Kyril Bonfiglioli - All the Tea in China

I decided to be practical.

“Peter,” I said firmly, “the first thing is to get you into a suit of decent clothes; you know you cannot hope to get a berth looking as you do now.”

He glared icily, then grinned a travesty of his old mocking grin. “Of course, Karli; it would be churlish to refuse a little temporary help from an old mess-mate. But first, there is the small matter of getting drunk, you recall.”

Later we sang a lugubrious ditty called, I think, “ Here’s to the dead already — and three cheers for the next man to die .” We sang it again and again, for there was some disagreement about the tune and key.

Later still I recall enjoying the wonderful coolness on my cheek as I rested it in a puddle of brandy, for it seemed to me that I could see Peter more clearly from that angle, you understand.

I must have slept, for wonderful dreams came to me: I was a little, naked child again, I was being carried and rocked in strong arms; I had wet myself. All around me I could hear good Dutch voices shouting. I wept happily. As I floated to the surface of sleep I was puzzled, for the Dutch that was being shouted was not the Dutch of my native Gelderland but the harsh accents of Rotterdam; it made my head hurt. I opened my eyes to utter blackness. The shouting went on and there was a din above my head of stampings and bangings. I was sick.

A door opened and blinding sunlight made me blink. Black against the sun I made out the shape of a huge man.

“Get up,” said a voice I thought I had heard before.

I rose to my feet and staggered towards the figure, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus. There was a snake-like thing dangling from its hand.

“Where am I?” I whimpered.

“You’re in the Rose of Boston , loading for Sydney, New South Wales. And you call me ‘Sir’,” said Lubbock.

I gaped. The rope’s end flicked out and my groin jumped in agony.

“Aye aye, Sir,” I said.

“ In our trade we be all felons, more or less ” (R. Kipling).

The men from whom I have stolen most freely (in this book, I mean) are dead: Basil Lubbock who wrote The China Clippers and Robert Surtees who created the immortal John Jorrocks, M.F.H. I hope that when my time comes I shall be able to look them in the face. My thanks are due to Commander Hanson, R.N.(Retd) of Jersey and formerly of the China Station, who first pointed my bows in this direction. No one could write about the Treaty Coast without the aid of Maurice Colliss’s classic Foreign Mud , Commander Kemp’s Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea was published just in time to kedge me off some dangerous lee-shores. As to the rest I can only say, like the little girl who spat at Nursey, “I’m afraid that was my own invention.”

My thanks are due to my former wife Margaret, whose patience would shame Griselda and whose loyalty certainly shames me.

Last, I must thank all my new friends in County Cavan, whose unquestioning kindness to their new neighbour has carried me through a long, dark winter: the fact that I cannot list their names here is a measure of their number.