Page 217 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

The Captain’s Cocktail party was much less substantial an affair than it
had been on the big ships and was followed by a select party for the ‘special’
passengers, who were on few voyages such as ours. I was asked to go, I suppose,
simply because I was available, and I suspect that the mate was unenthusiastic
about the task. It was held in the Captain’s cabin, and the first person to whom
I was introduced was, to my great surprise, a charming young lady called Mary.
We had a chat and I found that she was destined for Delhi, where she was to be
Assistant to the First Secretary at the High Commission (we were not to go to
Bombay; she was to fly up from Colombo). Things were looking up.

One of the components of the Junior 2nd job description was to have his own
table, and as there was only one sitting on this type of ship, I was a bit concerned
about those with whom I was to be closely associated for the next month or so. In
fact, I found myself to be very fortunate; I had a small coterie of HSBC employees,
two young trainee-managers, a manager and his young wife, and another person
whom I do not recall. (At the time HSBC was a Hong Kong-based bank with its
main management (mostly British) in London. It was the main Bank in Hong
Kong, but it was rivalled by the Chartered Bank; both issued their own notes and
coins). I realised that I had struck it lucky, the manager being maybe 45 years
in age, but with a personality much leavened by his German wife, almost a girl,
who possessed a very un-Germanic sense of humour. One of the ‘bank boys’ was
a rather studious young man, the other the exact opposite … I called him Flash
Harry, about as unlikely a banker as I could conceive.

Next day I noticed from the ‘Special List’ that Mary was indeed listed. She
was the daughter of one of the significant directors of Ellerman Lines, one of the
biggest British shipping companies; it traded, as far as I remembered from the
ship recognition books, practically everywhere in the world. I assume that comity
among shipping companies dictated that when someone important, or related
to someone important, from a British shipping company travelled by ship, they
were given some special attention. An idea occurred to me.

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