An unforgettable voyage

There is nothing more peaceful, beautiful than the sea, whether sparkling blue, or a dull greenish-grey.

In response to a couple of emails from readers who have asked me to stoke my memory once again, I’m taking a break from politics this week, and writing about a voyage which took place in the early fifties on a small cargo ship of the East Asiatic Line called the St Jan. For the merchant navy buffs, this was a 7200-tonner with a 3000 horse-power single screw triple expansion steam piston engine. The route was Karachi, Aden, Port Sudan, Suez Canal, Port Said, Beirut, Naples, Antwerp and finally Copenhagen. I was getting off at Antwerp. Hardly anybody came to see off the four passengers or the crew. How different it was in Bombay when a cruise ship was leaving and a huge throng of people would flicker its farewells at the quay like poplar leaves.

Ten minutes out of Karachi, the vessel gyrated to the piston-throb of the engines and the hungry bows bit open another horizon. There is nothing more peaceful and beautiful than the sea, whether sparkling blue as in the Bay of Naples or a dull greenish-grey when crossing the Atlantic. The Danish captain was kind and let me listen to his amazing collection of Stare Polskie tangos. I had access to the radio in the lounge and was able to pick up a station in Norway where Kirsten Flagstad sang for her thousands of fans the “Todeslied” from “Tristan und Isolde”.

The Red Sea was surprisingly warm but placid. Suez had salesmen flogging rugs and the usual contingent of Egyptian conmen selling to unsuspecting male passengers and crew, small bottles of the Spanish Fly which turned out to be nothing but aspirin. We negotiated the Suez Canal at night. It was an unforgettable crossing. I sat on the deck under a full moon and watched the blue sand dunes glide gently by.

At Beirut, passengers and crew went ashore. I had declined the captain’s invitation to visit a night club with his officers on account of my young age and went instead to the cinema. They were showing Samson and Delilah with French and Arabic subtitles. This meant that one set of eyes moved from left to right and the other from right to left. As mine stayed riveted to the screen, and I appeared to be enjoying the part where Victor Mature ‘smote the Philistines hip and thigh with a terrible slaughter’, one of them asked me if I was studying at the American Community School in Beirut.

The next port of call was Naples, city of the great tenors, where we docked for two days. This was my first introduction to Italy, land of the Caesars, the Borgias, Michelangelo and da Vinci. I had hardly gotten off the boat when I was accosted by a guide, followed by a gang of feral youths. The guide had a raffish appearance and looked unrelentingly miserable. In a mellifluously reedy tone, which alternated between tourist cliché and exclamation, he offered me with an eye-rolling credulity and a cute innocence a two-day tour to see the real Naples for a ridiculously low fee.

Most of the time was spent eating and discussing voluptuous Italian film actresses. When my guide saw me off at the docks, I wanted to tip him and felt for my wallet. It was gone. Suddenly my guide’s face dissolved into a broad grin. Producing my wallet from his hip pocket he said, ‘Do you know why I’m returning your wallet? It’s because you prefer Silvana Mangano to Gina Lollobrigida.’ As they say in English … it takes all types to make a world.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2012.