Open Writing

Whilst serving in the Royal Navy I had learned that one was never allowed to linger for very long in shore establishments. In general, such bases were depositories for bodies who were to be passed as required from one ship to another. HMS Golden Hind in Sydney, new South Wales, was no different. Consequently, as one such resident body there, it was only a short while before I found I had been allocated to my next vessel.

HMS Vengeance was a light fleet carrier of some 13,000 tons, flying Barracuda and Firefly aircraft, not that I was particularly interested in such details since I was in the seaman division, not Fleet Air Arm. That was a service branch accepted by seamen but eyed with some suspicion, as were cooks, writers and stokers. If they weren’t ‘one of our lot’, then they were aliens. They weren’t sailors. We thought they were on our side, but we could never tell.

The whereabouts of Vengeance at the time when I became a member of her complement was Hong Kong, not that such a fact proved inconvenient to anyone other than we who were obliged to get there. Simply, catch the next ship which happened to be going that way. In my case the vessel in question was HMS Chacer, a flat-topped banana boat. That is to say she was American built and had possibly been a merchantman transporting bananas in capacious holds, readily converted to accommodate aircraft, then fitted out with a wooden flight deck. In my time, however, she was being employed solely as a troop transporter with service personnel crowded into her holds rather than aircraft or bananas.

The entire ex-hangar was given over to individual messes with hammock bars over their tables in customary fashion. Food supply was known as ‘canteen messing’, a system in which an alloy tray was collected upon entering the servery. That tray bore varying-shaped indentations -- shallow ones -- into which food was placed. Thus each person collected one full meal as the line of cooks sloshed the various ingredients into their respective hollows in the tray. The trick then was to keep them there until the mess table was reached. But should the ship heel over, then the original individual menu could be changed very quickly, with custard sliding into the potatoes, and when she heeled back over, then gravy and apple pie became as one.

Should a wave trough be bottomed, the entire assemblage of food left the tray and became airborne. Then the stratagem was to catch the whole lot when it descended, hopefully in some semblance of order. Otherwise the individual items ended up in a squelchy mass, partly on the tray and partly on the deck, and there was no chance of a second tray, not until the next mealtime that is. Collisions between diners, or would-be diners, often occurred. They simply added to the jollities of life on the rolling deep.

Thus it came to pass that I bade farewell to Golden Hind and settled down to a gentle cruise to Hong Kong. We who were in transit were unburdened of duties, so it was lazy days, all of which -- apart from some mealtimes -- were presumably uneventful since I am left with few memories from the passage.
Our arrival in Hong Kong was memorable though. The Vengeance wasn’t there! She had previously sailed for Sydney, and unwittingly the two ships had crossed on their respective journeys -- quite literally ‘ships that passed in the night’, perhaps. There was only one course of action to follow -- turn around, return to Sydney and hope Vengeance kept still long enough for us to catch up with her.

I do remember that on our way back Christmas celebrations were in order. It was 1945. I received one bottle of beer with which to make whoopee, courtesy of the Royal Navy. So, clutching the memorable gift -- which had been opened prior to receipt, thus preventing hoarding -- in one hand and with a book under my other arm, I scaled the pile of kitbags in a corner of the hangar. There ensconced in semi-solitude I quaffed my beer and became engrossed in Raphael Sabatini’s ‘The Black Swan’, a tale of 18th Century piracy and skulduggery on the high seas. Well, the setting was quite apt.

In due course we reached Sydney and there awaiting us was the Vengeance, moored off Cockatoo Island. There it was that I first went aboard the vessel which was to be my home for the next part of my service life and the one which would eventually bring me back to England. Meantime there were places to go, sights to see and the obvious seas to sight.

We didn’t linger (very) long in harbour but were soon back at sea. No prizes for guessing where we made for. Obviously it had to be Hong Kong. Why we went I have no idea, but I did begin to get the feeling that I was riding on a tram with all lines connected between two fixed points.

Passing quickly on then, we reached our port of call, although I am left with only fleeting memories of runs ashore. One such is that there were no skyscrapers in those days. High-rise tenements, yes, and in plentiful supply, rat-infested warrens occupied by scuttling native occupants, but such buildings did not obscure the distant hills as today’s structures do.

One merry jape we representatives of the British Crown would indulge in consisted of throwing fireworks through the open upper windows of passing trams, then enjoying the scene of hurried evacuation by passengers. Well, the firecrackers were only one dollar for ten -- a Hong Kong dollar being worth 1/6d at the time.

A trip to Kowloon was made to view the gambling houses there. That is all we did do -- view them.

In Hong Kong Sikh bank guards looked threateningly picturesque, traditionally attired with coloured turbans, abundant facial growth immaculately groomed. They sat beside the bank doors nursing Winchester rifles.

A roadside vendor hawked food from a huge wok heated over a glowing fire contained in a punctured oil drum. The contents of the wok cooked gently in simmering oil, a white crowd which, upon enquiry, it was learned were none other than distant relatives of our persistent shipmates -- cockroaches. Those, however, were the larger members of that family -- the notorious Bombay Runners, in size that of tiger prawns, to which they were likened by the vendor when our repulsion was shown towards his wares. Europeans, he argued, ate shrimps and prawns, scavengers of the seabed. Chinese ate cockroaches, scavengers of the land. Wasn’t there a similarity? An argument which failed to convince us sufficiently to purchase any of his stock, even though we were well aware what debris littered the harbour floor. Prawns and shrimps then -- eat and enjoy.

At that time there existed huge numbers of Chinese in Hong Kong who were known as ‘the floating population’, a population which used -- and still uses -- the harbour waters as its dumping ground. A translation of ‘Hong Kong’ is ‘fragrant waters’! Nevertheless, this mass of humanity lives permanently on small sampans within the harbour, boats which form a huge island of floating homes, providing occupants with shelter from their cradle to their grave.

Women from this community came aboard ship carrying highly polished empty ten gallon kerosene cans into which they would empty all food scraps from the galley and the mess decks. What happened to it afterwards I have no idea. My theory was that a re-hash was made and served up in restaurants for the likes of us to eat at a later date.

I was mystified on one occasion with a dish placed before me in the Hong Kong YMCA. The menu listed ham and eggs. How could I refuse? Yet when they -- or it-- arrived, I discovered that Chinese cuisine varied from the traditional English style. Unlike the preparation I was accustomed to, a ham and egg omelette was placed before me. Omelettes at that period of my life were non-existent -- we led sheltered lives in the Royal Navy. Consequently that first one was approached with some trepidation. Yet I need have had no fears, and it must be said that as I commenced to eat I found I was experiencing one of my first lessons in the art of Chinese cooking.

I was to return to Hong Kong for one more visit before beginning the long journey home. Yet that omelette has obviously ever remained a palatable memory.