Beyond the call of duty

I had left home at two in the morning, groped my way across the desolate plain between Soissons and Noyon in freezing fog and nearly ended my journey in a sugar beet patch.  The tiny country road had no markings and it was only the skidding of the tyres in the black mud that told me I had left the tarmac.

 I was heading for the A1 motorway near Amiens and then on to Calais.  The A3 was still being built and the tunnel seemed a far off dream.  Private enterprise was the buzz word in those days of miners’ strikes, dockers strikes and every other strike that anyone could think up.  My frequent trips to the UK were unpredictable.  I knew when I started out but never when I would arrive at my destination.

The familiar stench of rotten eggs greeted me as I drove past the chemical factory which belched out its foul fumes polluting the salt marshes. I was waved on by a bored customs official and parked in the small queue in the deserted port. Desperate for a sleep, I huddled up in my old fur coat and switched off. I dozed to the familiar squawks of seagulls, vigilant sentinels circling above as violent blasts knocked them off their lamp posts and tossed them to the sky.  

Cocks crowing to the dawn dragged me back to consciousness but confused, I could not work out where I was.

I sat up and was confronted by the spectacle of white roosters angrily vying for supremacy over the gulls who were having none of it on their own patch.  A lorry load of the dam things had drawn up next to me and was parked right up to my car. Furious, brave cocks, their combs red and swollen with rage, gave vent to their frustration in the cold morning light.  

The stench of that overcrowded lorry took me back to the time I had visited a factory farm and that was something I never wanted to smell again. I could not imagine how long they had already been in that lorry and how much more suffering they would have to endure until they were given the chop.   

The wind had freshened while I slept and the weather was closing in on us.  Low black clouds scudded across the sky as the gale struck. After a sleepless night, it was just what I needed on an empty stomach.  A few waiting cars were ushered on board and I quickly found a quiet spot in the bar at the front of the ship hoping to have another nap. 

Rain lashed the windows as the ferry got going and as we left the shelter of the breakwater, great seas caught us out and she leaned ominously to the east. The Captain barked orders and men hurried to batten down the exits. That made me somewhat nervous.  There was no way out.

The bar was deserted.  The lorry drivers had gone to their own lounge and the handful of passengers were scattered around the empty saloons. Then two ladies staggered in and made their way to the bar. They were obviously British, as no French woman of their age would have worn those trouser suits let alone sported purple grey hair cast in concrete curls.   They hugged the brass hand rail for dear life even as their legs flew out from underneath them.  In a fit of helpless giggles, they hung there like school girls at play making no attempt to stand up.   The gallant French steward with a Marseille accent, offered his assistance and straightened them up. 

‘Thank you, thank you,’ one effused flinging her arm around his neck and taking advantage of his proximity, kissed him on the cheek, ‘we’ll have two double gin and tonics, me lovely and if you want to throw yourself into the bargain we won’t say no either!’  I wondered how much of that the young man had understood though I did see a ghost of a smile cross his face.   ‘You look after us and we’ll look after you, that’s the way it is, isn’t it Ellie?’ The Ellie in question leered and grinned.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say no to a handsome young man either,’ and she staggered into his arms as another huge wave hit the ship. In spite of his best efforts to keep them all upright, they ended up in an undignified tangle on the floor.  With a lot of pushing and pulling, the steward sat them down in the safety of a large sofa.  Our eyes met briefly as he straightened his tie and smoothed his trousers trying to recover some dignity.

‘Mesdames, Mesdames,’ he scolded officiously in his best English, ‘please, you must stay there now. You must not walk around, you might get hurt. Please stay there and I’ll bring you your drinks.’ The ladies cheered approvingly. As he slipped behind the bar he caught my eye again and shrugged, shaking his head, making me a witness to the bad behaviour of the British. He must have thought I was French. Holding on to the heaving bar, he prepared their order and balancing a tray aloft, he danced a tango across the moving deck. It was quite a performance.

His customers applauded with great enthusiasm, dispatched their drinks in one go and ordered another round. A wave of nausea engulfed me and I quickly shut my eyes trying to breathe in as the ship went up and out as it went down.  Every time she plunged into a trough the propeller rose above the waves and changed tune, spinning in thin air, then crashed down with a shuddering jolt before resuming its normal rhythm. I did not like it at all. My fellow passengers kept calling for refills and got more and more raucous as the minutes dragged by. I dozed uneasily.

An almighty crash bought me out of my doze and I jumped up expecting sea water to engulf me in an icy wave.  The contents of the shelves above the bar had been thrown across the deck. Cans of beer rolled down between the tables and chairs and the fumes of strong alcohol, a cocktail of whisky, rum and Pastis 51 added to my intense discomfort.  I grabbed one of the paper bags that had been left for that purpose on the table.  This was not the Channel I knew and loved.  I had lived by it, swum in it and played on its shores but never had I been on it when it misbehaved. 

Finding it all hysterically funny, my two fellow passengers were enjoying every minute of the ride, much as they would a spin on the big dipper in Blackpool until that is, the inevitable happened. Being of a certain age, no longer lambs or even mutton dressed up as lamb, they could hold on no longer.  

‘I need the loo,’ Ellie screeched and beckoned imperiously to the steward who was sweeping up the mess as best as he could.  He pretended not to hear.   ‘I need the loo, the ladies, the WC, the toilet’ she yelled louder, ‘take me to the loo or else I’m going to wet my pants.’ The steward looked in my direction.  I made as if to be sick in my paper bag.

‘Take us to the ladies, for God’s sake man, or you’ll have to clean up something worse than whisky!’ He understood her perfectly.  Stoically he heaved the pair up and holding their waists, swayed precariously as they clung to his neck.

‘En avant, mes belles,’ he ordered  and propelled them forcefully up the aisle.  Two paces forward, stagger, three steps back, recover, hiccups and screams, slide to the left, more screams, fall over an arm chair, screams and laughter, recover, one foot forward,  slide to the right, one down, pull her up and recover.  At last they disappeared in the ladies.

I waited for what seemed a very long time. After a while a tune popped up in my head ‘Oh dear what can the matter be? Two old ladies and a steward locked in the lavatory...

When at last they reappeared, the steward, grey around the gills and as haggard as a castaway, looked as if he had been keel hauled.  His charges were as subdued as naughty girls who had just been spanked. A smear of red lipstick maculated the front of his white shirt. He repeated his acrobatic performance in silence and guided his now docile charges back to their sofa and disappeared behind the bar.

Not a sound was heard from Ellie and her friend for the rest of the trip. They slept the sleep of the vanquished.