Page 130 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

They had effectively merged only some two years before, but Orient Line had
long been a small but very elite entity, whereas P&O could be said to have been
far larger but much more prosaic. Orient operated only four to six ships at a time,
but all were very fine examples of maritime design and technology; it had nothing
resembling Khyber or Mantua, the workhorses of the shipping world. And with
this difference Orient Line affected a different hull-colour, older-style uniforms,
and an unwillingness to train cadets; I was therefore accommodated in a very
pleasant cabin near the bridge that had earlier acted as a spare officer’s cabin
(there was to be another cadet sailing with me, but he was enjoying a leisurely
leave). I was also pleased with the voyage that we were to undertake; it was to
be through Suez to Australia, a two-week cruise from Sydney, and an eastward
return home via Panama.

On May 13theverybody arrived on board. My companion cadet, Mr Carveth,

seemed a reasonable enough fellow, and I was interested to see that Commodore
Edgecombe was to take over command, a man with a strangely mixed reputation,
but very much an ‘Orient man’. The mate (under whose aegis we would operate)
was Mr McGowan, whom, I very soon discovered, flourished under the rubric
‘Black Mac’. He was a man of powerful but low-key presence, but despite a rather
fearsome reputation and a dour demeanour, was actually a humorous and very
efficient officer. A little way beneath him was the second mate, Malcolm Rushan,
another rather dour but pleasant enough personality who, I discerned, was
probably the one from whom I was likely to learn the most; apparently even the
Commodore respected him – a fairly select group.

The next day the passengers arrived. Oriana differed from the earlier
passenger ships in one minor but telling way; it had accommodation for 638
first-class passengers as opposed to 675 on Arcadia, but 1,496 tourist-class as
opposed to 735. Plainly, immigrant passengers (though they were now more
Italian and Greek than British) were of growing importance, but the premier and
more expensive traveller remained worth P&O’s cultivation. This we cadets could
easily see as we kept watch on the gangways; we agreed that this looked like a dull
voyage, first- class being rather elderly and infirm, tourist being of middle-age
and with younger – rather too young - children.

In the evening of the 14th we left for Australia. Next morning I was on the 8 to
12 watch, but with an even lesser role than I had had before on the big ships, there
now being an excess of officers, including a 1st mate who was the senior watch-
keeper, and a Staff Captain who seemed to have his eyes on the top job (rather
unsurprisingly, for the Commodore was quite overweight and ungainly, a relative
rarity in seamen, and to me seemed to be in a permanent bad mood … probably
anxious for retirement, I thought) and spent an inordinate amount of time on
the bridge. But my main observation of the day was that we were traversing the
Bay of Biscay at an amazing speed, the vessel’s service speed being twenty-seven

129