Doctor at Sea

currency, asleep.
    ‘It’s always the same with the Mate,’ Archer explained.’ He never makes it. Hasn’t been ashore for years. It’s best to leave him there until he wakes up. Now for the bright lights!’ Trail put down his glass.’ Come on, Doc!’ Singing softly we filed down the gangway and, slightly intoxicated, for the first time in my life I put foot on foreign soil.

10

    THERE are few attractive cities in Brazil, and Santos is not one of them. In the centre is a fairly pleasant square with gardens in it, a new post office, and the Town Hall. It would pass for a little bastion of bourgeoisie in the South of France on a hot day. But the waterfront caters, efficiently, for different tastes. It is a tall line of buildings on a cobbled street that looks like the slums in Glasgow draped with neon.
    The Third led us jauntily towards a lighted doorway with RITZ BAR - DRINKS AND GIRLS shining over it.
    ‘Here we go lads!’ he said. ‘If our mothers could see us now!’
    The three of us piled inside and took a table by the door. It was a long room, brightly lit, with a bar down one side, a small dance floor, and a band. The walls were lined with foreign flags and signs such as WELCOMES TO OUR BRITISH FRIENDS, HAVE A SWELL TIME BABY, and WE TAKE POUNDS AND DOLLARS. The room was full, but not with Brazilians. There seemed to be sailors there from every country with a seaboard. There were stiff blond Swedes and Norwegians, a crowd of drunk Greeks in the corner, some Dutchmen, a pack of Frenchmen arguing with Spaniards, blank-faced masticating Americans, and a good many small dark-eyed dangerous-looking men of unplaceable nationality. By the door, stroking his long moustache, stood a nervous Brazilian policeman.
    ‘I say!’ I exclaimed. I stared at the place like a child brought up to Town to see the lights.’ It looks a bit tough, doesn’t it?’
    ‘The Santos waterfront is the toughest in the world,’ Archer said lightly.’ That’s why we’re sitting near the door. If anything starts don’t wait to see what it’s all about, but hop it. They have a habit of arresting everyone in sight down here. Ever been in jail?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘This isn’t the place to start. I got pinched two years ago for being drunk. They let me go next morning, luckily. Had to rub shoulders with some pretty queer birds. None of this single cell and bath business you get in Britain.’
    A Brazilian girl, dark and rounded, in a black dress and a decorative lace apron came upon us.
    ‘Très cerveja,’ Trail said.
    ‘Sure, baby.’
    She strolled off, giving us the benefit of her hips.
    ‘She brings the beer,’ Trail explained.’ If you like you can dance with her. Look over there.’
    There were about twenty of the girl’s colleagues in the room, all similarly dressed. I watched one at the table next to ours being asked for a dance by an American, who used the technique of slapping her on the bottom and grabbing her arm as she passed. The girl smiled acquiescence, and they took the floor.
    The band played only sambas and rumbas. The polite versions of these dances produced in London restaurants have the same relationship to Santos sambas as vintage Burgundy to raw applejack. Similarly with the dancing. The Brazilian girls, though languid in daytime, come to life like flashing electric signs at nightfall. Not only do they dance lustily, but they do so without any inhibitions whatever. If any couple in London were seen performing in the manner accepted as normally sociable in Brazil, they would be immediately asked to leave.
    The girl brought our beers and opened them. Trail handed her a hundred-cruzeiro note and pinched her bottom. She grinned at him. I wondered what would have happened if he had tried the same technique in a Lyons’ teashop.
    ‘Don’t reckon we’ll stay here long,’ Trail said. ‘It’s getting on. How do you like Brazilian beer?’
    ‘It tastes like soapy water to me.’
    ‘It carries a kick in it somewhere. Finish it up, we’ve got to look in at the Bidu.’
    ‘Saw a chap get killed outside there last trip,’ Archer said to me.
    The Bidu Bar was exactly the same as the Ritz except that the signs round the walls were in Portuguese and the girls were fatter.
    We didn’t stay long. We had a couple more beers and left. Trail rubbed his hands.’ And now,’ he said,’ for the Whores’ Ball.’
    The function to which Trail was so attracted was held on the top floor of an old building on