From Strength to Strength

by Sara Henderson

  Hours later Charles finally deposited them back on their boat, had their boat boy give us all the cold champagne on board and told him to take them away and on no condition to let them come back here. He promised, and we waved them goodbye, me still in the dinner jacket.

  Quiet descended once more and Charles turned to me, ‘Now young lady, I’m going to take you below and lock you in the master’s cabin with the master and throw away the key. If anyone else comes, they can run around the deck all night.’

  A wise move, because by this time I was very uptight about a deck performance. Arm in arm we wandered below and once more surrendered to the magic of the night. Between sips of champagne and whispers of love, I was drifting delightfully into the state of wedded bliss, when we heard knocking.

  ‘Charles!’

  ‘Um . . .’

  ‘Charles, someone is knocking at the door!’

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ mumbled Charles, ‘we are on a boat, not in a house.’

  ‘There it is again!’ He stopped kissing, listened, and had to admit someone or something was knocking on the side of the hull. And it didn’t sound as if they were going to stop. I won’t print the words Charles uttered this time, but when he went up on deck, he was in a frightening mood. The next thing I heard was a thunderous, ‘What!’ Mumble, mumble, mumble. A thunderous, ‘No!’ A lot of shuffling and then silence. I went up on deck, again wrapped in a sheet, to find Charles sitting on the cabin with his head in his hands. A sampan was paddling away at the speed of a motor boat and I could see the whites of the paddler’s eyes from this distance.

  ‘Darling, what happened?’

  ‘That idiot wanted to know if we would order our wedding photos now!’

  ‘You must be joking?’

  ‘No I’m not. The sample album is there on the deck. I threatened to do so many things to him he dropped it in fright and fled.’

  The female is a strange creature at times. Completely ignoring my husband, I grabbed the album and started oohing and ah-ing at the wedding prints by moonlight. The reason for the strange little man delivering the photos in the middle of the night was that, in Hong Kong in 1960, you didn’t have to book a photographer for your wedding. You didn’t have to because all the photographers in town would watch for the wedding banns to be announced in the paper and descend upon the wedding like a plague of locusts. Then the race was on to see who could get the photos to you first. I must say this little fellow was an eager beaver. Charles gently took the album from me, saying, ‘How can you look at our wedding photos when we’re not man and wife yet?’

  True, although we had been close several times. I meekly put down the album. Charles once more led me below and this time he locked the door. If there were lights outside, if anyone was knocking, we knew nothing about it.

  I awoke the next morning with sun streaming through the porthole. I felt so warm and loving and I rolled over to kiss my husband good morning, only to find him gone. I jumped out of bed to look for him and found him in the bathroom.

  ‘Good morning.’ Kiss.

  ‘Why are you up so early?’ Another kiss.

  ‘I have to go to the office.’ No kiss.

  ‘What!?’

  ‘Don’t shout, darling. Sound carries on water.’

  ‘I don’t care what it does on water, this is our honeymoon. You can’t go to the office the day after our wedding, especially since we didn’t start to be married till three o’clock this morning.

  ‘Sorry, darling. I have an appointment in one hour.’

  I know now that if I had just dropped the sheet I was wrapped in and curled a few locks of hair, that would have been the end of the office. But alas, I was young and shy and new at the game. So he left a sulky wife and departed for his office.

  ‘What will I do?’ I shouted as he departed, standing on the bow of the sampan looking for all the world like Lord Nelson.

  ‘Oh, Ernesto will be on board soon. He has a long list of things you can help him with.’ He faded out of shouting distance, which was very fortunate for him. I sat down in disgust and started to write a letter to my mother. At least someone could be happy.

  Dear Mother,

  You will be happy to know I am married. In fact, I am so completely married that Charles left for the office this morning, just eighteen hours after we were married. Can’t say he’s not the ambitious type.

  I described the wedding in detail and promised to send wedding photos as soon as possible. Judging by the night before, that would not be long. I was just finishing the letter when the happiest face I had ever seen appeared out of nowhere over the side railing, followed by a body. Finally, there on the deck in front of me stood Ernesto. He was Filipino.

  ‘Hello Mummy.’ Ernesto did not have a very firm grip on the English language, in fact he frequently lost hold of it altogether. But from that day on this was the only name he ever called me. I liked him instantly.

  ‘The master told me to look after you. I will.’

  He did. He cooked breakfast, he cleaned. He wouldn’t let me do a thing. I even hesitated to go to the bathroom in case he wanted to help me. So, for the next three months I spent the nights with my loving husband, after cocktails that is (before cocktails he was all businessman) and the days being watched over by the ever-devoted Ernesto. I also came to know all the strange faces at my wedding.

  Most of the time things went fairly smoothly but one day when I was busy preparing for a weekend sail with a few friends on board a sampan came paddling up to the landing. On board was one of my newly acquired friends and her six-year-old son. We sat in the sun and chatted. I signalled to Ernesto to watch the little darling, as he was the type that would bore a hole in the side of the boat just for fun. Ernesto signalled back that he had gone to the bathroom and went below to the galley to make tea for us. The child surfaced again while we were having tea and jumped up and down on the deck screaming over and over again that he wanted to go. Instead of keelhauling him, his mother simply said, ‘Alright, Anthony, I’m coming.’

  Ernesto then discovered what he had done. While we were sipping tea, he had pressed the electric toilet flushing button until it finally gave up the ghost. Ernesto closed all the valves so we wouldn’t sink, and went ashore to find someone to repair our toilet.

  The next morning at some unearthly hour Ernesto appeared with five Chinese workmen all carrying dilly bags of different shapes. They were plumbers, Ernesto informed me, but he wasn’t completely convinced of the fact. Unfortunately his grip on the Chinese language wasn’t much better than his grip on English.

  After spending an hilarious morning in the toilet with five Chinese and Ernesto, with neither myself nor Ernesto having a clue what the Chinese were saying, we were no further on. The Chinese then departed in a sampan for lunch, leaving Ernesto and me to discuss the problem. We did not resolve it and they returned and re-assembled in the toilet. I couldn’t face spending the afternoon in there. The space was meant for one, it was now very hot and the men hadn’t bathed recently.

  I adjourned to the deck and joined the discussion by speaking to Ernesto down the air ventilator. The afternoon passed with me in serious conversation with an air vent. At sunset, I felt very weary and the only result was that the ‘terrible five’ wanted to take the toilet ashore. I pointed out to Ernesto that the only things wrong were the inlet and outlet valves which were attached to the side of the boat, so how could it help to take the toilet ashore?

  Ernesto agreed with me, and told our waiting audience in ‘Ernesto-style’ Chinese. He must have said something wrong somewhere because after a few very hostile stares, they picked up their dilly bags and departed without so much as a word.

  ‘What is wrong. Why are they leaving?’

  ‘I don’t know. Mummy.’

  ‘What did you say to them?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘Well, at least they didn’t hit you. I suppose you’d better go ashore and find someone else.’

  Needles
s to say the toilet was not fixed for the weekend and everyone had to use the crew’s toilet, which was located in the sail locker. It was quite a trip there and back under full sail. Then later in the day the crew’s toilet gave up the ghost and we still had dinner to go before we were back at the dock. Ernesto suggested making a Chinese junk toilet. This consists of a chair without legs and sits on the highest overhang section of the stern of junks. So if you ever see a serene gentleman sitting on the high stern of a junk contemplating the sky or reading the newspaper and you are in a small boat, steer upwind and clear.

  We didn’t have a high stern, but this didn’t deter Ernesto. He rigged a sail across the end of the deck and hung a sign. Behind the sail on the bobtail bumpkin (V-shaped) he nailed the toilet seat from one of the other toilets. It was very ingenious, but did not really fill the bill. For the men it was easy, they just relieved themselves over the rail, but for the women it was a different story. We nearly lost a few down Ernesto’s toilet. When we finally got everyone ashore that night, women scattered in all directions, leaving husbands and boyfriends standing.

  The fixing of the toilet became the saga of my honeymoon. I spent more time in the head with Chinese plumbers than I spent in bed with my husband! Numerous repairmen came to examine it. They would talk a lot and gesticulate and Ernesto would try to translate and then . . . nothing. It became clear that Chinese plumbers simply did not know how to fix a western, marine-style toilet. Having tried all avenues, and tired of timing my trips to the toilet between sunset and the fishing lights, the fishing lights and sunrise, I presented the problem to Charles. He immediately had someone sent over from the shipyard who fixed the toilet in twenty minutes.

  To say I was upset with Charles would be an understatement. He had let me go through endless weeks of inconvenience and trouble when he could have handled the whole stupid situation in a few minutes. I told him so in quite a few words. He said he thought I would enjoy handling small things like that—something to occupy my time. And seeing as it was a household matter, I should handle it. Did I expect him to drop everything and run home every time I had a problem?

  By this time we were definitely into our first argument. I informed him that if this had been a normal situation I would have been able to get tradesmen who could speak English and who knew what they were doing. Also, that little problem he was referring to had nearly sent his beloved boat to the bottom of the bay. I then stormed below and sulked. It was a complete waste of time. He ignored my performance, finished his meal and strolled below with the inevitable champagne and that was the end of my stand.

  CHAPTER 5

  1960

  After three months our honeymoon ended. We had to head for Manila. Manila was head office for Charles’s business and that was where we were to live.

  The last three weeks before departure were spent readying the boat for sea. This was a long and exacting task. We had two trial runs up the coast of China. The first trip was a beautiful sail with calm water and lovely weather. The second was rather different.

  We left Repulse Bay in perfect sailing weather and headed up the coast of China. With the main up and the mizzen set with loose-footed jib, the boat was sailing off the wind to perfection, her favourite position. Then, two days out of Hong Kong Charles backed into the swinging stove and spilt a pot of boiling water all over his back. I was steering when I heard Charles yell. He ran up on deck, grabbed one of the lines and jumped into the water. The first aid box was ashore being stocked for our ocean sail, so there was nothing on board. Falling back on one of Mum’s old cures for sunburn, I bathed his back in cold tea while Ernesto turned the boat and headed for Hong Kong and the hospital.

  The weather turned ugly. Charles did not have a radio as he felt that this made the contest with Mother Nature more interesting. So we could not receive weather reports. However, there was a barometer and it was dropping rapidly—we were heading for trouble. A typhoon was approaching Hong Kong from the southwest, and we were approaching from the northeast. Somewhere between where we were and Hong Kong, it was inevitable we would meet it head on. I was praying we would already be in the Hong Kong typhoon shelter, safely at anchor.

  Charles was now in excruciating pain. His back was so bad he couldn’t even move an arm. So I had to sail the boat. Charles stood behind me and told me what to do. If I hadn’t been so scared it would have been a wonderful experience. She was a special boat, with a living heart. You could actually feel her challenging the sea. My sailing experience to date had only been on Sydney Harbour and certainly never on a sixty-foot, forty-ton, two-masted sailing boat. Not to mention that the China Sea can hardly be compared with Sydney Harbour.

  We were flying down the China coast, and I mean flying. The closer we sailed to Hong Kong, the blacker, and thicker, and lower the clouds became. As the sun slipped below the horizon I remembered Charles’s plan for the trip.

  ‘We’ll sail up the coast and anchor in a lovely bay near the border to China. There’s a fishing village there and we can buy fresh fish for dinner. We’ll sit on deck and watch the sunset and eat our fish with a good wine. You’ll love it.’

  ‘Look out—you’re luffing the mainsail.’ Charles’s strong hand clamped down on mine and brought me back to the present. The waves grew by the hour and as darkness closed out the world, white foam loomed high above the spreaders, indicating their height.

  ‘Look out!’ Charles’s arms locked around me and onto the wheel, holding the boat on course and me at the same time as an enormous wave dumped tons of water across the deck. By the time the water had subsided we were gasping for breath. I was about to give Charles my opinion of his idyllic night away when I saw the pain on his face caused by the action of locking his arms around me.

  The hours wore on. Ernesto came and helped me at the wheel. He had trimmed and furled the sails and generally readied the deck for anything the sea might care to throw at us.

  By this time Charles’s back was covered with blisters the size of dinner plates. I knew he was in great pain but he never uttered a word. I had stopped using tea as the blisters had broken and I was worried about infection. All I could do was bathe his back in salt water but since meeting the typhoon there wasn’t even time for that. Years later it was discovered that salt water reduces scarring. We certainly proved that as Charles’s back healed with only a small scar on his waistline.

  Charles was worried about the typhoon. We were racing it to Hong Kong and the problem was that if it arrived before we did, we would have to ride it out at sea. Our helmsman had to get to hospital before his back became infected. Every moment caused him pain and he would not have been able to withstand several days at sea riding out a typhoon.

  We sailed into the harbour on the final alert. In fact, it would be safe to say it was a dead heat between the typhoon and us. Ernesto and Charles anchored the boat in the safe mooring harbour and we rowed to the pier. However, the ordeal was not quite over. The pier moved up and down in twenty-foot leaps. Charles told me to step ashore when the boat and the top of the pier were level. He did it so easily. After chickening out on my own judgement three times, Charles shouted, ‘Jump when I tell you!’ I closed my eyes and did, and found myself sprawled on the pier.

  As the typhoon descended on Hong Kong, Charles and I were driving up the peak to Matilda Hospital. Normally a drive up the peak in that weather would have terrified me, but it was child’s play after the last two days at sea, the trip ashore in the dinghy and the cement pier. As I helped Charles in the door of the hospital, driving rain closed out the world below, and we saw nothing but rain for the next few days.

  The doctors cut the blistered skin off Charles’s back and he was on his stomach for the next ten days. As the painkillers took effect, the strain gradually disappeared from his face. He had to relax as he could go nowhere and do nothing. We stayed in Hong Kong until the doctors declared Charles’s back fit to sail. That took another few weeks.

  Finally it was time to leave and I nervou
sly asked if it was wise to venture forth into the China Sea considering our recent experience. Charles told me that after a typhoon the sea calms for at least five days. Plenty of time to get to Manila.

  We were all set to depart. All we had to do was wait for the next typhoon to pass and then dash off from whence it came and be assured of a millpond all the way. Sound easy? Naturally it went wrong, through no fault of Charles’s planning, but this time he had just omitted to check the history of nature. About every fifty years or so, some cantankerous typhoon decides to do a turn-about and retrace its path just in case it missed something. This typhoon didn’t miss a thing, including us.

  When the typhoon passed through Hong Kong we were in the safe cove in the lee of the typhoon and the boat rode it out without a hitch. The next day, after it had passed, was as predicted by Charles—perfect clear skies and not a ripple on the water. We were ready to lift anchor with only one small problem—from a crew of six we were now down to three, Charles, Ernesto and yours truly! This should have been enough warning but we didn’t heed it.

  One chap had broken his big toe in the bathtub, the second had run out of holiday time while Charles was delayed in hospital, and the third fellow’s wife was sick so he had to take care of the children. However, Charles decided that because the weather would be perfect, the three of us could manage the boat.

  So, we lifted anchor with Charles at the helm, Ernesto on the deck, and me in the galley. The first catastrophe befell us there and then. The moment the anchor was lifted I was sick. Sick is the understatement of the century. I couldn’t stop heaving long enough to explain to my horrified sailing husband that I didn’t usually get sick, well not in a bay anyway. All he could utter was, ‘But I met you on a sailboat!’

  After about one solid hour of throwing up I collapsed onto the deck, completely exhausted. As soon as I was in the horizontal position, the heaving stopped but the moment I took my head off the deck, off I went again. So I just had to lie flat on the deck. Fine. But this made sail-handling, cooking and steering rather difficult.