Learning the Ropes 



national intrigue and disaster. They were all Poles and several of 

 them knew hardly any English whatsoever, so that Mr Goldie and 

 Mr Finch and Mr Buchan often found it very difficult to impress 

 them with the most elementary information. It is not easy to 

 explain the difference between baiting by the third and simple 

 fly-meshing to somebody who doesn't know what you mean when 

 you say: 'This is a bit of twine.' 



Then, of course, there were the difficulties of personality. The 

 colonel was convinced that he should not be expected to make a 

 knot in anything less decorative than a bow tie. The pickpocket 

 found a customer for the 'odd' bales of twine that were lying 

 about the net-room. The school-teacher refused to eat Scotch 

 Broth and proclaimed that he couldn't bear the smell of fish. Jan 

 found that he had more experience of the sea than any of his 

 fellow pupils and even he had never been aboard a trawler. The 

 instructors, old sea-dogs, rather fleabitten sea-dogs, delivered 

 their lectures in a vocabulary of obscenities that contrasted mag- 

 nificently with the elevated balderdash of the official prospectus. 

 And yet, long afterwards, Jan came to the conclusion that this 

 strange school was the best preparation he could possibly have 

 received for life aboard a trawler. 



They began with a sketchy course on seamanship. The Gold- 

 fish was particularly anxious to exhort them not to drink the 

 alcohol that is locked in a ship's compass. 'It blinds you, you 

 know. Old Jock Jamieson who had as good an eye for black water 

 as any herring skipper in Peterhead got blind as a bat on one 

 night's boozing. Keep away from the compass alcohol. It blinds 

 you.' The Goldfish was inclined to be repetitive, sucking the 

 words back into his mouth as they fell with a kind of slobbering 

 sonority from the lenses of his glasses. 



He did mention things like flashing lights, regular ones and 

 irregular ones, and lights to port and lights to starboard, and the 

 difference between the magnetic north and the true north. He 

 explained how to take a bearing and how to hold a wheel. 'Try 

 to keep your stomach away from it. I once knew a chap had his 



^5 



