one morning when he was feeling a bit hangoverish he happened to be sitting next to the Archbishop of Canterbury at breakfast. Hangovers used to make Jellyroll ravenous and when he started digging into his breakfast the Archbishop looked over his newspaper and said: ‘Young man, you must be hungry’. Old Jellyroll couldn’t see very well at that time of the morning, he hadn’t even figured out which day of the week it was and he had no idea who this old codger was so he said: ‘Sir, if you’d had nothing between your teeth for twenty-four hours except a tart’s tongue and a toothbrush you’d be hungry too! ’ “

  “Golly,” said Paul. “When was he retired?”

  “Beginning of this year. He got a job in Hollywood at first, playing the background Rachmaninov while the heroine threw herself off the cliff and that sort of thing: but he chucked that and came back to London. Playing the piano in a night-club now. Says he’s never enjoyed himself so much in all his life and wishes he’d started years ago.” The Commander had left the piano to replenish his glasses.

  “The white feather is not dead by any means,” he said to Andrew Bowles who, with the rest of the gunroom, had been invited up for the evening. “I’ll never forget once during the war when I was on leave in the country staying with a friend of my father’s. A chum of mine and I went out for a day’s shooting and we were standing about in some pub or other, in plain clothes, when in comes the most belligerent-looking woman you ever saw. She looked the sort that opens bazaars and generally hunts the local foxes and her husband into their graves. She was wearing a W.V.S. badge and must have scaled at least sixteen stone. This dame gave us the once-over, snorted, and went out. We thought no more about it. But she came back in about half an hour and gave us each a matchbox. We opened them and there was a white feather! When our host saw them I thought he was going to drop dead with sheer rage. He rushed after her and told her things about herself which I’m sure she never suspected. I gathered she was one of the old boy’s neighbours and he’d been waiting for years to tell her what he thought of her. She just crept away without another word and I bet the foxes and her husband had a hell of a time for the rest of the war.”

  “What were you actually doing at that time, sir?” asked Andrew Bowles, who was well aware that the story was by no means complete.

  “I was doing a spot of clearance diving. My chum had just got the D.S.C. a week before. He’s a stockbroker now, of all things. I don’t know what he’s like broking stocks but he was a bloody fine diver.”

  “. . . They shouldn’t have magazine floods and sprays anyway. They should just have zip-fasteners in the bulkheads.”

  “. . . I believe that chap has broken his leg.”

  “Oh Sir Jasper do not. . . .”

  The Captain, who was also a guest of the mess, was talking to the Sub of the Gunroom.

  “There are times,” said the Captain, “when honesty is certainly not the best policy. When I was a midshipman I once went in a party to look over a coal mine. On the way back I met the Sub of my Gunroom who had been playing golf. The Sub told me to take his clubs back to the ship. When I came across the gangway carrying the golf-clubs, the Commander said to me: ‘Been playing golf, young Gilpin?’ and I, like a fool, said: ‘Oh no sir, I’ve been down a coal mine’. I got a month’s stoppage of leave.”

  The Sub of the Gunroom, who had heard the story twice before, laughed until it seemed that he must do himself an internal injury; he had already taken the story’s moral to heart.

  “Oh Sir Jasper do. . . .”

  A mountain of officers in the middle of the wardroom collapsed in a pile of waving arms and legs, taking with it two tables and some chairs. The pile dissolved, leaving one prone, motionless figure, the Editor of a Hong Kong newspaper.

  “That's a broken leg all right.”

  “Oh Sir Jasper. . . .”

  The stewards watched dispassionately from behind the bar.

  “Never mind, Jacko,” said one. “We’ve done the first six years. It’s all downhill now.”

  In a corner of the room a solitary figure was trying to stand on his hands. Periodically he fell and, giggling, tried again. The Captain’s Secretary was pouring Kummel on to his forehead in the hope that it would trickle into his mouth. A large stain was spreading over his shirt front. The Bodger, hair on end, and a trouser leg and half his boiled shirt ripped away, eyes gleaming with the light of battle, pounded the bar and demanded a double Harpic and soda.

  “Oh Sir “

  Breakfast was served in funereal silence. The stewards walked like Agag with black coffee and iced tomato juice. At eight o’clock the prominent Hong Kong banker walked into the wardroom. The Chief Steward eyed him coldly. When he saw officers eating, the prominent Hong Kong banker stopped.

  “What time is it?”

  “Eight o’clock, sir,” said the Chief Steward icily.

  “Yes, I know, but what time? Day or night?”

  “We are serving breakfast, sir,” said the Chief Steward. The prominent Hong Kong banker clapped a hand to his forehead and disappeared.

  “Obviously a lost weekend,” remarked Paul. “Lost night, anyway.”

  “Beats me how he could sleep,” said Mr Pebblethwaite. “I was kept awake all night by the sparrows walking about on the upper deck.”

  “They didn’t worry me,” said Slim Broad. “It was the cockroaches marching about on the bulkheads. When I did get used to it, they’d all break step and I’d be wide awake again.”

  “There’s one with a wooden leg in my cabin.”

  “This is getting too bloody humorous for this time of the morning,” said Michael. He picked up his coffee and his newspaper and went into the ante-room. He settled in an armchair and a deep weariness overtook him. Paul joined him a minute later.

  “I feel a bit of an idiot this morning, Mike.”

  “Not unusual, surely?”

  “Don’t be that way. I found all Anne’s letters in my cabin when I got back last night. Some idiot put them in my cabin during the evening and didn’t tell me about it. So everything’s O.K. now.”

  “Splendid.”

  “Do you know what I did after I’d read them?”

  “How the hell should I know?” said Michael wearily.

  “I sat down and wrote to Anne proposing to her! “

  “Ye Gods! After that speech! Did you post it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh well, we’ll just have to hope for the best. With any luck she won’t be able to read your writing.”

  12

  Paul’s wedding took place in London and was voted a huge success by everyone (even by the three hundred people who waited in the Brompton Road for an hour in pouring rain to see Cedric, the national television personality, who was an usher). Anne was given away by her father and had six bridesmaids. Michael was best man.

  Michael bought books in the Charing Cross Road which explained a best man’s duties. They varied in detail (some suggested the ring should be kept in the left-hand side pocket, others in the right) but upon one point they were all agreed: the Best Man always made a speech. The thought weighed upon Michael and a stranger looking at them both as the day of the wedding came nearer would have taken Michael for the groom and Paul for the best man.

  Michael met the Maconochies at the wedding rehearsal. Anne plainly took after her father’s side of the family. Mr Maconochie, soon to become Lord Brothferry, was short and dark, with bushy black eyebrows from under which he peered shyly at strangers, like a bushman staring wonderingly from a thicket at the foreign white men. He dressed in sober grey suits and permitted himself the vanity of wearing shoes with built-in heels which added to his height; he found them a great help in dealing with young employees recently down from Oxford and Cambridge. Wolverhampton and Sunderland were the only towns of substance in the British Isles in which he did not own a hotel. He seeme
d to be mortally afraid of Mrs Vincent.

  Mrs Maconochie was a stocky woman with fair hair which stood out in bunches on either side of her head. Her legs were like pillars upon which she planted herself sturdily and uncompromisingly. She had blue eyes, set wide apart, and a wide mouth tucked in at the corners, giving her an expression, Paul thought, like a calculating cow. It was Mrs Maconochie who conducted the tribal negotiations over the marriage settlement.

  Mrs Maconochie was the matriarch of a large dynasty of Maconochies who had been brought up to regard invitations to family occasions as Royal Commands; they would no more have ignored one than they would have ignored a police summons. The Maconochie believed in strength in depth and Mrs Maconochie was supported by a battalion of greater and lesser Maconochies who travelled to London by rail, road and air from hotels all over England.

  Paul’s family were more simply represented. There was, first of all, his mother, then a peripatetic uncle who had made the journey from Monte Carlo against his doctor’s advice, and finally a cousin named Nigel who designed fireplaces and looked like an older and more dissipated version of Paul himself. But what Paul’s side of the church lacked from his family was more than made up by the uniforms, gilt buttons and medals of Carousel’s wardroom and ship’s company, the tweed suits of the officers’ ladies, the Paris models of the ship’s company’s wives, and Number One Boy’s red and white striped Hawaiian shirt.

  The Navy singing surprised the vicar and made the five guineas which Mr Maconochie had paid for the services of the choir seem an unnecessary expense.

  The wedding went without a hitch. Anne looked lovely on her father’s arm. The bridesmaids appeared demure. Michael, contrary to expectations, had the ring ready. Mrs Maconochie wept and was supported by the female Maconochies. Paul spoke up, as Cedric said afterwards, as though the padre was conducting the service from the mast-head. Anne came down the aisle on Paul’s arm. Both sides of the church collected their hats and handbags while the happy couple were photographed with the guard of honour. Then all drove away to drink Maconochie champagne.

  The first person Michael met at the reception was Commander J. P. Leanover, R.N.

  “Don’t I know your name?”

  “Hobbes, sir.”

  “Of course. You were the young man who was so keen on going to Carousel.”

  “Well, actually sir. . . .”

  “Must confess I thought it very funny of you to want that particular ship so much. She hadn’t a very good reputation at the time, you know. Everyone there seemed to be going round the bend.”

  “I was aware sir. . . .”

  “Still, that’s all changed now. You and your compatriots seem to have made a new ship out of her.”

  “I’m glad that we. . .”

  “My dear boy, it’s the success story of the year! That visit to Dhon Phon, or wherever it was, changed the face of the Far East! Half of our department have been promoted on the strength of it! Must say I didn’t know Dickie Gilpin had a talent for diplomacy. The First Lord looks a new man. The civil servants have even got a new office block approved. Well, next time you want a job, you know where to come. Any time, as long as it’s not during Goodwood.”

  “Thank you very much, sir.”

  “Don’t thank me. We always try to give people what they want.”

  Commander Leanover drifted away to have his glass refilled. Michael looked round the room and caught sight of a face he had not seen since his sub-lieutenant’s courses. It was Colin Stacforth, who was talking to a plump, cheerful-looking girl with a large mouth. Michael was willing to bet that she was either a nurse or a Wren.

  “Michael!” said Colin Stacforth. “After all this time! You haven’t met my wife. Jenny this is Michael Hobbes, an old friend of mine from Dartmouth and the Training Cruiser days. He’s just been serving with Paul in Carousel.”

  “Oh yes,” said Jenny, “you’re in Tom Bowles’ term, aren’t you? The Bodger was your training officer.”

  A Wren, Michael told himself; not a bad guess.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t even know you were married.”

  “Oh, it's all quite legal,” Jenny said. “I’ve got lines to prove it! “

  “I’ve got a little out of touch in the last year or so. When were you married?”

  “How long is it, darling?”

  “One month and four days,” said Colin Stacforth promptly.

  “Did you do the whole commission in Carousel?” asked Jenny.

  “Almost all of it.”

  “When Daddy was promoted he thought he might go to Carousel to relieve Richard Gilpin but he was too junior. You normally have to wait quite a long time for a command as a Captain nowadays,” said Jenny. “Who is your Commander?”

  “Jimmy Forster-Jones.”

  “Oh yes, I’ve met him. He was quite senior for the job. I expect he’ll be promoted after what he’s done for the ship. He’s being relieved by someone very junior, who used to be Daddy’s First Lieutenant in Voluminous. And then he was Flags to C.-in-C. Antarctic. You might know him. Christopher Smythe? He was Communications Officer when you were in the Cadet Training Cruiser.”

  “Jenny knows the Navy List backwards,” Colin Stacforth said proudly.

  “Yes, I can see that,” Michael said.

  “Are there many of the term here today?”

  “There’s quite a good turn out. Of course it’s quite an occasion when a bachelor as hardened as old Paul gets married. Everyone comes to see what the girl’s like who’s pulled it off. I don’t see Raymond Ball anywhere. I know he had an invitation.”

  “I don’t expect he feels much like celebrating,” said Jenny. “Haven’t you heard?”

  “Haven’t I heard what?”

  “He had a row with the C.O. of his submarine and got thrown out of submarines.”

  “His C.O. had a reputation for being difficult to live with. He’d been a submarine C.O. for ten years. Had about nine years in as a lieutenant-commander. Passed over a year ago in December. Colin, darling, there’s Richard Gilpin. We must go and say hullo. He was on the Staff Course with Daddy,” Jenny added to Michael.

  Michael watched them go. There, he thought, goes a typical naval officer and his typical wife. He noted Jenny’s complete change of manner as she talked to the Captain. There seemed to be an appropriate Jenny for every occasion, a “young wife, eager, naïve but backing her husband to the hilt, Jenny” for Colin’s superiors and a “nice girl, what’s your poison, say when, have you heard, Jenny” for Colin’s contemporaries. Most probably there was a third “seniors into the boat last and out first, Jenny” for Colin’s juniors. Michael imagined them both in twenty years’ time, when Colin would be a Captain and Jenny would be ruling the wives’ roost with a rod of iron and four gold stripes on her handbag. The picture depressed Michael.

  Michael saw Tom Bowles standing on the edge of the crowd. Although Michael had not seen Tom Bowles for some years he had heard all about him. The Golden Boy of the Training Cruiser had developed into the bright star of the present generation. Tom Bowles passed out top of his pilot’s training course, distinguished himself in two squadrons, and had been chosen to fly at the Farnborough Air Show. Leader of the Fleet Air Arm aerobatics team, graduate of the Empire Test Pilot school, favourite of the press, he was quickly becoming one of the best-known officers in the Navy. He had grown a blond beard since Michael had last seen him and, as he stood head and shoulders above the crowd, he reminded Michael of a young Viking.

  “Hello, Mike,” Tom said. “It’s nice to see you again.”

  “Hello Tom, how are you getting on these days?”

  Tom Bowles grinned. “Well, I’m not very popular with Their Lordships at the moment. I crashed the prototype of that new night-fighter last week. So now I’ve got a draft chit to Dartmouth. As a divisional officer. Imagine me as a 'sir’ teaching all the trogs!”

  “So help me God!” said Mrs Vincent who had appeared at Michael’s elbow. “It’s the first time
I’ve seen Paul in his uniform at home and it will probably be the last. Who are all these dreadful people? I’m sure I don’t know them and I can’t imagine the other team knowing them. They must be some of Cedric’s friends gate-crashing. I met an incredible little man masquerading in your uniform just now who said he was a Double Bottoms Officer! That’s vintage Cedric Friend! Michael, I came to tell you, Paul thinks it’s time we started to make speeches and read telegrams and things.”

  The Maconochie telegrams were traditional. “Best Wishes For Your Future Happiness, Auntie Florence and Uncle Samuel”; “May Good Luck Follow You Through Your Life Together, Cousin Edie and Boxer”; “May All Your Days Be Happy Ones, Auntie Ruth.” Carousel’s telegrams were also traditional, in their way. “May All Your Troubles Be Little Ones, P.M.O.”; “Best of Luck Dynasty-wise, Cedric”; “Every Conceivable Happiness, Pilot”; “Fight The Good Fight, The Bodger”; “Best Of Luck In Your New Commission, The Wardroom Officers”; and from Commander (E), the Senior Engineer, and the Engineer’s Office, “Your Attention is Drawn to B.R. Sixteen brackets Fifty close Brackets Engineering Manual Precautions Before Opening Unventilated Compartments.”

  Michael’s speech followed. Michael had prepared a careful speech with several witty jokes and comments. Lying in bed the night before the wedding Michael had run over his speech in his mind and had thought it uncommonly funny. But when he came to speak, Michael could not remember a word of it.

  “I’m not really sure what the best man ought to say,” he said. “It’s no good giving the bridegroom any advice. It’s too late. He’s already made the fatal mistake I All I can really do is direct his attention to the B.R. mentioned in the telegram, particularly where it says that all officers and ratings and other persons concerned are to make themselves familiar with the precautions, and advancement of engine-room personnel will be made conditional on their possessing a good working knowledge. . .”