of the most dilapidated taxi who had finally secured me as a fare. I told him I wanted to go to the Moshulu and as this did not seem to mean anything to him, I pointed to the towering masts, upon which he mumbled something about ‘that big sailer full of Chinks’ and we set off at a crazy speed, lurching into the puddles where the cobbles had subsided and slewing dangerously across the tracks of tank engines that bore down upon us at full steam. I barely noticed these things as I was in terror at the thought of climbing those masts which had a beautiful cold remoteness about them like the North Col on Everest. For the first time in my life I wished that a taxi ride would never end, but it was only three or four hundred yards to where the ship was discharging her cargo in York Dock and, too soon for me, we drew up alongside her. There was no sign of life aboard except on the well deck forward, where some stevedores were still unloading her cargo of grain.
Moshulu taken in Cork (Cobh), June 1936
I left the taximan extracting my trunk from the fore part of his vehicle where it had become jammed between the floor and the roof, and went forward to explore, waiting for a lull in the unloading operations to go up a slippery plank which led over the bulwarks and so on to the deck. When I reached it I began to feel that the taximan might be right about the ship being full of Chinese, for I found myself face to face with a rather squat, flatnosed boy of about seventeen who would have looked more at home outside a nomad tent in Central Asia. From beneath a great shock of disordered hair his eyes stared unwaveringly at me. Only the filthy dungarees in which he was dressed and the oilcan he carried proclaimed him to be a child of the West.
It was his face that finally reassured me. Surely, I thought to myself, such an ugly face has something better behind it. I held out my hand and said: ‘I am Newby, a new apprentice.’
The slant eyes looked at me suspiciously but I thought I could detect a glimmer of interest in them. He did not take my hand but a deep voice finally said, in a way that made me jump, ‘Doonkey.’ Believing this to be an epithet directed at me, I began to prepare myself for a fight. None of the books I had read said anything about a situation like this. Their heroes fought only after months of insult. Fortunately I was mistaken and he put me at ease by pointing at himself and saying: ‘Jansson, “Doonkey,” orlright,’ and at the same time grasping my hand which completely disappeared in his.
This was one of the two Donkeymen responsible for the proper functioning of the donkey engine, the diesel, brace and halliard winches and all things mechanical on board. In spite of his villainous appearance he was really the most tolerant and long-suffering of people, and we went through the entire voyage without trouble.
I indicated the trunk on the dock, and Jansson said: ‘Orlright’ again, and we went down the gangplank to the taxi. The driver was waving a piece of the roof of his vehicle which had broken off in his efforts to dislodge the trunk and was telling a little knot of stevedores everything he knew about me. As our acquaintance had been short he was drawing effortlessly on his own ample imagination. I was anxious to be rid of him and overpaid him considerably, but this encouraged him to ask for a large sum for the damage to his taxi, for which he said I was responsible. The stevedores closed in to support their countryman, but Jansson made such a threatening gesture with his tattooed forearm that they dispersed and the driver, finding himself outnumbered, gave up the struggle and drove away.
We now lifted the trunk and tried to make our way up the plank, but it was steep and my leather-soled shoes slipped backwards. ‘Orlright,’ said Jansson. He spat on his hands, slung the trunk on his back and shot up the incline like a mountain goat depositing it with a great crash on the deck. I followed him. My luggage and I were aboard.
We were now on the starboard side of the foredeck by the square opening of No 2 hatch. A travelling crane was dipping over it like a long-legged bird, pecking up great beakfuls of sacks. Underfoot was a slush of oil and grain; the oil came from a diesel winch which lay about the deck completely dismembered.
‘Kom,’ said Jansson and kicked open a door. I followed him through it and found myself in the starboard fo’c’sle. I had imagined the ship to be deserted but once I was accustomed to the half light and the thick pall of cigarette smoke that hung between the deck and the low ceiling, I was able to make out the figures of half a dozen men in overalls who were silently regarding me whilst sitting at a long table which ran the whole length of the fo’c’sle. Most of them seemed to be between seventeen and twenty years of age; all were muscular and pallid.
‘Good morning,’ I said, and their silent impassive staring went on until, like a long-awaited echo, they rumbled some kind of reply. Fortunately Jansson handed me a mug of coffee which he poured from a big white enamel jug. Someone else on the other side of the table shoved over a can of milk, a loaf of bread and a ten-pound tin of margarine. I helped myself to my second breakfast; there were some perfunctory introductions, and munching steadily, I listened to them discussing (without visible enthusiasm) my English nationality. At the same time I was able to take note of my surroundings. They were not inviting.
The fo’c’sle was about twenty feet long and thirteen feet-wide; its steel bulkheads were painted light grey; round the four sides were bunks which looked like double-banked coffins in an Italian cemetery. The lower ones mostly had home-made curtains which could be drawn when the owner was inside. Only one of the bunks was now occupied, but the curtains were half open, revealing an inert figure with its face to the wall, from which groans escaped at intervals. Down the centre of the fo’c’sle was the long narrow table, its feet screwed to the deck, the top pitted by the scrubbing and scouring of several generations of sailors. Around the edge was a raised beading, or fiddle, intended to stop the crockery sliding off in heavy weather. On either side of the table were heavy wooden benches cleated down to the deck.
Some natural illumination came from the portholes in the ship’s side, one or two of which looked out on to the well-deck; but the light was more or less obscured by a chaos of wooden sea-chests, oilskins and mysterious roped bundles which completely filled the upper bunks. Above my head was a teak skylight with a number of thick glasses set in it through which daylight seeped reluctantly. Artificial light was provided by a heavy lantern swinging perilously low above the centre of the table. Behind me was a cupboard with a shelf for crockery, and another for bread, margarine and condensed milk. Below the cupboard was a white drinking-water tank with a brass tap. The crew had just finished breakfast; on the table were the remains of this ghastly repast: some sort of thick brown stew with macaroni, now rapidly congealing, and what seemed to me, judging by the mounds of skins, an unhealthy quantity of potatoes. Standing among the ruins was an archaic gramophone with a fluted horn. This was now wound up and amidst sighs of anticipation a record was put on. There followed a preparatory churning as the needle engaged itself in the grooves and then the most appalling dissonance of sounds burst upon my ears. After I had become used to the din, I distinguished the words:
There’s a little Dutch mill on a little Dutch hill
Where the little Dutch stars shine bright.
Now a little Dutch boy and his little Dutch girl
Fell in love by the light of the moon one night …1
This was Moshulu’s only record and though I may probably never hear it again, it will always remind me of Belfast and the time after Munich.
The playing of the record released any inhibitions my arrival had imposed on the company. Conversation became animated and deafening, and as the song ground itself to a standstill the boy sitting next to me, a Lithuanian whose name I later discovered was Vytautas Bagdanavicius, turned to me, flashed a brilliant smile and said happily ‘No good’ as he wound the motor and started the record again.
Jansson, wishing to show off
