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of the closeted world of Somerset Maugham, whose writings I had long enjoyed,
and indeed still enjoy.

The pace of life in Budge Budge upon my return to the ship was rather to
my fancy, for the discharging of our cargo proceeded at a modest pace, and all
was finished by 4pm, at which time all work stopped! This was very unusual on
a tanker, and it was difficult to see why we had to wait for the next day; we had
discharged all our cargo by then, so our draught was no longer an issue, but wait
until 11 am the next day we did. It may, of course, have been on the account of the
necessary pilot, for the passage down the Hooghly was, with its shifting bars and
unpredictable tides, one of the world’s more difficult river transits. In comparison,
the Tyne and Plaju (on the Musi River) were characterised by unusually narrow
channels, but they had the advantage of at least always presenting the same
channels and difficulties.

Unfortunately, it appeared that our next port of call was to be Abadan, a
place I had hoped never to see again. We moved slowly down the Bay of Bengal,
around Ceylon (after only a short time at sea, I began to see the importance of
this island, at least to P&O, for even the Australia-run ships, both passenger and
cargo, had to call in every second voyage or so for routine crew changes), and
then slowly up the Arabian Sea and through the Strait of Hormuz, the reduced
speed arising because Shell seemed not to know what to do with the ship. I was of
course hoping to get transferred to another vessel, but this wasn’t going to happen
in Abadan, and certainly could not happen in Port Elizabeth, where were shortly
advised we were now destined to visit.

Although a change of destination was now devoutly to be wished, on this
occasion Shell decided to stick with the South Africa plan. Abadan was, of course,
as uninspiring as usual, but we quickly left for Port Elizabeth on March 28th, and
arrived there on April 12th. I complained mildly about the comparative tedium
on a long run such as we experienced, but the 3rd mate told me of an earlier
voyage that the ship had experienced from Geelong (in Australia) to Cape Town.
This route was ‘the wrong way round’ because it necessitated sailing into a head-
sea, the prevailing incessant wind being strong, westerly, and having a reach all
the way round the world, unleavened by any land. Mantua had made very heavy
weather of it, the Chief Engineer at one point being faced with the probability of
running out of fuel and thus possibly needing to consume the cargo; Iles Crozet
and Kerguelen represent the only land anywhere near those shipping lanes and
are the home only of a few scientists and meteorologists. I ceased complaining.

But I had one useful lesson to learn on the run back up the African Coast.
The two senior cadets were old acquaintances of mine from Warsash, both having

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