I hadn’t yet been long in Greece, and my knowledge of the country was, of course, nowhere near as complete as I conceited myself it was; otherwise, I would have known that getting a Greek official to put a signature on anything, even something mundane and routine, is like asking him to stop a train with his head.
He said he couldn’t; I said that, in that case, I couldn’t too. He said he was ordering me too; I said he couldn’t, I didn’t work on that ship. He asked me as a favour, as a fellow seaman, to do it; I, expressing the profoundest regret, in parallel with my esteem for his person and position, declined.
Finally I knew we were getting somewhere when he looked at his watch, cast a haunted look up the bay to see if the ferry was yet in sight, and said he would prepare the letter immediately, and give it to me after I had moved the Swan. Well, there was a lot I still had to learn about Greece, but I was ahead of that move at least. I told him that I would try to get the starboard engine working, and wait for the paper, and as soon as it came on board I would move off the quay.
To my amazement, some fifteen minutes later, a port policeman came trotting along the quay bearing a typewritten letter with a big stamp on the bottom. I couldn’t read a word of it... I had begun to make some elementary steps in reading Greek, but lower case typewriter script is still difficult a quarter of a century later. So I handed it to Simos.
“What does it say?” He shrugged. It was turning out to be a very shruggy sort of day.
“I think it is very good. You will like.”
Just at that moment, Shergar announced that he had cleared a blockage in the starboard fuel filter, and the starboard engine was running. Fair enough, I thought. Let’s do it. I scribbled quickly on the letter what I understood it to be, got Les to witness it, and made for the bridge.
Les went to the anchor winch, and confirmed that the hydraulics were running, both cables were in gear and all was ready to heave-up the anchors. Simos and Yiorgaki took a walkie-talkie and went aft to let go the lines. Shergar stayed in the engine room to keep an eye on things down there. One port policeman, Gina, Andrea, Miss Iceland and the captain’s mate took up interested positions on the bridge, until I shooed them out onto the wings. Half of the Poros waterfront congregated to watch the fun, and the wind, sensing the theatrical qualities of the moment, began to gust over forty knots according to the anemometer on my instrument panel. Everyone, including the Meltemi, appeared to be ready.
When we were down to a single rope aft, a rope which quivered with tension and threatened a lethal backlash if it parted, I got the port policeman to keep spectators clear and told Simos to cut the line with a long knife. He recognised the danger, and kept well out of the way, using a bread knife2 lashed to a broom-handle. The line parted with a twang, and we were off.
Increasing the port engine speed, I signalled Les to start heaving and put the tiller hard-to-starboard. Swan sprang away from the quay, and began to swing her stern very rapidly into the channel between Poros and Galatas. The windlass began to clank as the chain cable started to come in. And then a hydraulic hose detached itself from the windlass, reared vertically into the sky, and shot a jet of hydraulic oil high over the bridge, and all over my window.
I said a naughty word.
With the windlass disabled, and two anchors down on a long scope, I was somewhat trapped. Swan was driven this way and that by the wind, which blattered across the bay from Kalavria, hitting the ship now from one side, now from t’other; and as she swung one way her stern narrowly missed the ferry quay, whilst on the opposite swing she came perilously close to boats anchored in the excellent mud near the channel. As Les and Yiorgaki plummeted into the bowels of the ship to try to find a new hydraulic hose, I grimly manoeuvred the engines and rudders to try to limit our swing, but I was also aware that the anchors were still dragging slowly. I was moving gradually astern towards the shallows off Galatas, where many boats anchor. It was a lovely, clear day... A feature of the Meltemi is that it blows under clear, open skies... and the growing crowd in Poros had an excellent view of the proceedings.
I was gratified by the remarkable speed with which Les reappeared, triumphantly brandishing a new hose and a spanner. I was even more impressed by the very workmanlike manner in which he set about changing it. He was about as nautical as a giraffe on a pogo-stick, but he did appear to be a practical chap.
I was not quite so impressed with the port engine, which now decided to have an afternoon nap. Shergar appeared briefly on the bridge to inform me that this looked like another clogged filter, and estimated twenty minutes at least to clear it... it didn’t look pretty, he confided. By way of a reply, I took him out on the bridge wing and showed him the church in Galatas, which was getting steadily nearer, and didn’t look very pretty either. He took my point, and submerged again like a cormorant after a fish.
As I tried to manage the meandering of my crippled charge across the narrow, wind-whipped waters between Poros and the mainland, my mind began to dwell somewhat on the number of ferries which passed through here every day, linking the islands of Hydra and Spetses, the ports of Ermioni and Porto Xeli, to Piraeus. I also caught a glimpse of the clock tower, which, if it was correct... it sometimes was... showed that it was about one hour since I had been sitting without a care in the world at George’s Cafe; one single hour in which I had gone from being a blameless innocent in the early stages of getting pleasantly inebriated to the man with the potential to cut off half the Peloponnese from Piraeus at the height of the holiday season.
Well aware that things were not going well, but powerless to help, the port police on board tried to get Simos to ask me what was going on. Beyond a polite ‘we’re working on it’, I was too concentrated to reply, and Simos was too sensible of the situation to press me. Then, evidently unaware of the situation, another port policeman arrived in an inflatable boat and shouted up at Les.
“You can’t anchor here!”
Les was preoccupied with his repairs, and in any case was not a natural diplomat even by marine standards, but he initially maintained his cool to reply politely that we were not anchoring.
“Then what are you doing here?” demanded the port policeman.
Les’s patience expired at this point, and his reply was delivered so forcefully that, even in the teeth of the gale, it reverberated back from the very walls of Galatas.
“We’re having a fuckin’ picnic, ya butt-head!”
I assumed, from the lack of resentment with which this was received, that the port policeman was not au fait with colloquial English.
The windlass hammered and banged a bit as it was restarted, but quickly settled down, and Les resumed heaving the anchors. At last, inch by inch, Swan’s stern began to edge further from the anchored boats in the channel. My heartbeat slowed to that of a mere machine-gun, and I even found the time to quickly explain to the port policeman that we were moving away now. And, even as I made this fatefully premature pronouncement, the rudders jammed hard-a-starboard.
I was feeling that I was beginning to run out of options now. Only one engine, neither anchor holding, no steering, and the wind battering me left-right-left like a heavyweight boxer moving in on a beaten opponent. I sent Simos down to appraise Shergar of the steering problem, and watched in glum silence as Swan’s high bow started to swing broadside to the wind.
I had one shot left in the locker. The theory of ship handling says that, when the engine is operated astern, the stern of the ship will ‘seek the weather’; that is to say, she will stabilise with her stern pointing into the wind.
The scientific reasoning for this is that a vessel turns about a ‘pivot-point’, which is normally about a third of her length from the stem when moving ahead; but when she goes astern this pivot-point moves to a position near the propeller. The result is that the whole area of the ship forward of this pivot-point is acted upon by the prevailing wind and behaves like a lever, swinging the bow away from the weather. It is a theory one rarely gets the chance to te
st, so what the chances were of it working at any time I wasn’t sure; when applied to a vessel with a large box on her after deck and designed to be twin-screw, I had no idea what the theory said, but as I found myself broadside on to Galatas with a plethora of small boats in an anchorage between me and the shore, I decided that beggars could not be choosers and I put my last remaining engine full astern. Then, having nothing else to do, I explained what I was doing to my audience. I don’t know how much of it they followed, but it was damn good occupational therapy for me.
Considering that we were still trailing two anchors on short scope, I was hardly surprised that it didn’t immediately work, but we did progress backwards out of the channel a little, and I began to hope that I could ground the ship clear of most of the boats at anchor. But finally the port anchor broke the surface, and Les put it out of gear. The stern came a little closer to the wind. Les began to recover the last of the starboard cable. As I came closer to the yachts in the muddier water near the point, I risked coming ahead on the engine as much as I could, the starboard engine acting on the rudder to send us reasonably straight back into the channel. Then, as Les roared with triumph and the starboard anchor broke the surface, I came astern again and the Swan gently brought her back end up into the pulsing wind.
Ever so slowly she swung, but she kept her gentle parabola, and looking aft from the bridge wing I thought she might just clear the shallower water. I risked one more quick kick ahead, but her stern started to fall off again so I came back astern, shutting my eyes as I saw the clouds of mud now blooming in the back-wash of her starboard prop.
The phone buzzed. I didn’t answer it, because I had seen the port engine tachometer leap into life. With the greatest self-control I had ever exerted, I resisted the temptation to ram it full open, but gently increased the revolutions ahead until I felt the stern just start to swing; then I left it strictly alone.
The port screw, acting ahead on the rudder, now started to swing my stern away from the mud-bank whilst the starboard prop continued to edge me to windward into deeper water.
Les appeared on the bridge, wiping oil from his face and forearms, and laconically said “Good deal, Man!” as though everything had gone exactly to some plan I was entirely unaware of. Then Shergar arrived, equally bespattered and wiping his specs.
“Anything you can do with the steering?” I asked tersely.
“Try it now,” he replied, “...I just called, but you didn’t answer the phone.”
I opened my mouth, shut it, centred the tiller, and saw the rudder indicator judder unsteadily back to ‘amidships’.
“It’s still not too clever. Don’t go full over.” Shergar advised me.
“What happened?”
“I think it jammed at hard-over. Probably a worn pivot on the linkage, or a bad bearing. I stuck a crowbar under the rudder-heads and lifted ’em a bit. It felt like they came free.”
What an utter genius the man was. I could have kissed him.
I reversed Swan almost as far as the Poros hotel before swinging her gingerly to starboard and laying as much anchor and cable as I dared in the mouth of Russian Bay. Les brought everyone a cold beer, and then pointed at the aluminium motorboat on the forecastle.
Let’s have a cold one, an’ then I’ll run y’ashore. I reckon I owe ya lunch when this wind goes down.” he said, matter-o-factly.
I was in a sort of a daze as we sped back across the bay. It all seemed more like a story I had read in a book rather than something I had participated in myself. The sense of unreality was heightened by the absolute calm with which everyone took it. I had finished the manoeuvre... if such farcical, force-majeur antics can be graced with so elegant a title... in a muck-sweat, unable to bend my knees in case they folded under me. Even after anchoring, I had to press my beer can against my lips to prevent it shaking when I drank.
Everyone else, on the contrary, appeared at complete ease and chatted happily. I gathered that they were all quite content with the procedure.
Stepping out of the aluminium ‘tinny’ at the dock, I saw the clock again. Just two hours after we had left George’s Cafe, we resumed our seats and George replenished our beers. As I sat down I felt a crinkling in my pocket, and pulled out the letter from the port police chief. I handed it to Simos.
“What does this really say?” I asked him.
He grinned, and added another shrug to the daily total.
“Ah... it is a recipe for melitzanosalata... aubergine salad!” he admitted guiltily, and then added, by way of mitigation, “A very good recipe!”
*
We later found out that all our efforts had all been for nothing. The ferry never arrived, having sunk after a collision in Aegina harbour!
* * *
The day after the affair of the Swan, Kyria Fotini informed me that I had a telephone call from Petros to go to the cafe. I trotted down through the first cooling of evening and emerged from the maze of lanes behind the cafe. Petros pointed nonchalantly to a table by the statue in the middle of the square where sat a middle-aged couple.
“They wants to see you,” he explained economically.
I twisted my hands outwards in the gesture which indicates that a Greek wants to know ‘what is it about?’, and he replied with the less-than-helpful tut which indicates that a Greek doesn’t know and cares less.
They were a couple of the best dressed scruffs I had ever seen; he in faded shirt, threadbare cords and a sun bleached cravat, she in a blouse, skirt and a necklace made apparently of old rope. As I manoeuvred round the front and introduced myself, he rose and removed his hat... a folding panama which looked like it had once belonged to an origami research establishment... in a reflexively gentlemanly manner and introduced them as Sylvia and Gerald. The voices were plum jam with extra plum... fruity, and as far-back as a dinosaur’s tail.
“I hyar you are not averse to a Gin-and-Tonic?” enquired Gerald as he motioned me to a seat. Petros had one ready, it seemed, so I didn’t bother asking where he had ‘hyar’ed it.
“You have been recommended to us,” he continued, “...as someone who could porssibly hyelp us ayt. We have to get to an archaeological dig on an island nyar hyar, and we would like to spend the night there; but one does like a modicum of comfort, donch’yer know? Seemed like a boat might be just the ticket.”
“Which island?” I asked.
“It is called Dokos, I b’lieve.”
An uninhabited island outside Ermioni, about seventeen miles from Poros; but I wasn’t aware of any activity there.
“Oh, it’s quate new, I b’lieve. Started last week. Diving, an old harbour they’ve fyound, ’parently.”
“Ah! And are you archaeologists?” I enquired
Sylvia said, “May fault, Ay’m afraid. Complete amateur, naturally, but fascinating stuff, fascinating. We’ve been invited by the professor leading the dig.”
“Old school-chum of mine,” added Gerald. Yup, he probably would be, I thought. Along with most of the cabinet, and half of the House of Lords.
A couple of drinks, and all was concluded. I phoned Spiros and he did a deal to let me take Molto Alegro for two nights... not much of a sailor, but probably the best boat to take if ‘a modicum of comfort’ was required by the clients in prospect.
“Now,” concluded Gerald, “...if you could recommend a decent restaurant, could we porssibly orffer you dinnar?”
Certainly they could. I took them off to The Snail, where we regaled ourselves on his peerless roast pork and fruity, fresh wine... for which beverage they showed an unexpected and endearingly proletarian appreciation. They were excellent company, Sylvia being very knowledgeable about the ancient history of the area and Gerald having done a good bit of sailing in earlier days. I found myself looking forward to the trip, and only a bit sorry that it wasn’t longer.
Towards the end of the meal, Gerald suddenly smiled at his glass, and said, “Now, listen hyar, old chap. I’m afraid we haven’t been quite above board with you. Yo
u’ve been ambushed, I’m afraid. Not our fault, only actin’ under orders, what? But we will have one other passenger tomorrow too.”
A finger tickled my ear-lobe.
“Hello, Skip!” said a soft voice behind me. “I see you’re ingratiating yourself with the family.”
It was Clemmie.
* * *
“I didn’t know if I should have come back or not,” she mused as she ran a finger around the rim of her glass. “You can tell me to bugger orf again, if you like. But it seemed rather... oh, I don’t know... providential, I suppose, this dig coming up just here, just now.”
“Couldn’t be more delighted!” I assured her.
She cocked an eye mischievously at me.
“Ryally? One hyars such lurid stories... out-of-work actresses haunting the docks, Swedish tour operators, naked bathing on catamarans...”
“Well, if you have done your homework that well, you’ll know that the Swedes were lesbians and the catamaran was full of Swiss Nuns. I am clean in soul!” I protested. She laughed.
“As well as in body.”
“Oh, no, never that... I’m still a grubby oik!” I protested.
“Well, so you say. So you say. But one hyars of entire communities fed on pig. One hyars other tales too. Tales of derring-do... saving fishermen, and minesweepers, battling the elements? Isn’t there some reprehensible pretension of nobility here?”
“Absolutely not. Hadn’t a clue what I was doing, got into scrapes by accident and got out of ’em by the luck of my heathen God and the skin of my discoloured NHS false teeth. You know me... as far as I am concerned, noblesse oblige means a helpful eunuch.”
“One hyars,” she continued, “...that on this minesweeper, the ‘English captain was very cool, didn’t say a word’.”
“The English captain had run out of things to say,” I assured her. “If the English captain had opened his mouth, he would have screamed for his mum.”
The Trojan Walrus Page 28