The Allurity,or, A Comedy of Errors
The Allurity was moored up to buoys just a stones throw from the Assurity. She was lying fore and aft on the buoys ,providing the staff at head office with a perfect profile of her. Miss Ethel ,the owners daughter like to look out upon the river and see the various ships tied up in the Greenithe reach of the Thames.
She was a small ex Royal Navy tanker and her Captain had kept her in excellent trim. You could see the polished brasswork of the whistle on the funnel from a good way off.
I was unsure of what kind of welcome to expect when I stepped aboard,she was tiny and had a small crew. Captain Brown was first to greet me and took me up to his cabin to sign articles. On our way up to his cabin I met a man who looked like an illustration for a buccaneer, he had a Van Dyke beard and a wolfish grin ,which betrayed a terrible lack of teeth ,on his head he had a paisley square ,tied just like a pirates. This was 1963 , only bohemians ,or pirates, wore such things then. He wore an officers blouson with chief officers epaulettes. This apparition was the Mate. Duncan Brown introduced me to him and he said ?Welcome aboard matey ,ahaar? in pure stage pirate.
After I signed on I went down to the cabin ,not ,you notice ,my cabin ,but the cabin. This was where the deck crowd lived . All four of us, there was Alf , Percy and a guy just known as Canada. Never found out his real name,he was never willing to divulge it.
I did?nt have to pick a bunk ,there was only one spare and I had that.
After unpacking and stowing away my gear I went up to the mess room to see if I could rustle up a cup of tea; the cook was in there picking out his winners for tomorrows racing at Goodwood. He looked up from the paper and welcomed me with the words ? And you?re the man whose goin? to keep things in order here eh?? I did?nt answer that but asked him what the score was with the crew, they seemed happy enough . The cook replied that Alf had a fearsome temper and had once given Percy a trimming. He said the captain had heard how I had taken control of things in the Brown Bear and had Alf eating out of the palm of my hand. Sunday?s do with Percy had confirmed my status as a hard man and the captain could?nt wait to get me on board. My stomach did a back flip, I am the opposite of hard , a was comfortable with my cowardice ,what the hell was I doing here ?
It was near dinner time and the lads came in off deck and we sat down to plates of burnt offerings from the cook, he was?nt just a bad cook ,he was a LOUSY cook..And we had to pay him to do it ! So there we were ,the four of us pushing whatever it was around the plate and wondering what was going to happen next.
The next thing that happened that Alf was called to the captains cabin ,he was told that his Nan was gravely ill and his mum wanted him at home. He was signed off and on his way home before afternoon smoko. No need to be confronted with Alf then!
A young kid from Dagenham was sent aboard to replace Alf, no problem there then.
We were going to be in Greenhithe overnight and at 5.00 p.m. sharp the captain would be going home to spend the night by the fireside . It would be our job to unship the jolly boat ,which was now stowed aboard, and put it in the water so that Duncan could be ferried ashore. I have mentioned that this was a ?micro? ship compared to the ones that I had previously sailed on , it is important to bear that in mind when I relate what happened next.
There was no bosun on the Allurity , the mate did that job, he put me on the falls of the derrick. For those of you who are shore wallahs I will explain this as clearly as I can. The derrick is a boom,this is raised by hauling on it?s falls ,previous to the Allurity ,all the falls had been wire rope ,this one was rope ,two inch. You raise the derrick and there is a runner that goes from the top of the derrick through a block and goes down to a second block by the bottom of the derrick and a rope or, wire , is fed through those blocks to a winch . The other end of the runner has a hook on it and this is attached to a sling with four hooks on it , these hooks go through iron hoops on the side of the jolly boat. So the lads first raise the Derrick ,my job, then they lifted the boat . Two wires ,called guys, are attached to the top of the derrick so that when it is raised it can be pulled over the ships side. It was my job to lower the boat when it was over the water. I had the rope fall wound round a cleat, that bore the weight instead of me .It was a procedure I had carried out many ,many times. On a bigger ship!. I had three turns of rope around the cleat and Canada told me to start lowering away. I fed the rope into the cleat but was looking at Canada for guidance ,never noticing that three turns was two too many. I looked just in time to see the loose turns jump clear of the cleats and the Derrick plummeted down ,hitting the rails and smashing the jolly boat to matchwood. There was the total silence of disbelief as we ,all of us , watched the wreckage float away on the ebbtide. Just then ,the bereted figure of Duncan Brown stepped through the accommodation door. He looked as though he was struggling to understand what was happening.
?Where?s the boat ?? he asked . The mate was speechless ; I started to try explaining what had happened. When he realised that I was the cause of this catastrophe he said ? It was an understandable mistake , you?re not used to us little ?uns ? The lads were stunned, and so was I ; it appeared that this man wanted me at any cost.
The whole episode had been viewed quite clearly from the windows of head office. It was a spectacular start to a star crossed sojourn.
The next day we went to a little jetty in Swanscombe where we loaded some fuel for a ship in the West India dock , the man on the jetty was Quasimodo?s younger and uglier, brother. He was as ugly in his habits as he was in his looks,but more of him later. We tootled off to the West India dock and our bunkering was going to take all night so Canada took the first watch on the pump, an old donkey engine, and Percy invited me and the New Kid ashore for a swift one. There was a pub in the docks but I have long forgotten it?s name but it was what was in the pub that made me take the next step in compounding the image of me being hard. There was an ?Test your strength? machine by the bar counter. A simple old fashioned affair, there was a pistol grip handle which you squeezed,after putting your threepenny bit in the slot. You squeezed the grip and a finger went around a dial ,telling you if you were a weakling or a Hercules,with all the gradations in between. Percy stuffed a threepenny bit in and the needle went three quarters of the way around the clock. It was pointing at strong He shoved another coin in and said ?Here?ya Brian ,you have a go? I did?nt want to because I knew it would show ?Wimp?. He pushed me to the machine and said ? Go on boy ,do it!!? I gripped it and the needle went right around the clock and Percy?s eyes near started out of his head. ?What the f??!!? he exclaimed staring at the needle now pointing toward ?Superman?
I was dumbfounded and refused Percy?s kind offer to pay for another go , if I did?nt know anything else ,I knew you should always quit while you are ahead. After that silly little incident Percy became very deferential to me . Looked like Duncans plan was working out.
The engine room crew on the Allurity we all from the Yemen, they never had a messroom of their own and used to eat on the poop ,the back end of the ship. They cooked their own meals ,which used to smell delicious , but there was no fraternising with them . They were a real crafty crowd of so and so?s and the cause of the trouble between the deck crew and them was water. The Allurity had a very primitive system of plumbing ,if you wanted a shower ,you had to go on to the fiddley (the top deck above the engine room) where there was a hand pump. If you pumped the handle for about 450 times it would give you enough water in the tank for a good shower. Trouble was old Abdul and his friends used to watch you do the pumping and then all jump in the shower together. You could only be sure of a shower if it was very late and they were in their bunks.
We used to get our own back on them in a very crude manner, pleas and entreaties had no effect on them. We used to save up a good gutful of wind and when they were sat at their meal we would walk by and let it rip. They used to tip the remains of the meal into the river, silly I know ,but it was war.
The chap in charge of the Arabs was on old Irishman called Tommy, he was very evenly tempered, I never heard a cross word pass from his lips. Like Canada ,he was another man with a secret, he was on the run from a very angry ex wife. He would never be traced here because ,as I learned during my time aboard her, there a system ,for those who wanted it, of no names ,no pack drill. All these guys were sailing under false colours.
I found out Tommy?s little secret one Saturday afternoon , the cook used to go home from Saturday lunchtime until Sunday lunch time and so we had to shift for ourselves for the evening meal Saturday and Breakfast Sunday. Percy and I used to have Sunday lunch at the Brown Bear so that was no problem.
One Saturday ,after the cook had departed for home ,I smelled the most glorious aromas wafting from the galley. I went up top to have a look at who was creating this gastronomic delight and found Tommy in the act of extracting the most beautiful looking pie from the oven. The crust was embellished with pastry cows and oak leaves. I had never seen ,or smelled, anything so delightful.
?Where on earth did you get such a wonderful pie?? I asked him .? Would ya like some?? he replied . I nodded and he plunged his knife into the golden crust ,releasing yet more meaty aromas. He just split the pie between the two of us and my portion filled a dinner plate. There were chunks of beefsteak, meltingly tender kidney and caramelised potatoes and carrots. I sat and savoured every last forkful. I asked him where he had learnt to bake so well and he told me that he had served his time as a chief pastryman on the P&O and Cunard line. He had packed up the sea when he married a Londoner and got a job as head pastry cook at the Caf? De Paris. When his marriage hit the rocks he took a powder and found his way down to Greenhithe, where he ended up on the Allurity , this was now his home. I was finding out that Greenhithe was like a creek where the flotsam and jetsam of the merchant navy got caught up for a while???like I was.
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Originally Posted by clancy
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