The Munich Dilemma
by Sinbad

Chapter 4

The crew of the Sail Training Ship 'Malcolm Miller' had just settled into a routine, and got used to interrupted nights' sleep when they had one of the night-time watches, when they reached their first port of call. St. Peter Port, Guernsey, was a beautiful, quaint, very English town on an island much nearer to France than England. Their watch was on duty when they furled the sails and motored into the harbour. Furling the mizzen sail was in principle the same as furling the mailsail on their dinghy, but the sheer size and weight of the enormous sail made it very different in practice. The sail was lowered a few metres at a time, and the sail that settled down on the boom, itself a vast timber beam, was beaten and punched until it concertina'ed neatly over the top of the boom. Eventually when it was all down it was tied in place and a cover wrapped over it to hold it and keep the folds from filling with water if it rained. The big square sails hanging from the yard arms on the main and foremasts had to be furled by hauling the sail up to the yard arm and tying it in place using the ties that were incorporated into the sail fabric at regular intervals down the sail. It was all very difficult when you weren't used to it, and several of the boys were complaining of sore hands and scraped knuckles by the time the job was done.

Once the sails were furled and the diesel engine started, the ship slipped into harbour perfectly upright and the crew found they didn't have to compensate for the list of the deck as they walked. It came as a surprise that this was something they had to get used to. So much had been new and exciting when they had begun the cruise, five days earlier, that becoming familiar with the movement of the ship and the odd experience of walking uphill when walking from one side of the ship to the other, and downhill when walking back the other way, and sleeping in bunks one above another, (bunks made of canvas webbing strung tightly between the spars of a tubular metal frame, hung from the ceiling and hinged at the wall so that they could be swung up flat in order to make more room in the mess) was just one of many things they accepted without thought. The first couple of nights they'd had trouble sleeping despite their tiredness because the beds weren't level. Ricky and Chris had bunks on the starboard side of the boat (the right side, looking forward – the left side is called the port side) and the ship was on the port tack, meaning that the wind was coming over the port side of the boat – so the boat was heeling to starboard and their bunks were tending to tip them against the wall. This of course was preferable to tipping them out onto the floor but still it was something that took getting used to.

Another thing that took getting used to was walking on dry land. They found they had got so used to the deck moving around under them, and compensating for its rise and fall as the ship reacted to the ocean swell, that their first few steps on dry land nearly caused them to fall over, much to the amusement of the locals watching them on the dockside. The ship's arrival had aroused a lot of interest and there was quite a crowd following the careful docking manoeuvring as the big ship came alongside and tied up securely. And most of the crowd were still there when the gangplank was lowered and the trainee crew members poured down it on their first shore leave. Ricky and Chris, not the first down the gangplank, saw the alarm on the faces of those ahead of them as the ground seemed not to want to stay put, and were a little more prepared when they hit the dock. Nevertheless they walked very gingerly off towards the town.

St Peter Port was interesting to walk around but they were only given five hours and it was difficult to see what they could do in that time. Some found a museum, others a cafe, but it wasn't long before it was time to board this ship again for the next leg of their cruise. The next stop, Sark, sounded particularly interesting because there was no motor transport. It turned out there was no dock, either, at least not a dock suitable for ships of the size of the Malcolm Miller. The ship anchored out in the bay, and the boys were ferried in the little motor launch to a tiny quayside on the end of a short promontory, from where steps led up to a bleak roadway leading back along the promontory towards a little group of buildings.

They wandered around the little island and wondered about the people who lived there in such a tiny community and without so many of the things that mainland dwellers could take for granted. Supermarkets, cinemas, cars, even a football pitch was out of reach of these people, and yet they seemed very normal and happy, they didn't look deprived at all. The boys marvelled.

Once again back on board, the next stop was to be Brest in Brittany. The duties of the watch included assisting the cook to prepare the meal, so sometimes you could get collared to peel a bucket of spuds or mix a jug of custard. On the second evening after Sark, the cook, a big round barrel of a man, with a larger-than-life attitude and a sharp way of speaking that some of the boys found rather alarming, came into the mess while the boys were eating and after he'd finished his kitchen duties with a light bulb in one hand and a teacloth in the other.

He brought the whole room to silence when he announced: “What will you bet that I won't eat this light bulb?”

The boys all thought he was joking but they couldn't see the joke so there were some nervous giggles from various parts of the room but no-one spoke.

“Come on, here's my pound. Put your pound on top of it and I have to eat the lightbulb. If I do it, I get to keep both pounds. If I don't, you get to keep them both. What do you say?”

One of the older boys nervously put a pound note on the table. Everyone watched spellbound, as the cook wrapped the light bulb in the teacloth and rapped it sharply on the edge of the table. Then he laid the cloth on the table and opened it up gingerly. The bulb was smashed, the fine glass globe shattered into various sized pieces and the metal fitment stood alone, with the glass rod and the filigree metal filament attached. The cook put this part to one side, and then took a small piece of the smashed globe and put it between his teeth. He really did, he put a piece of broke glass in his mouth and... chewed it. The boys in silence heard it crunch between his teeth, and continue to crunch until it was ground up and the cook opened his mouth to show that it was gone. He took another piece and did it again. The boys watched, horrified. They could imagine the damage that could so easily be done by those vicious sharp edges of glass, and some of them had heard of ground glass being given to someone as a way of murdering them. So how could this man be eating glass – and why?

After eating several shards of the glass bulb, the cook took the two pound notes from the table and, catching the eye of the boy who had laid down the second note, raised his eyebrows and pocketed the notes.

And then he offered the teacloth with the glass shards around, asking if anyone else wanted to try it. To Chris's horror, Ricky took a piece, a tiny piece, and gingerly put it between his teeth, between his molar teeth, and ground them together, turning the glass to powder, feeling ever so carefully for any remaining pieces that were not yet powder with his tongue and very carefully repositioning them so that he could grind them to powder too. And when there was nothing left in his mouth but powder he swallowed. Chris couldn't believe he'd done that. Ricky couldn't believe he'd done that. None of the other boys tried it. Perhaps, thought Ricky, I'm just mad.

He seemed to come to no harm from the experience, though, so maybe powdered glass doesn't kill you – or maybe not such a little amount. Ricky wasn't going to experiment further.

The next day they arrived at Brest, a big industrial dock area with a quayside they could tie up to. They were allowed a few hours on land and Chris and Ricky joined three other boys to go for a walk. But this was a very different shore leave than their visit the the two Channel Islands. They walked along dingy roads with enormous wharfs and warehouses and dust and decay and after an hour had not found shops or houses or anything attractive. They turned to go back to the ship, and found themselves facing two burly Frenchmen who stood in their way, deliberately obstructing their passage. Ricky found his hackles rising, felt that these two men did not wish them well, and that a bad situation was developing. He couldn't tell just what it was but he knew it would be better to be somewhere else. Before he could do anything about it, one of the men lunged suddenly forward, caught him by the front of his shirt just below the neck and pushed him back and upwards against the wall of the warehouse behind him. The Frenchman growled out a sentence that Ricky couldn't follow. It was clearly French and Ricky was quite good at schoolboy French. Maybe what he heard was coloured by a Breton accent, or maybe it was full of profanity which he didn't understand, but Ricky had no idea what was being said. Glancing around he could see the other boys as much in the dark as he was. They were all frozen in confusion, unsure what was happening or how to react. Knowing Chris's level-headed decisiveness, he glanced that way and saw his friend begin to move, stealthily, out of the eyeline of the two Frenchmen. He had no idea what Chris was planning, and felt he should try to work it out so that he could co-operate if necessary. But he couldn't see how Chris could help. They were five against two but slightly built seventeen-year-olds – Ricky the smallest of them which might have been why he'd been made the target – against two heavily built men in their prime, who looked like boxers. He began to panic, and one part of his brain watched dispassionately while another part flapped. He could see himself showing fear and panic, his face, going pink, and his arms flailing uselessly as though he was trying to fly away. His feet were pushing him upwards onto tip-toes, trying to reduce the upward force under his chin of the big fist of the Frenchman that was threatening to choke him. The dispassionate part of his brain could see all of this but was powerless to prevent these pathetic displays of wimpishness. He cast around for something more productive to do. And he guessed that he was being mugged – that these two wanted money. He settled on a plan. It wasn't much of a plan but it was the best he could do.

Fighting for control of his errant arms, he reached into his back trouser pocket and pulled out his wallet. Carefully opening it one of the two ways it could be opened, he waved it in the Frenchman's face displaying the sterling notes it contained and saying clearly and repeatedly: “English. Only English money. No Francs!” He deliberately didn't attempt French but spoke in English, hoping that if they didn't understand him they'd understand the sight of the wrong currency in his wallet.

For a while it didn't seem to be working. He continued waving his wallet and protesting in English, the Frenchman continued growling in French and the other Frenchman mumbling to his mate. But after a while, during which he continued to struggle for breath, the big man suddenly released him and walked off with his companion, shouting and gesticulating wildly, his shoulders rising as he waved his arms skywards as if to say 'these Brits are useless, don't even have money on them'.

Maybe the two men were drunk, although it was quite early in the day, but they might have done better to have taken Ricky's wallet anyway especially as he was waving it in front of their faces. Ricky's wallet had two sections, each with its own fastening. And he was keeping his British money in one section and the small supply of French money in the other section, which the two men would have found eventually if they had got hold of it and checked it. As it was, Ricky got to keep his wallet and his money and the five went on their way, shaken but not defeated. They were glad a little later to reach the safety of the ship.