大象传媒

The Ocean Freedom sailed empty out of Bone on the morning of 27 December, just as the red sun was lighting up the red roofs and white-washed walls of the town houses. There was never a truer observation - 'distance lends enchantment'.

Contrary to expectations and with all guns manned until nightfall that day, we sailed the length of the Mediterranean without a single incident and duly dropped anchor in Gibraltar harbour, where it was less peaceful than being at sea. Each night the harbour resounded with exploding depth charges - the measures taken to combat small submarines and skin-divers who sneaked out from the Spanish coast to stick mines on ships in the harbour.

My recollections of the town of Gibraltar are just a hazy recall of steep, narrow streets, shops overflowing with goods and the ridiculous price of spirits - something like 4d a tot, and a good one at that. I would not have bothered to go ashore at all, for I was more concerned with catching up on lost sleep, but it fell on me to go ashore to take and collect the ship's mail the morning after our arrival. As it turned out, that trip ashore was fortunate because I became familiar with the layout of the dock and the route into town, which was quite a long hike along the dock road.

Later, in the evening, the captain received instruction to be ready for sea at first light the next morning. This was quite a surprise because we thought we would be staying for several days, and consequently most of the crew were having a well-earned whoop ashore. Because the 1st and 2nd officers had turned in and the 3rd was on anchor watch, the captain asked me to go ashore to try to round them up. This is where I was glad that I had made the trip earlier that day, for the visiting tender dropped me on the dock road, but this time it was completely blacked out. Remembering that long stretch of dock road bordered by posts and droopy chains, I more or less kept one hand on them all the way to the town.

It wasn't difficult finding the venues accommodating the different crew members. The first difficulty upon making contact, however, was convincing them that they had to return to the ship. The second was convincing them why they had to return. The third, and most difficult, was getting away from them, for they were in such high spirits - or rather more to the point, high with spirits.

At such encounters it was repetitions along the lines of, 'Good old Sparks' or, 'Hey, we've never had a drink with Sparks!' or, 'Mr Sparks doesn't mind drinking with the fo'castle' and, 'Hey, Fred, he wants another drink' - which I didn't, but did so as a 'one for the road'. I don't think I had ever bothered about rum before, perhaps because I didn't like it - I still don't - but after the first two, or perhaps three, it became quite pleasant.

Returning to the ship I was very grateful to find those posts and chains along the pitch black dock road, and navigated on them. At some stage along the journey, I was very poorly indeed and thankful that there was a post to lean on. After I had parted with everything possible from inside me, I felt a little better and very thankful for the lines of posts stretching to where the tender would be waiting.

Upon arriving at the jetty, wharf, landing stage or whatever it was called, the tender's black shape had not arrived, which was fortunate for it gave me time to drift back to normality. It was while I was doing this drifting back that I began to wonder what was different. My first thought was that I had come to the wrong place, then I decided it wasn't the place that was different, it was me. I felt funny and certainly not 'funny ha-ha'... Then suddenly I knew! Teeth.

It was as though I had suddenly been given an anti-alcoholic jab. I was instantly alert and put my hand up to where my four front false teeth should have been - they were not there! Just my gums that were slowly coming back to life and beginning to belong to me.

I don't know how many posts there were, there must have been dozens of them along that road where I may have stopped. I searched the base of each post in turn, wishing that I had thought to bring a torch with me, instead of having to rely on my sense of touch to establish the difference between all sorts of things and my teeth. By the time I had found them, I was stone cold sober and my alcoholic remorse hurt much more than my pumping head.

Upon returning this time, the tender was already waiting, and only then did it suddenly occur to me that I was back, yes, but what had I done with the shore-leave crew that I had set off to capture? The thought of going back to town and starting all over again was just as miserable a one as the thought of returning to the ship empty-handed, for at that moment I hadn't a clue as to what had transpired earlier. Then, that anonymous eye that had watched over me from the Pinna to Colombo, and for all I know, in Bone too, came to my rescue. Out of the night, in the distance down the dock road, came the sounds that just had to be boisterous tanked-up sailors whose constitutions were more tolerant to alcohol than mine.

When my thoughts drift back to Operation Torch, which was the codename given to those North African landings, they don't latch on to that anxious and noisy experience of the Stuka dive bombers. Those memories have dimmed beyond recognition among my three or more years at sea. Instead, I can recall and relive instantly those feelings of shame and misery when I allowed myself to get into such a ludicrous situation. Then the stabbing anxiety I experienced as I searched for my teeth, and afterwards, water to wash them - coupled with the awful thought that I might have to return to the ship, and then home, looking all gummy. Had it been a week or so earlier I could have appropriately voiced the song 'All I want for Christmas are my four front teeth'!

-- Read Tom Simkins' book, Another Door

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