DECKHAND
The story of my fifteen months as a deckhand onboard a Norwegian tanker in the Far East 1958 -1959.

By: Sigmund Roseth

… heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties… heavy fighters, reckless fellows,…foul-witted, profane, prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip…

Mark Twain: Life on the Mississippi

In days of yore, it was common for restless young men in Norway, to go to sea. Norway had the world’s third largest merchant navy, most of it charted by other countries, and operating in foreign trade outside Norwegian waters. The men (for it was mostly men) that provided the crew, were a rough lot, mostly uneducated and unrestrained, fond of strong drink and weak women, rootless and unattached; they roamed the world on trampers, hardly ever going home. They were truly international, signing off and on ships in foreign ports, a community of floating gypsies, crude and classless. The ship was their world and their family, the Captain was their King, and for minor offences, the Justice and the Law. Short of murder, there was little they could do that drew real punishment, the cat – o’- nine tails lash having been abolished for some time. The norm was monetary fines, for there was no jail on the ship, and no police. The ultimate punishment was to be sent home in disgrace, there to be dealt with by the Norwegian courts. The merchant navy provided an escape and employment for many of the social outcasts and misfits of Norwegian society.
Going to sea was also a way for young men, not inclined to further education, to see the world and still earn some money. Many made just one trip, and settled down at shore. The ones who went back, usually “got it in the blood” as they said, and often spent most of their lives away from their country.
The young and inexperienced, and the weaker, learned to avoid conflicts with the strong, or did so at their own peril. This “society” had its own rules of fairness and behavior — its own pecking order—and disapproval of the group was a deterrent from extreme and aberrant behavior. The system of apprenticeship, with its classifications and hierarchy —ordinary seaman, able-bodied seaman, etc.— provided a readymade social structure which made it easier for newcomers to fit in. This was especially important when a ship had to be refitted in dry-dock and with the exception of a few officers and a “skeleton” crew, had to be totally re-manned before it could sail.

The more intelligent and motivated worked themselves up in the ranks, and then took schooling at shore in seamanship: navigation if on deck, diesel mechanics if in the engine room, or food science if aspiring to be cook and perhaps steward. There were also some specialist trades such as electrician and the telegraph operator, or “spark” as he was called. These were subalterns, not officers, but not part of the crew.
It was a tenuous road to walk, on a ship, between being accepted by the group, yet not becoming caught up in a culture of drinking and carousing each time the ship was in port. For young, impressionable men, it was a rough and perilous life.
I entered this world when at the age of sixteen I went to sea in September of 1958. For the next fifteen months, I would need all my mental and emotional resources to survive. I packed more experience into these few months than most “landlubbers” get in half a lifetime. If you can maintain your own standards and not become inured with the life of the lowest denominator, the experience will make you stronger. I always felt I was an observer — a spectator to the histrionics—yet I was also part of the play.
I grew up fast, and though I am happy I did not make the sea my vocation ─ I never “crossed the Rubicon”─ I am glad I had the experience.


Amsterdam

The ship I had signed on to was in dry-dock in Amsterdam, where she had undergone major refitting and was getting almost a totally new crew. This crew, of which I was part, left together, on a passenger boat to Amsterdam. My parents and my brother followed me to the departure pier in Bergen to say goodbye. My brother, acting the clown, took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, then he waved it goodbye, as the ship slowly backed away from the pier.
It took a day and a half to reach Amsterdam, and by the time we got to there, we had gotten to know each other fairly well. The first evening we had dinner at large tables in the dining room, and I was sitting right across from another first-time sailor, Nels. I was accustom to the sea, having lived near water and boats most of my life, but Nels was from inland somewhere. As we got into the North Sea, it became a bit rough. This old hulk did not have stabilizers, and rolled around quite a bit. The tables had ten-centimeter high edges so the dishes would not end up on the floor as the ship rocked and rolled. Nels’s face was getting a bit red, and suddenly, he threw up, right across the table, most of it landing in my lap!
It was not a very auspicious beginning to our relationship.


Gilda

Our ship, Gilda, was owned by a Bergen-based firm by the name of Leif Erickson Rederi. She was a 17,000-ton deadweight tanker, small even for that time, and aging. She was built in 1942 in Sweden during the war, and had no air conditioning, even though she spent most of her time in the tropical zones. She was a “tramper”, which meant she did not have a set route, but would take crude oil from the Persian Gulf area to various countries in the Middle and Far East. She had a crew of thirty-two, including eight officers. The crew was mainly Norwegian, but there were four Dutchmen, (and the one Dutchwoman), a Dane, a Swede, one Englishman and one Israeli Jew.
There were two women aboard working as stewardesses, in the officer’s mess. One was an older woman from Norway who was sailing with her husband ─ an officer in the engine room. The other was a former prostitute from Amsterdam, hoping to snare a Norwegian officer for a husband. She was rather plain, nearly homely, with a large nose and Clairol blonde hair, which after a few weeks at sea, began to turn black at the bottom — the black portion getting longer and longer as time went on. She clearly had run out of hair coloring materials. She would come aft to the kitchen to get the officers food, and the men would tease her mercilessly, singing “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” and making comments about her hair (later, she complained to the first mate —her “mate” and protector— about our incessant teasing, with the result that we had to deliver the officer’s food amidships. The first mate was an older “gentleman” who, carnally speaking, had greater needs than taste).
The officers were quartered mid-ships, the crew aft. There was a strict social and physical separation between officers and crew, the officers had their own dining room and mess room mid-ships. It was a rather motley crew, since a tramper, especially in the Far East, was at the bottom of the list of desired ships on which to sail.
The ship’s captain decided whether alcohol could be served onboard. In our case, the ship was “dry”, probably for good reason, for several of the men were alcoholics, or at least, binge drinkers. Norwegian sailors have never been known for their temperance, alcohol or otherwise, and this “crew” was a glaring example.


Gilda in Port Said, Suez Canal.
Onboard Gilda in the Pacific. Suez Canal

There was a dockworker’s strike in Amsterdam at the time, so dry-dock cranes were not operating. We had to carry fifty-pound pails of paint and other provisions up a steep gangplank and across the deck of a neighboring ship in the dry dock. Fortunately, the strike ended after a couple of days. The ship was manned and ready after about a week, which was fortunate, since Amsterdam was a place where bored Norwegian sailors could get in trouble aplenty. There were hundreds of pubs and beer was ten cents a glass. In the red light district around Kanalstrate (Canal Street) hordes of prostitutes carried on their trade. There was a kind of hierarchy amongst the whores: the poorest ones walked the streets; the better off ones had a street-level apartment with a window to the street. Curtains up meant open for business.
We negotiated a group rate, but at least for me, the experience was less than stellar. Incredibly, they had a certificate or license on the wall testifying to a monthly medical checkup for venereal decease. I remember watching a middle-aged man with a walking cane and hat walking into one of the apartments. After about twenty minutes, he came back out and walked away, as if he had just paid a visit to a store or a coffee shop. He was probably going home for dinner with the wife and kids!
I was sitting in a pub one evening, with a few of the ship’s crew and a variety of Dutch denizens, when a woman in a Salvation Army uniform came in collecting money. Every single patron upped up some cash, some quite a bit, showing her a lot of respect. That this motley group displayed such generosity was surprising. I asked one of the veteran sailors why this was so. He told me that the Army had a shelter nearby, and everyone knew that someday they could be in need of the Salvation Army’s assistance (or just “salvation”) — something like “there but for the Grace of God go I.”
The easy access to alcohol of all kinds was quite a contrast to Norway, where alcohol sales were highly regulated, and the alcohol outlets were government monopolies and were actually named “Monopoly” (Monopolet). I must hasten to state that I think the Dutch’s approach to alcohol was a healthier one than was the Norwegian. In Norway, alcoholic spirits (and beer) were very expensive and restricted, leading to home stills and homebrews, and over-imbibing when alcohol was available. The Dutch, and other sensible drinking societies, learn to drink moderately when growing up, and binge drinking is less prevalent.

Having a “dry” ship was no help when in port. There was much bacchanalia and carousing among the crew. Some of the men spent every cent they had on booze, and then borrowed from the crewmates to buy more.

I meet Kaare for the first time in Amsterdam. He was lying in his upper bunk in the cabin he shared with another imbiber, also named Kaare (we called them Little Kaare and Big Kaare, they were drinkers and brawlers, constantly in trouble, of which more later).He had gotten into a fight with some dockworkers in Amsterdam and got a severe beating. Worse, he must have had his tongue out when he got a punch in his jaw, for he bit it right off! They took him to the hospital where they stitched it back on. His tongue had swollen up and filled his whole mouth, but he pointed to a bottle of whiskey on the desk, and I gave it to him. He nodded a thank you and poured the content straight down his throat, making a sound like water sucked down a drainpipe. This would not be the last time he shocked me. This fellow would have been right at home in the American Wild West.

To sea

We were leaving Amsterdam, and I sent a letter off to my parents, knowing we would be at sea for over a month. Our destination was Ras at Tannura (Saudi Arabia), in the Persian Gulf. It was fascinating to see our ship moving through the locks from Amsterdam to the ocean, a climb of some ten metre.
The first day in open sea, I was told to come to the bridge for steering lessons. There was a small wheel, about two feet in diameter and a gyrocompass clicking off the degrees. I think this was some kind of indoctrination for a new deck hand, for when I was finished and returned to the crew mess, the guys were laughing and pointing to the wake I had left — a zigzag pattern stretching back as far as the eye could see.
As we proceeded down the Mediterranean, the weather got warmer and warmer. One evening while I was sitting aft (the rear of the ship), pensively staring at the ships wake, it suddenly struck me: I was far away from home, heading further and further away, with no chance of return for eighteen months. I was panicked, but the anxiety was temporary and passed quickly. I never again got homesick.

One Sunday, one of the Hollanders ─ a guy about six foot five we called “Big Dutch”, set himself up as barber, cutting the crew’s hair (you could call it “crew cuts”), with more or less success. I decided I had to cut my hair too. Though I was proud of my Elvis Presley-style hair, it was getting too warm for long hair.
A big mistake. The guy gave me a brush cut, right to the skin, and the whole gang had a hearty laugh on my account. I looked like a plucked chicken for a while, to the continuing amusement of the men, and to my consternation. It was a rough world I had entered, but there was little point in complaining. This was just lesson number one in Sailor 101, and I intended to pass the “examination.”
As we got further down the Mediterranean, the heat began to get to us. It was hard to sleep at night in our cabins, and a few of us camped out on the lifeboat deck. One fellow had brought a battery-operated record player that played the new 45 RPM single records, and he had a few of the latest American rock and roll tunes. One tune stuck in my head: Billy Vaughan’s “Wonderland By Night” blared out into the empty ocean, nothing around us but the vast blanket of water and the dark, star studded sky. The large funnel hummed above us, a regular, low vibrating din, as the ship plowed through the night, this little Norway all by itself in a huge ocean.
We chatted about everything and nothing, and bonded and related as only a group of young men alone and away from home can do. It was a new world for some of us, and it seemed both romantic and a little melancholy, being so far from home.
Oftentimes, while at sea, I would go outside at night and lean over the railing, watching the sea slip by and look at the open sky, thinking about what a speck we were in the order of things, chugging along in the emptiness. Sometimes, another ship would pass, a few lights blinking in the distance; then it was gone. Occasionally, a passenger ship would cross our path, lighted up like a Christmas tree; it could be seen for miles, until it disappeared under the horizon. When the moon was full, the ships superstructure and the huge funnel would cast an eerie, fleeting shadow over the ocean. I would scare myself by thinking about what it would be like to fall overboard, with no one knowing and no chance of being found, hopelessly swimming and trashing until I could no more and the huge expanse of water mercifully swallowed me up.

Suez Canal

We arrived in Port Said, Suez and anchored in the blazing sun of that desert kingdom. The temperature was over 50 degrees, and one of the crew fried an egg on the steel deck, just to prove it was possible. We tried swimming in the canal, but the water was too hot to cool us down, and the sand burned the soles of our feet when we ventured onto it. When sleeping in the cabin I shared with the other deck hand, I would put the forced air-jet blasting directly on me, but it was just warm air, and I still perspired so much I made an outline of sweat on the bedding.
We were invaded by a horde of Arabs setting up shops on deck and hawking anything from soup to nuts. They were extremely pushy and aggressive, tending not to take no for an answer

I bought a pair of shoes after much haggling, a transaction I was later to regret. The shoes got wet and they just disintegrated ─ they were made of impregnated paper! I did buy one item that I still have: a bone-inlaid wood cigarette box that plays “The Blue Danube”.
I awoke in my cabin the next morning to find fellow rifling through my clothes, putting one item in his bag, and then placing one of his “souvenirs” on the table in “trade”. Before I knew it, I had “purchased” several toy camels and other junk. I had little choice, but managed to get rid of him before he took my whole wardrobe.
The Arab workers all stopped work at the same time in the late afternoon, got down on their knees facing east (towards Mecca) and prayed. Perhaps they needed to, after all the junk they foisted on us.
I observed one man wearing a heavy, European style wool overcoat in the sweltering fifty-degree heat. I asked how he could possibly stand it, and was told that in this heat, wool actually absorbed the perspiration and helped him keep cool.
One of the Dutchmen had a vial of some yellowish liquid he had bought from an Arab, purported to be “Spanish Fly”. This was a chemical that was supposed to act as an aphrodisiac. He put it in a mug of coffee and offered it to the Dutch stewardess. We all watched intently to see if she would turn into a nymphomaniac, but we were disappointed. It was probably just colored water they had sold him.

It seemed to take forever to reach Ras at Tannura, a desolated oil port in the Gulf, on the edge of the Saudi Arabian desert. There were no women, and as the Saudis did not allow alcohol, our thirsty crew had to drink Coca-Cola and watch American movies in the American compound. After a couple of days of filling crude, we departed for Manila in the Philippines.

Philippines

By the time we anchored in Manila Bay, we had been onboard (we didn’t count Ras at Tanura as land ) ship for over a month and the guys were just about bonkers, hating the sight of each other. As soon as we arrived, we were surrounded by little boats selling “Manila Rum”, a potent 160 proof rum, for which we traded cigarettes (cigarettes were tax free for us and we paid just one dollar a carton), one carton to a one liter bottle. By the time we cleared to come into dock, there were not enough crewmembers sober enough to handle the wheel and the ropes. Even the boatswain had passed out in his cabin, and I watched “Big Dutch”, slowly sliding along the wall until he fell flat onto the deck and stayed there. The captain came out on the bridge and looked down onto the carnage, lamenting the sight of “his Norwegian sailors”, scattered prostrate around the decks in various degrees of drunken stupor. He had no choice but to stay at anchor until the flower of this seafaring nation sobered up.
The pubs and the whorehouses in Manila did a brisk job while we were there, and I must say, I did not see much of the city. It was monsoon time and the streets were huge water puddles. We spent most of our free time in the many pubs, where the women servers doubled as prostitutes, with rooms upstairs for their use, just like in an American western movie. They encouraged the patrons to buy them drinks, but this largesse abruptly stopped when one of our guys tasted the drink he had bought for his woman and found it to be colored water. He broadcasted his find, and the rest of our gang got busy tasting their mate’s drinks – everyone being colored water! I am surprised there was no riot, but the guys were probably too preoccupied with their drinking and the women.
Our next stop was Zebu. We tied up at the pier of American Standard Oil in Opon, a small town across the bay from Zebu. I was determined that I should see more than the inside of bars there, and walked downtown by myself. The locals were very friendly and all seemed to speak English ─ better than me. One experience showed me how small differences in culture can lead to misunderstanding: While walking down a street in Opon, I noticed that the shop owners standing in front of their small shops appeared to be waving me away. They would move their open hands, palms down, in a downward sweep, a “go away” movement to me, but the smiles on their faces indicated otherwise. Later, I asked them why they were waving me away, and they said, no, it meant, “come here”, which in my culture is indicated by an upwards and inwards movement of the hand. They were, on the contrary, inviting me to enter their shops. One shop owner had a young daughter ─ her name was Dominga Espinoza─ who seemed to take a liking to me. Her father intimated that I might want to stay there. I politely declined, but I did correspond with her for some time afterwards.

We were getting ready to leave Zebu. Little Kaare had spent all his money on booze, and wanted some money to go back on shore for a few more drinks. When he could not convince anyone to lend him money, he hit on the idea of setting up a bet. He said he would jump from the ship into the sea and swim to shore if we would give him a certain amount each. I should explain that the ship was now empty and rode very high above the water — about twelve meter. The swim to shore would have been about thirty or forty meter. After collecting the money for the bet, the crazy guy jumped overboard. Somehow, he managed to hit the water straight, head first, and after a long pause, he appeared on the water, swimming ashore.
Later that day, the ship was getting ready to sail, but Kaare was missing. We sent a party to look for him. Fortunately, Opon was not a large town, and we found him sitting in a pub, his wet money drying on the table, still drinking beer. We dragged him back to the ship, where the captain was hopping mad — he had delayed the sailing by a couple of hours.

By the time we left Zebu, the drunks among the crew had sobered up, having long ago spent all of their money. One guy, we called him Clark Gable, for he bore a very strong resemblance to that movie star, mustache and all, was going around collecting Aqua Velva shaving lotion from the others. At first, I refused to give him mine, but his persistent supplications wore me down, and I gave him the bottle, lest “he should die!” Shaking the greenish liquid into a cup, he told me that I “had saved his life”.
“Clark Gable” had been a member of Captain Linge’s commando group in the war, made up mainly of Norwegian expatriates making commando raids on the Germans along the coast of occupied Norway. The long, boring waiting in port, interspersed with intensely stressful and dangerous missions, made alcoholics of many of these young men.
Clark had a very strong and deep voice, and when he got drunk, he would sit on the deck and sing old war songs, both in Norwegian and English, his voice booming across the whole ship. It was a sad and pitiful sight, this former brave warrior now a common drunkard.

Working at sea

In open sea like the Pacific, the ship would be on autopilot during the days, with just one officer on the bridge or in the map plotting room behind the wheelhouse. We would do four-hour shifts; four hours on, four hours off, so we worked twelve hours in a twenty-four hour period, seven days a week, or an eighty-four hour week. Accumulated overtime would usually be taken as shore leave, or paid upon the completion of the contract. During the day, the deck hands would scrape rust and paint. Painting is a constant, ongoing job on a ship, where salt water quickly corrodes anything metal not properly coated with paint. We would also clean cabins and scrub decks.
At night, two men took turns steering and being lookouts, one hour at the wheel and one hour at the bow keeping an eye out for other vessels. You could tell if they were on a collision course because you would see both the green starboard and the red port lights. You would then signal the wheelman by ringing the ships bell three times if the ship was straight ahead, one ring for a ship on starboard and two rings for port side.

The name starboard has a Viking origin; it comes from the Norse “styrebord”, or steering board; essentially an oar tied to the aft right side of the boa and used to steer with.. Port is a later expression, meaning the port or loading side of the ship. Originally, it was called “larboard”, also meaning the loading side.

In large oceans such as the Pacific you seldom saw any other vessels, and the job was very boring. In the moonlight, I watched the flying fish jump, glittering as they left the water and sailed along, landing on the metal deck with a thump. They were not truly flying; their little, thin wings could not carry them far, but they jumped high enough and glided far enough to land on our ship. They were not edible, so we would just scoop them up and throw them overboard before they started smelling.
One night I was on the lookout when a small bird alighted on my arm. We were far from any shore, so there must have been a small island somewhere. The poor bird was totally exhausted; huffed, and puffed while perched on my arm, seemingly having lost all fear. I let him sit on the deck railing, and after a while, he up and flew away. I am sure if he could talk, he would have said “thank you”.
Later, I realized from whence that bird had come.

The following night, I had a scare that still sends a chill down my spine. The moonlit sky was starry and clear. We were somewhere in the Indian Ocean and I was at the wheel. Presently, I thought I saw something dark in the far distance, straight ahead. It was just a faint, shadowlike spot in the horizon. At first, I thought I must be mistaken, for there was not supposed to be any island in this area, and I had not heard a bell from the lookout. I tried to check the radar, but I was unfamiliar with its use. There was a blip on the dark screen, but I was unsure of what it meant. However, the shadow ahead would not go away; it was not moving, but we were, and it kept growing larger. I rang the bell, hoping to get the lookout’s attention. No luck. I realized he had fallen asleep, nothing unusual in these warm, quiet nights. The third mate was in the map plotting room right behind me, but he was a terrible grouch and I was afraid of being called a fool for bothering him with a mirage. I let go the wheel and fetched the mate’s binoculars. It was no imagination; there was an island all right, I could make out the dark silhouette of trees against the moonlit, sparkling ocean surface. The third mate had clearly made a plotting error, and we were headed for disaster! I let go the wheel again and peeked through the door to the plotting room. He was sitting at the table, looking at a map in front of him. “ Do you want me to steer around the island in front of us?” I asked smartly. He grunted and came out to take a look. “Hva faen!” (What the devil!) , he swore, and hollered “hard port”. I twirled the wheel counter clockwise several turns, and the ship slowly responded, leaning over to starboard as we slowly veered to port, and then straightening out as it responded to my frantic turning of the little wheel in front of me. The island passed on the starboard side, still a couple of hundred yards away.
The engine room duty officer called the bridge and asked what was going on. The third mate gave him some story about having to yield for an oncoming ship, and, of course, blaming the other ship for getting too close. There would have been no possibility of reversing the engines to stop in time. The ship, even though relatively small by today’s standards, would have taken more than a mile to come to a dead stop. Had we hit the island at full speed, there would likely have been an explosion and fire, with serious consequences for the ship and for us. The third mate would have suffered more than an embarrassment!
No one but the engine room noticed the maneuver and I am proud to say I contained my urge to tell everyone what an idiot we had for a third mate. He never mentioned the subject again, but he was very friendly to me after that and I accepted it as his way of saying thanks.
I wondered if that little bird had tried to tell me something. If so, I now know what it was.

Life at sea was mostly boring routine, but fortunately, the ship had a fair library of which I took good advantage. Another deckhand, Ron, also liked to read, and we got on reading books by the English humorist P.G. Wodehouse, translated into Norwegian. The translation must have been a good one, because when I later read him in English (after having immigrated to Canada and learned rudimentary English) I did not find him half as funny in the original language. However, Ron and I read every one of his books in the ship’s library, and had much enjoyment from it. I recall the two of us on a scaffold along shipside, painting, and quoting some hilarious line from one of Wodehouse’s books, while laughing so hard we almost fell overboard. These are the small pleasures in life that one remembers fondly, while other memories fade.

I get in trouble —twice

Big Dutch and I did not get along well. I had not forgiven him for shaving my head, but as he was much bigger and stronger, I could not do much, other than verbally picking on him, using sarcasm when I could get away with it. One thing that really got to him was my critical remarks about his drinking ability — he was the one I watched falling flat on his face on deck in a drunken stupor in Manila Bay, and I did not let him forget it. He was not a bad fellow — if he was he would have flattened me long ago, but his inability to hold liquor was an embarrassment in the macho culture of a Norwegian merchant ship. One day in port, he challenged me to a drinking contest, and I, big mouth, accepted!
This was the fight at the O.K. Coral in a nautical setting. We congregated in the boatswain’s cabin, about a dozen men, with two guys as “umpires,” one representing me, the other Big Dutch. They poured a glass of cheap whiskey for each of us and kept score of the number downed by each. Well, after I don’t know how many drinks, Big Dutch did his falling down routine and I was declared the winner! I staggered upstairs, sick as a dog, heading for my cabin on the other side of the ship. I did not make it ─ I fell down into a large coil of rope, where I slept it off, no one the wiser. I was a bit of a hero for a short time, to the consternation and embarrassment of Big Dutch. I had stupidly made an enemy of him for no good reason, and was to find out later just how dangerous it could be to make enemies far from home on a ship in the middle of the Pacific.

• It was a starry night…well, it was a hot, clear night anyhow, and I was trying to catch a breeze, leaning over the railing aft, watching the ships wake, and smoking a Chesterfield cigarette. I heard someone behind me, and before I could react, there was Big Dutch, grabbing me by the neck and leg and lifting me up, holding me over the railing with the oozing, foaming dark water of the Pacific ten meter below. I did not even yell, knowing it would be useless. I froze in fear, dangling above the foaming brine, fully expecting to be dropped into the dark waters. However, when he did not drop me immediately, I realized I had a reprieve, and after a minute or so, he pulled me back in and sat me down. “You zee,” he said in his broken English, “I could dropped you in the zee and nobody know nothing.” I nodded, and thanked him for not doing so. I told him that murder was a bit severe as payback for a bit of sarcasm. I think he was trying to make a point, and I got it just fine. I determined not ever to tease him again, and we maintained an uneasy truce after that.

It was not to be the last time my big mouth got me in hot water. My next altercation was with Big Kaare, the brawler and former boxer. I sure knew how to pick my enemies.
I cannot remember exactly what it was that got me in trouble with Kaare, probably a bit of my verbal sparring got the better of him. Verbal dexterity doesn’t cut much ice with a boxer. But I think the one thing that really pissed him off was my refusal to lend him money, after he had spent all of his own on women, wine and song. For good measure, I told him how foolish such behavior was.
One night, in harbor, I think it was Singapore; I was on duty on the bridge. Kaare had been on shore leave, and suddenly showed up in the semi-dark in front of me. I hadn’t heard him coming. “Hello”, he said, and hit me square on the jaw. I awoke some time later, on my back on the bridge deck, looking straight up at the twinkling stars. I soon realized what had happened, but resolved not to tell the Captain. If reported, it was a serious offense since he had attacked me whilst on duty. It would have meant, in the least, a severe financial penalty for Kaare, the guy who never had any money in the first place. So, I said nothing to the Captain, but the next morning at breakfast I gave him proper hell. At first he thought I had reported him, but I told him I had not and would not, as it was no use, but that if he ever did anything like that again, I would see that he was sent home ─ with no money. He started to laugh, partly from relief, but also because he probably found my anger amusing ─ reminiscent of a Chihuahua barking at a Great Dane. He thought I was a real trooper, or a “never-minder” (a devil may care guy) as he used to call me thereafter. Inadvertently, I had made a friend and gotten a protector; he became my unpaid bodyguard thereafter. God knows I needed one.

Persian Gulf

From Zebu, Philippines, we went back to Abadan in the Persian Gulf, to take on another load of crude oil. On the way, we went through the routine of cleaning out the inside of the tanks. Crude is more volatile than refined gasoline, as it contains nitro glycerin in its raw state. Thus, when empty, dangers of explosion are even higher than when under load, until the tanks were blown and fumes cleared out. This we accomplished by hanging up a wind funnel made of sailcloth above each tank section, forcing the air into the tanks thus blowing out gases while en route. A small burning flame was later lowered into the tanks to ensure it was cleared of gases. Smoking was strictly forbidden, loaded or empty, except in your cabin or the very aft, behind the caboose (cookhouse).

We arrived in Abadan, a place not, even then, too friendly towards westerners. The British had left a few years before, and the refineries had been severely damaged in the prior conflict. The locals went around telling us that they had “beaten the English”, but looking at them I got the impression that they were the ones at the losing end.
Iran was (and is) a Muslim country and we could not buy alcohol at shore. However, their religion apparently did not forbid them to sell “moonshine” or homemade hooch, which was barely drinkable, even for our un-discriminating tastes. I remember one of them telling me that he was a Communist, but when I asked him to explain what being a Communist meant to him, he could not, and I don’t think it was just our limited English that stumped him.
We were told to be very careful with the natives, because not so long before, crewmembers of another Norwegian ship had thrown one of the swill-sellers overboard and he sank like a stone and drowned because of all the bottles of moonshine he carried in his pockets. The guys that did it were, of course, arrested and got the death penalty, even though it was an accident ─ they did not mean to kill the poor wretch. The Norwegian government saved them by paying a large fine (bribe) to the Iranian government and a monetary settlement with the aggrieved family of the man.
Our lone Englishman, John, the other deckhand, Nels, and I decided to take a walk in downtown Abadan. It was not a wise decision. Somehow, we got talking to some young men outside a restaurant, and John told them he was English, which seemed to engender some hostility with the men. Suddenly, they started shouting at him, and one brandished a knife. Well, John took off like a jackrabbit, and we followed on his heels. I cut down a side street, and hailed the first cab I found. Nels was right behind me, and jumped in the cab. When we got to the ship, John was nowhere in sight, and we were quite concerned. We were debating what to do —some of us thought we should go at shore and look for him, others said we should advise the captain. Then we saw him, running like hell toward the ship, but no one following him. He arrived onboard, wrung out with sweat and panting like a dog. He had outrun his pursuers. We did not go downtown again.





Pakistan and India

We all breathed a sigh of relief when we left Abadan, heading for Karachi, Pakistan. We made four calls in all to Karachi, and one to Bombay, India, just “down the coast” in the Arabian Sea. I was becoming quite well acquainted with that part of the world. Karachi, at that time, had been plagued with cholera epidemics, so we all had to get vaccinated before entering port.
The city was then really two parts: the “native” section, the majority of the city, and the European, or British quarters, remnants of the colonial times. The English there did not seem aware that the sun had set on that part of their Empire. For example, when we went to the movie theatre, we had to stand while they played God Save the Queen before the movie began. The streets were reasonably clean and you could see the British nationals sitting on terraces and in tea parlors sipping their afternoon tea, right out of a Rudyard Kipling novel.

Not so in the “native” section. The streets were filthy and crowded, and I observed on several occasions the locals squatting down, reliving themselves right in the street gutters. Vendors were hawking their wares and selling something cooked in a pot resembling spaghetti, which the patrons then ate with their fingers directly from the pot. In the pubs, there was a hole in the floor, usually in a corner, where you could urinate or defecate at your pleasure, standing up. It was shielded by a half-wall without a door. One “pub” we visited had a large metal barrel with cold water in it, where the empty glassed were dumped, then picked out and dried with a towel before refilling. The “bartender” repeatedly spat into the barrel. I guess it is redundant to say that I did not buy any beer there. It must have been a parasite’s paradise, a haven for viruses of all kinds.
Generally, we would patronize the hotels in the European part of the city, and when at the end of an evening of imbibing we staggered outside, there were half a dozen taxicabs racing toward us, intent on being first to pick up their rides. We usually preferred the services of the more leisurely (and less dangerous) horse-drawn taxis, but one experience got me so upset I stopped utilizing them. This taxi-driver had problems with his poor horse, and whipped him mercilessly until the horse had turned around inside his hitching. We yelled at him to stop, then paid our fare and left, but I had a hard time forgetting about the poor horse. This kind of cruelty, to a poor defenseless hard working horse, or any animal for that matter, is something I cannot abide, and it troubled me greatly.

One street had about three hundred prostitution houses. They were not really houses, but individual “rooms” with a bamboo curtain in front, and a flap what you could open to peek inside to view the commodity. Some had the bamboo curtain rolled up so you could see right in to their residence. Another deck hand, more of a “man of the world “ than I, took me along one evening to view the goings on and possibly sample the wares. We stopped at a place where the bamboo curtain was open and a middle-aged man and woman were standing with two young girls, their daughters, between seventeen and twenty years of age and not ugly. The parents were prostituting their children, a rather common sight there. We paid the mother, and she put the money inside her brassiere. I lost my courage, but my friend went ahead. Lucky for me, because a few days later he had gonorrhea, and had to suffer the indignity of having our sadistic captain give him a penicillin needle in the buttocks, in full view of the men.
This “public needling” became a tradition of sorts, with several men, usually the same group, having to be injected shortly after we left harbor. Some fellows consider it an achievement, on par with the notches in the belt of a gunslinger. I asked one gonorrhea veteran what it was like to get this illness, and he said it was very painful when urinating, but after getting the needle, it went away after a day or so. They must have been a bunch of masochists!
Karachi had a quite nice Zoo, which I visited. It was probably the most enlightened thing I did while we were there. I regret the opportunities missed by not taking the time to see some of the cultural and historical aspects of the places we visited. It seemed all we did was pub-crawling. But, I was only sixteen and had not developed much of a cultural sense, though I think I had more than most, if not all of the crew.
I don’t remember much about Bombay, except that a tattoo artist came onboard, and I got talked into getting a tattoo ─ a small one on my arm. Some of the guys had large tattoos all over. One poor fellow kept tattooing his girlfriend’s name on his arm, except that he kept changing girlfriends, or they kept changing him, so consequently he had to cover up the old name and tattoo the new name below it. It made for a strange looking tattoo. I told him he had better stop changing girlfriends or he would run out of arm space.

It was in Bombay that I first collected on the I.O.U. from Kaare. We were in a pub, and one of the older sailors had gotten pretty drunk. For some reason (I can only imagine!), he got angry with me and was getting ready to hit me when I saw Big Kaare across the room, and yelled to him for help. Kaare came over, took a chair and swung it over his head and right down on the unfortunate fellow’s skull. Both the chair and the guy crashed to the floor. We were politely urged to leave, which we did. I never again had trouble with that man; in fact I had little trouble with anyone after that, though a few had the temerity to suggest I was propitiating Kaare for my protection. Indeed, I was. That’s probably why I am alive today.



Singapore

Our next destination was Singapore. Singapore in those days (1959) was not like today — it was still relatively poor, and a “free harbour”; i.e. there were no duties or taxes, and goods were very cheap –especially electronic goods and toys, and such items as watches made in Japan (Japanese manufacturing was producing knock-off copies much like China is doing today). I bought a new suit made of some kind of silky material, and was wearing it on shore the next evening. When we returned to the ship, most of the men quite drunk and noisy, Kaare got into an altercation with one of the Singaporean guards at the harbour. He walked up to the man and said in English “salute when you see a Norwegian sailor”. I don’t know what the man answered, but it was not to Kaare’s liking, for he hit the guy and knocked him down. Another guard managed to call for help, and the local police overran us. I stood on the pier and watched the proceedings, thinking I was safe since I had nothing to do with the fight, but someone clubbed me over the head and I ended up prostrate on the pier, in a puddle of oil and sawdust. When I came to, all was quiet; I didn’t see anyone. I picked myself up and stumbled onboard without any further mishap. I had a bump on my head, and my new suit was a total write-off, with oil and sawdust all over it.
Kaare was brought onboard the next day, before we sailed; sober, with a black eye and a couple of bumps on his head that did not belong there. I guess the captain paid the fine for him, and he would be broke again for some time. I told him his fighting had cost me my new suit, but he didn’t seem too sorry about that, he blamed the watchman for not showing enough respect!

“The outcasts”

Kaare was a study in self-destructive and borderline psychopathic personality. He was the son of a vice-president of a large insurance company in Bergen. He managed to get a high school education, which was a fair education in those days, but his unruliness kept getting him into trouble. He was an amateur boxer, and this made him even more dangerous when drunk and provoked. A regular Jekyll and Hyde, he was pleasant and jocular when sober, but a hellish fighting machine when drunk. He was tall, muscular, and good looking, and could have been successful at shore if he really wanted; but something went wrong. He went to sea and ended up jumping ship in Australia, where he lived illegally for about two years. Then he got into trouble with the law and was sent home, after finishing a short stint in an Australian jail. Back home, he met a very beautiful blonde-haired woman whom he married. His father got him a job at his insurance company, until one day he lost his temper and hit his father right there in his office. That was enough for the old man —he fired him. After that debacle, he left his wife at home and went to sea again, on the Gilda.
I never did find out much about Little Kaare, his friend, but he was of the same ilk. He did not get as belligerent, and that was just as well, since he was quite a bit smaller of stature. However, he still managed to get into trouble. One day he came back from shore leave without his front teeth. He had gotten into a fight with the Karachi police and they knocked them out with a baton and threw him in jail overnight, from where they delivered him in the morning, collecting his fines from the captain.
Little Kaare had a peculiar habit. When he got drunk, he would bet someone that he could eat the glass from which he was drinking at the time, and then proceed to do so. He would chew it into small fragments, and then stick out his tongue to show the glass bits were all there, whereupon he would swallow the whole thing! One day he tried to bet with someone that he could eat the chair on which he was sitting. Having seen him eating a water glass, no one took him up on the bet! I don’t know what use glass eating has in the evolutionary process; I think he was probably working on a dead end.
One late evening the two Kaare’s came back very drunk, as usual, and I walked in to their cabin to see something I could barely believe: the two of them were urinating into a bottle, and then drinking their own urine! I think they were trying to reuse the alcohol. It is the most unusual attempt at conservation I have ever seen.
They had a habit of selling their clothes at shore when running out of money, then buying new ones on credit from the ships store. One evening they were going to shore, it was rather chilly, and Little Kaare asked if he could borrow my jacket, as it fit him quite well. I reluctantly let him have it, after he promised me that he would not sell it, no matter what. Well, the next day at breakfast, he told me that he had sold my jacket, and that he was very sorry. The two of them were intently watching me to see how I reacted. I just told him I would not lend him any more clothes. He left the table and returned with my jacket. They had a good laugh on me, but I was just happy to have my jacket back. If anything, I was surprised that he had not sold it.
I think, somehow the two of them reveled in their reputation for reckless behavior — a kind of cloak of courage covering a rather insecure ego. They were skilled sailors and not reckless at all when on duty, and quite pleasant and helpful in their daily routine, but when on shore and with a few drinks in them, they turned into madmen.
Mealtimes were a carnal feeding frenzy. At breakfast, if either of the Kaare’s, or Big Dutch got hold of the plate of eggs first, they would just dump the dozen or so of fried eggs on their own plate and send the empty plate back to the kitchen for more. Meanwhile we chickens had to wait until the big boys were sated. Little Kaare once, on a lark, ate twenty boiled eggs for breakfast.
In the routine onboard a ship, mealtimes were mini-feasts and a break from the boredom. The food was plentiful and tasty. The cook had a special, exalted status on a ship, and he’d better be good at his job.

Fiji

From Singapore, we sailed to Suva, the capital of Fiji. It was a beautiful place, with a colonial past, and quite English, though the citizens were mostly black. I remember there was a police officer directing traffic in a stall at a four-way intersection downtown. He had long white gloves, a white bandolier across his shoulder and chest, and a white English “bobby” type helmet. I was impressed. No one managed to get into trouble there, and the short visit was pleasant, almost serene, and rather uneventful.
The next stop in Fiji was an oil pumping station located about two kilometers from a small, Lilliputian town called Ba. The crew hired a horse-drawn rickshaw to take them to Ba, but I missed the departure, and decided to walk. I am glad I did. I walked past little farm huts and coconut groves, and watched the natives harvest the coconuts by clambering up the tall trees, toeing into pre-cut steps in the tree trunks, and chopping off the nuts with a swift blow of their machetes. I got talking with one man, in very halting English, and he invited me home to his hut. There he offered me homemade beer, which was quite good, as I recall. I gave them a little money and went on my way, arriving in Ba in the early evening, after about a one-hour walk.
The town of Ba had a small narrow-gauge railway that went right through the middle of town, and a little train with a Lilliputian steam engine huffing and puffing across the main street, unaided by any kind of crossing barriers or railway crossing signs. Locals would hitch a ride, jumping effortlessly on and off along the route. It was quite idyllic, the people seemed happy and I did not see any obvious poverty there.
Later, I met up with the gang from the ship, they had already downed a number of homemade brews, but we got through the evening without incident; not that they could find anyone to pick a fight with among those happy-go-lucky people. The whole place seemed to me like a bit of Paradise. I am sure it was not, but it was pretty. Amazingly, forty years later, in Toronto, I met someone from Suva who knew Ba well, the place was just the way I described it — so I know it was not a dream. Would that I could go back for a visit.

Australia the Beautiful

Next, we were off to Australia —first Sidney and then Brisbane. On the way, we celebrated Christmas and New Years in 48-degree temperatures. It was my first Christmas away from home, and for me a very unusual one.
The captain provided a few bottles of booze and some beer for the holidays, and the boozehounds traded goods for the allotment of the teetotalers and more moderate drinkers. Christmas Eve, after the traditional meal, the drinking began in earnest, and so did the arguing and fighting. Little Kaare and one of the Dutchmen got into an argument, which they decided to settle with a little pugilistic. Fortunately, they were too drunk to do much damage, so they mostly wrestled and clawed at each other. The last I remember of it was the two of them, like two cats, in an “embrace”, rolling down the stairs to the hallway. That was enough for me. I went to bed.
The next day the mess hall was in a horrible condition (you could say the mess was a mess), and I got elected to help clean up. New Years came and went in the same fashion, except I don’t remember much about it; I kept to my cabin to avoid any physical harm.
We arrived in Sydney in the morning, and I was totally awed at the beauty of the harbor. This was before the opera house was built, but the harbour was still spectacular. I stayed away from the bars and got to see a fair bit of the city, visiting Luna Park and other places of interest. I also visited the Norwegian Sailors Mission where I wrote letters home and read Norwegian newspapers.
The last evening there, on my return to the ship, I found a wild bacchanalia in progress. Someone had brought a couple of women onboard, unbeknownst to the captain, and the men were amusing themselves with these unfortunate females, who were totally inebriated and insensible. I told the boatswain, who for a change was sober, and he went there to tell the men to get the women ashore, because we were leaving. We weren’t, but it worked, so the gang carried the two women –while singing old sea shanties — to the gatehouse where they dumped them on the sidewalk. I said to the gatekeeper “aren’t these Norwegian sailors crazy?” He answered, and I quote him verbatim “yes, but the Greeks are worse, they bring onboard young boys!”

The next stop was Brisbane, in the Queensland Province. We had to go in dry dock there to have the annual compulsory seaworthy inspection of the ship’s underside, and thus we had a whole week to spend there. As I recall, Brisbane was a bit of a cow town at the time, you could see horse saddles and other “cowboy” equipment for sale, except they didn’t call them cowboys there. It was very hot, around forty every day –January is midsummer in Australia, and Queensland is close to the outback and semi-arid. Our intrepid crew was happy to discover that the Queensland Province had legalized prostitution, and the business was brisk. At least, no one got gonorrhea there. The only excitement we had was that one of the Dutch guys and the Jewish guy jumped ship. They had bought an old motorcycle on shore, which they used as their “getaway” vehicle. We received a letter from them a few months later; they had managed to get jobs, though I am not sure if they had obtained legal standing. In those days, Australia was actively seeking immigrants, especial white Europeans whom they would actually pay to emigrate. Immigration was a mere formality if you were white and came from the “right” part of the world, i.e. Northern Europe.
To partly replace them we got a Norwegian who had lived there since the war. He was an incredible grouch and a drunk, and it didn’t take me long to get into an argument with him. However, he had seen better times, and was not very strong, so when he got drunk and belligerent, he just waved his arms and punched great holes in the air. Even verbal sparring was beyond him, as he became totally incoherent in both Norwegian and English —“bilingually incoherent” — I have known a few people like him.

We left fair Australia heading back to the Persian Gulf for more of the black liquid gold. I was sorry to leave. I have never been a bigot, but I must say that seeing white people upon arrival in Australia was a breath of fresh air. And food! We could have milk again, and fresh vegetables. We had not been able to get milk in the far eastern and African countries, since milk too easily transmits decease, and all our vegetables were canned. Australia was like an oasis of western civilization.

Since then, I have often wondered how immigrants to Canada from Asian and African countries feel when they arrive in a strange country with such different culture, climate and language; at least in the “old” days, before the services and attention that today’s immigrant gets. No wonder the immigrant communities stick together. They must feel a bit like I felt, engulfed in a “sea” of foreign culture and language.

The Persian Gulf —again.

We loaded in the port of Mena Al-Ahmadi, Kuwait. I noticed quite a difference in the people there. Kuwait was an oil-rich nation even then, and some of the largesse obviously drifted down to the plebeians, for it was the only place in the Gulf where the natives didn’t try to sell us junk and trinkets, but purchased goods from us. The other thing I noticed was than they were well dressed, and many wore western style jeans and shirts.
I remember hearing a story that the Sultan there was so rich that he had twenty Cadillac’s and when one got a flat tire, he just took another car. The workers were not driving Cadillac’s, or any car, but they were well dressed.

Indonesia

After loading, we headed back through the Arabian Sea into the Indian Ocean, sailing through the strait of Malacca to Palembang, on the isle of Sumatra, Indonesia. The Dutch men onboard were a bit apprehensive, because the Indonesian war of independence from the Dutch had finished just a few years before, and the feelings against the Dutch were still strong. However, our short stay in Palembang was uneventful. Palembang is up the river a ways from the coast, and before cleared to come in, we anchored in the middle of the river mouth in the jungle. The natives came out in their canoes, and would dive for anything we threw to them. Empty cans were in great demand; apparently they made kitchen utensils, pots and pans, from these empty tin cans. They did not try to barter —they had nothing to sell, but they put on quite a show of swimming around picking up the cans we threw on the water.
We left Palembang, and sailed down the coast to an oil pumping station called Tandjung-uban, just outside a little town called Tandjung-balai. We anchored outside the port one evening. I was “on watch” when I saw a fire in the jungle and heard voices over the water. There must have been a small village there, but I could not see any houses or huts. Then I heard the most unusual thing: a record player playing one of the latest American hits of the time (1959), “The Story of My Life” (I think by Neil Sedaka). How quaint! Western popular culture had penetrated far into the jungles of Sumatra.
We tied up at Tandjung-uban and began pumping. As just a few people were needed for pumping, the rest of us got shore leave, and went off to town. I decided to go by myself, expecting trouble with the gang, as they were probably plenty “thirsty” by now. There was a banana plantation nearby, and I was intrigued to see bananas on a stalk ─I had never seen how bananas grew before, banana trees being rather scarce in Norway. The main street of the town, the only street, had a few shops and restaurant/bars. The bar owners cranked up old gramophones and played rock and roll music, it blaring out to the street in competition for customers. I think the few tankers arriving to deliver oil to the small refinery was the only business they had, the banana farmers didn’t spend much time or money there, I am sure. I ended up in a largely empty restaurant and was served like a king. I spent the whole afternoon there, and most of my money.
I got friendly with the owner’s dog. I love animals, and decided I wanted to buy one of the puppies she had. It was crazy, for we were not allowed to keep pets on the ship. The owner refused, so I left some money on the counter, grabbed a puppy and got into a rickshaw to go back to the ship. The owner came running after me, gave me back the money and grabbed the puppy. I went onboard without the dog, and upon sobering up, realized I was lucky he stopped me. Not many people would have such compassion for a mongrel pup that they would refuse money for it in order to keep it from a drunken sailor. That pub owner was a gem.
The next day, I found that Dutch and the two Kaare’s had brought a puppy onboard. It was a black and white spotted dog, and they were hiding it in their cabin, feeding it canned sardines and condensed milk. After a couple of days, the boatswain got wind of it, and wanted to throw the dog overboard. There was uproar; the boys took up a petition and presented it to the captain, who avoided “mutiny” by giving in and letting us keep the dog. The sardines must have been powerful food because he grew very fast and became our mascot and entertainment. Later, someone brought a cat litter onboard, but the boatswain threw them overboard but one, which we got to keep after much serious negotiating. Next, it was a parrot, but after that the captain said, enough! So, our menagerie was now a dog, a cat and a parrot. I think the captain theorized that if we had animals to care for we would behave better. If so, I think he was mistaken.

There was a middle-aged sailor (“able-bodied seaman”) whom I often spoke with. He did not drink, and managed somehow to avoid trouble with the others. I recall once I was visiting with him in his small cabin. He had a photo of his wife and children on his drawer top, and spoke softly about his family at home. He told me that he would like to quit the sea, but could not get work at shore that would pay anywhere near what he was making as an able-bodied seaman with his seniority. He also pointed out a real conundrum for seafarers: you get it in the blood, and while you long for home while at sea, you soon get tired of life on land and long to go back to the sea. Once you got the “bug”, you are not happy anywhere. He told me to quit the sea while I could, get some education or training at shore, and stay put. It was good advice, which I eventually did take; or at least, I did leave the sailor life, but staying put, I did not.

Djibouti ─ Hell on Earth

We returned to Abadan to refill our tanks, and headed to the city of Aden, in the Gulf of Aden. Aden was still a British protectorate at the time. There were English-speaking locals hiring themselves out as “shopping guides”, and I hired one to help me buy a shirt. I purchased one, only to find out later that it was a women blouse. So much for “guides”. Aden was reasonably clean for the area, and the locals seemed fairly content and not too poor.
Our next stop, Djibouti (then French Somaliland) was something else. Never before or since did I see such utter poverty and dereliction anywhere. The streets were just dirt, and young crippled children crawled around our table when in a “restaurant” or bar, trying to sell us junk or just begging, uttering over and over again “Baksheesh! Baksheesh!” (Alms, mercy). Communication was very difficult, as the only language they spoke other than their local dialect was French. I was told that parents would not only prostitute their daughters, but would maim their children so they could make some money begging. Throngs of people followed us everywhere, hoping to get a handout, and it seemed that half the population was sleeping in the streets, the more fortunate having a cot and a blanket.
I went outside to relieve myself, as there was no toilet inside the pub, and leaned against the building corner in the dark, urinating into what I thought was an empty alley. Suddenly, I heard a holler, and a man got up with his cot under his arm, sounding quite perturbed, and shuffling further down the alley where he plunked his cot down and laid down on it again, paying me no further attention —nothing unusual there.
In the bar, Little Kaare had taken a liking to some kittens running about. He bought a can of condensed milk, put one of them on his table and poured the milk on the tabletop with the cat in the middle. This became a source of amusement for the crowd, including the locals there, which gathered around to watch the goings on and making “helpful” suggestions. Eventually, he stuffed his pockets full of kittens and went onboard with them. The poor kittens were doomed to a wet grave in the ocean.
It is strange that people like these guys, who really don’t give a damn about much, including themselves, go totally “ banana” over animals, especially cats and dogs. I guess there is some kindness deep down in their hearts, brought out by these small, cute and defenseless creatures. There is something good in everyone, if you can get past the flotsam and jetsam in their soul.

There were a bevy of assorted prostitutes trying to entice the men, and eventually, the guys drifted off with one or the other. The Ethiopian and Somaliland women are fine-featured and many were pretty. In one pub, the owner’s daughter was quite a beauty ─ a girl about eighteen, working at the bar. The owner was doing his best to sell me on one of his paramours, but I declined, telling him it was either his daughter or no one. I really didn’t expect him to agree, but after a little hesitation he did acquiesce, and we went off in a taxi to the girl’s home. We were driving through the countryside, not a light shone, the night was pitch dark and I could not see where we were going. I began to lose my nerve. Alone, with a girl in the middle of the east African desert! I regretted my foolhardy action, imagining being robbed and even killed. We finally arrived in a small village of huts. I asked the taxi driver to wait for me, and went nervously with the girl to her shack, a one-room hut, with a bed and a night table on a dirt floor and not much more. There was, of course, no electricity; she had an oil lamp on a table for light. When she undressed, I noticed in the lamplight some white spots on her belly and asked what it was. “Baby”, she said. I did not understand, but panicked. I put my money on the night table and ran back to the waiting taxi, which took me back to our ship. I had to go onboard to borrow taxi fare, for I had given the girl all my cash.
The next day, I was telling the guys about the incident and the strange white spots I had seen on the girl’s belly. The fellows laughed heartily at my naiveté. “Those are stretch-marks, you idiot!” they said, “She’s had a baby!”
The other deck hand set some kind of record, even for Djibouti. Soap was a favorite barter item, in high demand there. He managed to get laid for three bars of Lux soap! He was quite proud of his bargaining skills, and achieved some temporary notoriety for this achievement. I believe this record still stands!

Djibouti was a horrible place, and it has not gotten much better since. While Norway at that time was not the rich country it is today, I had never imagined this kind of poverty and lack of respect for the individual. The French Foreign Legionnaires were prancing around, and I could see that the locals were petrified of them. They were a rough bunch and proud of it. Even our wild Vikings were impressed.
I came to recognize over the time I sailed in the Far East, that in the remaining colonial areas, there was a huge difference in how the “colonials” were treated. In areas of American influence, such as Kuwait, but in particular Samoa, the native population were relatively well off. In areas of British influence, such as Aden and Fiji, they were poorer, but fairly clean, and the streets were relatively safe. Where the French were involved, if Djibouti was an example, there were utter chaos, destitution, and an appalling lack of concern for the plight of the native population. At least, that was my impression, and it was the consensus of the sailors with whom I discussed this observation. French Somaliland was a depressing experience. I was relieved to leave, and fortunately, I never returned.



Lifeboat adrift

Later, somewhere in the Indian Ocean we came upon a lifeboat adrift in the sea. The straits of Malacca and the South China Sea were then, as now, known for piracy, and for a while, we thought we had found the crew of a pirated ship. We hauled the boat onboard but found no one in it. It had a ships name one it: “Melika 1” of Monrovia (a “flag of convenience” country).

Shortly thereafter, one of the old sailors started acting strange. When we asked if he had been drinking (and more importantly, where he got the booze), he denied he had been drinking at all. He said, “you guys must drink to be happy, but I am happy without alcohol”. He did not smell of booze, but his demanour became more and more lethargic. The boatswain searched his cabin, and found the answer. He had gotten into the lifeboat and found medicines, in particular morphine and needles, and was injecting himself with the drug. The stupid guy could have died!

Karachi again—and the end for our busboy

Our last trip to Karachi almost cost our busboy his life. He had been ashore, drinking quite heavily, and for some reason he came back alone. The doors from deck to the living quarters were made of steel, as was the outside structure, and the door jambs were about one and a half feet high so the seawater could not slosh into the hallways during heavy seas if the door is open. Thus, you have to step up quite high to enter, something not too difficult for a sober person, but a bit of a stretch for a drunk. And drunk he was. From what we could piece together afterwards, he had fallen down and hit his face on the top of the doorjamb, smashing his nose and probably cutting a large vessel. Bleeding profusely, he just went to bed and fell asleep. When the watch came to his cabin in the morning to wake him for duty, he didn’t move, and there was coagulated blood everywhere. He was transferred to hospital in Karachi, and when they carried him out on a stretcher, he looked lifeless; his face was white and his eyes closed. He had lost more than half of his blood, and he barely survived. He spent several weeks in hospital in Karachi, having several blood transfusions before he was sent home. We got a letter from him several months later, telling us that he was slowly recovering. He was very, very lucky to be alive.

Our life continued in the same vein, with several trips back and forth from the Persian Gulf to various middle and far eastern countries, and not much unusual happened. Drinking, carousing, and whoring did not fall into the unusual category; it was like a broken record — the same singers, the same tune.
Then we got some great news! We received orders to go to Texas under ballast to load and then work South America for a while. Everyone was exited and happy. We were dreadfully tired of the Far East. Alas! It was not to be…


Collision in Suez

We were taking the short route through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean to the Atlantic. Nowadays, tankers are too large for the Suez Canal, they go around the horn of Africa (Cape of Good Hope), but we could take the shorter route through the Canal. Thus, we arrived in Suez in the morning of Friday, February 27th, 1959. I had just had breakfast and was standing by the starboard railing having a cigarette. Our ship was backing slowly to turn around, and I noticed another tanker, an American, somewhat larger than ours, moving slowly forward at about four or five knots (five mph). Suddenly, I saw several men on the other ship running from the bow along the middle gangway. In a flash I realized we were colliding! Then I felt the ship slowly lift itself up at the bow, making no sound, and just as slowly settling itself back down. I started forward but was stopped before I got amidships by our guys running toward the stern. We did not know if the other tanker was under load or not. If it was, an explosion and fire could ensue, and in a crowded harbor like Suez it would have been a disaster. Fortunately, the American tanker was also empty, but the damage to our ship’s bow area was incredible. The two-inch thick steel sides had curled up like an opened sardine can, almost to the capstan. The front bow had a long crack in it, to below deck. It looked a mess.
The next few days, we worked to repair the bow enough to make the ship seaworthy. With our carpenter’s help, we built scaffolding and braced it with plywood, then poured cement in between to seal the crack where it extended below the orlop (main) deck. After a few days we were certified seaworthy and got the O.K. to proceed. We cleared the canal with no further incidents. As we headed into the Mediterranean we had some heavy seas and head winds; the ship chopping against the breaking waves, her flattened bow pushing against the wind and the sea.

Return to Europe

Steering a large ship is not easy in good weather. In a storm, it is much harder, especially when you bow has been rearranged like ours had been. We had a gale out of the northwest, and as we headed due west, the wind and waves would push us leeward, to port. The ships bow rose with the waves, and then slid down and to port in slow motion, the gyrocompass racing, clicking off the degrees faster and faster. I turned the wheel hard to starboard, spinning it as fast as I could. I had to be careful not to take it too far right, or we could end up going down the wrong side of the wave. Thus, it was a continuing whirl —starboard against the wave on the downslide, then, as the ship caught the uplift of another wave, quickly spinning it to port until the rudder was in the straight position again. If felt like the ship had a mind of its own, in collusion with the waves rolling and breaking before us; lifting us up before pushing us down sideways. Occasionally a rogue wave would break right against the bow —before the ship could follow it up, and the whole ship would shudder as it hit, spray engulfing the forward part of the ship and rushing like a raging river down the forward orlop deck until hitting the forecastle superstructure, making a huge splash, then sloshing out the sides and back from whence it came.
I was worried that the bow would just disappear into a huge wave, taking the whole ship with it down. I gave a few nervous glances to the first mate standing on the bridge. He was unperturbed, sucking on his pipe and paying me no mind. I felt assured.
The storm abated after a day or so, and we had clear sailing for the rest of the trip.
Our destination was now Liverpool, England, where we were to go in dry dock for repairs before continuing to Texas. Most of the men’s contracts were up, as was mine. The captain offered promotions to anyone agreeing to stay on. A few did, but most of us signed off there.


Going home

In Liverpool Kaare had his last fling —he got into a fight with an Englishman in a pub and apparently really hurt the guy, for he was arrested and put in jail with a fairly serious charge of assault. Of course, he missed the train to Newcastle-on-Tyne and the ship from there to Bergen, Norway, where the rest of us were heading. It was a sad ending for Kaare. His wife had traveled to Stavanger, in the southwest of Norway (now a thriving oil-port) where the ship made a first call on its journey to Bergen. She arrived at the ship, a tall, stunning blonde, just to find out that her husband was in a Liverpool jail.

While disembarking in Bergen, I saw Little Kaare for the last time. He was checking through customs just ahead of me. It was early April and cold and rainy — a typical early spring day in Bergen. He was standing there in sandals, a shirt, no jacket, and with a small bag in his hand, containing all his earthly belongings — the result of fifteen months of sailing the Far East! I resolved there and then that never, ever, would I go to sea again.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in the wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken.

Our life, in our twilight years, reflects the choices we made on the way. One misstep leads to another; short-term gain is often long term pain. I remember with gratitude the old sailor who advised me against going back to sea. While my life has had its share of missteps, that “road” I did not take, and it has made a difference.