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sharing a cabin was likely to be a generally unpleasant experience. He was a heavy-
set fellow who had evidently come from a fairly rough life-school, appeared to be
devoid of a sense of humour, and, because he was soon to take his 2nd mate’s
exam and then become an officer, seemed intent on demonstrating to me that he
was a superior sort of person. Four months with him in cramped quarters looked
pretty undesirable. However, boarding school leaves one with several useful traits;
one becomes adept at ignoring those who deserve it, and, additionally, keeping to
oneself becomes almost second nature.

I was, however, happy to see that the other cadet (Young), though a few months
senior to me, was an altogether different sort of person. He was a physically slight,
cheery sort with an interest in things other than the ships and the sea. One of
Young’s interests was (target) rifle shooting, and because while I had been at
Cranbrook School, I had been in the school eight that had shot against hundreds
of schools at Bisley, this sport was of interest to me. (Cranbrook, in fact, won the
coveted Ashburton Shield in 1939 and thereby held the title longer than any other
school in the country.)

However, there was no choice of companions; we were stuck together, like it
or not. The jobs that we were required to do were twofold. Firstly, we had to learn
watch-keeping, and this was accompanied by practical training in navigation.
The watches almost always kept on deep-sea ships were 12 to 4, 4 to 8, and 8 to 12;
four hours on, eight off. The second role was to learn seamanship. This was ‘learn
by watching’ rather than by example, for neither the Serang (bosun – the head of
the deck crew) nor the Tindal (assistant bosun) knew much English, although I
was glad to see that the mate spoke fluent Hindustani, and a few of the deck crew
spoke a little English. I had not anticipated the need to learn other languages;
however, while the big passenger ships were generally British-manned, the engine-
room crew were mostly Pakistani, stewards were Goanese, and perhaps four of
the white ships were Chinese-manned. And I mean ‘manned’; on passenger ships
there were FAPs (female assistant pursers), nurses, female stewards, and a few
children’s hostesses, but anything feminine was completely absent elsewhere. It
was inconceivable that there could be female officers (all of those just named
were of officer-rank) on cargo ships, tankers or any other commercial ship; it just
couldn’t be done, a view to which I subscribed.
With quick stops in Rotterdam (a surprisingly modern city with facilities that made
London look like something from the 1930s) and Hamburg (grim, dirty brown buildings
with ever-present rain), on December 7th, we finally left the cold northern winter – or
so I thought. Our first port was Genoa, in the perennially sunny Mediterranean!

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