The Voyage of the Golden Handshake (11 page)

It was Sunday morning and the ship was bowling along at a merry pace towards the super-rich territory of Monaco. The Admiral was not happy about this port of call for, as a religious man, he was firmly against gambling in all its forms and regarded Monaco as one of the gambling capitals of the world. Harry was insistent that the venue be included as he reasoned that many of the passengers would love to see the Casino and even perhaps risk staking a euro or two. The Captain was not bothered in the slightest. If Monaco was on the list he would go there. If not, no matter. Monaco was included and so on a lovely sunny morning, the good ship
Golden Handshake
, set sail for the Principality.

As it was a Sunday morning, the Reverend Justin Longparish was due to take centre-stage and conduct morning worship. If there was no Chaplain on board a British Registered ship, then the Captain of the vessel took Divine Service. Because the
Handshake
, thanks to an unfortunate incident,
did
have an official cleric on board, now was the time for him to perform.

The Admiral was faced with a dilemma. His conscience told him that he must attend Sunday worship, but he had not yet
determined how he was going to deal with the situation when he came face to face with the doctor. He decided that worship should come first, and knowing what he did about the doctor, he doubted that the man would turn up to sing any hymns. Of course, he thought, if the doctor had been consuming his normal intake of brandy he might be more than happy to sing about angels, sunbeams or anything else one might care to name.

At ten o’clock the Admiral, Captain and senior officers, plus the Hotel Manager and the Cruise Director, gathered in the auditorium. Harry Parkhurst was seated at the piano which was somewhat out of tune, but passable if he played loudly enough. Angela Fairweather stood at the door with a bundle of hymn sheets that Harry had been able to obtain from the Salvation Army in Huddersfield. She handed one to each passenger as she bade them a cheery good morning.

Eleven o’clock approached and the Captain became agitated.

‘Where is that damn man?’ he whispered to the Staff Captain, who was beside him. ‘And where is the Golden Glory Choir? He said he was going to have them in top form for today. I know Harry obtained some old curtain material which he said could easily be adapted into the most attractive vestments for them. Surely they would be glad to show off.’

As the minutes ticked by without any sign of the chaplain, Enzo the Cruise Director became more and more worried for, unless the service started soon, people would be late for his
Albanian language class at eleven. Enzo was not the only one to be concerned. By now the Captain was furious. He turned to the Admiral.

‘You start the service and I’ll go and hunt for the man.’

Although small in stature, Captain Sparda was most agile. He leaped from the stage and proceeded at the double towards the Medical Centre.

The ever-dutiful attendant flinched when the Captain burst in and shouted, ‘Where is he? Doesn’t he know the time?’

The attendant, thinking that the Captain required the doctor, pointed towards the medic’s small cabin.

‘I think he’s asleep, Captain,’ he stuttered.

‘Asleep?’ roared Sparda. ‘
Asleep
? I’ll put him to sleep for good when I see him.’ With that he threw open the door and revealed a supine doctor fast asleep clutching an empty brandy bottle.

‘What in God’s name is this?’ Sparda seethed. ‘This isn’t the chaplain.’

The terrified attendant remained mute.

‘Come on, fellow, stir yourself. For the last time, where is the damn chaplain?’

The attendant pointed a trembling finger towards the tiny sickbay and without more ado the Captain entered to reveal the chaplain, attired in a dressing-gown and seated at a small table.

‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he roared, as only little
men can roar. ‘Stand up, man. Well, explain!’

The chaplain stood as he was commanded, but remained mute, which increased the Captain’s fury.

‘Are you a total
imbecille
?’ he shouted, using the forceful Italian word. ‘ Explain. E - S - P - L - I - N - E’.

He spelled out the letters of the word one by one.

Still not replying, the chaplain fumbled in a drawer and produced a pencil and paper on which he scrawled:
I have a very serious throat condition. I am forbidden to speak. Tomorrow I am allowed four words per hour
.

‘
Diavolo
!’ cursed the Captain as he aimed a kick at the chair on which the chaplain had once again sat. ‘As soon as your quota of words increases, report to me.’

And with that he stormed out of the sickbay to resume Divine Worship.

When Captain Sparda returned to the service, it was almost over. The Admiral had managed to make things up as he went along but, due to the fact that they had been depending on the chaplain to provide the readings and prayers, it was impossible to arrange these at such short notice and so he filled in with hymns. When Sparda entered, the congregation were on their tenth hymn and approaching exhaustion. Captain Sparda took his place on the stage as the worthy passengers were singing about golden corn waving in some far-off land. He signalled to Harry to bring the hymn to a halt and introduced the final hymn
- the ‘sailor’s hymn’ as he described it: ‘Eternal Father, Strong to Save’.

‘After this hymn,’ he announced, ‘there will be a collection for Mrs Hubbard’s Fund for Shipwrecked Sailors. Please be generous.’

The weary congregation waded through the restless waves, contributed generously so that Mrs Hubbard did not lose face, and then speedily hastened towards their cabins for a drink and a rest.

‘Thank you all,’ said Sparda to the stage party. ‘The chaplain is currently indisposed, but will be back on full duty shortly.’

The moment the congregation had gone, Enzo scurried off to explore Albanian lexicography; Radley went to the kitchen to make his peace with Chef Tucker; Harry went to the bar area which now had a limited stock of drinks and where he was due to play the piano during the hour before lunch, and Captain Sparda returned to the bridge, leaving the poor old Staff Captain to escort the eighty-year-old twin sisters from New Zealand who were celebrating their birthday in the Golden Chopsticks restaurant with a plate of noodles and perhaps a slice of date pie with custard.

The remainder of the sea day passed tranquilly enough. During the afternoon, a game of deck quoits was arranged, but so many quoits were lost over the side that the game was brought
to a premature halt. At the Sunday-evening dinner, Mike Tucker and his team excelled themselves, having bought extra supplies in Gibraltar. After several days of beans in various disguises, some fresh fish or a beef steak were much appreciated by the travellers, who warmly applauded Mike when he appeared in the dining room wearing his traditional Chef’s gear. Prior to this evening he had remained well out of sight for fear of being attacked by irate passengers.

Another member of the ship’s company who continued to remain in hiding was the owner of the Line, Admiral Benbow Harrington. He still could not puzzle out how he was going to deal with the problem of the doctor. He had requested that Captain Sparda monitor his performance and get passengers who visited him to fill out an evaluation sheet. If there was rampant displeasure with the man, then this would give grounds for putting the fellow ashore. What was clear was that he, the Admiral and shipping magnate, could not remain in hiding on his own ship simply because he was embarrassed by a rogue medico. He determined that the following day he would confront the fellow and have things out with him once and for all.

That evening, the Admiral, as usual, had dinner alone and later on, when the ship was quiet and there was only the sound of the ancient engine throbbing its weary way through the water, he took his customary stroll around the deck. He was just about to return to his cabin when he caught his foot in a deck quoit which
had been left behind following the abandonment of the game that afternoon. He went down with an almighty crash, hitting his head on some object or other and immediately lapsed into unconsciousness. Some twenty minutes later, he was discovered by a deck-hand who sounded the alert. A stretcher-party arrived and the poor man was bundled through the narrow corridors of the ship and down to the Medical Centre.

The same weary attendant was on duty and he suggested that the stretcher be laid out across a table so that the doctor might examine the patient. The attendant, who had had too many nervous encounters with his superiors on the ship, paled visibly when he was informed that the figure lying prone on the stretcher was none other than Admiral Benbow Harrington, the owner of the Line. He said that he would summon the doctor immediately and disappeared.

It was the practice on the ship not to broadcast emergency messages across the information system so as not to cause unnecessary alarm. However, coded messages were relayed. The doctor had been given a code name ‘Fairylight 42’ and ‘
Fairy-light
42’ was requested to make his way to his post immediately. That evening, the doctor had been for dinner with several passengers and had greatly appreciated their hospitality, especially their willingness to share with him some of their spoils gained from a visit to Gibraltar. Several bottles of wine were dispatched, and had not the host, an elderly gentleman from
Godalming, become alarmed at the rapid rate at which his precious stock was diminishing, most of the table would have finished up on the dining-room floor.

After a most convivial dinner, the doctor withdrew to the library where he accepted a very large cigar and engaged two or three of his dinner companions in a game of pontoon. Some rather cheap brandy, which a passenger had bought in Seville, was produced and the evening progressed nicely. The library was one of the places on the ship with a loudspeaker and, at a particularly tense point in the bidding, the said speaker sprang into life.

‘What the hell can that be?’ queried the doctor. There was much laughter as the appeal went out for ‘Fairylight 42’.

‘Perhaps it’s approaching Christmas,’ said one wit, ‘and they want to decorate the tree.’

More laughter followed as the appeal was repeated.

The doctor was too far gone to recognise his code-name, even if he had remembered it - which he hadn’t. When the message was repeated a fourth time, he looked up and threw a solid glass ashtray at the speaker, which fell silent at the very same moment as it fell off the wall.

The merry group resumed their game and ‘Fairylight 42’ continued to do damage to the brandy bottle on the table. Half an hour later, the door of the library burst open and the worried medical attendant entered. He took one look around, spotted
the doctor and moved to his side.

‘Sir,’ he began.

The doctor waved his hand at him, saying, ‘Sit down, laddie. We’ll deal you in next time.’

The attendant did not sit down but tugged at the man’s sleeve.

‘Sir,’ he pleaded. ‘You are urgently needed.’

‘I know
that
,’ the Doctor said dismissively. ‘A doctor is always needed on board a ship.’

‘Sir,’ repeated the boy with increasing anxiety. ‘
Now
sir. Please - come with me.’

One of the group, a certain Mr Coles who had been more moderate in his imbibing that evening, stepped in.

‘I think he wants you to go with him immediately,’ he said. ‘Perhaps there is an emergency?’ It took all the persuasive power of the attendant and Mr Coles to get the doctor to his feet and propel him in the direction of the Medical Centre where he arrived some very considerable time after the Admiral had been carried in.

Never has anyone in the living memory of drinkers across the ages sobered up so quickly as the doctor did that evening. He entered the room, took one look at the semi-conscious figure on the table and cried out, ‘My God in heaven, who is that?’

The attendant explained that it was Admiral Benbow Harrington, the owner of the Line and a considerable shipping magnate.
To the consternation of all present, the doctor immediately rushed into his own quarters and slammed the door. The attendant and his little band of helpers looked on in bewilderment, not knowing what to do. After a moment or so, the attendant rapped on the doctor’s door. He could hear the sound of splashing water. Several more moments elapsed and the door opened to reveal the doctor wearing a surgical mask which completely covered his face, topped with a plastic head-covering normally used by surgeons and operating room attendants. He approached the stretcher and immediately started to work on the Admiral.

The gash on the forehead was not half as bad as it appeared and was soon attended to. What concerned the doctor was the fact that the patient had been lying on the deck for some time before being found and had lapsed in and out of consciousness. He ordered a cot to be made up in the room next to the chaplain and for the Admiral to be kept there under close supervision for the next twenty-four hours.

To his great credit, the doctor rose to the occasion. That night he did not sleep a wink but every hour he went into the small cubicle and checked his patient’s condition. Each time he entered he wore the mask, for he was quite certain that once he was recognised he would be off the boat before he could turn round. For his part, the Admiral reflected on the situation as best he could. His head no longer hurt too much and sleep, that great restorer, gradually made him feel much better. The doctor,
thought the Admiral, was clearly a compassionate man at heart. Yes, he had his weaknesses, but then so did they all. A model patient, the Admiral, did exactly as he was told and slept a good part of the night and much of the following day.

Late in the afternoon, the doctor appeared, once again still completely masked.

‘Tell me,’ said the Admiral mischievously, ‘is my condition so contagious that you have always to appear in that fashion?’

The doctor mumbled something incomprehensible and produced his stethoscope.