The girl in the
white dress
(A short story taken from my auto-biographical novel Tales from the Sea)
The San
Fortunato arrived in Balak Papan, Borneo, late one evening as the big red ball
of the sun was setting into the dark green of the jungle. The voyage from Hong
Kong had been one of those passages with calm seas, warm weather and no
problems. Before arriving in port, the Captain had been sent orders from the
company to load fuel oil for Port Headland in Australia.
As soon as the
ship had moored to the jetty, the company agent boarded and informed the Chief
Officer that the cargo would not be ready to load for two days. Most times, the
ship would arrive in a port, load the cargo in twenty-four hours and depart.
The delay in getting the cargo ready for loading had some compensation for the
crew. They had the opportunity to relax and a chance for some time ashore.
The weather was
glorious the next morning after breakfast when I took over the managing of the
ship from the Chief Officer. I had a quick stroll round the decks to make sure
all was in order before returning to my cabin to enter information in the
safety log. In the middle of noting fire drills, lifeboat inspections and
exercises, fire fighting equipment maintenance and life jackets testing, the
phone rang.
“ Good morning
Third Mate,” It was the Captain sounding amused and cheerful. “ Mr. Bolton, the
Managing Director of Eastern Operations, is visiting the ship for lunch. He
will be accompanied by his aide and his daughter. She has requested to be shown
round the ship. As you are the youngest officer, you will be the ideal man for
that job.”
“ Do I have to?”
I asked, imagining a morning spent in the company of such a girl. “ She will be
impossible. Educated at some private boarding school, used to servants waiting
on her hand and foot. We will have nothing in common. Why not ask the second
mate? He mixes with people like her all
the time.”
The Captain
laughed. “ This is an order, Third Mate, not a request. I have asked the chief
officer to look after the ship while you are entertaining Mr. Bolton's
daughter. Try not to upset her with too much of your social comment!”
As I put the
phone down, I had a mental picture of the Captain chuckling to himself about
how I would be uncomfortable showing this teenager round the ship. I sighed,
anticipating the morning was not going to be much fun for me.
Later that
morning, a sailor opened my cabin door after knocking loudly.
“ Third Mate. There are couple of official
looking cars approaching the ship along the jetty. I think it would be a good idea if you were
on deck to greet whoever is in those cars when they arrive.”
Standing at the
top of the gangway a few minutes later, I watched curiously as two Mercedes
cars approached along the jetty. They stopped at the bottom of the gangway.
Three white shirted, dark trousered Indonesian men got out of the second car
and adjusted their sunglasses. They spread out along the jetty facing away from
the ship and the cars. Like the bosun, who was standing by my side, I laughed
out loud. It was straight out of one of those B gangster movies with Edward G
Robinson I showed to the crew while the ship was at sea.
Once the
bodyguards were in place, the doors of the lead black car opened and a man got
out. He was tall with slicked back grey hair and sunglasses, dressed in an
immaculately cut tropical suit and shiny shoes. As soon as he alighted out of
the car, he placed a panama hat on his head. Trailing him, a younger man
carrying a brief case and dressed in a short sleeved white shirt and white
trousers struggled from the car. Finally, a girl followed. From where I stood
some distance above her at the top of the gangway she looked about fourteen. My
heart sank. Her brown hair glistened in the sunlight and like her father, she
donned a hat as soon as she was out of the car. She wore a short white dress and
white sandals. This was the girl I was going to have to show round the ship, I decided.
The duty seaman stood politely at the foot of the gangway ready to help if
needed. I noticed that like all the seamen who had stopped their work to watch,
he ogled the girl.
Mr. Bolton
ignored the duty seaman and climbed onto the gangway unaided. The girl and the
man with the briefcase followed. When they reached the deck where I was
standing, Mr. Bolton nodded to me.
“ Show me the
way to the Captain's cabin, Third Mate,” he ordered without so much as a good
day. His accent was clipped and what I regarded as upper class.
Standing at her
father’s side, the girl looked at me with large brown eyes. Close up, she was
pretty with a good figure and was older than the fourteen I had first
estimated. Her expression was that adopted by the local Lady of the Manor for
one of the local peasants she happened to meet. The next few hours are not
going to be pleasant, I concluded
“ This way,
Sir,” I answered indicating the ladder leading to the accommodation deck. As he
followed me, I noticed he cast glances round the ship as though checking that
all was in order. The girl looked right ahead. The man with the briefcase
trailed in their wake mopping his forehead with a white handkerchief.
After showing
them to the Captain's cabin, I returned to the deck and walked round the ship.
As everything was in order, I returned to my cabin and the safety log. I had
not been there for long when the phone rang.
“ Come to my
cabin and collect Mr. Bolton's daughter, third mate.” It was the Captain and he
still sounded amused.
I grunted into
the phone but dutifully climb the ladder to his cabin. Deep within myself I was
cursing the Captain. How was I going to show this apparently bored, spoiled
girl around the ship without saying something out of place or upsetting her? I
imagined the rest of the crew laughing behind my back at their egalitarian
Third Mate looking after a girl from a very privileged background.
Mr. Bolton
smiled when I entered the Captain's cabin making him appear much more human
than when he had greeted me on the deck. “ Lydia is ready to be shown round the
ship. I will leave her in your capable hands.”
Lydia climbed to
her feet, smoothed down her white, short dress and placed her sunglasses on her
small nose. She was almost as tall as me.
I led the way
out onto the boat deck and waited for her. The sun was high in the sky and the
jungle looked particularly green across the river from the berth. Heat haze
distorted the trees lining the riverbank and the boats drifting with the
current further down the river.
“ Well Miss
Bolton,” I said smiling. " What would you like to see?”
She looked at
me, though I could not read her expression with her eyes hidden by dark
glasses.
“ If we are to
spend the next hour in each others company, you had better call me Lydia,” she
said without a flicker of emotion.
“ Eddie,” I
replied.
She shrugged. “
Daddy said you would show me all over the ship.
Lead on McDuff.”
Taking her
instructions literally, I led on. Viciously ignoring her white dress and
sandals, I started with the engine room. Well not exactly ignored the white
dress but took a certain pleasure in the thought that she might learn what dirt
was all about. I was thinking of all those oily handrails she would have to
hold, machinery she might rub against and bilge water she might have to
negotiate. Looking back to that day, I know now this was being petty and she
most likely knew what dirt was like from mucking out her horses. She listened
politely as the engineer told her about the boilers and the turbines. Followed
me down to the propeller shaft and the steering engine room. Going back up on
deck I climbed the ladder behind her. The dress was so short I had a good view
of her sturdy legs and floral panties. Stop these lewd thoughts, I seemed to
hear my mother saying.
Then to the
galley to glimpse lunch being prepared and the dining room. Next, I led her
down the corridor to the games room. I followed this by walking along the deck
to the focastle, the anchors and the chain locker. What amazed me was that
despite my best efforts, when we emerged back on deck again, she appeared as
clean as when we started.
Finally I led
her onto the bridge. We lent over the chart table looking at the charts of the
area. Rapidly I showed her the wheel and the magnetic compass on the top deck.
Lastly we went to the radio office and the sparks explained the wireless
system. I had reluctantly to admit that though I might have been prejudiced
against her at first, by now the atmosphere between us was much friendlier.
We stood on the
bridge wing looking over the deck when we had finished.
“ Would you like to
come to my cabin for a drink before you go back to your father?” I asked
tentatively.
For the first
time that morning, she smiled. “ That would be nice. What can you offer?”
“ I have beer,
fruit juice, coke or gin.”
“ A beer would
be fine.”
She looked
curiously round my small cabin when I showed her inside and sat her down in the
chair. I turned on the radio for the sound of Little Richard. After I had
served the beer, we talked about ourselves. I found out that she had lived a
sheltered, rarefied life compared to mine. It sounded great but there were
drawbacks. Her father and mother had moved around the world on company orders.
Lydia had been deposited in various boarding schools for most of her life. Then
in the holidays, if she could not join her parents, she would stay with
relations. In many ways, her life resembled mine and lots of other seamen. She
had to meet new people and spend a great deal of her time with them without a
break. Just like seamen thrown together on a ship for months at a time with
strangers. I started to feel sorry for her.
“ I take my A
levels next year,” she remarked which told me she must be seventeen. “ If I get
good grades I will be off to Oxford. I already have the promise of a college
place.”
“ What will you
study?” I asked being polite.
“ Ancient
history.” She smiled. “ There is no need for you to pretend interest in what I
do. Daddy cannot order you to listen to me or take an interest I what I am
doing.”
“ I was enjoying
hearing about your life,” I remarked truthfully.
“ I did enjoy
you telling me about what it is like going away to sea. I have only known one
other seaman and he never said much about his life away. Besides he was older
than me and treated me like a little girl. He works for the company. Vincent
Burke.”
I laughed. “ We
have a mutual acquaintance then. I was his cadet on the Halvid a couple of
years ago.”
“ You know him
then? I met him a few times at my Uncle's house for parties and weekends. What
do you mean you were his cadet?”
“ On that ship
each cadet was assigned to one of the officers and we had to follow them around
and learn about their job. We ran errands for them and did the bits of their
duties they found either boring or dirty. Actually that is not fair as far as
Vince Burke was concerned. He is a gentleman and treated me like a friend. He
is the only officer I have sailed with who appeared to know rich and
aristocratic people in every port we went to. Sometimes he would take me ashore
to exclusive clubs and I would mingle nervously with the influential men and
women from the place. He taught me a great deal.”
“ I met him at
weekends and balls at my Uncle's House in Yorkshire. His family appear to own
half the county.”
“ We have to get
you back to the Captain's cabin so that you can go to lunch.”
“ Thank you for
showing me round,” she said kissing me on the cheek as we entered the Captain's
accommodation.
Over lunch, Mr.
Bolton invited me to spend the afternoon with his daughter at the club in the
company accommodation compound. With a smile, the Captain concurred.
That afternoon,
I rode to the company accommodation compound through the oil refinery in the
car sent for me by Mister Bolton. Laid out like a village were bungalows of
differing sizes surrounded by manicured lawns and flowerbeds. At the centre was
the clubhouse with bar, shops and a gym. Across the road from this was a nine
hole golf course. A bit apart from the other buildings was the large, sprawling
bungalow of the Boltons.
The car dropped
me outside and the driver told me to phone the car pool when I needed a lift
back to the ship. I stood at the edge of the lawn for a while looking round and
then walked along the path to the bungalow. A maid met me at the door and took
me around the back where Lydia was waiting. She smiled in welcome. Pulled round
her body was a wrap.
“ Come on,” she
said taking my hand. “ We must get to the pool.”
The pool was
large surrounded by tiled terraces with sun loungers. Lydia chose a spot and
waved to the other people sitting or lying on other sun beds. She pointed to a
changing room back from the sun terrace and I quickly changed into my swimming
trunks. When I rejoined Lydia, there were towels on the sun bed. A white coated
waiter stood by the sun bed, a tray in his hand.
“ I have ordered
my drink. What do you drink?”
“ Bacardi and
coke.” I said quickly reaching for my wallet.
Lydia laughed. “
You don't have to pay. Everything goes on my father's account. In fact every
member of the club pays for their guests because there is no cash used on the
compound.”
It turned out to
be a wonderful afternoon. Though Lydia had at first appeared superior and stuck
up, by the pool we were like any young people enjoying each others company. As
we talked and swam or lay in the sun, I came to realise that Lydia must be
lonely. Unless other expatriates brought out their teenagers to stay she was
surrounded by adults who were working most of the time. Also, when coming
aboard the ship, she must have been nervous. Why she could have been
apprehensive, I could not imagine. Her up bringing must have taught her to
handle such situations. That afternoon, I suppose she grasped the opportunity
to talk and be with somebody close to her own age.
I was invited to
stay for dinner at the bungalow of the Bolton's that evening after our swim.
The car took me back to the ship to dress properly and return me to the
Bolton’s. The Captain was there and some of the other higher managers and their
wives. I sat close to Lydia during dinner and mostly talked to her.
After dinner,
Lydia and I went for a walk around the garden. It was very pleasant with the
insects chirping in the shrubs, a soft breeze and stars twinkling in the sky.
To my surprise Lydia took me to a summerhouse at the bottom of the garden.
Creepers covered the shelter and flowers bloomed, Lydia pulled me down onto a
cushioned seat and kissed me properly. To the sound of chirping insects and
lulled by the scent of flowers, we made love illuminated by the moon. A perfect
way to end our day, Lydia remarked, as we walked back to the house.
As the ship
sailed a couple of days later, I was surprised to see Lydia waving goodbye from
the riverbank. There had been no promises of long lasting friendship or undying
love. Just a pleasant day spent in each other's company.
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