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sank an unsustainably large proportion of those ships endeavouring to bring
supplies to the country. Fortunately, the US perceived sufficiently dangerous a
time coming for it to enter into the Lend-Lease programme, whereby for the
use of certain overseas bases it allowed some of its obsolescent and unneeded
vessels to both carry cargo and hunt for U-boats operating in the Atlantic. But
it was not for nothing that Churchill, born of an American mother and a distant
relative of President Roosevelt, declared the war to be won when Hitler, in one of
the more asinine of his many senseless decisions, declared war on the US almost
immediately after Pearl Harbour; Churchill, evidently unlike Hitler, was fully
aware of the enormous productive potential of the US. Indeed, by that time, it
had already begun to produce a basic freighter, to a British design, that could be
assembled in about two weeks from parts made all over North America; these
were known as ‘Liberty’ ships. Well over 2,000 of these ungainly vessels were
launched (as were a number of other designs, including tankers, but of these the
Liberties were the most numerous). But they were slow (whatever else they were,
U-boats were also slow but not much more so). Therefore, an improved rapid-
build vessel was designed; it could manage seventeen knots as opposed to twelve,
and of these, over 500 were constructed (they were termed ‘Victory’ ships) before
1945. The British Government bought many of these (and finished paying for
them, in a bundled-up debt, only in 2006). At the war’s end, companies were
given some ships to replace wartime losses; P&O received two Liberties (Dongola
and Devahna) and two Victories (Khyber and Karmala). And as the wartime life-
expectancy of these types of ships was perhaps one or two Atlantic crossings,
any luxuries were eschewed. Thus, no windows, no wardroom, no dining room
(or mess, whatever one prefers) and often a gun platform resolutely placed upon
the bow or poop to deter any submarines foolish enough to surface (few did);
the ships had only what was strictly necessary. At the end of the war, shipping
companies were in no financial position to replace the ships lost, thus giving these
crude but effective ships a longer life than they really deserved. In our gilded age,
my determination that Khyber was ugly would be roundly condemned by many
seafarers, as the ships were a triumph of function over form, but even so, there
were still some beautiful ships around, those of the Blue Funnel (Alfred Holt and
Company) and Union Castle Lines being particularly noteworthy.

These deprivations did not particularly concern me; as I have said, British
boarding school tends to harden the critical faculties and the arteries, for that
matter. And I soon found that ship’s food wasn’t so bad, even occasionally
including roast duck.
But duty called, and the following morning, I was back aboard. There were no

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