Page 188 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

million, but fecundity was encouraged by society’s need for children to support
the aged and infirm and to tend the crops, mechanisation being too expensive. The
primary regional export was jute, used mostly in the manufacture of packaging
materials, clothing, roofing, electric cables, cordage and ropes.

Our destination was Chalna, a port that existed more in the imagination
than reality; the pilot station was seemingly right out in the Bay of Bengal, and
when we ‘arrived’ we simply anchored amidst the mangroves and awaited the
barges and labour that was to discharge and then load our cargo. But as this was
not to happen for a good number of hours, we kept an anchor watch (it was a
muddy, unstable bottom).

Such a watch was exceedingly boring. I was perhaps fortunate in having
Neilson on watch with me, as I was nearly his equal in chess; I had, anticipating
tedium, conveniently brought a set with me to the bridge. After a couple of games,
I think one each, at about 2 am we heard a yell from the foredeck. Upon turning
the aldis lamp on and shining it on the bow, we could see three or four figures
moving around among the mooring ropes, the yell having come from the deck
watchman doing his rounds. I quickly told Neilson to rouse the other cadets,
and get them to the bow, and then I ran down to the foredeck, grabbing a brass
wheel-spanner on the way. On the way forward, only some 70 feet in all, I could
see some men scrambling to throw one of our mooring ropes overboard (these
were fairly substantial items, 50 to 200 feet in length), and then make rather
desperate attempts to get over the bow, presumably to swim ashore. Two of the
cadets arrived, I of course being the first one there. One man was partially over
the taffrail; I brought the wheel-spanner, a formidable weapon, sharply down
upon his forearm. He yelped and was gone. Just beside me the cadets reached a
man who was trying to reach a rope ladder suspended over the side; he fell into
the water, a distance of perhaps thirty feet. In moments a motor started, and we
saw a boat speeding upriver.

We collected ourselves and surveyed the scene. Of the possibly five men, we
only saw four in the boat and wondered if one of them had survived the fall. We
knew that one was injured (probably with a broken arm) and threw a lifebelt
overboard, but there was no response that we could see (there being virtually no
light, the only lamp being the forward anchor light, which was designed only to
be seen from a distance of at least three miles). We had lost three mooring ropes,
they with possibly one of them drowned.

I woke Foote to tell him of the night’s activities. He was not a man to shower
expletives upon me, “What the hell do you think you were doing?” being as far as
he went; I had very little to present as a defence.

The matter rested there. We, fortunately, had two new mooring ropes in the
forecastle storage, and two old ones that were (barely) serviceable, so in fact the

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