Page 171 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

waiter’s broken English was ascribed to somebody having to run up the street
to find another restaurant that could provide a fork for Cora to use (I was not
much better, but had used chopsticks on other occasions, so to me they were
clumsy, especially with mushrooms and peas, but by no means unusable). We
both (clumsily) enjoyed the repast.
We boarded the train back and ensured finding its port-side seating. The
month being September and the sky only a little cloudy, the view of Mount Fuji
with the setting sun behind it was breath-taking. And I was pleased to find myself
sitting opposite a dapper Japanese gentleman who expressed much delight at
recognising my Aquascutum coat.

The next morning another quick trip down the coast saw us in Kobe. This
was a city of an altogether different order, spread over the horizon, full of ships
and belching smoke from all its orifices. This was more of the industrial Japan
that was then emerging, but as I had taken a few loans of watch-keeping time in
the two earlier ports, it was my turn to stay on board during the day; I therefore
passed a quiet eight hours. The evening, however, was not quite so dull. The 3rd
mate told me of a massage parlour where I might experience untold delight,
and to that emporium we repaired. After having myself scrubbed raw and being
almost scalded, a very well-muscled young lady then twice walked up and down
my backbone. I felt no erotic urge, just mild to not-so-mild pain.

En voyage south to Hong Kong I discovered that we had taken aboard quite
a few passengers, one of whom was a nice young Swiss lass named Agnes, whom
I believe was travelling with a family as a child-minder, though I never saw the
child (this ship was not big enough to engage a Children’s Hostess). I rather took
to her, but in a chaste way, for she had a natural innocence about her that was
quite disarming. We stopped in Singapore after Hong Kong, and there I was
royally entertained by the Hammonds and their delightful young family, but I
had difficulty in seeing how I could repay their hospitality (his job was piloting
ships, and therefore frequently eating on them; it would be rather absurd to invite
them back for a meal on the ship). And that evening I thought that it would be
nice to have Agnes in my cabin for whatever transpired, but she really was ‘an
innocent abroad’; nothing at all transpired, but I enjoyed her company (she came
from Vaud, so at least there was some commonality).
Our trip back to Europe included Djibouti for bunkering, but for nothing
else. The problem was that there was really no alternative to visiting the
horrible place, not because there were no other ports around, but it was
simply that at that time oil was a Gulf and Saudi monopoly. However, on this
occasion, having learned from the experience of the previous voyage, the pool
remained open, more machinery having been loaded in Japan in the ship’s
lower hold, thus avoiding ‘tenderness’.

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