Glencannon by Guy Gilpatric

Author:Guy Gilpatric [Gilpatric, Guy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Short Stories, Maritime, Humour
Published: 1968-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

MUTINY ON THE INCHCLIFFE CASTLE

I

On a day not long ago, two old gentlemen met for lunch in a private room of a London club. After a prolonged scowl at the menu, one of them ordered bran wafers and a cup of barley water heated for three minutes to 110 degrees, while the other, casting prudence to the winds, demanded the scrapings from four slices of whole-wheat toast in a wine glassful of the juice of the upper halves of raw Monmouthshire carrots. There was a slight delay in obtaining these delicacies to specification, in the course of which they sent for the club secretary, the secretary spoke to the manager, the manager snarled at the headwaiter and the headwaiter garroted the chef. Finally fed, our two old gluttons sat back and, over their pepsin tablets, talked of the momentous matter which had brought them there.

At 3:15, they called for their cars and left the club. At four, it was whispered at Lloyd's that Lord Forthdale, chairman of the White Crown Steamship Line, and Mr. Virgil Hazlitt, managing director of Clifford, Castle & Company, Ltd., had been seen together. At 4:30, rumors at the Baltic Exchange had it that the biggest shipping combine of the decade was imminent, while at the close of business all Leadenhall Street was saying that the merger was signed and sealed. By nightfall, the news had traveled eastward even unto those grimy Thames-side regions where great ships, home from their pastures on the Seven Seas, lie penned like drowsing cattle in the docks.

Now, on at least one of these vessels, the tidings were received with consternation and wrath. She was the S.S. Inchcliffe Castle, of the Clifford & Castle cargo fleet, and around the table in her stuffy little saloon her officers sat discussing the smoked kippers, the news, and its bearing on their futures, with a common and profound pessimism.

"But wot's the sense of it, that's wot I want to know?" sulked Mr. Montgomery, the mate. "Why, the White Crown's a swank, 'igh-clarss passenger line! Besides their ferry across the Western to New York, they run cruises for millionaires, with a bleddy great public barthtub in every ship and the mates orl singing soprano. Wot the 'ell do they want to merger with us for?"

"Yus, and wot's to become of we poor chaps when they do?" demanded Mr. Swales, the second. "Oh, mark my words, gempmen! Whenever any of these combines and mergers 'appens, there's orlways no end of shifts and shake-ups, and poor blighters like us with twenty years' service getting the sack! Well, where's the social justice there? Where is it; yus, where is it, I arsks you?"

"How do I know?" retorted Captain Ball, irritably. "Really—ker-hem—I mean to say, you needn't beller at me like I'd stole it, Mr. Swales! Now, hold on. I'll call in Jessup and he can tell you exactly what he heard ... Steward! Steward! Just give us that story again, will you?"

Jessup, a wizened little man whose nose

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