“When would you like to start?”
“Mid-September, please ...”
This would give me a full four months as a ship's doctor – more than enough time, I hoped, to recover from my pre-matrimonial setbacks! As all the other candidates had been sent home by this time, my terms were accepted, though my reply had caused visible consternation amongst the interview committee.
Wednesday, 11th May: The staff of the metabolic unit threw a belated leaving party for me; I was reunited with my old friend Adam Fenchurch, who had started there as senior registrar at the beginning of the month; it was a jolly (at times hilarious) evening, though all professed themselves sad at my departure.
“Never mind,” I reassured them, unnecessarily. “I'll be back at The London in four months ...”
I left the party finally at one-thirty in the morning, only slightly drunk. The traffic was light as I drove through the almost deserted East End of London; the Spitfire's top was down during the short journey, allowing me to enjoy the warm night and the breeze in my hair. The Port of London was criss-crossed with narrow lanes, illuminated by an occasional street lamp whose beams reflected weakly in the channels of the backwater. In the distance giant cranes were floodlit, but this light was too feeble to reach me. I drove slowly, navigating carefully, headlights on full beam, searching for the car park nearest SS Chitral; the dark shapes of moored boats loomed around me. There was no human activity, not a soul was in sight. Ahead, an unexpected traffic light glowed red: the bridge over one of the channels was raised. I came to an uncertain halt, cut the engine, and switched off the headlights. Apart from the intermittent ticking of the engine block as it cooled, all was still, all was silent. There was not a breath of wind; the soft summer air remained warm, even at two am; there was no moon, but the stars twinkled brightly in the depth of the Prussian-blue sky. I sat in the little sports car, waiting; time passed; my feeling of serenity was disturbed by the faintest hint of anxiety: what if the bridge was kept raised all night? Just then, without a sound, a ghostly white shadow approached; a ship towered over me – perhaps a tramp steamer, its rusty paintwork hidden by the night. As it glided alongside, someone opened a door on board. The sound of distant music drifted towards me:
“Strangers in the night exchanging glances ...” crooned Frank Sinatra.
The ship passed, the bridge descended, the traffic light changed to green, and perfect peace returned.
Monday, 16th May: I was fitted by Gieves and Hawkes, the military and naval tailors in the City, the shop dominated by an oil portrait of Horatio, Lord Nelson, in full admiral regalia.
Thursday, 9th June: My uniform was delivered to me on board the Chitral. The full outfit of blues and whites cost a hundred and sixteen pounds.
Saturday, 25th June: Before I could get bored with life in the East India Docks, I was transferred to the SS Koh-i-Noor in Southampton.
I had driven down from London. I parked my Spitfire in a small car-park one hundred yards down the access road to Southampton Docks. I counted off the berths to Number Fourteen. (There was no Berth Thirteen, as sailors are notoriously superstitious, but if there were, this would be it!) It was lunch-time, and my stomach was rumbling to remind me of the fact. Ahead, a striking blonde had stopped her BMW to let off a grizzled man in naval uniform. I followed him at a distance, and found to my surprise that he was climbing the gangway of SS Koh-i-Noor. Cranes were busily loading the great liner with supplies for its forthcoming voyage, supervised volubly by an officer on deck. At the quayside were parked a Mini and an Alfa Romeo sports car; from the latter stepped a handsome young man in the uniform of a ship's officer; he paused, waiting for me to arrive.
“Hello, you must be the new assistant surgeon,” he addressed me, when I drew abreast. (Not a difficult deduction as I was wearing my new uniform, with two full gold stripes separated by a broad crimson stripe on my shoulder tabs – my badge of office.)
“I'm Christopher McFee, second ship's officer ...” He followed me briskly up the gangway, and we were nodded aboard by a rating. “Welcome to the Koh-i-Noor! I'm having a pour-out this afternoon ... Come and join us, when you've unpacked ... Your quarters are on D deck, wedged between First and Tourist Class, next to pharmacy. My cabin's aft, in the junior officers' quarters on F deck – you can't miss it if you follow the music ...”
Burt Bacharach's Planes and Boats and Trains led me unerringly to McFee's cabin. Thereafter, this melody would haunt me, always reminding me of the joys and terrors of life at sea. It had taken me less than half an hour to unpack, yet, by the time I arrived, the party was already in full swing. The place was small, cramped and airless. There were no port-holes, because the cabin was below the water-line; as the ship was in port, with as yet no passengers aboard, the air-conditioning was not fully functional.
The central ceiling light and a couple of table lamps were switched on, but there was still a foggy, subterranean quality about the room, partly due to cigarette smoke spiralling up to the ceiling, and partly to body heat; there were about a dozen men and three women – all in uniform – crowded into the narrow space. The bunk in one corner was covered in a plain counterpane, and held a collection of coats and jackets; a door beyond the bunk led to what I presumed was the bathroom; on a table against the wall stood a record-player and a stack of LP records (and loud music issued from several free-standing speakers around the floor); along a shelf sat a collection of dog-eared paper-back books; on another wall was stuck a large poster of a fishing harbour, with a setting sun, small boats and fishermen mending nets. An upholstered arm-chair and a couple of stacked upright chairs were placed out of the way in a corner.
As I approached the nearest of the ladies, I experienced a tantalizing feeling of familiarity, of having seen her before; did I know her, or had I just met someone who resembled her? Her face remained blank – there was no hint of recognition. It was, in any case, a banal way to open a conversation, I decided; so I said nothing. The moment passed. She turned away.
Faces were flushed, voices were raised above the din of the gramophone; there was sporadic laughter. A lanky lad – hardly more than a boy – with fair frizzy cropped hair, came over to welcome me.
“You the new doc? Come and have a drink ...” Gin and Angostura Bitters (“pink gin”) was all that was available – so I had that. “Danny Stone, third radio officer, at your service ... I'm older than I look. I've just turned twenty-one.”
He grinned inanely, staggered a little, spilling some of my drink before he could deliver it. He had manifestly had several pink gins himself already.
“Tell me, Danny, who's that?” I nodded towards the enigmatic blonde.
“Joanne Flinders, the junior sister ... You'll like her ...”
The music stopped abruptly, and the background voices suddenly became clearly audible.
“Christopher, darling, won't you give me one of your exotic Turkish cigarettes?”
A pretty girl with chestnut hair and enormous dark eyes was leaning tipsily towards our host, who courteously offered her a long black cigarette from a silver case, and then lit it for her with a silver lighter. As she inhaled gratefully, she caught sight of me, and came over.
“I know you,” she greeted me, her cut-glass accent slightly slurred. I recognised her as Fiona Henderson Scott. I had last seen her nine years before when I was not quite twenty ...
I woke to the rhythm of the train as it ate up the miles. The sun rose from behind the snow-covered peaks, amid violet, rose and orange tinted clouds. Perched on the mountainside were dolls-house chalets and an occasional baroque church with onion dome and pointed spire. We were in Austria. My spirits soared: the roofs, the trees, the fields, everything was covered in a blanket of sparkling fresh snow. The train slowed; we were approaching Kitzbuhel ...
At lunch on the second day, I returned to the chalet to collect my lift pass. Though only a beginner, I was, this afternoon, taking the chair-lift to ski on the upper levels of the nursery slopes.
Fiona was our chalet-girl. Her hair was pinned up, under a headscarf. Beneath her drab beige pinafore I caught a glimpse of a flared black skirt and fashionable calf-length leather boots.
“Hullo, please don't let me interrupt your work ... Just came to collect something ... I'm Edwin Scott.”
She had a fabulous tan and huge dark eyes; I had thought that she was a local girl, but she spoke in an impeccable English upper class accent:
“I've learnt already who you are. I'm Fiona Henderson Scott ... Are we related?” The ultimate chat-up line, I thought.
“I don't think so ... My family's from Oban, West of Scotland.”
“Well I live in Chelsea, but my people are from Hertfordshire ... Daddy's a judge, actually ...”
She would try and fit in some ski-ing (and apres-ski), I learnt, before she “came out” next season as a débutante, if she had the time. She observed me candidly, with the hint of a smile. Her melodious voice became slightly husky:
“Just as well you're not family, Edwin ... Could complicate things ... I rather fancy you ...”
“I'm a Chilly-Ho now, Edwin. That's a children's hostess ... Did you notice my car on the quay? Brand new Mini Cooper, only bought it yesterday. Have to pick up some of the other chilly-ho's from the railway station in half an hour – so I can't chat for long ... but we've got the whole voyage to renew our acquaintance.”
She leaned forward, gave me a lingering, rather wet, kiss, and abruptly disappeared through the cabin door with a loud “Goodbye” to the room in general.
“She should liven up my trip,” I thought, cramming down another handful of crisps ...
My “cabin” consisted of a small suite: sleeping quarters with adjoining consulting and lounge sections, and a toilet/shower-room. It had its own private alley-way (corridor) so that my sleep would be undisturbed. The consulting room contained a desk with three chairs, an examination couch, and a glass-fronted book-case for reference works; there was an instrument cupboard with dental forceps, ear-syringing equipment, sphygmomanometer and ECG machine, and a filing cabinet for patients' folders. I sat on an easy chair in the lounge area, drinking the tea that Constanzio, my cabin steward, had just poured for me from a silver tea-pot; and reading through the notes on procedure that my predecessor had left me, but my mind still on the “pour-out”.
Christopher McFee had in due course introduced me to Joanne Flinders, as well as several male junior officers – whose names I promptly forgot. I had just had time for a second gin, before the party had petered out shortly after four in the afternoon ...
The phone interrupted my reverie:
“Tony Newton, Assistant Purser here, doc. There's been an accident on the quayside. Wonder if you could meet me down there – quick as you can.”
A drizzle cast a fine haze over the docks, and I had donned a raincoat over my uniform. The Assistant Purser was looking grim. The quay below the SS Koh-i-Noor was alive with activity: press and photographers hovered at the water's edge a few feet from the gangway, and frogmen with lights were in the water.
“Some poor sod has just driven their car off the side of the quay: a Mini – and it's sitting in fifty feet of water.”
“Fiona Henderson Scott,” I thought in horror. “She shouldn't have been driving. She must have been even more drunk than she appeared.”
It took over an hour for the frogmen to haul the car out with their winching equipment; when they extricated her from it, still pouring water, she was grey and cold, her body macerated. I knew I was expected to examine her, so, as a formality, I laid my stethoscope briefly on her chest. However, it was clear to everyone that she was dead.
Saturday, 2nd July: We finally sailed at one o'clock this afternoon.
Chapter Three
Mediterranean Sea, Suez Canal, Red Sea, Arabian Sea, 5th to 17th July 1966
Tuesday, 5th July: The senior ship's surgeon was Dr Charles Hardcastle, who looked older than his thirty-four years. He was tanned, stocky, stooped, and his sandy hair was thinning on top. He had been an army doctor, and started on the Koh-i-Noor when he was demobbed, only eight months before. He was pleasant enough towards his staff, though he seemed to move in a permanent alcoholic haze.
“Call me Charlie,” he had insisted in a warm baritone voice with a trace of a Yorkshire accent, when we first met.
I had care of the crew, and he looked after the passengers. However, he took his medical duties lightly, and I frequently found myself attending his charges; he decreed that he be off duty daily at four-thirty in the afternoon.
I didn't see my first patient, until we had passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and were sailing through the Mediterranean Sea. After storms in the Bay of Biscay, and a dispiriting drizzle along the West coast of Portugal, the weather was now warm and sunny with only a light breeze, the sea tranquil; the ship's officers and crew were wearing whites. I sat in my cabin (which was also my consulting room) at four-forty having my afternoon tea; I was gazing idly through the port-hole toward the disant coast of Southern Spain, my back to the door, when Joanne Flinders ushered him in: “A patient for you, Sir ... a Mr Potter.”
“Ah ... elderly gentleman, bald with a ruddy complexion, left-handed, heavy smoker ... Thank you sister, you may leave us.”
“You must have eyes in the back of your head,” exclaimed the patient with awe.
“No need, Mr Potter, since I can see your reflection quite clearly in this polished silver teapot ...”
Meanwhile, Sister Flinders had departed – and word of my incredible feat of deduction spread like wildfire around the ship.
My celebrity proved a mixed blessing ...
Wednesday, 6th July: I was getting to know my way around the ship, with its six lounges, two dining-rooms, two libraries, two ballrooms, cinema/ theatre, its casino, shopping arcade (which sold everything from cards and cameras to jewellery and haute couture), and its two swimming pools. There were escalators and banks of lifts at either end of the vessel, serving First Class and Tourist Class separately; the SS Koh-i-Noor was designed so that passengers from the two classes met as infrequently as possible.
The air-conditioned Aztec Room was cool and comfortable, as were its fifty or sixty occupants; by six-thirty, the Captain's cocktail party was proceeding smoothly. These events – separate ones for First Class and Tourist Class – were held after each fresh intake of passengers had found their sea-legs. Waiters busied themselves, serving canapés, cocktails and champagne from silver trays. The First-Class passengers – mostly elderly – wore dinner-jackets and long dresses, with a profusion of jewellery; the half-dozen senior officers were in their mess-kit of dark trousers and short white jackets, with black ties and black cummerbunds. As a two-and-a-half striper, I ranked mid-way between the junior officers (up to two stripes) and the seniors (three stripes and over); to my surprise I found that I'd been co-opted as a host, to make up the numbers.
There was a decent level of chatter above the gentle background music from the three-piece band, and a few well-bred smiles. The air-conditioning dealt easily with the cigarette smoke; however, the officers kept their cigarettes in their pockets; I had been warned that we were not allowed to smoke in public places.
Captain Butterworth held court in the centre of the room, surrounded by the more important of the passengers. The rest of the officers moved about dutifully. I helped myself to a flute of champagne from a passing waiter, and looked around.
The Tourist Class cocktail party the previous day (held at the same venue) had been an altogether livelier affair. There must have been over three hundred people, and it was getting quite warm by the time we finished. The passengers had been a good deal younger, and some of the ladies were notably pretty. As I was by far the youngest of the officers present, I attracted my fair share of their attention. I was amazed how easy it all was. For several days, I had anticipated these events with a certain dread. Now, I had no problem maintaining conversation. As I circulated, I would ask each group how they we
re enjoying the voyage, field a few questions without revealing that I was a complete novice, and proceed to the next group. However, each time I was held in conversation for more than a few moments, the chief officer approached, and moved me on (“Circulate, Dr Scott ...”). Yet the captain was the undoubted star of the show, and throughout the evening he had retained his stellar position.
By seven o'clock, the party drew to a close; the passengers, all more or less happy and excited, swept to the First Class dining-room for the first dinner sitting, while we officers retired, moderately relieved, to our cabins. Tonight, I decided, I would take my meal at the second sitting.
Thursday, 7th July: Though hung over, I was up early this morning. We had arrived in Pirrheus Harbour at eight o'clock, and I was going on a shore excursion to Athens. We were anchored a couple of miles off-shore, and I boarded the tender with some twenty passengers. By the time we disembarked, at half-past-nine, the sun was already quite warm in a cloudless washed-blue sky. A ramshackle bus took us from the port into Athens, where we joined the crowds of tourists, to trudge up the steep path to the Acropolis. In our group I noticed Joanne Flinders, our junior nursing sister. She eyed me speculatively, gave a slight nod, and when I responded she came over. She looked a lot brighter than I felt. Though in my shirt-sleeves, I was already sweltering in the heat; my hang-over headache was worse, and I wished I hadn't come. As we neared the summit, I took photographs with my new Leica camera of the rubble and the ruined temples, and listened listlessly to the droning of our tour guide: “Arena ... Temple of the Virgins ... Parthenon ... Greek Golden Age ...”
Joanne walked by my side, in silence; I was grateful for her company, but felt no need of conversation; occasionally her hand brushed the back of my wrist. My headache was retreating. I felt better.
Death on the Koh-i-Noor (Edwin Scott Crime Trilogy Book 3) Page 2