Page 96 - Michael Frost-Voyages to Maturity-23531.indd

however, when the Officers’ Wardroom threw a party for officers and their invitees.
Needless to say, I invited Elaine and her mother. It was a very pleasant hour or so,
being marked, I noted, by Stuart giving me a compliment about the attractiveness
of my companion. I could happily preen for an hour or two!

On August 1st, we arrived in Southampton. There I bade farewell to Elaine
and commiserated to myself how the path of love had proven far more chaste
than I felt it should; I had stolen no more than a peck on the cheek, and for
that I could blame only myself. At British schools, one is likely to be and remain
completely ignorant of the fair sex; I am sure that the teachers knew very little
themselves, most having been to Oxford or Cambridge, where women were for
undergraduates rare and distant pleasures … or, indeed, mere visions. It seemed
to me, however, that my social life was to be given a second chance, for on
that same day Stuart and I were told that next day we were to be transferred to
Himalaya, berthed immediately astern of Arcadia.

Himalaya was slightly older than Arcadia and some 2,000 tons smaller.
Normally on the Australia run, she was reputedly a happy ship and was not marred
by engine or operational problems (some ships were not so lucky, Iberia, Arcadia’s
sister, seemed plagued by engine problems, and was scrapped prematurely in 1972
partly because of mechanical unreliability). However, I was happy to join Himalaya,
especially with four fewer cadets than had impeded my arcadian pleasures, and
particularly because it was to undertake a twenty-two-day cruise that embraced all
sorts of interesting places, including Athens and Barcelona.

Hours after we transferred to Himalaya we paraded on the Boat Deck to be
inspected by the usual P&O director, down from London for the occasion, and
the Captain. I was delighted to see that the latter was Captain Cowan; he even
recognised me! Not quite so effusive was the mate, who, of course, was to have
control of our lives for three weeks. He, William Scott Masson, was a formidable
man to whom one would, as a callow cadet, mistakenly take an instant dislike, but
whose stiff appearance (he wore somewhat pretentious-looking tufts of whiskers on
his cheekbones and was possessed of a permanently austere gravitas) was belied by
an unassuming authority that engendered a natural respect. (He was subsequently
Captain of Canberra during the Falklands War in 1982 and was awarded the CBE
for his services in that conflict – see ‘A Very Strange Way to Go to War’ by Andrew
Vine). Perhaps fortunately, he was neither familiar with handling cadets’ supervision
nor with their education and was far from enthusiastic about even having them
aboard. For Stuart and me, our job was to run the lifeboats for passengers going
ashore in ports at which there was no berth at which to berth, which was fine by us.
Fortunately, few of the ports required tendering. And as cadets were normally not
needed, the two of us were again, as on Arcadia, provided with a first-class cabin
deep the ship; which is to say, we were largely out of the control of the officers,
whose accommodation was several decks above ours.

95