The Birthday Boys

by Beryl Bainbridge

  Staring me in the face,

  Staring me in the face,

  There she was and that lodger of ours,

  Staring me in the face.

  We could have done with more of him, but then the lady harpist scuttled in and you could tell from the general unrest and hubbub throughout that nobody was prepared to listen to that sort of tinkling. By way of amends for her less than enthusiastic reception she was given a tremendous ovation at the end, and the Lord Mayor presented her with a posy.

  I had just settled down behind the palm fronds with a full glass in my hand when Mr Trevor Jones, Chairman of the Chamber, called upon the Lord Mayor to present the Owner with a flag emblazoned with the arms of the City of Cardiff. It was neatly folded when handed over until the Owner, attempting to show suitable appreciation, made the mistake of opening it out. Yards of it fell across the tablecloth. Mrs Scott started to laugh. Then the Owner, struggling with its unwieldy folds, bellowed, ‘Taff … Taff Evans … where are you?’

  Clissold, the ship’s cook, pushed me to my feet. He’d had a skinful by then and could have hurled me across the room by brute force. I would have dodged away, only the Owner, spying me, waved his arm and called, ‘Taff, I need you.’

  I bobbed up and down, feeling foolish, at which the Owner shouted out in ringing tones, ‘My Lord Mayor, Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present my friend and fellow explorer, Petty Officer Evans.’ Such an explosion of cheering and foot-stamping took place that it would have been the height of mock modesty not to show myself.

  The Mate was relegated to the end of the Captain’s table, so I could be placed between the Owner and the Lord Mayor. Mrs Scott was still laughing; I distinctly remember the Owner leaning across me and hissing, ‘Kathleen, darling, for God’s sake, do stop.’ He got to his feet, thanked everyone for the flag – Lt. Bowers was all this time trying to confine it to manageable proportions – and promised it would be flying from the mast when we departed from Cardiff and hoisted again at the Pole. This last remark was a blatant lie. Where we’re off to we’re going to find it difficult enough to haul ourselves upright, never mind a flag that size.

  ‘We shall never forget,’ he said, ‘the kindness of the City of Cardiff, where we have found the best coal, the best facilities, and the best backing any explorer could hope for.’ Here he faltered, cleared his throat and was unable to continue. Most of those watching took it he was momentarily overcome with gratitude, but as Mrs Scott was still making strangled noises behind her napkin I reckoned he was struggling with an altogether different sort of emotion.

  By now, Lt. Bowers had reduced the flag to the size of a folded tent and draped it over the back of his chair. Recovering, the Owner reached across and stroking it reverently, spoke the following words: ‘I assure you we will never forget our welcome in Cardiff, or this flag. We would never have endured the strain of preparation except for the support of the people of South Wales. The memory of your generosity,’ and here he spread out his arms to embrace the whole room, ‘will inspire us in what I really believe is a great work.’ Then he shifted the flag from the chair back and, turning to me, declared, ‘I have no hesitation in entrusting this magnificent emblem into the safe-keeping of Petty Officer Edgar Evans, our ‘Taff’, a true son of Wales and the companion of my earlier voyage.’

  I ask you, it would have gone to any man’s head – all that cheering, the rapping on the tables for me to respond, the Owner smiling at me, the band striking up Hen Wlad fy Nhadau.

  All things considered, I think I acquitted myself fairly well. I don’t count myself as educated, but when I stood up I had a feeling in my head – and it was nothing to do with liquor – that I was part of something special, something with glory in it. Even before I opened my mouth a man with a white goatee beard shouted out, ‘Nail our flag to the Pole, Taff Evans.’ He wasn’t joking. There was some laughter, though not as much as you’d expect, yet I didn’t feel angry at such ignorance; if anything I was uplifted, see, at such simplicity, and there was this pride surging in my breast, pride that I was Welsh through and through.

  For the Owner’s benefit I translated into English the mottoes embroidered across the flag: Awake the Day and The Welsh Dragon Leads the Van – at the time the words seemed profound, though in the cold light of day I can’t see them as all that relevant.

  ‘There is no one,’ I said, ‘save the Captain, who could have persuaded me to return to the South. He’s the sort who inspires loyalty, respect … love.’ And here I dashed the moisture from my eye. I daresay the tears had a lot to do with the amount of drink I’d taken on board, but it isn’t easy for a man to say what he feels unless he’s in an exalted state, and I was expressing no more than the truth.

  In a way I was glad my wife wasn’t there to hear me, for though she would have been proud at my being king-pin she might also have considered she was taking second place in my affections. I noticed the Owner was looking very serious, properly moved this time he was, and Mrs Scott opened her reticule and took out her handkerchief, though in her case she was probably still in the grip of hilarity.

  Then, to lighten the proceedings, I called out for the benefit of the fellow with the goatee: ‘If we do reach the Pole, I hope to carry it home to Swansea rather than let it moulder in the National Museum of Cardiff.’ Whereupon a stout alderman at another table offered me £10 if I’d chip off a piece and slip it to him privately. Quick as a flash I shouted back: ‘Why not pay for it in advance?’

  I ended my little speech with the words, ‘We may die there … and join poor Vince, clutched in the cold clasp of the ice … but if we ever do come back, we hope to meet you in Cardiff.’

  No sooner had I sat down than the stout man announced he was prepared to donate £500 to the fund. Someone else followed suit with an offer of £52 10s. Within fifteen minutes cheques adding up to near a thousand pounds had been dumped on the Owner’s pudding plate. ‘Bless you, Taff,’ the Owner said, shaking me vigorously by the hand, ‘you’re a bloody marvel’, and I said, minding my manners, ‘Pleased to be of assistance, sir. Sign off the Belgian stoker. He’ll not last the course.’

  Later I had a chat with the wife of the Lord Mayor. As soon as I heard myself claiming kinship with Lloyd George I made my excuses and legged it back to the ship. I didn’t want to blot my copybook, not after such a triumphal night.

  The following afternoon my niece Sarah arrived from Swansea to wish me godspeed. She’s a clever girl and reads books out of the library. Right from a little one she’s shown interest in my stories of the South, being particularly curious about the sort of birds you get out there, as well as fish. Once, she wrote a letter to Dr Wilson asking him some question or another, and with his reply he sent her a little sketch of snowy petrels. I’ve not seen it myself, but her mother says she’s got it pinned up behind her bed with a bit of tissue-paper fixed on top to keep the dust off.

  Sarah wanted to see over the Terra Nova right away. I was somewhat subdued after what Crean had told me at breakfast, and the last thing I wanted was her getting into conversation with any of the crew, not with events still fresh in their minds. It was a bit awkward; she could see for herself the ship was crawling with visitors. I had to pretend they were guests of the officers.

  ‘You were in all the newspapers this morning, Uncle Edgar,’ she said. ‘You’re more famous than any of the officers.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I asked. ‘What do they say about me?’

  ‘You raised a lot of money,’ she said. ‘By making a speech. They say you touched their hearts.’

  ‘Did I indeed?’ I said, feeling less alarmed, and promised that tomorrow I’d show her the scientific laboratory and the space where Dr Wilson would be doing his studying of birds, though I left out the fact they’d mostly be dead ones. She was stopping the night with my brother-in-law, so I gave her a few pence to buy herself a cup of tea and a cake and said I’d see her first thing in the morning.

  There wasn’t a peep out
of Lt. Evans all day, not that I went out of my way to be in his vicinity. It’s not that I’d be against urinating over his boots, particularly if he was looking in another direction at the time, but I’m inclined to think either some of the lads made the whole story up to agitate me, or else he was so far gone himself that he’s none too sure of his own conduct. As for the flag, how it got draped over a tram at the terminus, beats me. If Jones the Goat hadn’t spotted it, it could have travelled half way across Cardiff. Fortunately there’s no harm done – Crean scrubbed off the stains at the pump and the sailmaker smoothed it out under the flat iron.

  I didn’t go ashore that last evening. There were a lot of jobs to see to, and besides, I thought it best to lie low. The Owner, poor devil, attended a buffet supper at the City Hall. I heard later it wasn’t an occasion for speech-making, or conversation either for that matter, seeing Madame Hughes-Thomas’s Royal Welsh Ladies’ Choir sang throughout.

  Lt. Bowers didn’t go. He was up into the small hours making entries in his notebooks and stalking round his provision boxes like a broody hen. Nor was he in the mood for talk when I brought him his cocoa. I put his reserve down to anxiety; after all, none can know what may befall us. Thinking to put him at his ease, me being an old hand, I said it was a strange feeling, wasn’t it, knowing that tomorrow we’d be gone.

  ‘Strange?’ he said. ‘How so?’

  ‘Why, after all this waiting, sir,’ I said. ‘It’s like letting a dog off the leash and him none too sure where he wants to go any more.’

  ‘I don’t get your drift,’ he said.

  ‘It’s a question of losing the scent, sir,’ I said. ‘Leastways, it strikes me as similar.’

  ‘Not being a dog,’ he replied, ‘I’m afraid I have difficulty in following the allusion.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘Point taken, sir. I daresay our spirits will rise the moment we get up anchor.’

  ‘Some of us,’ he responded curtly, ‘have never been low in spirits.’

  From the stern look he flashed me I knew I was right about him being nervy. Who can blame him? The South is nothing like India.

  I left him and went up on deck to look out at the slithering city, its glitter of street lamps fizzy under the rain. There’s something wrong about a ship in dock, something pathetic, like a bird fluttering in a spill of oil. The Nova was tethered to her berth by ropes and chains, caught in a pool of greasy water. I could feel her shifting under my feet, tugging to be free. In spite of the late hour there were still groups of people come to stare up at her. I knew what they could see; a cat’s-cradle of rigging illuminated by lanterns; a gleam of paint and brass work, the red burn of the cigar puffed on by the officer of the watch. The best of her was invisible, not to be described in words.

  There are good ships and bad ships and the difference between them has nothing to do with being seaworthy. If I was fanciful I might say some had souls. There are ships built to withstand the worst the Almighty can throw at them yet they go down with hardly a murmur, and there are other, frailer craft, who, having battled the winds and lost masts, yards and canvas, still bob safe home to harbour. With experience a man can tell the one from the other the moment he steps aboard, neither from look nor feel, but from something fathoms deep within himself.

  I stayed on deck for over an hour, hoping to have a quiet last word with the owner, until I remembered he was a guest at the Mansion House.

  The Belgian left just before midday. I ran into him between decks when I was showing Sarah over the ship. He didn’t say anything, nor did I, and I pretended not to notice he had his kit-bag slung over his shoulder. We nodded as we passed and that was that.

  Some minutes later the Chief Steward said the Owner wanted to see me in his cabin. I took my niece with me, as a precaution. I reckoned if he had heard any gossip about that business of the flag he was hardly likely to haul me over the coals in the presence of a third party, and a relation at that. It turned out the Lord Mayor wanted to say goodbye to me personally and present me with a photograph of himself. He’d already given me one, at the smoking concert, which means his recollection of the occasion is as hazy as mine. I hadn’t set eyes on the first photograph since one of his flunkeys handed it to me before I spun out through the revolving doors of the Royal Hotel. I daresay, the Mayor being no oil painting, it’s going backwards and forwards on some tram in the city.

  Mrs Scott was there too, and Dr Wilson. The doctor put himself out to be pleasant to Sarah. She asked him if there were any books to do with birds that he would particularly recommend she should read. There and then he made her out a list. While he was talking to her I overheard the Lord Mayor say something to the Owner about the ‘hazardous task’ ahead, and whether he thought it would be accomplished. The Owner replied, ‘I will reach the South Pole, or I will never come back again’, at which Mrs Scott exclaimed, ‘Con, my dearest, you will succeed.’

  We moved away from the dockside at one o’clock, the tug Falcon attached to our bow and the Bantam Cock to the stern. You’ve never heard such a coronation roar as went up when we were towed through the lock-gates; hooters and sirens whooping like devils, bands playing, detonators and guns firing, thousands of people hurrahing under the drizzling rain. Even when we got out into the Channel we were still surrounded by pleasure boats, their rails lined six deep with cheering passengers. We’d hauled aloft the Cardiff flag at the fore and the Welsh flag at the mizen, and one of the officers – Captain Oates, I expect – had hung two large leeks up with the latter, and some wag belonging to the Chamber of Commerce bellowed through the hailer that he hoped we’d left the Welsh ‘leak’ behind. We hadn’t; indeed, when the tugs let go and we began to sail under our own steam it became only too apparent we’d gained a few more.

  In the late afternoon, off the Breaksea Lightship, the Owner and the Lord Mayor’s party quitted the Terra Nova. He had the crew assembled aft to shake hands with him; he didn’t have a special word for me, simply looked me in the eye and passed on down the line. Then he said, ‘It has taken a long time and you have served me well. We are all contributing to a great enterprise which is only just beginning. Each and every one of you will play your part. I wish you godspeed and look forward to joining you at Simonstown.’

  It was still raining and a light breeze had sprung up. Mrs Scott held on to her hat as she was helped aboard the tug. Those of the after-guard not at the pumps stayed at the rail to cheer the Owner away. I doubt if he heard us; the military band aboard the Falcon was playing Auld Lang Syne, the tune coming in rags across the darkening water.

  Dr Edward (Uncle Bill) Wilson

  July 1910

  We spent three days at Madeira, taking on supplies, during which time I took the opportunity to make an excursion to the Palheiro with Titus Oates and Birdie Bowers. We rode upwards among Portuguese laurels and camellia trees growing forty-foot high. After a quarter of an hour Titus said he couldn’t stand the slow pace; pressing his heels to the sides of his mule as though he was out hunting, he wheeled about and slithered back down the winding path in a flurry of dust.

  The scenery was magnificent; abrupt precipices, wooded hills and crags, tumbling waters and a paradise of mosses, ferns and pink belladonna lilies. One moment the air was polluted with the odour of the black til (Oreodaphne foetens), so named because of its awful smell, and the next filled with the delicious scent of the beautiful lily of the valley tree (Clethra arborea).

  Halfway up we overtook a procession of mourners carrying a dead child in a litter. We dismounted, out of respect, and had a good view of the small corpse draped in white lace, its doll-like hands clasped on its breast. There was another child, whose duty it was to keep the flies away. He was smugly smiling, proud of his responsibility, dashing a palm frond to and fro above the bier.

  From the Palheiro we rode across to the Curral dos Romeiros to look at the Mount Church associated with so many miracles. Birdie was particularly taken with the one concerning the Virgin. The island being caught in t
he grip of famine, the inhabitants climbed in procession to the church and prayed to the statue of the Madonna for deliverance. Next day a ship loaded with grain came into the harbour, and the statue of the Madonna was found to be dripping with moisture. Some even claimed to have seen the Virgin swimming ahead of the ship, towing her in with the cable between her teeth!

  Not far from the church is Monte Quinta, with a splendid view from its summit of the Bay of Funchal and the blue ocean beyond. Birdie’s enthusiasm was touching; he is a fellow after my own heart, being possessed of many enviable qualities – self-abnegation, curiosity, a capacity for hard work, meticulous attention to detail, and above all, an unsung yet deep-rooted belief in the love of God.

  His face glowed brick-red, and he perspired so freely I feared he might melt before my eyes. He said he hated the heat and heartily took issue with Dante in placing the circle of ice below that of fire as the worst of all torments.

  I told him he might have cause to change his mind once we reached our destination.

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ he replied. ‘Excessive heat brings raging thirst, fever and delirium, whereas the cold, from what I’ve read, merely numbs the mind and positively lulls one into sleep.’

  He’s possibly in the right of it. Though I have only to glance at the scars on my hand to remind myself of the damaging effects of low temperatures, I would have to read the notes I made at the time to recall the true horror of that first expedition. The experience, once a blazing nightmare, has long since faded to a chilly dream.

  That being said, any doubts I may have had about the wisdom of coming south again have evaporated like snow under sunlight. After five weeks at sea I’m as fit as a fiddle and have actually put on weight. It’s a blessed thing to be driven by hard work, because one never feels the want of exercise. I may spend a good deal of my time standing stationary, endeavouring to turn out water-colours of the sea and the sky; but trying to keep balanced against the roll of the ship requires the use of muscles I scarcely knew existed outside the pages of an anatomy book. There is also nothing more fatiguing and laborious than a four-hour stint at the pumps. As for transferring coal from the main hold to the bunkers – within ten minutes I’m streaming with sweat and as black as a Kaffir.