Spit and Polish

by Carl Muller

  ‘Anywhere can do.’

  Nugawira hooted. ‘You can do “Padmini” on my bum?’

  ‘Can, can.’

  Able Seaman Outschoon wanted a big eagle, wings outspread, across the back of his body. Stoker Vadergert wanted ‘Mother’ and Daft said he liked a cobra but no thanks. Another scroll on the right forearm.

  ‘And the name? You want a name, no?’

  Carloboy thought a while. ‘Write Caryll,’ he said. He was thinking of a girl close to Eardley’s in Perera Lane. Yes, Caryll. He had not given her much thought but now she came vividly to mind. He knew he had a lot to do when he went home.

  An uneventful journey back. The Vijaya pushed to 12 knots even around the Basses because Captain Victor seemed anxious to get home too. They took a tremendous beating in the frothy sea and Electrician Panditha was very nearly swept overboard. He clung to the guardrail, one leg dangling over the side, the other hooked round a stanchion and he howled bloody murder. It was a rough two hours before the sea called it a day and mellowed under a glaring noonday sun.

  Carloboy leaned over, looked into the incredible sun- splotched blue, felt the thrum of the big engines, heard the hiss of each wave as it swept past, knifed to the heart and bleeding a floss of spume that curdled and creamed. He never imagined that there could be so much colour, subtle colour, in this vast cradle. They were far out, the shoreline having receded to a pencil stroke that the sky had swiftly erased. At the stern, the wake was a gush of white and gold and crushed aquamarine.

  Carloboy’s skin was near russet, deep-burned in the sun and salt spray. He was never fitter. It was a great feeling, the feeling that, given the slightest provocation, he could lick the world single-handed. As healthy as a young gorilla he was, and the thought of the leave that he would take at the end of the line cheered him.

  They swung to starboard and suddenly there was land again, and they saw the distant line of rollers and the fuzzy tops of palms and behind them, the Dondra light cast its long eyes, seeking across the waste of waters, knowing that there would be nothing but water all the way to the Antarctic shelf.

  The evening was windy. The ETA had been sent. The Vijaya would enter Colombo harbour at 1930 hours and they should be tied up at Kochchikade by 2015 hours. There would be off-duty liberty to the entire red and white watch. Nearly eighty men were readying themselves to go ashore.

  In the haze of coming dusk, the silver dome of St Lucia’s cathedral told them they were close to port; and then, tauntingly, teasingly and quite sadistically, came the signal. Telegraphist Yusuf couldn’t believe his eyes. Indeed, they bulged alarmingly. And he wasn’t staying at his post. No, sir! He raced to the bridge, waved the message form before Victor. ‘Sir, can’t go home sir.’ There was the first quaver of a moan in his voice.

  The signal put everybody in a tizzy. ‘Proceed,’ it said, ‘to Talaimannar.’

  Talaimannar, Carloboy stared. What was this? Some ghastly joke?

  It was no joke. Even as the Vijaya veered to port, cut out of the harbour roads, turned towards the glow of the Hendala light, everyone knew and cursed the stupid gunboat that had rammed a sandbank and got herself stuck in. Everyone knew that the north-western Pamban Channel was a trial for all good seamen, but why the devil did the HMCyS Lihiniya have to get her bottom buried in sand?

  Time, the chronicler feels, to introduce the rest of the Royal Ceylon Navy of the time. There was HMCyS Kotiya (meaning ‘tiger’)—a seaward defence boat that was flat-bottomed and rolled in the water like a desperate duck. If one would consider the Vijaya a sort of pocket battleship, the Kotiya would be in the hip-pocket class.

  Even smaller were the gun boats—a single pop-gun on their foredeck mounts and very much the bumble-bees of the waves if only their skippers did not bumble blindly into every sandbar they chanced upon. These boats, used for northern patrols, were the HMCyS Lihiniya (seagull), HMCyS Hansaya (swan), HMCyS Seruwa (cormorant), HMCyS Diyakawa (waterhen), and HMCyS Korawakka (moorhen). Also, there was HMCyS Aliya (elephant) which was a small naval tug.

  The gunboats were small, trim, capable of high speeds, very like motor torpedo boats. They were equipped with radar, and their commands were usually entrusted to commissioned boatswains—hardened salts who had risen from the ranks. Trouble is, like most rugged old salts, they had scant respect for protocol. They took their ships wherever their mood dictated. Like the starship Enterprise, they boldly went where no gunboat had gone before. The boats, too, were prone to misbehave, very much like street urchins on a Sunday school picnic. They enjoyed running aground, breaking down, swiping each other and chasing illicit immigrant launches into lagoons and salt marshes and places where there was hardly enough water to moisten a blotter.

  It was the Vijaya’s job to haul the Lihiniya off a sandbank and, if necessary, tow her to Colombo. When there, and if it was considered that the Lihiniya once prised free, could operate on her own, the Vijaya would escort her to Colombo. Well, that was upsetting news, true, but not too much of an imposition. I meant, as Lieutenant Walid said, two days more.

  Night seemed to snigger at the general discomfiture and frustration of the crew, as it closed over them. A calm sea, lots of slow rolls and very sullen. Victor cut speed to eight knots. There was no hurry. They would be at the Pamban before dawn anyway. He would anchor, wait for light, radio the Lihiniya and ascertain just how much of a stew she was in. He checked course, yawned and nodded to the duty officer. ‘Course change three five seven when we pass Puttalam. Hold her steady. By my reckoning we should be off Talaimannar by zero three hours. But we have a shore wind and some drag. It may be four. Wake me at three. I’m off. Got a good book to finish.’

  Lieutenant Naths nodded. ‘We should alter to zero zero five nearing Talaimannar, sir.’

  ‘Yes, but not until we see the light. Keep an eye on the log line. Very deceptive, this sea. Puts everybody to sleep.’

  Carloboy lit a cigarette. Naths grinned in the green light of the binnacle. ‘He’s right. Real rock-a-bye-baby this is. Give me a cigarette, signalman.’

  They smoked, gazed out over the charcoal and grey water that carried long ribbons of luminescent white as it rolled eastward. A long, lazy night, and the Vijaya’s engines were lulled too as they pushed gently on.

  Alfie relieved Carloboy at midnight. He brought coffee and a packet of ginger biscuits. ‘Have some,’ he said, ‘where’s the navigating officer?’

  ‘Wheel house.’

  ‘Who’s his relief?’

  ‘Don’t know. Course is 355 now and change two degrees starboard when we pass Puttalam light. Hold 357 until three o’clock and then call the CO.’

  ‘OK. Anything else?’

  ‘Mm-hmm. My canvas in on the flagdeck. I’m not sleeping in the mess. It’s bloody hot.’

  And hot it was. Even the wind had gone, apparently on vacation, and the stars were as big as egghoppers in the cloudless black. The Vijaya took the cross swell from the hook of land at Puttalam and steamed on seemingly undisturbed. The sea had the shimmer of a gently undulating piece of grey silk. With the air murmuring in some sibilant Asian tongue around him, Carloboy slept. He was off watch now, didn’t need to muster on deck at five. He even dreamed that he was in Talaimannar, putting ashore to where, from every tall tree, a cassock waved a welcome.

  The sound of the steam windlass woke him, and if that wasn’t enough of a rude clatter, the yells of the captain. He rose, rubbed his eyes and peered out. Over him, Victor was roaring through a megaphone and waving a furious hand. It was doubtful if Sub-Lieutenant Paul heard him, for the latter was over eight hundred yards away and perched on the sharply sloping foredeck of the Lihiniya.

  Carloboy rubbed his eyes again. So that was the Lihiniya. It was so small. At this distance it was a child’s paper boat. Yawning, he went to the galley.

  In Colombo, Yeoman Barnett checked the sitreps received from the Vijaya and told Patrick, ‘It is hard on the liver, hard indeed.’

  ‘What is, Yeo?’
r />   ‘Why, the dearth, the plight, the deprivation. Our lads are now in northern waters. That is bad, Patrick. See how the Vijaya charged off. Did not stop to say hello. Did not even come in to change her panties. Her tanks must be low. Water will be rationed now and there will be less beer and even the cigarettes will run out. Northern patrols are the pits, Patrick.’

  ‘She could have taken water before she went, Yeo.’

  ‘Ah, that Victor is a strange man. Go, he is told, and he goes. And what about this Able Seaman Abeysakes? How can sailors die of typhoid? Is it, I ask, any way for a seaman to go?’

  It had caused much consternation on Gemunu. Able Seaman Abeysakes had developed some nasty symptoms which necessitated his being warded in the Services Hospital in Colombo. There, the doctors of the Ceylon Army Medical Corps found their whole antiseptic world thrown in a tizzy. The man had typhoid!

  Medical staff descended on Gemunu. The man had to be checked. Lots of fun and games, and Stoker Mechanic Ryan demanding to know what the hell was typhoid anyway.

  ‘Something to do with your thighs,’ Able Seaman Hughes hazarded.

  They were each asked how they felt and checked for colour and the state of their tummies. It took a couple of days to give the Navy a clean bill of health, whereupon the CAMC sent men to Abeysakes’ boarding house in Kelaniya where they found, as they said, ‘all the signs’—an unprotected well, bad toilets, food from sleazy eating-houses and more flies per square inch than all the people in China.

  The problem was that Abeysakes was dead, and the CO Gemunu had to do something about his body. Abeysakes had family, but they were in Tissamaharama, which was as good as being on the dark side of the moon. A telegram was despatched, and the Navy waited.

  The Service Hospital was not willing to be as patient.

  ‘Remove it,’ said the officer commanding tersely.

  ‘To where?’ said Surgeon Commander Matthis.

  ‘To anywhere. Try the morgue, or keep it in the camp. The family will come there to take it, no?’

  Matthis nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘You do that. Have to disinfect the ward and get rid of the linen. Can’t have the body here. And get it embalmed. It’ll be pretty niffy by evening.’

  The Army was efficient. Matthis returned to Gemunu with the death certificate, having routed the body via Borella where the police mortuary did a bang-up job on the corpse, making it very presentable and laying it in a box, all prim and proper. Why, Abeysakes looked better dead than he ever was alive.

  Lieutenant Commander Darley wrinkled his nose. ‘The armoury,’ he said, ‘we’ll keep him there and post sentries.’

  ‘With all the guns, sir?’

  ‘So what? He’s going to start shooting them off?’

  So Abeysakes, his remains that is, if you believe in a soul or an Odic force or whatever, was taken with little ceremony to the shabby little building at the Customs end of Flagstaff Street and dumped, coffin and all, in a space between the racks of .303 rifles and carbines and steel racks that held boxes of cartridges and assorted gunnery appliances. The coffin was not shut down, for sooner or later the family would come and would wish to see the body, howl, carry on, and the Navy would have to give the remains a fitting send-off.

  ‘Drape the box with a flag,’ Darley said.

  ‘A white ensign, sir?’

  ‘No, you moron, a national flag. And post sentries. One by day and two at night.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Meanwhile an equally snappy exchange was taking place between the captains of the Vijaya and the Lihiniya, most engrossing and full of those words the Navy is so fond of.

  ‘How the fuck do you reverse into a sand bar? That’s what I want to know.’

  ‘You’re asking me? Took the hump at thirty knots. Suddenly there the bloody thing was. Right across the bows like a fucking dead whale or something. I’m telling you, someone must chart these waters. You think it’s easy to run after these kallathoni boats? Lift their fucking outboards and go straight for the mud!’

  ‘So you leapfrogged the bank. Then why the fuck did you stop and go astern?’

  ‘Astern my arse! The bloody sand must have come after us!’

  ‘Balls! You must have hit the bank, shot over and your stern must have hit the sand. What the hell were you chasing?’

  ‘Chasing?’

  ‘Yes, chasing.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Victor shook. That the man was flying at thirty knots he could understand. That he took the sand strip in his stride he could understand. But what was it all in aid of? He swallowed and mentally consigned all gunboat skippers to a hell with no women. ‘I see . . . well, we will have to pull you off.’

  ‘That’s right. I worked the fan blades—’

  ‘What!’

  ‘Thought I could get her out under full thrust.’

  ‘Oh, you fucking idiot. Now the sand must be sucked into every pipe.’

  ‘I know. Made a barabarrass noise and whole engine room filled with smoke. Lumps of oil came out and even the oil is full of sand.’

  Victor returned to the Vijaya full of wrath. He summoned his officers. ‘Bloody fool has tried to pull out under full power and fouled his tanks. Even if we pull him out, he can’t raise power. Tanks must be full of sand.’

  ‘I’ll send a whaler with a towline crew,’ said Hamed.

  ‘You do that. And keep some men on the Lihiniya to watch the line and signal us. They must have hand flags.’

  And, with many lurid oaths and curses, and the sun baking the salt on their backs, the Lihiniya was dragged free and wallowed in the swell, swinging on the length of the towline and hauling off in an arc as the sea took her first one way, then another.

  The captain of the Lihiniya was unhappy. ‘We should take in more slack’ he complained.

  Victor signalled Gemunu. He was bringing the Lihiniya home. Must be done, he emphasized. Can’t trust that bugger with a bucket of water, let alone the Indian Ocean. He wanted to say more, but held peace. Slowly, the Vijaya moved south, six knots, with a crew at the steam windlass astern and the Lihiniya dipping energetically behind, clouded with the spray of the Vijaya’s wake. The stout towlines had been paid out to eight hundred yards and that, thought the Lihiniya’s skipper, was a bit too much. He begged that Victor increase speed, at least.

  Victor gave him a stubborn no.

  ‘I feel like a bloody duck!’

  ‘Good!’

  A tortured journey for the gunboat. It swung to port, to starboard, tottered in the swells and, when Victor told the engine room to make smoke, it was hidden in a haze of black.

  ‘Why are you making smoke?’

  ‘No reason. Like the way you jump sandbars. It just came to me.’

  But Victor relented. Also, he didn’t like the way the towline was behaving. It looped too low, and, with each swell, tautened and crooned protestingly. ‘Take in slack. Bring it in fifty yards,’ he said, ‘check the jammer and give the drum an oil bath. I don’t want to see smoke when you belay.’

  It was in the warmer, rougher seas off Puttalam that it happened. A sound like a pistol crack barked in the air and the windlass crew tumbled back in alarm as, with a wild, keening voice, quite musical had they stayed to consider it, a loop of thick towline hurtled towards them, hitting the stern with a grating thud, then whipping down into the water. The towline had snapped at the Lihiniya’s end and catapulted towards the Vijaya. Shouts came from the engine room as revolutions stuttered and the engineer thankfully pulled back on the big levers as he heard Victor’s sharp orders to stop engines.

  Behind, the Lihiniya, clutched by the sea, drifted helplessly. It’s always dicey when the land grows a crab- claw to hold its lagoon to itself. There is a strong undertow and a lot of cross currents. These currents met, mated, twisted in orgastic fury. They would soon reach out for the Lihiniya. It was no real ground for an anchor either, and, in any case, the gunboat’s single anchor was an apology for one.
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br />   Victor dropped a boat, raced a crew to the hapless vessel. ‘Secure her to the jib boom,’ he ordered, ‘and keep the line slack. Sheet anchor! There will be some stress as she drags.’ He called for a report on the Lihiniya’s foredeck. Yes, another towline would hold. A long pay-out was necessary to keep the line free of sudden strain.

  ‘What we need is a fucking tug,’ Victor said. The Lihiniya was secured and her skipper was told that it had crossed Victor’s mind to let him drift to Puttalam where he could have spent Christmas eating crab and drinking toddy.

  The windlass crew were told to haul in the broken towline and they said they couldn’t.

  ‘What do you mean you can’t?’

  ‘It won’t come, sir. It’s caught underneath.’

  Leading Seaman Weli leaped overboard, dived, came up with a shout. ‘On the props!’ he yelled. He swam to the rope ladder. ‘The line is entangled, sir. Round the propellers.’

  Victor swore. He knew he had trouble. The Vijaya was immobilized. It rode haughtily on its single anchor and somehow, as though enjoying the ship’s discomfiture, the sea roughened.

  ‘Can you free it?’

  ‘Need more men, two-three more. Have to lift the coils off the blades, sir. Might have to list the ship to get some slack.’

  ‘Clear lower decks!’ Victor bellowed. The boat deck swarmed with men. ‘Right, everybody stay midships. Now, you, you, you . . . anybody else wants to volunteer? You, you, you, over the side!’

  Soon Carloboy, Weli, Binkie, Jacks and several others were under the chopping water, using their small undersea weight to juggle the grassline, shoot up to gulp air, plunge below again. Weli came up, waving a hand to left. Victor ordered the crew to mass on the port side. Their combined weight dropped the Vijaya off keel, causing a three-degree list. It gave the divers the slack they needed to raise a thick loop of wire off the right blade.

  More men leaped in as Binkie floated, exhausted, his hands puckered with the effort of clinging to and twisting the heavy wire. Carloboy lay on his back, panting, dragging air into his lungs. He then dog-stroked slowly to the rope, clung to the bottom rung and remained there, too tired to haul himself up.