On the 14th of May 1982 I rejoined the Stability in Shoreham again. Unfortunately Frances Denise was still onboard. Also onboard was Alan, with whom I’d previously sailed on the Somersetbrook, who introduced me to Jock (yep, yet another Scotsman called Jock)—a short but powerfully built lad from Leith. As we were on my home turf so to speak, I decided to show Al and Jock a night on the town in Brighton. After doing the rounds, we’d had quite a few and found ourselves in a pub called The Druid’s Head—one of my old underage school drinking haunts. It was there that we met a bloke called Mick who I went to school with. Mick had a few of his mates with him and in the six years since I’d last seen him he had been chucked out of the Royal Navy and decided to become a soccer hooligan. So obviously there was going to be trouble at some stage of the evening and sure enough, after a heavy night’s drinking, it kicked off. I have no idea what it was about—some imagined slight on the part of one or other of the parties I expect—but we found ourselves facing off another group of lads. Suddenly, with a host of profanities delivered in a barely understandable Scottish brogue, Jock launched himself at them and it was on. However, we‘d hardly got started before the police arrived and everything died down as quickly as it had begun. Mick was impressed:
“Gotta love that Scottish accent” he said, “it puts the fear of god into the enemy every time!”
A couple of days later we left Shoreham for Vlaardingen in the Europort complex. It was a sunny late spring afternoon as we passed through the lock gates at Southwick and then the long concrete piers that sheltered the harbour from the worst of the Channel seas. I remained down in the engine room, and as we passed the East Pier I heard the sound of rocks striking the side of the ship. I smiled to myself, “little bastards” I thought, “just like me at their age”. Yep…it was the next generation of bored Shoreham youth in action! After the usual drunken two nights in Rotterdam the ship left for Ming-Ming then Sunderland, where we finally got shot of Frances Denise and I took the opportunity to look up my old mates who were just about to finish their Phase III at South Shields. It was to be the last time that I would see most of them and we bid each other a final farewell. From there the ship commenced another series of runs to Archangel.
“Hey, we’re all friends in the EEC together now” I told him.
It cut little ice and he promptly arrested me and took me to the police station—the officious prick. As someone who’d drunkenly staggered around Antwerp many a time, I wondered why I’d never been arrested there for the same offence. But Willebroek is only a small town, and so that was probably the first major crime that had occurred there since the turn of the decade! Anyway, he asked me where I was from and I told him that I was a crewmember off of the only ship in town: the Stability. A few phone calls and a couple of hours later the ship’s captain arrived to clear things up. He wasn’t happy. The fine was waived but I was warned to keep my passport with me at all times. Still, at least I managed to get a few drinks in before the bars closed. One of the things you forget as an Englishman, apart from the existence of the absurd offence of jay-walking, is that a lot of countries demand that their citizens carry ID with them at all times.
One of the ABs was from Port Talbot in South Wales, so obviously like any Welshman he was nicknamed ‘Taff’. Taff was slightly insane. On the second night at Willebroek myself, Jock, Taff and Alan decided to take the train to Brussels. Two Englishmen, a Scotsman, and a Welshman—it was going to be a big night! By sheer good fortune, when we arrived in Brussels there was some kind of a beer-drinking festival going on and so we made ourselves comfortable outside in a large cobbled marketplace around which were placed a series of huge chocked-up wooden barrels containing beer. This was to be the night’s official entertainment, but the fun and games had already started. A group of very loud young Italian men were sat at a table behind us and one of their company had a large dog. They were hassling all the girls and generally being annoying. Three of our party weren’t looking for trouble, but Taff was getting a bit paranoid and suggested that much of the laughter coming from their table was being directed at us. He was looking tense, and being a bit of a psycho wanted to put things straight by fighting them. The dog, meanwhile, started sniffing at Jock who turned round and gave the animal a friendly pat. For some reason the owner took umbrage and started yelling at him to leave the animal alone. Oh dear! Jock may have been a short fellow, but he was stocky and powerfully built. What’s more, as events in Brighton had proved, he was not shy of a fight. Quick as a flash he jumped up and gave the bewildered animal a swift boot to the side of its head before launching into the nearest of their number. It was just the cue Taff was looking for and within an instant he was up and at the dog’s owner. I got up and kicked over their table, sending drinks and cigarettes flying all over the cobblestones—just to make a bit of noise—before launching into one of the others with a swinging right hook. Alan, meanwhile, was going at it with another of their number. It was all over in less than a minute. We dusted ourselves off and continued our night as if nothing had happened. I love the Scots…they don’t take any shit!
Like me, Taff was into his reggae music. I was also a big fan of jazz-funk and my cabin—the party cabin—often resonated to the music of Bob Marley and Toots Hibbert fused with that of Ronnie Laws and Narada Michael Walden. I vividly remember sailing back up the Brussels-Rupel Canal towards Antwerp after leaving Willebroek; it was a glorious northern European summer and the evening sun lingered for hours as the four of us sat out on deck, drinking cold beer and listening to music as the bright-green Belgian cornfields passed by.
“Ahoy there!” shouted Jock to a couple of girls riding their bicycles along the canal embankment. They smiled and waved to us as we sailed past in the opposite direction. I’d found a local radio station that played the stuff we liked and the sound of Heatwave and D-Train thumped out of the speakers into the still, early-evening air. Good friends, good music, good times; these were some of the best days of my life. Frances Denise was gone and the atmosphere in the engine room was relaxed. I was in the company of three solid and trustworthy mates, we’d had a good few days and some good fun in Brussels and Willebroek and now we were off to Hamburg via Archangel. All that was missing was some female company. Why the hell would anyone want to work in an office?
After a fairly uneventful trip back to Archangel, we left in early July and arrived in Hamburg on the 15th. Hamburg has a reputation as a fun but seedy city, but it was a reputation that I always found to be a bit overstated. Jock and Alan paid off in Hamburg, so it was just Taff and me. We decided to head into town. It was a fair walk, along Vermannstrasse and Johannisbollwerk from where we were berthed, and as we were walking we could hear a group of young men talking loudly in Spanish a few yards behind us. The Falklands War was raging, in fact the Lincolnbrook and the Leicesterbrook were already down there, and just our luck—these lads were Argentinian. Taff was psyching himself up for a fight by quietly singing “you Argentinian bastards” football-chant style, but I told him to act cool because we were heavily outnumbered and for once it would be nice to go somewhere without getting involved in some kind of a punch-up. I don’t know what it is about the Brits abroad, but trouble always seems to find us. Fortunately, after about half an hour without incident we in St Pauli and onto the infamous Reeperbahn. I must say that I was never over impressed with the Reeperbahn: to be honest the beer was being sold at rip-off prices and the bars and clubs were likewise over-priced. One of the bouncers we met was from Stepney in London, and he told us that he never frequented the place when he wasn’t working for the same reason. Furthermore, continually being accosted by working girls, although novel at first, soon became tiresome and eventually Taff and myself had to pretend to be queer to get some peace. They were pushy and overbearing, not only that, they weren’t particularly good but very expensive. Despite all of these perceived shortcomings, however, we returned every night until the ship left some three or four days later.
Unlike Frances Denise, the new Chief was a thoroughly nice bloke, but like many merchant seamen he had his problems with the booze. Over the course of the trip he became increasingly divorced from reality as his alcohol consumption increased while his food intake steadily decreased. He had all the makings of another Hydraulic Jack. I too had a couple of alcohol-related problems, but not in the same way that he did. His was alcoholism; mine was plain old drunkenness. We’d arrived back in Archangel on the 26th of July and in a case of when in Rome, do as the Romans do, I got arrested in Archangel for being blind drunk. Details of the incident remain sketchy, but I hold the Russians responsible because the vodka was so bloody cheap. I remember spending the evening drinking vodka in one of the few local bars with some Russians—none of whom spoke any English. I was the local hero because I had a pocket stuffed full of black-market roubles and was buying drinks for everyone. Having all got thoroughly smashed we made our way out into the street and the next thing I remember is being dragged into a paddy-wagon and carted off to some kind of holding cage with a load of other drunks. The cheek of it! I bet James Bond never had to endure such indignity when he ventured behind the Iron Curtain. We were all woken early in the morning by a couple of Russian cops and one-by-one kicked out. A line formed at the desk nearest the door, and each offender had some details taken down by what I assumed was the chief cop, and was then shown the door. I remember wishing they’d hurry up because I was hungover, freezing cold and badly needed a leak, but these guys were taking their time and making everyone suffer for their sins. When it came to my turn, the cop said something to me in Russian, but obviously I had no idea what it was.
“Spassibo tovarich” I replied, hoping that that would suffice.
“Passport” came the reply in fractured English.
I dutifully handed over my seaman’s discharge book. The guy looked at it and then made a phone call. While on the phone he momentarily turned his attention back to me.
“Ship?” he asked.
“Stability” I replied.
He went back to his phone call and I was taken into a small room by a couple of his grinning sidekicks where I was given a brown liquid that approximated to coffee along with a large dose of what I assumed to be Russian sarcasm. I indicated that I needed to relieve myself, and after various gestures involving my genitals they stopped laughing long enough to take me to a wooden door at the end of a corridor and point to it. I opened it expecting to find a lavatory but instead found myself looking out over some waste ground. There was no fence and I could easily have just walked off, in fact the idea did cross my mind until I remembered that matey on the front desk had my discharge book. So after relieving myself against a whitewashed wall I went back inside, only to find nobody there! Typical bloody Russian indifference! I made my way back to the room unescorted and waited. Some time later I was taken out to the front desk where I saw the ship’s captain—looking none too pleased at having to bail me out a second time—and the ship’s agent. Apparently a couple of bottles of scotch had changed hands and I was free to go, but the big red stamp in my discharge book meant I could no longer go ashore.
A soccer team had been drawn from members of a few British ships and a match arranged with the Russians. I, of course, couldn’t take part thanks to the red stamp in my discharge book. My only option therefore was to watch Russian TV and drink beer while supposedly maintaining a generator watch as part of a skeleton crew. The Second Engineer stuck his head inside my cabin to ask if I had any gym shoes. Cheeky bastard! Going ashore to play soccer while I stewed onboard, and still had the nerve to ask for my gym shoes! Resentfully I handed them over and went back to my beer.
“I hope you all get thrashed” I called after them as they left. I knew it would only be an excuse for a piss-up anyway and expected them all to be nursing big hangovers the next day.
At around six the next morning I went to put the Second Engineer on the shake as usual. But as soon as I walked in I knew something wasn’t right: his eyes were wide open and his mouth pulled back into a weird kind of grin. One of his arms was raised in the air and bent at the elbow while his fingers were bent into a kind of claw shape as if grasping for something. He was obviously dead! But just to make absolutely sure I grabbed the raised arm and gave it a tug—it was completely stiff and the whole body moved with it. Yep, no doubt about it—he was dead all right, and had been for some time. For some inexplicable reason my eyes were drawn to his bedside table, and to my amazement sitting there was a steaming hot mug of tea. It was surreal: like being in a Monty Python sketch. Obviously the second didn’t make the tea—how could he if he was dead? And then it dawned on me: the assistant steward must have made it for him. Surely not! Yes, it was unbelievable but true, the assistant steward had gone in and placed a steaming hot cup of tea not two feet from a man that was obviously dead—and hadn’t even noticed!
Common courtesy demanded that I tell the Chief first, so I went across to his cabin and banged on the door. But he was still sleeping off the previous night’s presumably substantial alcohol intake and I couldn’t rouse him. Reluctantly, therefore, I went up to the Captain’s cabin. The Captain’s door was ajar and he was having breakfast with the ship’s agent. I knocked and entered.
“What is it?” the Skipper asked somewhat tersely—I was still not back in the good books after my episode with the Russian police. The agent recognised me and smiled a wry smile. I half expected to see a bottle of scotch at the breakfast table, but somewhat surprisingly there was none.
“Excuse me Captain” I said, “but the Second’s brown bread”.
“What do you mean brown bread?” he asked with a puzzled frown. He was a Geordie so obviously didn’t understand rhyming slang.
“He’s dead”. I replied.
“What!...what do you mean he’s dead?”
“He’s dead—as in, he’s dead”.
“How do you know he’s dead?”
“Because he’s as stiff as a board. He’s dead Captain, completely and utterly dead. Trust me, I wouldn’t come up here and interrupt your business with the agent if he wasn’t. He’s dead. Come and have a look.”
At that point I almost injected a Pythonesque “ees fuckin’ snuffed it” into the dialogue, but thought better of it.
We made our way down to the Second’s cabin where the Second lay exactly as I’d left him. The Captain nodded sombrely, then noticed the steaming hot cup of tea and a strange puzzled look came over his face. Due to the solemn nature of the situation I tried not to laugh, but as in all such formal occasions, when you are going to erupt into a schoolgirl giggle there is no power in the world that is going to stop it. The words “excuse me” had barely left my lips as I raced for the door and burst out laughing. I regained my composure and re-entered the cabin.
“I’ll leave it with you then Captain” I said as I left. The last I saw of the body was it being taken off the ship on a covered stretcher.
“He’ll need more than a couple of aspirins for that” said some smartarse as the body was taken past the crew’s mess.
I never did get my gym shoes back.
The Chief, who’d been teetering on the brink for some time, finally collapsed in a heap. That only left one engineer—me! So there we were, stuck in Archangel with an engine in bits—piston, con-rod, cylinder head lying all over the floor—and only one person to put it back together. I made a start. It wasn’t as if I didn’t know what I was doing: I’d pulled a few pistons on B&W Alphas in my time, in fact I could probably have done it blindfold, but trying to lower a fairly large piston with con-rod attached into a vee-configuration engine using an overhead chain-block was not the easiest of jobs to do on your own. Moreover it had to be certified by somebody with a Lloyd’s ticket—which I certainly didn’t have, although the Chief did. After a couple of hours the Captain came down to see how I was doing and to ask if I needed one of the crew to give me a hand. By then, however, I’d done all the heavy work so I told him I was confident that I could finish it alone. By the end of the day it was done and as far as I was concerned the ship was ready to sail; we could deal with the certification issue later when we were out of the USSR. I’d given the engine a test run and was back in the Captain’s good books in a big way. Nevertheless I looked forward to hearing that we were leaving. I’d had enough of Archangel and was due to pay off on return to Europe. The last thing I wanted was to be stuck there for months.
The Second’s death, however, was causing some bureaucratic complications. It wasn’t the death itself that was the issue: the Russian police treated the whole thing with supreme indifference. As the person who discovered the body I was asked a couple of questions through an interpreter, but it was obvious that they really couldn’t care less and seemed much more interested in drinking the Captain’s scotch. No, it was the body and what to do with it that was causing the problem. Ideally it should have been repatriated immediately for burial, but the Soviet authorities refused to allow it unaccompanied on an Aeroflot plane. They also refused to consider burying it locally because he was not a Soviet citizen and so, they argued, they did not have the sovereign power to do so. The ship’s Captain, on the other hand, said that he could not possibly keep an un-embalmed corpse on the ship for the eight days that it would take to get back to the UK. The Soviets then suggested putting it in the ship’s deep freeze, but the ship’s cook steadfastly refused. In his words, he did not want “a dead body keeping company with the mixed veg”. Besides, he added in a flash of inspiration, there was the health issue to consider as well as the general welfare of the crew who shouldn’t have to put up with a corpse being stored next to their food. In the end the Russians relented and sent the body back by plane.
I liked the Second; he was a good bloke. He was only in his mid thirties and had a young wife and family. Life can be so fragile and unpredictable, especially as the guy looked to be in perfect physical condition. As the two people closest to him onboard, the Second Mate and myself had the task of collecting his personal effects and it was then that we discovered blood pressure monitoring equipment—so it was obvious that he knew he had heart problems and should never have been at sea. The soccer match was obviously the death of him. But if you love the life, and I know he did, then regardless of medical conditions you are going to sail anyway. I think the hardest decision we had to make was what to do with the very intimate personal letters he had written to his wife but hadn’t got around to posting: did we hand them over to her and upset her even more, or should we discretely get rid of them? In the end we took the easy way out and decided that it was not our decision to make.
By the third week alongside at Archangel the boredom was setting in a major way; we’d been there way too long. Stuck onboard, one night the Second Mate pulled out the Aldiss lamp: the lamp used to flash Morse code should all other means of shipboard communication fail. Apparently he was going to test it. I asked him if he knew any Morse. Of course he did, he replied, it was part of his training. The ship immediately behind us on the berth happened to be Swedish. I never quite worked out why a Swedish ship would be loading timber in Archangel—I’d have thought they’d have enough timber of their own in Sweden. Anyway, I asked the Second Mate to translate various swear words and insults (plus a couple of Swedish swear words that I’d picked up) into Morse, which I then communicated to them with the Aldiss lamp. They promptly flashed us a “go fuck yourselves” signal. And so the fun began. I had a new toy and I was going to get the maximum use out of it before it was taken away from me. Having tasted success with my first attempt, I then tried a couple of nearby Soviet military posts: tovoy mati (fuck your mother) I flashed, but got no reply. Perhaps Cyrillic translated differently in Morse—either that or the occupants were drunk! I then reverted back to English and began flashing other ships with similar messages. Some either ignored me or didn’t deign to reply; others were more eager to respond in kind. It’s amazing what boredom will drive a person to do. The fun and games even carried on from ship-to-ship after I’d got bored and stopped. Boredom—it leads you to find amusement in the tiniest of things!
Finally, after nearly a month alongside at Archangel, the ship left on August the 20th. A couple of days later we rounded the North Cape and put in to Tromso where a new Second was waiting and the Chief was sent home to be replaced by…yep, fucking Frances Denise; just what I needed! Less than a week later and we were alongside at Dagenham. The return of Frances Denise meant that I couldn’t wait to pay off, but because of the Second’s death, and the fact that I was the first to discover the body, I had to wait for the police and some investigators from the Department of Trade to turn up and interview me. So I headed off up to the Henry Ford. They arrived the next day and after I had told them what I knew I was free to pay off. Fortunately I was never to cross paths with Frances Denise again!
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