My first sight of the SS Benalbanach was in Antwerp. As I approached the wharf in a taxi, she was sitting high in the water, a thin line of dark smoke rising straight up into the clear blue sky from her funnel. The Benalbanach looked as if she could have been lifted from Somerset Maugham’s ode to the Far East, ‘On a Chinese Screen’. Even though she had been built several years after the end of the Second World War, she had the old-fashioned clumpy look of a pre-war Eastern liner: straight funnel, accommodation castle with covered walkways that ran all the way around, high straight masts, wooden hatch covers with canvas tops, four derricks to each hatch. The superstructures were painted mostly white, the hull was grey, the funnel yellow, the decks, derricks and posts a sort of brown-orange. My stomach jumped as I walked up the gangway. I felt I was walking into a chapter of a book by Conrad, Somerset Maugham or Jack London.

My trip on the Benalbanach was intended to be a short one to introduce me to the world of general cargo ships. The Leith company ran a scheduled service of cargo liners to the Far East and back. The main Far East ports were Singapore, Penang, Djakarta, Bangkok, Manila, Keelung, Kaohsiung, Hong Kong and then north to the big Japanese ports of Yokohama, Nagoya and Kobe. In addition, there were a number of smaller places on the service, although these were not called into with the same regularity. The ships went out with industrial wares from the UK and Europe, discharged and then loaded to return with hatches full of raw materials, foodstuffs and light manufactured goods. There were two distinct parts to the trip. The first was the discharging and loading around Europe and the UK, the second was the trip out to the Far East and back. When the ship returned from the East, all the officers and crew paid off and were replaced with a crew who signed Home Trade articles and who then worked her round the coast and stayed on until she was ready to head east again, at which time the deep sea crew would return.

The Benalbanach was an ex-P&O ship that had been bought by the Leith company a few months beforehand. Most of the Leith ships carried Scots deck and engine room crew and either Scots or Chinese stewards, although the Benalbanach had an Indian crew and Goanese stewards who had been handed over with the ship by P&O. The officers were mostly Scots, from the Islands and the east of Scotland, plus me, an Englishman. The deep sea crew had already left and the home trade crew was in place. I signed on as an extra third mate, and my duty was to shadow the real third mate and learn the ropes. On my first day he gave me a tour of the decks and an explanation of how the ship worked, in particular the working gear, the derricks.

Essentially, a derrick is a lifting mechanism, not unlike a crane. A long spar is fixed to the lower part of an upright post by a hinged mechanism that allows the derrick to pivot up and down and swing from side to side. A wire runs from a winch through cargo blocks at the heel and the head of the derrick, and there is a hook on the end of the wire to pick up cargo. Derricks are usually used in pairs to make the operation more efficient. In Antwerp, our derricks were all swung out over the water out of the way, because shore cranes were being used.

I found myself in a different world from my oil tanker days. The pace of work on a general cargo ship was much more relaxed, a contrast with the high stress and highspeed working of a tanker in port. We walked around the decks with a cargo plan, checking the right goods were being taken out and making sure the new cargo being loaded was stowed where it was intended to go. The shore gangs were at work, one gang for each hatch, hauling out cartons of general goods in cargo nets. When they finished discharging, the spaces would be swept out and inspected before the stevedores started loading crates of machinery.

Being used to tankers, I was expecting the three-watch system to prevail, but things were different. The second mate and the third mate split the cargo duties in port, while the mate didn’t have a watch because he was responsible for all the cargo at all times and was therefore technically on duty throughout, even though in practice he had a leisurely time. In a port with twenty-fourhour working, the second and third mate worked twelve hours on, twelve off, although that didn’t happen very often because not that many ports worked through the night on general cargo ships. And for those that did, our work was supervisory work, not the filthy graft I had been brought up with on tankers, where we would spend the watch running around the deck from one near crisis to another. It could be a bit grubby climbing up and down the hatches to check the cargo, but it wasn’t difficult, it wasn’t exhausting, it wasn’t particularly stressful. It was practical, rather than technical.

We had to get a half-ton wooden crate into a space under the main deck and into one of the internal decks, the tween decks, where it would just fit with perhaps a few inches clearance. The crate had to be lowered down the hatch and then somehow heaved horizontally into its home without damaging the crate, without damaging the other piles of cargo, without damaging the people involved in the operation. Once there, it had to be secured so that it didn’t charge about when the ship started to roll. Cargo-handling work was a constant challenge of practical common sense.

After three days in Antwerp, the ship sailed for Amsterdam. I was told to report to the bridge and when I arrived I felt I was going back in time. The engine telegraph was a gleaming brass chain-driven contraption. The handles had to be swung back and forward to make the bell ring, after which it would be left in the desired position – Slow Ahead, Half Ahead, Slow Astern, or whatever was required. This telegraph wouldn’t have been out of place on a Mississippi river boat in the 1860s. The ship’s wheel looked as if it had been lifted from some ancient tea clipper, big and wooden and unwieldy. The chart room was dim and cramped, the bridge itself was dim and cramped. The bridge party all squeezed in as we left port – the Old Man, the chief mate, me, the pilot, a cadet, the quartermaster, the standby quartermaster. The constricted space made us all irritable and snappy.

On arrival in Amsterdam, the agent came on board and told me that I was being transferred to another ship. The Leith company presumably thought that four days on the Benalbanach was enough for me to get the hang of things. I left, not having made many acquaintances and feeling disappointed that I hadn’t stayed longer.

I flew out to Tokyo, taking a flight with the new British Airways, which had been recently formed from the welding together of BOAC and BEA. I was flying out to join the cargo passenger ship Benlawers. The rest of the people joining with me were Scots. The band consisted of a good-size complement of officers and an entire replacement crew. We rendezvoused at Kings Cross station, half of them turned up drunk on the night train from Edinburgh, where a coach was arranged to take us all to Heathrow. One of the able seamen had just been discharged from jail in the Midlands. He was a seasoned company man, and the Leith company took pity on him and decided to help him with a new start. Two other ABs had picked him up in a taxi from the prison gate as he was released. They had his discharge book and seaman’s card with them. A handful failed to arrive. Several were acting in a menacing manner as they were herded onto the plane at Heathrow. Two fireman/greasers started fighting in their seats. Once on the plane, one of the crew fell asleep in a stupor in the toilet and couldn’t be roused, he had become wedged against the door and the cabin crew couldn’t kick it open. They left him, although he came crashing out as we touched down to refuel in Moscow, shirtless, covered in vomit, creating a fuss because he couldn’t get into his seat. We lost a sailor between Tokyo airport and Yokohama, where the Benlawers was berthed.

Some of the officers were long-term company men, a few were shipmates from earlier voyages and most had common acquaintances. I felt a bit of an outsider. In the getting-to- know-each-other conversations that took place, though, I found that my micro trip on the Benalbanach stood me in good stead. When we talked about our last ships I was able to say ‘My last trip was on the Albanach’. I thus avoided the new boy label, quite unfairly of course because I was still brand new to this world.

The Benlawers was built in 1970 as one of the new breed of fast ships for the Far East run, designed to operate as general cargo liners while also being capable of carrying containers. The strategy didn’t work, though. These hybrid liners were soon heavily outclassed by purpose-built container ships. This resulted in the new breed being sold off, unless they could be chartered out, as was the Benlawers. In their place, cheaper ancient ships like the Benalbanach were being acquired for the staple Far East liner service. The march of time was relentlessly hunting all these general cargo ships down.

The Benlawers was not on the regular UK to Far East liner run, having been chartered out to a South African company. She was a smart ship and carried cabins for twelve passengers. A lot of cargo ships had twelve passenger cabins to supplement the freight earnings with passenger income. Cargo passenger ships appealed to the adventurous traveller who wanted a more rugged experience than they would find on an ordinary passenger vessel. Under Department of Trade regulations, if a ship carried more than twelve passengers, she was designated a passenger ship and then had far more rigorous requirements on construction, lifeboats and safety procedures. Cargo passenger liners could just run as ordinary working cargo ships, although they were smartened up a bit on the inside to attract passengers in the first place and to prevent them from revolting once they were on board.

The Benlawers had a massive complement by the standards I was used to at the time. There were eighteen officers and twenty-eight crew. The deck officer complement was big enough for someone to get lost in the crowd. On top of the pyramid stood the captain, the Old Man, imperious and untouchable. Next came the chief officer, who was tasked with the general running of the ship under the captain. He was a sort of staff captain, the captain’s mouthpiece, part organiser, part political officer. The chief officer/staff captain role was seen as the cushiest number on the ship. It seemed a bit of an emasculated position to me. Then there was the first officer, who kept the four–to-eight watch at sea and who was in charge of the cargo. The first officer wore two and a half stripes to the chief officer’s three. After that there was the second officer, the third officer (me) and a fourth officer. The fourth officer kept the four-toeight watch with the first officer. When the traffic was light and the Old Man was in bed, the first officer would decamp to the chartroom and carry out his cargo planning at leisure. At the bottom of the pile were three deck cadets, to carry out all the dirty tasks and to do the general drudgery. This structure was broadly replicated on the engineer officer side, although there were no engineer cadets on the Benlawers. There were then two electrical officers, who came under the engineering department although they liked to see themselves as independent, the radio officer, known as Sparks, who was independent, and the catering officer, otherwise known as the chief steward, who stood very much alone.

The Benlawers was a much more modern vessel in every way than the superannuated Benalbanach. I had a decent size cabin on the starboard side of the accommodation, below the boat deck and above the saloon deck. My cabin had its own shower and toilet, a novel experience, together with a small day area and a fridge. The other deck officers were also on the starboard side of the same deck, the engineers were on the port side and the chief engineer and chief officer were on the forward end. Above us was the passenger accommodation and the captain’s suite, although there were no passengers at the time. Below us was the saloon deck, with the dining saloon, the bar, a pantry for latenight feasting, sundry officers and cadet’s cabins that didn’t fit on the main officer’s deck, and the steward’s accommodation.

The bar was the hub for the officers, as was the case on most ships. On a ship full of Scotsmen, it had a special atmosphere and resonance. Apart from the Medora, which had a special place in my mind in that I didn’t recognise it as a proper ship, the Benlawers bar was the first one I had encountered at sea that had actually been built as a bar. On older ships, the bar was usually the converted smoke-room, or a couple of spare cabins knocked together. These conversions took place during the 1960s when ships’ officers were allowed greater freedom of expression in their drinking. The Benlawers bar was built to be a bar, a place to drink. There were two fridges, mainly full of beer, one in use and one cooling down the back-up stocks. On the bulkhead behind, a parade of upsidedown bottles stood on quarter-gill optics, there was a shelf of glasses caged behind roll bars, a music deck was screwed to the counter. The bulkhead was decorated with beer mats and photographs and various bank notes in different currencies. Four people could comfortably fit behind the bar, five more would sit in front on black fauxleather stools, several more drinkers could take up leaning and loafing positions. The lighting was muted, we rarely had any music playing, the ambient noise was the buzz of our conversation. On special occasions and celebrations, a steward would serve the drinks behind the bar, although for the majority of time it operated as an honesty bar, with a book in which drinks were marked down for each person. I was gratified to see that a lot of the officers had healthy drinking appetites, which came as a relief to me because I stood out on ships as someone who drank more than most. I could now run within the herd, undetected. There were generally people in the bar from eleven in the morning until five the following morning. It was never a lonely place.

My first bar visit of the day was at lunchtime after I finished the morning watch. I was usually there by quarter past twelve and stayed for half an hour until lunch. My next visit was from five in the afternoon until the dinner gong sounded at six-thirty and then back again from midnight until two or three in the morning. At lunchtime, the Old Man and the senior officers would be watering themselves. Before the evening meal there was a much bigger crowd, because all the day-workers had finished work. After midnight in the small hours, it would be me and the fourth engineer and whatever survivors there were from the earlier evening, usually Sparks, the electrical officer, some fivers, a cadet or two. The post- midnight conversations would follow the same ritual. The fourth engineer and I would be sober when we arrived and try to conduct a half-sensible conversation. Everyone else in the bar was usually lubricated. They looked at us inanely while we spoke, unable to contribute, occasionally bursting into laughter on remembering shared humour from earlier in the evening. Come two in the morning we were all in pretty much the same state and the talk flowed more freely.

In port it was different. A lot of ports only worked in the day. If cargo work started at seven in the morning and finished at nine at night, which was common, two of us would split the working day. These two would be chosen from me, the second mate and the fourth mate, which meant that the third person would always have the day off. An average stay in port was four days, although sometimes we would be in for much longer. When we were in port, the bar had a different ambiance in that it was the gathering place for people when they returned to the ship, usually very late, to exchange tales and carry on the party.

As we steamed around the East, our runs ashore generally went along the same lines. I would set off about seven in the evening in the company of two or three others. I didn’t go off by myself as a rule, although I would if no one else wanted to go ashore. I found that a group of more than six constituted a mob, which meant that we spent our time arguing about where we were going to go, usually ending up staying at the first bar outside the dock gates. We would have readied ourselves with a few drinks in the Benlawers bar before leaving as we waited for the last person to get ready. ‘Get ready’ meant dressing in light slacks and a clean shirt. We were not creatures of fashion but neither were we slobs. We did not wear amusing tee shirts and we rarely wore jeans. We would discuss strategy in the first bar outside the dock gates, the strategy being to move to another bar further from the dock gates, although not too far. The evening progressed in that vein, from bar to bar, as we made our way across the town. We lingered in the bars that captured our interest. When we grew weary of our own voices and our courage was up, we headed for a livelier place where we could exercise our lubricated charms on whatever girls were there. Our successes and failures and the events that ensued in the lively place would constitute the conversation for the rest of the evening. Between midnight and one in the morning we became famished and so headed for a night-time street market where we could buy fried rice and steamed seafood and cold beer. We would arrive back at the ship between two and four and clatter noisily up the gangway. By that time, some of us were in a bad way and would bounce down the alleyways in search of our cabins. Those in a fit state would have the obligatory ‘one for the road’ and would meet other shore returnees in the bar to exchange stories. Not all runs ashore were like that, but most contained the same elements.

I settled into the ways of the general cargo ship. We carried cars in the upper tween decks from Japan to the other ports in the East, together with crated electrical goods in the holds. We took textiles and foodstuffs north to Japan, with transhipped wines and spirits from Europe. Sometimes we carried large deck cargo: cranes, engines, lorries, steel structures. We carried coffee and tea and cocoa, loaded from the quay and from barges. At the end of every day in port the officer on duty had to ‘measure up’. This entailed taking a tape on a roll and measuring all the available cubic space left on the ship so the first mate could decide what could be put where the next day. During my duty periods, I walked the decks with a loading plan and a discharging plan. The discharging plan showed what cargo needed to be taken out from which hatch. We would argue when the stevedore gangs tried to take the wrong cargo, as they inevitably did from time to time. As the cargo was taken out, I would mark it off on the discharge plan. As cargo was loaded I would mark it on my loading plan then go into the ships office and colour it all in on the master plan.

The head stevedore would have nonstop questions: ‘We now have 200 bags of jute, not 100. Where are the rest going to be stowed?’ ‘The cars are cancelled. We now have 20 pallets of electrical goods.

Do they go in the same place or should they be broken down and put in the lockups?’ ‘Number 3 hatch is jammed.’ ‘The gang in Number 1 hatch are going to stop work. They say the sailors are laughing at them.’ ‘The snatch block is jamming on the aft derrick at Number 5. We need it changed.’ ‘This winch is not working properly. You must have it fixed.’ ‘The discharging is finished in Number 3 and the hold needs sweeping out before we can load. We don’t have a sweeping gang. Can you get the crew to do it?’ ‘There’s no labour tomorrow morning, but I can get a night gang tomorrow night. Do you want it?’ ‘We have to move the ship to another berth this afternoon.’ ‘The gang has dropped a case of wine. We need to count the damage.’ ‘One of the gang at Number 1 hatch has had an accident and cut his hand badly. You will need to do an accident report.’ And so on and so on. At first, each question baffled me and I had to ask the first mate what to do, but as the weeks passed things fell more and more into shape and I could see the life for what it was, mostly common sense, improvisation and reading the plans. And a bit of knowledge and experience of course, which I was gaining fast.

CONTINUED NEXT MONTH

This is an extract taken from Simon’s book “Chasing Conrad”