A another short story from my collection The Cigar and other stories
The Girl In The White Dress
The ship I was sailing on, the Felipe, arrived in Balak Papan, Borneo, late one evening in 1963 as the big red ball of the sun was setting into the deep green of the jungle. The Captain’s orders from the company were to load fuel oil for Port Headland in Australia.
As soon as the Felipe docked and was securely moored, the agent boarded and informed the Chief Officer the cargo was not ready to load and would be at least two days. This was in contrast to normal practice where the ship would arrive in port, load the cargo in twenty-four hours and depart. The delay in getting the cargo ready had some compensation for the crew. It meant they had an opportunity to relax and a chance for some time ashore.
The weather was glorious the next morning when I took over the managing of the ship from the Chief Officer. The first task was to stroll around the decks to make sure all was in order before returning to my cabin to enter information into the safety log leaving the crew to inform me if anything needed my decisions.
The phone rang in the middle of noting fire drills, lifeboat inspections and drills, fire fighting equipment inspections, maintenance and drills and the state of the lifejackets.
“ Good morning, Third Mate. How are you this morning?” 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 made a request to be shown round the ship while he is talking to me. As you are the youngest officer on the ship, you will be the ideal man for the job.”
“ Do I have to?” I asked politely, imagining a morning spent in the company of such a girl. “ She will be impossible. Educated in some private boarding school, we will have nothing in common Why not ask the second mate? He comes from her background and mixes with people like her all the time. He will know how to talk to her.”
The Captain laughed. “ Young Eddie, this is an order not a request. I have asked the Chief Officer to look out for the safety of the ship while you are entertaining Mr Bolton’s daughter. Try not to upset her too much with your social comments. I will send word when you are required.”
As I put the phone down, I had a mental picture of the Captain chuckling to himself as he thought about how I would be uncomfortable showing this teenager over 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 and being asked to enter. “ Third Mate. There are a couple of official looking cars approaching the ship along the jetty. The bosun thinks it would be a good idea if you, as the officer of the watch, 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 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 cars and the ship. Like the bosun, who was standing by my side, I laughed out loud. The scene was taken straight from one of those B movies 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 stepped out. He was tall with slicked back grey hair and glasses, dressed in an immaculately cut tropical suit and shiny shoes. As soon as he was 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 emerged. Finally a girl followed. From where I stood she looked about fourteen and my heart sank. Her brown hair glistened in the sunlight and, like her father, she donned a hat and sunglasses as soon as she was out of the car. She wore a short white dress and white sandals.
This was the girl I had been ordered to show over the ship. The duty seaman stood politely at the foot of the gangway ready to help if needed. I noticed like all the seamen who had stopped their work to watch, he ogled the girl.
Mr Bolton ignored the duty seaman and climbed the gangway unaided. The girl and the man with the briefcase followed. When they reached the top of the gangway where I was standing with the bosun, 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 greeting. His accent was clipped and what I regarded as upper class.
The girl looked at me with large brown eyes. Close up I had to admit she was pretty with a good figure and was older than the fourteen I had at first estimated. Her expression was the same as that adopted by the local Lady of the Manor for one of the local peasants she happened to meet. The next few hours were not going to be pleasant, I concluded.
“ This way Sir,” I answered politely indicating the ladder leading to the accommodation deck. As he followed me I did notice he was looking round the ship as though checking all was in order. The girl looked straight ahead as though her surroundings did not interest her. The man with the briefcase trailed in our wake mopping his forehead with a large 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 went back to my cabin for a coffee and the safety log. I had not been there 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 climbed the ladder to the Captain’s 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 thinly when I entered the Captain’s cabin. “ Lydia is ready to be shown round the ship. I will leave her in your capable hands.”
Lydia climbed to her feet from her place on a chair by the window, smoothed down her short white 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 and the boats drifting with the current further up 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 her dark glasses.
“ If we are to spend the next hour or so 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 she might learn what dirt was all about. 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 explained about the boilers and the turbines. Followed me down to the propeller shaft and the steering engine room. Going back up towards the deck, I climbed the ladder behind her. Her dress was so short I had a good view of her sturdy legs and floral panties. Stop those lewd thoughts, I seemed to hear my mother saying.
Then to the galley to see her lunch being prepared and to the dining room with its white table clothes and silver cutlery and 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 despite my best efforts, Lydia appeared as clean as when we first set out.
Finally I took her to the bridge, my territory. We lent over the chart table looking at the charts for the area. Rapidly I showed her the wheel and the magnetic compass on the top deck. Lastly to the radio office and the radio officer explained the wireless system. I had to reluctantly admit 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 out over the deck of the ship and the jetty with its silver pipelines when we had finished looking around the ship.
“ Would you like to come to my cabin and have a drink before you go back to your father?” I asked her 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 cool beer would be nice.”
She looked curiously round my small cabin when I showed her inside and sat her down in a chair. After I had served the beer, we talked about ourselves. I found she had in many senses lived a sheltered, rarified life when compared to mine. It sounded great but there were drawbacks. Her father and mother had moved round the world on company orders. Lydia had been deposited in various boarding schools for all of her education. Then in the holidays, if she could not join her parents, she would stay with relations. Irrationally, 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 maybe eighteen. “ I already have a promise of a college place at Oxford University.”
“ What will you study?” I asked politely.
“ Ancient history.” She smiled. “ There is no need to pretend an interest in what my life is like. Daddy cannot order you to listen to me or take an interest in what I am doing.”
“ I am enjoying hearing about your life,” I answered truthfully. “ It is so different from mine.”
“ I did enjoy you telling me about what it is like going away to sea. I have only known one seaman and he never said much about his life at sea. Besides he is much 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 for parties and weekends. What do you mean you were his cadet?”
“ The Captain of the Halvid assigned each cadet to one of the officers. The idea being we followed them around and learnt the job. We ran errands for them and did the bits they found boring or dirty. Actually that is not fair as far as Vince was concerned. He is a gentleman and treated me like a friend. He is the only officer I sailed with who appeared to know rich and aristocratic people in every port he visited. Sometimes he would take me ashore to exclusive clubs and I would mingle rather nervously with influential men and women. He taught me a great deal.”
“ I met him at weekends and balls at my Uncle’s house in Yorkshire. His family appeared 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 around,” she said as we entered the Captain’s accommodation kissing me on the cheek.
Over lunch Mr Bolton invited me to spend the afternoon with his daughter at the company compound. The Captain concurred with a grin in my direction.
That afternoon, I rode through the refinery to the company compound in a car sent for me. Laid out like a village were the bungalows of differing sizes surrounded by manicured lawns and flowerbeds. At the centre was a clubhouse with bar, shops and a gym. Across the road from the clubhouse 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 instructed me to phone the car pool when I needed to return to the ship.
I stood on 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 round the back where Lydia was waiting. She smiled in welcome. Pulled round her body was a wrap.
“ Come on,” she said smiling and taking my hand. “ We must get to the pool.”
The pool was large, surrounded by tiled terraces with cushioned sun loungers. Lydia chose a spot and waved to other people sitting or lying on other sun beds. She pointed to the changing rooms at the back of the sun terrace and I quickly changed into my swimming trunks. When I rejoined Lydia, there were towels spread on the sun bed. A white coated waiter stood waiting, a tray in hand.
“ I have ordered my drink. What do you drink?”
“ A Bacardi and coke,” I replied reaching for my wallet.
Lydia laughed. “ You do not have to pay. Everything goes on Daddy’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 given the impression of a superior and stuck up girl, by the pool we were like any young people enjoying each other’s company. As we talked and swam, I came to realise Lydia must be lonely unless some of the other expatriates brought their teenagers with them. Also, when coming aboard the ship, she had to be nervous. Why she had been apprehensive, I could not imagine. Her upbringing must have taught her to handle such situations. That afternoon 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. The Captain was there at the dinner and some of the other higher managers and their wives.
After dinner, Lydia and I went for a walk around the gardens. It was very pleasant with the insects chirping in the shrubs, a soft breeze and the stars twinkling in the sky. To my surprise Lydia took me to a summerhouse at the bottom of the garden and we made love on a bench illuminated by the moon. A perfect way to end the day, Lydia remarked as we walked back to the house.
As the ship sailed, I was surprised to see Lydia waving goodbye from the riverbank. There had been no promises of long lasting friendship or underlying love. Just a pleasant day spent in each other’s company.
