Farewell To The East End

said Chummy weakly.
    ‘Well, he is the captain. It’s only right.’
    Chummy was thinking about the headmistress of Roedean, and what she would have said about the situation.
    Kirsty continued, ‘And I never have two at once. Dad wouldn’t allow that. He has very high standards.’
    ‘High standards!’ Chummy gasped, and the standards enshrined on the coat of arms at Roedean School flashed through her mind – Honneur aux Dignes , ‘Honour to the Deserving’. But Kirsty was happily babbling on.
    ‘I love my father, I do. He’s a lovely man. He has, how do you say it, the best bugger’s grips you’ve ever seen.’
    ‘Bugger’s grips?!’ Chummy felt weak from shock. This was a different world.
    ‘You know, whiskers on his cheek bones. They’re called bugger’s grips. I like to brush them when he’s relaxed, after he’s done with me. Then he goes to sleep, often. It’s like having a baby in my arms.’
    Another contraction came, and Chummy sat with her hand on the lower abdomen until it passed. She could scarcely believe what she had heard and needed a few seconds to adjust. Kirsty chatted on.
    ‘That’s better. I feel all right now. I thought it was stomach cramps. I was eating green apples yesterday.’
    ‘No, I assure you. You are in labour and you’re going to have a baby.’
    ‘But the boys always wear a rubber when they are doing it.’
    ‘A rubber?’ repeated Chummy enquiringly.
    ‘You know – French letters, they call them in England, or capotes anglaises , as they say in France. Anyway, the men always wear one. Dad insists, and they wouldn’t disobey the captain. And anyway, I make them put one on, or I put it on. Dad gets a great box of them. Five hundred at a time, when we come to a port. He’s most particular.’
    Chummy felt light-headed.
    ‘Five hundred?’ she murmured and stared aghast at Kirsty.
    ‘And they are never reused – Dad insists on that – in case one splits, and I wouldn’t know. So you see, I can’t be pregnant. It must have been those green apples.’
    Chummy couldn’t reply to that, but was murmuring, ‘Five hundred! How long does a box last you?’
    ‘Oh, a few weeks. Dad would never let me run out. If it’s a long voyage, he’ll buy in two or three boxes. We always need them.’
    ‘Always?’
    ‘Well, the boys need me, and I’m always here for them. I’m the most important member of the crew, Dad tells me, because I keep the men happy, and happy men work hard. And that’s what every captain needs – a hardworking crew.’
    Chummy swallowed. She had entered a different world of morality and did not know how to respond. Kirsty must have read her thoughts because she patted her hand kindly.
    ‘There now. Don’t worry. You’re only a young girl, and I can see you come from a different class. But it’s all quite natural, and I’ve had a good life. I’ve travelled the world. Sometimes they can smuggle me ashore and I can have a look round the shops. I like that. I can buy a few pretty things, because Dad gives me money.
    ‘Don’t you do anything else – the cooking, or sewing, or something?’
    ‘Oh no.’ Kirsty squawked with laughter and slapped Chummy’s shoulder. ‘Don’t you think I have enough to do with a crew of twenty? Sometimes it’s one after another for hours on end. Do you think I could work after that? In any case, we have a ship’s cook. He is the one who gave me those green apples yesterday. Oh …’
    She doubled up with pain. Chummy felt the uterus; it was harder and more prominent. She had timed ten minutes since the last contraction. Labour was progressing.
    Chummy had other things to worry about than Kirsty’s position on the boat. She was alone, in the middle of the night, on board a ship with no telephone and with a woman in labour. Furthermore the woman was a primigravida of thirty-five, who had had no antenatal care. She should go to hospital at once. But how? In the unlikely event of an ambulance arriving, the woman would be in no condition to climb down the rope ladder! If a doctor was called, would he climb up the rope ladder? Chummy remembered her climb, and the missing rung, and knew that she could not expect anyone else to do it. She was alone, and a cold hand gripped her heart. But in the same instant a voice whispered to her that she was going to be a missionary, and that this was just God’s way of testing her. She prayed.
    The contraction passed, and a new, strengthened Chummy spoke.
    ‘You