After the storm

Through my sleep I dreamt of eating fish and chips. Probably because my stomach was so empty, and I was hungry after my miserable first watch on the monkey island.

However, that dreamy state of half-awake and half asleep was rudely interrupted by a sound in my ear” Sahib, Sahib, one bell”. This cannot be right; I had just gotten off to sleep but no there he was waiting for to get out of my bunk. “It is quarter to eight in the morning, Sahib, breakfast time”. Well I was certainly hungry and thoughts of an English breakfast with all the trimmings did not seem a bad idea. But how did I get it and where did I go to get it? That’s the question.

Colin, the senior apprentice, popped his head around the door still puffing on his pipe and in his soft Welsh lilt said: “Wakey, wakey, breakfast at 08:30 in the officer’s saloon. Make sure you have your uniform on and it is tidy”!

Okay, quick shower, teeth cleaned and dressed in my new uniform with stains from last night’s debacle on the monkey island removed I was ready.

In the 1950’s daily life on board a liner company, because that is what we were, was very ordered but also very segregated.

The total complement was made up of sixteen white officers, all English, Welsh or Scottish covering deck officers, engineering officers, radio and purser officers.

Separately there were four English or Scottish quartermasters and a carpenter who lived and messed on their own.

Then there was the Indian crew totalling around sixty-five persons covering the deck, engineering, and catering department. They lived aft and messed on their own. The Indian cooks, Bhandari’s, cooked for everyone.

Officers ate in the saloon amidships under the officer’s accommodation, so I walked along the boat deck, down the ladder to cross by hatch three and enter the rear door to the officer accommodation.

The weather had changed since I left the bridge at 04:00 and now there was blue sky with small puffy clouds scudding across the sky from starboard to port as we ploughed our way south and west down the Irish sea. The wind had dropped and there remained a low oily-topped swell from the south with small white waves on their tops. Seagulls circled around looking for scraps thrown overboard whilst the deck crew washed down the decks after two weeks in port.

The door to the accommodation was a large mahogany affair, heavily varnished with a brass plate over declaring I was entering the officer’s domain.

Inside was a corridor split left and right leading to officer’s accommodation whilst ahead was a double set of mahogany glass doors heavily engraved with the word saloon.

Through the glass of the door I could see what seemed to be the dining room of an old-fashioned luxury hotel with white coated waiters serving uniformed officers. The smell of curry was all-pervading.

What should I do, where will I seat and how do I order my breakfast? All these thoughts raced through my mind as I prepared to enter. Nothing like this had ever happened to a sixteen old boy from North Yorkshire before. School dinners did not compare!!This was virgin territory!

Heads turned as I entered the saloon and the captain sitting at the head of one of the tables, said, “Ah, the new apprentice that does not know his leeward from his windward side! Come sit at the end of my table”. I noticed that the other apprentices not on watch were also sat there. Duly sat I looked around to see what others were eating. Everything from egg and bacon to what seemed to be a fish curry! The Second Mate was cracking raw eggs into a glass and drinking the concoction after a thorough stirring. Not for me I thought! The Indian waiter pointed to a menu on the table, and I instinctively went for the egg and bacon option noticing that the fish curry was called fish kedgeree, another term to remember.

Looking round I noticed there were two tables and the other table seemed to have mostly junior engineering officers, purser and radio officer. Why was I at the Captains table? Was it a deck and engine room segregation thing?

Any way the breakfast was sumptuous and filled my empty stomach.

As the clock approached 09:00 the Second Mate said to me,”OK laddie, time for you and me to go on the bridge and do some navigation”. What, I thought, don’t I start at midday? Apparently not and as I was to learn, the Second Mate is responsible for navigation and charts. That means every day in the morning, before watch, he calculates the days run over the last 24 hours and prepares for the “noon position”. The noon position is the position of the ship at ships local time, 12:00. Ok so straight up to the bridge and into the chartroom behind the bridge. This is the domain of the Second Mate.

First, he checked the latest position that the current officer of the watch, the Chief Officer, had laid down. As we were coasting the position was by direct measurement of navigational aids such as lighthouses, prominent pieces of land etc. Plotting these points was done out on the bridge wing and the Second Officer took time to show me how it was done.

“First, laddie, we need to identify from the chart likely targets and then confirm them visually and then we can use them. See here on the chart, St. David’s Head. According to where we are now it should be abeam on the port side, let’s check.”

Out on the bridge wing he pointed to a vague cliff in the distance. That’s it so let’s get a bearing. Stand on that pedestal and rotate the metal ring over the gyro compass repeater until you see the Headland directly over the prism on the edge of the bearing ring. Then read the number in the prism. That is the true bearing of the headland. Got it?

No way, too much information but dutifully I tried and after several attempts got a reading. Back to the chartroom and the Second Officer laid off the bearing on the chart. “We are on that line. All we need is to find some more targets that we take bearings of and then we will have a position. However, I see your eyes are in the back of your head so we will pick this up later. Go back to your cabin and read a little on navigation from your Nichols Seamanship and nautical knowledge book. See you up here at 12:00”.