Free Acts of Mutiny by Derek Beaven

brandies.
    When he returned, his table-mate grunted confidentially. ‘Time and place, old chap. Not yet Too rough. But just wait for the Tropics. They go mad. Can’t get enough of it. Got to build ourselves up, eh? They go mad. English women, eh? Eh?’ His eyes closed. He slumped back in the chair. Robert watched the glass he had just signed for slip from the man’s hand, empty itself over his trousers and fall on to the carpet. The ship rolled it casually against the far partition, where it smashed.
    ‘Don’t worry, sir,’ the bar steward called. ‘Everything under control. It’s when the chairs go you’ve got to start worrying. Notorious this ship, but don’t let on I said so. Jumps about like a porpoise as soon as the wind blows. Mind you, this is a blow and a half and no mistake. But we learned our lesson a couple of years ago coming home.’
    ‘How was that?’ Robert struggled back to the bar rail and took hold of it again.
    ‘Shouldn’t really tell you this. It was here in the Bay, but all the other way round, if you see what I mean. We were caught by a following sea and had to lay ourselves across it.’
    ‘To miss Brittany?’
    ‘Exactly, sir. To miss Brittany. Armorica, so I’m told. The olden name.’
    ‘Really? I didn’t know.’
    ‘The company’s old route, sir. Started last century, running grain and guns to our various southern allies. Long tradition at sea. Trading nation.’ He winked at Robert and touched his nose. ‘We’ll carry anything. Every ship’s got a memory.’
    ‘You were going to tell me …?’
    ‘Oh, yes. Following sea; we got across it. Wallowing about like a whale, she was. The water came over the stern – the cabins in tourist class go right down under the water-line. They have an F deck, you know, and the stern’s like open balconies anyway. To give a bit of light and space. Did you know that? Very nice. But not funny when half the herring pond jumps in on you. And up here in the first class main lounge,’ he gestured in that direction, ‘the piano broke loose and went for a run. Caught a passenger against one of the pillars.’
    ‘Was he killed?’
    ‘Not quite. We dug him out from under a pile of tables and chairs.’
    ‘They were there with the piano?’
    ‘Exactly. Arrived simultaneously. But we learned our lesson. Four hundred items of furniture smashed, to say nothing of the glass and crockery. Passengers screaming and panicking. So we don’t think too much about it now. Plenty more where that came from.’
    ‘Furniture?’
    ‘Exactly. Or whatever you like. We keep calm, they keep calm. She may have the lines of a goddess, but she can be a hysterical cow sometimes, the
Armorica.
Don’t tell anyone I told you.’ He touched the side of his nose again. ‘There was one time as well when she developed a list to starboard. It wasn’t heavy weather or anything. Up goes the captain. “Those stabilisers got out of line? Let’s have ’em in. Switch off the gyros, please, Number One.” They’re all ex-RN, see. So off goes the gyros and in come the fins, and slowly, very slowly,’ he matched his gesture to the inclination of the ship, ‘the bloody thing starts to list a bit more. Then a bit more. Then a bit more.’ He chuckled and eyed Robert’s dormant drinking companion.
    ‘And then?’
    ‘He stuck the fins back out pretty sharpish.’ He polished a glass. ‘Heavy on fuel. She’s a seven-day ship. Her sisters are nine. It’s the liquid ballast. The more she uses up the lighter she gets. And the sillier. Now, I have it on good authority from someone who was there …’
    ‘On the bridge?’
    ‘… On the bridge; that the old man said it was only the fins keeping her from rolling right over.’
    ‘Turning turtle?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘They’re not out at the moment.’
    ‘No. Can’t have them out at the moment. Too rough. They’d break off. Can I help you, sir?’ He moved away to attend to someone else who was fortifying himself