. A while later we were drawn into conversation by a well spoken German pair in their early twenties, who Father with his customary generosity invited aboard to join us in a drink.
All went well for a while in very pleasant conversation, when the young man lent over and asked “I wonder if you could help us with a favour . We want to get over to Turkey and wondered if you could give us a lift .” Father quietly replied that this regrettably was quite impossible. He lived in Turkey and had given a written undertaking about this trip, that he would not be bringing back anyone else apart from us going out. We also had the Captain who was a temporary hired hand, and as Father explained he was an elderly retired man, a guest in Turkey and lived by its laws and customs and did not want in any way to jeopardise his position. This all seemed so obvious and reasonable that I was suddenly taken aback when the young well educated German rose and in a torrent of abuse said:
“ I know you English are so cocky that you have won the war and feel it pleasant to humiliate us Germans when we make a request” he continued on in this fashion for a while until I asked him curtly but politely to leave, and not make demands which were totally unrealistic and beyond our power.
Next morning early we left and headed back to Cesme, where we dropped the Captain and took on Gellal again. We headed north towards our winter mooring at Aliaga on the other side of the bay of Smyrna. We spent a night at a little inlet called Buyuckliman and I felt the first wintry cold weather that evening when I had to put on a sweater. But next morning it was once again breezy and bright with an even heavier sea and a wind which was picking up in strength as we headed across the open bay. I was on the helm sitting on the little seat as a huge wave struck the vessel and I was flung across the well deck landing on the other side against the small curtain wire upon which Father hung all his fish spoons and mirror lures. A great shark spoon that he had hanging on the side became firmly embedded in by buttock from the force of the impact.
“I think I will have to lie down and get a doctor to extract it with its barb deep in side” I said as I laid on the bunk, and about half an hour later we were in the beautiful calm crystal clear harbour of Foca, and soon moored.
“Let me take a look , now that it is all calm”, said Father. He came over and then with a sudden tug wrenched the hook, bark and flesh out. “That is the quickest way, we’ll put on some dettol and savlon and a piece of elastoplast and you’ll be all right. Here have a whisky to calm yourself down and light a cigarette.” So the saga of the fish hook was completed and the following day we went on past Ali Aga towards the small port of Dikili famous for it olive oil nestling on the Turkish coast opposite the large Greek island of Mytilini (Lesbos). On our return towards Ali Aga the wind was exceptionally violent but we were safe in calm seas cruising under high cliffs with the gale coming offshore. What was extraordinary and I have never seen elsewhere was a sucession of vertical waterspouts rising out of the sea from eddies created by the intense wind. They rose and sank and disappeared and rose once more in a constant succession as we sheltered our way under the steep cliff faces. Finally we came to rest in AliAga, and then back to Kariyaka and it was time for me after nearly a month to go onto Ceylon for the final chapter. At least Father and all understood my reasons sad, as they were about my departure, but as I explained “Reality must always prevail. It is no use living in pipedreams!”.
I took the flight from Izmir to Istanbul in the morning on the only connection and I had a 4 hour wait for my BOAC Comet to take me onwards. It was lunchtime and I went into the restaurant which was thinly attended and sat down to dine. On the next table was also a young man and I invited him to join me for a chat which he did. He said that he was a Texan from Dallas and was a salesman for Northrop the American Aviation Company en route to Saudi Arabia to sell them jet fighters. We talked about all manner of things, and eventually I raised the subject of their popular President Kennedy, and asked him what he thought of him. Suddenly from being a very relaxed and open spoken individual, his countenance completely changed, and he leaned over with stern frown:
“Never talk to me about that bum. He is the biggest disaster to have ever hit America, and the sooner some guy sticks a bullet in him the better as far as I am concerned”. He continued a long diatribe against him which so shocked me and took me aback with its vindictiveness that I have never forgotten it. Almost two months to the day later, Kennedy was assassinated as he drove in his entourage through Dallas and I forever recall that conversation.
Soon my plane arrived and we were off with a refuelling stop at Teheran and then on to Colombo. As we approached Katunayake Airport the clouds were dark and threatening and we landed in a rainstorm that had mostly passed. The Comet touched down and the wings disappeared into a foam of water and spray engulfing the inbuilt engines and the plane slewed around first one way and then another as the pilot sought to correct his path. It was terrifying but he managed it, and we safely disembarked and then watched a helicopter flying up and down the runway attempting to reduce the surface water with its down draft.
I was now back for the last stretch of working and extracting myself from the morass of Ceylon, and very sad and tearful at leaving all the happy memories and our Youth behind, and also very lonely wondering what was going to happen in the months and years ahead. Politics, the Cold War, and the great Socialist forces of the twentieth century were bearing down on a way of life that would soon be gone for ever, with only a distant hazy memory to remember it by.
We are no other than a moving row
Of Magic Shadow-Shapes that come and Go
Round with the Sun-illumined Lantern held
In Midnight by the master of the Show.
