We Joined The Navy (26 page)

While the duty watch of cadets were rigging the quarterdeck, Mr Sammidge, the Commissioned Catering Officer, and a working party of stewards were preparing innumerable canapés, cocktail sausages, potato crisps and tiny sandwiches. Mr Sammidge watched the preparations with a careful eye. He had been in the Navy long enough to know his way about and, as this was his last commission, he hoped to make enough out of it to add to what he had made out of other commissions and set up in a small hotel of his own when he left the service.

‘Come out from among them flowers’ he said to a steward whom he could see lurking behind a thick zareba of tropical flowers which he and the ship’s postman had brought on board that morning.

‘Here,’ he shouted at another steward who was letting his appetite for the canapés get the better of him. ‘Keep your hands off them c’naipes. Them c’naipes is for the tables. You two start taking them plates up. Crisps at the far end for the cadets and the c’naipes in the middle. Keep the keviar this end for the Governor. Not too many now. Take some up now and some later. Them olives has got to last. They don’t grow on trees, you know.’

Next door in the Wardroom Wine Store, the Captain’s Steward, Knowles, and one of the Wardroom barmen, Marine Stubble, were mixing the drinks under the supervision of the Gunnery Officer, who was the Wardroom Wine Caterer.

‘White Lady! Cointreau, one bottle!’ The Gunnery Officer read out the recipes as though he were giving the detail for loading and firing a gun.

Knowles lifted the Cointreau bottle and gravely allowed its contents to gurgle into the silver soup tureen in which the drinks were being made. He let the bottle drip until it was empty and solemnly replaced it on the table with the dispassionate composure of a priest of Rome pouring a libation to Jove on the Capitoline Hill amongst the swirling incense, the fluttering pigeons and the chanting choirs.

‘Gin, Gordon’s! Six bottles!’

Knowles took the bottles as Marine Stubble handed them to him and repeated the lugubrious sacrificial procedure.

‘Ice!’

Marine Stubble carried up a bucket and let slide a glittering avalanche.

‘Lemon. Cherries.’

Knowles and Marine Stubble took turns to bring up the ingredients in obedience to the whiplash tones of the Gunnery Officer.

‘What’s that other bottle there?’

‘Sherry, sir,’ said Marine Stubble.

‘Put that in as well.’

Impassively, Marine Stubble poured the bottle of sherry into the tureen. No expression crossed his face. Marine Stubble was a teetotaller.

‘Now, then. Next. Planter’s Punch ...’

Several decks down and some way forward of the Wardroom Wine Store, the Double Bottom Chief Stoker was also preparing for the party. His was a vital part.

Past cocktail parties had shown that the normal trim of the ship left a gap between the decks of the motorboats and the bottom step of the gangway; lady guests had been forced to draw up their skirts to an unconscionable extent, under the licentious eyes of the boats’ crews and the gangway staff. Whenever
Barsetshire
gave a party the D.B. Chief Stoker lowered the stern of the ship by transferring oil fuel. It was a proceeding which never failed to arouse comment amongst his stokers but the Chief Stoker had not served twenty years in the Navy without learning how to quell junior ratings.

‘Stop nattering and get on with it. You’re being butchered to make a wardroom holiday, that’s what.’

Ten minutes before the start of the party Mr Sammidge came up on to the quarterdeck to check the distribution of canapés, the Gunnery Officer surveyed the disposition of glasses and drinks, and the D.B. Chief Stoker measured the distance from the gangway to the water line by eye. The preparations were completed and everything now depended upon the conversational powers of the hosts.

The hosts stood in groups on the quarterdeck, dressed in white uniforms, sampling the work of the Gunnery Officer and his staff; none of
Barsetshire
’s officers would have contemplated the idea of entertaining a quarterdeck full of complete strangers while sober. No man can be sociable, neither can he dance, in cold blood.

The Bodger had briefed the cadets in the art of broaching a stranger. ‘Offer him a cigarette,’ The Bodger said, ‘and a drink, ask him if this is his first time on board, and tell him what wonderful weather he has in the West Indies. All quite simple. Remember he’s not the vaguest bit interested in you and he knows everybody else at the party and you don’t. He’s probably only come because it’s the right thing to do and shows that he moves in the right circles and he’s just waiting to get away from you and talk business to someone. A good many of the people you’ll meet will be either social or professional climbers and that holds good all over the world. Whatever you do, let him talk if he wants to. They all speak English here, which is an advantage you won’t always have. Everybody has got some particular subject which will keep him happy for hours. All you’ve got to do is find it and then say “How interesting” and “You don’t say” and “Well, I never knew that” and so on and he’ll think what a wonderful conversationalist you are and invite you to dinner and introduce his daughter and then you’re all set. Then it’s your turn. You can bore the daughter as much as her father bored you.’

Michael approached a negro clergyman. He was very tall, with a dead black complexion and startlingly white hair. He wore a white linen suit, black surplice and white dog-collar. The man’s whole appearance was an ensemble of black and white.

‘Would you like a cigarette?’ Michael asked.

‘No,’ said the Black and White Padre. ‘I do not smoke.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘No. I do not drink.’

‘Oh well. ... Is this your first visit on board this ship?’

‘Yes.’

‘What do you think of it?’

‘I have been on board only five minutes.’

‘Oh I see. What lovely weather you have in the West Indies. Much nicer than England.’

‘Except for the hurricane last month.’

‘That must have been terrible.’

‘It was good.’

‘Dear me, a hurricane good?’

‘Never has my church been so full as after that.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘People wished to give thanks for their lives.’

‘I see. It’s an ill wind which blows no one any good. Hurricane, I mean.’

‘My church is still full.’

‘That must be very encouraging for you, sir.’

‘Another hurricane is expected next month.’

‘Oh.’

Michael and the Black and White Padre gazed helplessly at each other. They both spoke English but that was all they had in common.

Near by, Colin Stacforth was entertaining a stout woman in a flowered print dress. Her eyebrows were severely plucked, her eyes were haloed in mascara and her lipstick exceeded the natural line of her lips by an eighth of an inch. Two bright red spots of rouge stood out on her cheekbones and she wore long dangling earrings which were miniature goldfish bowls. She had a low growling voice and Colin Stacforth, who was the acknowledged cadet expert at cocktail parties, mentally dubbed her the Scarlet Woman.

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Would I,’ growled the Scarlet Woman.

‘What would you like?’

‘What’ve you got?’

‘White Lady, Rum Punch or . . .’

‘Got any Scotch and soda?’

‘I expect so.’

‘Not too much soda’

‘By all means.’

‘Before you go, have you got a cigarette?’

‘Certainly. Virginia this end, Turkish the far end.’ Colin Stacforth held out his cigarette-case. The Scarlet Woman was impressed.

‘You’re pretty smooth,’ she growled. ‘What you doing tonight?’

‘I’ll get you something to drink.’

The noise level rose as the party gathered momentum. At first scattered and subdued, like the earliest arrivals of a symphony orchestra tentatively tuning their instruments, the sounds of the party merged and swelled as though more and more instruments had arrived, found the right key and taken up the strain in sympathy, until they achieved that final sustained roar, that unmistakable babble of a large number of people contained in a group and obeying that same instinct which once caused their ancestors to assemble by companies in the treetops to gibber and howl at the rising moon.

Raymond Ball was shouting with an elderly man and his very pretty daughter. Raymond Ball was persevering with the elderly man in the hope of being introduced to his daughter. As The Bodger had predicted, Raymond was not having any difficulty in making conversation with the old boy. His problem now was to stop him.

‘You know!’ bawled the elderly man. ‘It’s a damned good show this ship coming out here like this! Reminds us all out here that we’ve got a Navy! Yes! You should come out here more often! Why don’t you come out here more often?’

‘Well. . .’

‘I’ll tell you! Dollars! The Almighty Dollar! We can’t afford it! And why can’t we afford it?’

‘It’s…’

‘I’ll tell you! We can’t afford it because we’re spending so much on rearmament! That’s what it is! Rearmament!’

‘But, Daddy, if we spent less on rearmament we’d be even less likely to have a ship out here.’

‘Be quiet, Louise, you’re as bad as your mother used to be! By the way, my boy, you haven’t met my daughter! This is my daughter Louise! I didn’t catch your name, my boy?’

‘Raymond Ball, sir.’

‘Good, I must leave you for a moment! I see an old friend of mine over there and I must catch him before he goes. You look after this young fellow, Louise!’

‘This is a lovely party,’ Louise said. ‘Oh, do look, there’s a boy on the floor. I hope he hasn’t hurt himself?’

‘No, he hasn’t hurt himself. He’s used to it. Can I get you another drink?’

‘No, thank you, this one is quite enough. They’re terribly strong, aren’t they?’

‘Yes. You have to be careful otherwise you’ll get terribly drunk on them.’

‘That boy on the floor looks drunk already.’

‘Oh, no, I expect he’s just tired.’

‘Shouldn’t he go to bed then?’

‘I expect someone will take him soon. Now tell me . . .’

‘Are you playing in the cricket match tomorrow?’

‘No, I’m not actually playing but I expect I’ll go and watch.’

‘I love cricket! If you watch them playing it here, they look
really
happy. Have you got a good team?’

‘We have one or two good players. You see that tall dark chap over there talking to the girl in the red dress? He’s very good. I expect he’ll play for the Navy one day.’

‘Will he?’

The elderly man came back as Louise was beginning to look at Paul with interest and Raymond Ball was wishing he had never mentioned him.

‘There you are! Louise, the Governor has been kind enough to invite me to dinner tonight so you’ll have to take this young man home and give him something to eat. Take the car, old Pertwee will give me a lift home. Does that suit you, young man?’

‘I’d be delighted, sir!’

‘You must look at our bamboos,’ Louise said.

Raymond Ball looked up sharply. Now what does she mean by that, he asked himself. He looked at Louise again. She really was a most delicious specimen.

‘Are they like nutmeg trees?’ he asked.

‘No. Why?’

‘Nothing.’

The hard work put in by Knowles and Marine Stubble began to show itself. Strangers bumped into one another, apologised, and fell to talking as though they had been at school together. The Governor’s party, who had started by standing remotely at one end sipping White Ladies, now circulated through the crowd. The Governor himself was exchanging stories with the P.M.O. while his Aide-de-Camp was trying, unsuccessfully, to break into a group where The Bodger was entertaining his fiancée; the Governor’s Aide-de-Camp had lost two fiancées at cocktail parties in H.M. Ships and he knew the danger signals. Michael and Isaiah Nine Smith were picking George Dewberry up off the deck and getting him to bed.

The Corporal of the Gangway, who was a Plymouth Brother, stood by the quartermaster’s lobby and looked scornfully aft.

‘Anointing their throats with hell fire, that’s what they’re doing,’ he said to the Marine Bugler, with relish.

‘I could do with a drop of that meself,’ said the Marine Bugler wistfully. ‘They doan’t half seem to be enjoying themselves.’

‘They’ll go the way of the rest,’ the Corporal of the Gangway said firmly. ‘Slipping down the broad high road to damnation, the lot of ‘em.’

‘Oh, I doan’t know. A bit of a shindig does no one any harm.’ The Marine Bugler was a Wesleyan.

‘Ah. You wait till it’s time to go. Till some of them women try to get down the gangway. Then you’ll see what I mean, lad.’

The Corporal of the Gangway was a man of experience. When the time came for the guests to go, the scene was indeed diverting.

Ooooh
Bodger
!’ squealed one girl, who had been drinking rum punches faster than The Bodger could provide them. ‘Those steps! You’ll have to carry me! No, I can’t, you’ll have to carry me. No, I can’t face them and I daren’t even look at them or I’ll be sick. You’ll have to--don’t prod me, Jane, you cat! I think I’ll just give this little boy a kiss before I go. Come here,’ she said to the Cadet of the Watch. ‘But I’m sure he needs someone to kiss him. He looks lonely. I’m sure you’re beastly to him, Bodger. No, you’ll have to carry me. . . .
No!
’

The Gunnery Officer and the Communications Officer were trying to stop another girl going up a ladder into the after gunroom where Michael and Isaiah Nine Smith, whose blasphemy could just be heard, were slinging George Dewberry’s hammock and putting him into it.

‘But Guns,
please
, don’t be such a prude. Oh, what lovely language! I’m not going to stay long, I just want to see how they do it. I’ve always wondered. Can’t I just peep? Just a teeny . . . weeny . . . peep--hup! Whoops! Pardon my French!’

The Commander, who disliked cocktail parties personally but attended each one because all successful naval officers attended them, strode around the quarterdeck tapping officers on the shoulder with his telescope and muttering to them to get their guests ashore. The band played the National Anthem to intimate that the entertainment was now over and they wanted to get to their supper. The stewards were clearing up the tables by emptying the contents of glasses down their throats. The D.B. Chief Stoker appeared at the forward end of the quarterdeck and summed up the situation. The party was over.