whales, a short while later, I went back inside; after all, an officer on duty should not stay outside away from his instruments too long. After awhile, however, it did puzzle me that the captain remained outside, still leaning heavily on the railing looking at something far away. I walked back to the side of the wheelhouse to see whether there was something I had missed.
“Hhggnnnaagggnn …!” I nearly dropped the binoculars. What a horrible sound. Had we hit a whale or what? Quickly I opened the door to the bridge wing.
“Did you hear that? What was it?”
The captain still had his back turned to me when he answered, his voice sounding uncommonly muddled..
“Get me off. I’m stuck to the railing!”
“You’re what?”
“You idiot! Can’t you see that I’m stuck? Couldn’t you come out when you saw that the whales had left?”
“But what … what do you mean?”
“I’m stuck to the varnish! Don’t you get it, you block head! And don’t talk so loud. Before you know it the passengers will see me.”
I must say that at first I did not know what to do. The captain, except from making grunting sounds, trying to get off, didn’t offer any solutions either, so it took me a while to get my wits together. Call for help. That would be the best. After all, I could not leave the bridge.
“He is stuck to the what?”
The staff captain, woken from his afternoon nap, had to be told two times before he began to understand the situation even remotely, and then one more time to convince him that his navigator was not affected by a severe case of sun stroke.
A few minutes later, still tucking his shirt in his pants, he was on the bridge and together we walked outside where the captain still stood, making valiant efforts in pretending that he was still intently watching the horizon.
“Hello, Sir. Are you stuck?”
A strangled sound came before the poor man answered.
“Yes, you nitwit! What do think? I’m stuck to the wet varnish.”
The staff carefully touched the railing next to the captain.
“It’s dry now,” he uttered stupidly.
“Yes, I know, but it was not earlier, when I leaned on it when he called me for those stupid whales.”
As it turned out, I was not the only one having difficulties finding a solution to the captain’s predicament. Like with me, it also took our staff captain a while to get his thoughts together, as clearly he was as much at a loss as I had been earlier. To be honest, it was a bonus for both of us that the poor captain was stuck with his back to us with little chance of him suddenly turning around. What he would have seen then would certainly have caused a few dismissals.
Both of us, at last, clearly saw the whole situation in its true context and we had a very hard time not to laugh out loud. The poor staff captain even retreated to the corridor behind the bridge, where he laughed unrestrictedly for about five minutes straight. Red as a beet and tears rolling down his cheeks, he returned. We went outside again.
“Let me get you off, Sir. One moment.”
Without warning he grabbed the distressed and unsuspecting captain by the shoulders and vigorously pulled him back as hard as he could.
“AAAAUUUUWWWW, you idiot, what are you doing, you butcher, you ….”
The captain, clearly was quickly losing what little patience he had left, and kept going for while, describing in very explicit terms of what he thought about his staff captain and what he would do, once he would get off the railing. This to us of course, in no way was an incentive for us to get things going.
“You really are stuck.”
The staff captain observed, after having carefully investigated the situation in front of him a bit better.
“And your armpits too. Let me get the carpenter.”
After that, it didn’t take very long before the bridge was a scene of frantic activity. Every officer suddenly had some urgent business that required him to be there and of course to have a peek outside where two carpenters were busy working around the captain to unscrew the wooden railing from the steel stanchions. When it finally came loose, between the two of them, they carried the piece of teakwood inside, the captain still stuck to it, struggling in the middle. Once inside, we carefully put a chair behind him, while one end of the railing was put to rest on the maneuvering console and the other on a bookcase.
“Get out of here, all of you.”
He hissed to the assembly of onlookers, with such venom in his voice, that it took less than a minute for everybody to disappear— except of course for the carpenters, the staff captain, and me. Never before did I have such an eventful watch with so much excitement on the otherwise so quiet bridge.
Slowly, hair-by-hair, the captain was cut loose by the carpenter. It took almost two hours in which I learned how creative a person under extreme duress can use his language, and I was impressed. The captain also gained my grudging admiration for not having a massive heart attack during the whole embarrassing episode. Finally the job was finished, and within seconds the captain disappeared, his arm held high, as not to touch his tender parts and a bright red beam of bare skin on his chest which looked as if a farmer had passed to cut the grass.
It’s a strange thing maybe, but I never bought myself the wooden sailing boat I always had wanted so much.
Buster
“You are also invited, and don’t you find any excuses!” The captain pointed at me with his finger, the moment I entered the navigation bridge. His voice betrayed a high degree of agitation, and I saw that he had spilled some of his coffee, as he was in the process of wiping up a puddle from the windowsill. The chief officer was standing next to him, very red in the face. It seemed to me that either he had received a severe dressing down, or that he was barely able to keep from laughing out loud.
Until that day, the captain had barely spoken two words to me, and I felt honored that he was including me in his invitation, although, I did not have a clue as to what it was all about. He turned around to face the chief officer again.
“Don’t you laugh!” He snapped at the chief officer hotly.
“I didn’t even realize that she was on board. Should have expected her anytime though. She hasn’t taken a cruise in over a month. Still, I wouldn’t mind if she had stayed home.”
He seemed very annoyed and he spilled some coffee again without even noticing it.
“That woman drives me nuts. Always parties, always wanting all the attention, and always it’s me she’s after.”
“Noblesse oblige, Sir.” The chief officer volunteered. The captain stared at him for a few seconds and snorted.
“Spare me your quotes. You probably got them from your calendar anyway.” He turned around again towards me.
“Be ready in your formal uniform, at seven sharp, right here. The purser, the hotel manager, the chief engineer and me are all invited to a private party, and you are coming as well.”
“What kind of party, Sir?” I asked. “Do I have to bring something?”
“No, you just come along.”
After the captain had left, I looked at the chief officer and the navigator on duty, who as soon as the door had closed burst out laughing. The chief officer even laughed so hard that he had to steady himself on the