Springtime in Portugal
The Catanian was an Ellerman cargo vessel ,known as a market boat because it brought back produce from the Iberian Peninsular and the Spanish ports on the Med. Such ships were usually hard to get on because of the shortness of the trips and the potential to earn a lot of overtime. I did?nt join her for the overtime , she was going to Portugal and Spain, two countries that I had not yet visited and had long wanted to do so.
She was a trim little craft and at just over 1400 gross tonnage was the smallest ship I had set foot on. It seemed to be a happy ship ,one of the old firemen had been on her since her maiden voyage and another one had been on her for 15 years. The older man always called him the ?new feller?
There was an old A.B. who looked like the original old man of the sea , his face had more lines on it than Crewe junction and his walrus moustache heightened his salty appearance. The were not many deck crew, just three men per watch ,and only two watches ;you worked four hours on and four hours off. You were expected to work on deck during the daytime off watch.
You were lucky if you got four hours sleep a day! I did?nt fully understand the ramifications of what ?watch and watch meant? I was soon to learn the hard way what the reality was.
My two watch mates were about four or five years older than me, I seem to remember that they were married ,or about to be married. Sitting in the mess room during smokoe just before we sailed ,the conversation turned to women and doing what comes natural when in their company. The old man of the sea sat at the back of the mess listening to the chat. These guys were describing their feats of amazing sexual athleticism,? 9 times without stopping? one said, ?only 9 times? riposted the other ?11 times ,mate and without unshackling !!? The O.M of the sea puffed away through his whiskers. ? Eh Wally? wisecracked the younger one ?D?you still use a condom?? laughing as he said it. The O.M. pulled out his fag and answered ?Yuss, an? yer should smell the burnin? rubber? We all cracked up then.
So ,I knew I was going to like it here, laughter is a great bonding agent and it was here aplenty. We were sailing soon and our new bosun came into the mess to give us the gen, We three would be on watch as we left, there were three day workers ,of which the O.M. was one, so, including the bosun ,there were just ten of us on deck, the smallest ship and the smallest crowd.
It was all new stuff to me.
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The weather was foul as we headed down the Irish Sea and this little boat had moves that I had never experienced, when you were in your bunk (which was?nt often) you were tossed about as though you were in a spin dryer. Sleep was hard to come by, if you were on the 4 to 8 in the morning watch you stayed up to work on deck until noon and then you were on the 12 to 4 watch after which you could have dinner (at 5.00p.m) get some sleep and then be ready for the 8 til midnight watch. Your diurnal clock broke it?s spring. Within two days I was reduced to a zombie like state ,to eat or to sleep ? Be tired or be hungry? My days became a muddled mess , but the bosun , well his was an altogether worse story??????????.
He was a nice looking guy, Irish to look at with his curly black hair ,roguish smile and twinkling eyes, that was ,when he was sober. The man was the biggest lush I had sailed with so far ,made Nick and Jock on the Kenuta look like members of the Temperance Society.
From the moment we dropped the pilot the man was permanently kalied.
It was during my first 8 to 12 watch that I first noticed how bad he was, I was making my watchmates supper just before midnight ,we were way down the St Georges Channel and he comes into the mess and asks me to call him a cab. ?A whaaat !!??
?A cab lad ,youse know whut a cab is fer jeezis sake,call me a cab!!?
?Bose, we?re in the middle of the sea? I said .
? I?ve got to get back to me mammy? he said ?Jis? call a bleddy cab?
The 12 til 4 watch lads came in the and the bosun got up and stumbled out.
When my watchmates came in for their supper the wheelman said the bosun had been climbing up the funnel screaming for a taxi. He was wrestled back to his cabin before we turned in.
About 24 hours before we got to Lisbon my body was giving up on me, I had never treated it so badly and it was rebelling, ?feed me or rest me? it seemed to be saying. I was literally staggering about like a drunk. The master ,Captain Whittle ,a big beefy guy said that I would harden up , the mate would?nt allow me to have my free time off. ?Ye?ll get used to it lad? was all he said.
I was on the helm as we were being piloted into Lisbon, I could?nt see properly ,I kept on losing focus , I could?nt make out what the pilot was saying and I had this big red angry face in front of me telling me to shape up and I was shivering ,I was boiling ???.and then the lights when out and all was darkness.
I was awakened by a prod in my stomach, I was hurting everywhere and had no idea where I was, in the glow of my bunklight I could see a huge fat
man with a cigar in his mouth ,his head covered with a homburg and he was wearing a huge overcoat with an astrakhan collar. He was holding a glove in one gloved hand and ,with his bare hand, he was prodding my stomach.
The pain was tremendous and he uttered something which I did not understand and then I saw a little man beside him, a notebook in his hand, writing whatever it was that the big man was saying. I did?nt know if I were dreaming this , I was dizzy and fading in and out of consciousness. For a moment I thought that I was in the Maltese Falcon and that Sydney Greenstreet and Elisha J. Cooke were at my bedside..
I became aware of some movement and surfaced to see myself being stretchered into an ambulance after which the darkness fell again. I was hallucinating, I was gripping on to the sides of a slippery pit ,my hands were greasy and I could not hold on, below I could feel that there was void and that I must not fall into it. My grip was loosening as the weight of my body was pulling me downwards , I was screaming for my mother ,for my sister Jess, I did?nt want to go down to that dark, dark pit. And then shafts of white light filtered through my eyelids; blinking ,I saw the kindest face I had ever seen. ?Brian ? it said ? Brian ,look at me , I am your doctor? the man was foreign, his head was as covered in white and there was a mask hanging from his ear ? you have been very ill and we are going to help you? I moved my head and saw other white clothed people ,their eyes the only visible features. ?please breathe into this ? he said placing a mask over my nose and mouth. Total darkness enfolded me .
Sometime later I awoke ,fully conscious, my bladder screaming for relief; I was in a bed,lovely crisp linen sheets,but which bed and where?
I tried to sit up to go to have a pee and the effort sent my abdomen in a raging fit of hot searing pain. I must have yelped for out of the darkness came a womans voice, a beautiful southern Irish accent, ?Lay down now man or ye?ll tear the stitches out? Her cool hands took my shoulders and gently lowered me back down. ?I?m desperate for a pee ? I pleaded,
?and ye?ll have one ? she answered .Doing it for me as I lay there. She was just one of many angels who ministered to my every need in the next few days. She moistened my mouth with some cold water and hushed me off to sleep.
Next morning I was awakened by a nurse who had the deepest brown eyes ever,her generous mouth was graced by the loveliest lips and her smile was electrifying .This was Nurse O?hara, known by all and sundry as Scarlett.
She stood over me holding a little glass tube in which there seemed to an enormous fleshy caterpillar, my face must have been a question mark for ,unasked ,she said ?This is your appendix, it?s healthy, you can take it home with you? I was amazed ,?Why ,did you take it out ?? I pondered.
? Language difficulties ? she laughed and hurried off.
I learned that I was now a patient in the ?Hospidale Britannico? the British Hospital. An establishment that had been founded in the 19th century to look after the needs of British subjects, all the nurses were from the British Isles or the Irish Republic ,the Surgeons and Doctors were all Portugese ,as were the maids and the catering staff. This was to be my home for longer than I could have realised.
I would see the Spring come to Portugal.
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