When Life Gives You Flags

When Life Gives You Flags

The following morning, I rose from my bunk ultra-early to carry out my sunrise ritual as my shrewd plan that would revolve around it required a little preparation. I had to have a routine in place to pass on to Kavinda when I would hopefully meet him on the dockside, as we had arranged. For the first time in my life I was going to be delegating work and for me to do that my Sri Lankan subordinate would need a bit of training. The outcome of this would make the days better for both of us, if only for the remaining week or so that the ship was docked in Colombo. To get the ball rolling I had to find a safe and secret place to hide four full size flags overnight.

Normally I’d start my day with a climb up to the navigation bridge to make my selection from the locker that contained the flags of more than a hundred countries, plus a few that had maritime meanings for signalling purposes. My requirements were a Scottish Saltire for the bow of the ship, a Red Ensign for the stern, and for the highest point above the bridge, the shipping company’s flag and the national flag of Sri Lanka. Despite my lowly status within the on-board personnel, I was entrusted with all the necessary keys to enable me to do this. However, I couldn’t possibly let those keys get into the hands of someone who wasn’t on the crew list. I sensed that my newly acquired sidekick was trustworthy, and I sensed that the ship’s top brass sensed that I was trustworthy, but if anything had gone wrong and they found out that it was me who had given him access to the vessel’s inner sanctum, I’d have been significantly verbally abused and fed to the next available hammerhead. My plan was already a bit risky so letting Kavinda onto the bridge, where there were things far more valuable than flags to steal, exacerbated the riskiness. However, I couldn’t really imagine what he, or anybody, would have done with the likes of a marine chronometer or a sextant. The most indispensable removable item of kit up there, I found out as we set off across the Indian Ocean a few days later, was the kettle.

Winding my story back approximately twelve hours, I’d done a deal with another Sri Lankan gentleman port employee as he finished his work on deck. In exchange for his designer, Sirimavo Bandaranaike Flour Mill hessian sack in which he kept all his worldly goods, I offered him a large cardboard box that I’d filled with empty beer cans from the bin in the officer’s bar. Knowing that he’d be able to trade them in at the scrapyard by the dock gate at the going rate of five cans to the rupee, he gladly agreed, tucked his empty tea bottle and his trusty tomato tin into his ambudaya and handed over the bag.

It had obviously been in his possession for quite some time because it appeared almost spotless. As I turned it inside out to shake away the wheat dust that I’d expected to find, I saw only a few soft grains of rice that had escaped from his breakfast. And it was perfect for concealing the flags. Any other kind of packaging would have made my superiors suspicious but to see a flour mill worker walking along the foredeck with a flour mill bag in his hand would seem perfectly normal. Kavinda’s agreement to take part in my scheme would mean he would be carrying two bags, the other containing his food and work accessories, but who would notice? Suspicious parties would probably just put the additional baggage down to him being one of the more affluent undernourished little Sri Lankan dock labourers.

So before descending metal stairs and the gangway to meet my unsuspecting partner in crime on the quay, I stuffed the flags into the sack and then climbed the lifeboat davit that was level with the second deck. The area around it was a place where barely anybody had any need to go, especially at that unearthly hour, and by choosing the lifeboat on the starboard side of the ship which faced out towards the harbour and open sea beyond, it was unlikely that I or anybody else would be spotted. Constantly looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody was watching me, I loosened the rope that held the boat’s tarpaulin cover in place and stuffed the bag inside near to the tiller. Confident that we wouldn’t encounter heavy seas whilst in port, I left the rope only loosely tied so that my emblematic treasure could be removed again easily.

‘Today I am doing work for you Terry, sir!’ I was delighted that Kavinda had arrived promptly at our prearranged meeting place, that he was keen to get cracking on whatever task I had in store for him and that he had remembered to call me by my name, though he didn’t seem to be able to drop the ‘sir’ bit which made me uncomfortable.

The sun was only just beginning to offer a few of its rays to the eastern sky, making silhouettes of the battered old warehouses and the relatively well-appointed office building of the Colombo Port Commission where nine-to-five men in smart cotton suits or military style uniforms would sit at desks to dish out orders. In the half light, both appeared to display the same standard of upkeep. What Kavinda and I were doing was only slightly secretive and not at all illegal, so we didn’t worry too much as we climbed the gangway, stairways and a set of metal rungs that led us up to the flags’ hiding place. However, taking advantage of the semi-darkness we remained silent as we went as having to explain our actions might have been a bit tricky.

Undoing the knot in the securing rope and pulling back the lifeboat cover to remove the sack, I said, ‘I’ll make sure that this is here every morning at five-thirty for you to collect.’ Kavinda gave me the Indian side-to-side head bobble to indicate his understanding. Climbing several more flights of stairs to the navigation deck we flicked switches to extinguish lights en route. Then, on reaching the top deck, came the moment of truth; the first flag hoisting experience of Kavinda’s life. As I removed the first flag from the sack he realised immediately what my next action would be and visibly shook with excitement. I showed him exactly what to do as I held the nylon halyard, attaching its metal clips to corresponding clips on the flag, pulled at it until it until the flag would go no higher, and then secured it around the metal cleat attached to the bulkhead (or wall, for the benefit of mollycoddled landlubbers).

He was quick to learn and, taking the next flag, repeated the operation without need of further instruction. I explained that the first flag had been the standard of our shipping company, known across the globe as Scottish Ship Management of Glasgow. The second was the beautiful multi-coloured flag of Sri Lanka, but he was already well aware of that and his lip trembled accordingly with national pride as he hoisted it aloft.

Flicking more light switches along the way (there were around twenty in all), we descended to the poop deck to raise a Red Ensign (the flag adopted by the British Merchant Navy) on the pole at the ship’s stern. A couple of the ship’s older and wiser crew members seated on the flat tops of mooring line bollards to enjoy early morning cigarettes looked on, shared a whispered joke between themselves, coughed in unison and smiled before sparking up again. I held an index finger to my lips to indicate that it would be appreciated if they didn’t tell anybody what they had seen and they nodded in agreement. Then we set off on the 200 metre walk to the sharp end to hoist the Scottish Saltire up the foremast.

Decades before Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, by means of their roles in the wildly inaccurate Hollywood blockbuster, Titanic, had demonstrated to the cinema-going world the drama and romance of standing on a ship’s forecastle head, my not quite so romantic companion and I stood in a similar spot. He had already grasped the solemnity of the task that we were about to undertake and having already raised two flags to my one, he insisted that I take responsibility for the fourth and final one. Without much thought, I coupled the blue and white emblem to the halyard and started to pull, at which point Kavinda stood proud and tall (all four feet ten inches of him) with his back as straight as a rod whilst saluting and starting to sing God Save the Queen.

‘Shush!’ I said. ‘The Captain, the Chief Engineer and most of the crew are Scottish nationalists. They’ll go mental if they hear you.’    

‘But Terry, sir, what can I sing to show my respect to this wonderful vessel where I have found such kindness?’ I didn’t know any of the lyrics to Flower of Scotland back then so I opted for the Lewis Bridal Song. This quite stirring Caledonian anthem that began ‘Step a gaily on we go, heel for heel and toe for toe, etc.’ would be easy for him to pick up and contained no political references.   

I sang a sample and then he joined in for a reprise. As ‘Arm and arm and row and row, all for Mairi's wedding’ died out for the third time, he wiped a tear from his eye and stuttering slightly he told me, ‘Terry, sir, this is a very proud time for me and my family.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and laughed, then he laughed too. Walking back to the ship’s blunt end we watched the rising sun come into full view for the first time that day and a thought struck me of what an unforgettable experience this had been for both of us. Even Kate and Leo with all their slushy movie moments were never able to match it.

‘What is my next work?’ he asked me ten minutes later when we were back on dry land.

‘Tomorrow morning at five-thirty, you must do exactly the same thing, but on your own. Before I go to bed tonight I’ll make sure the flags are in the sack in the lifeboat.’

‘But today…’

‘Nothing else today Kavinda my friend. Maybe you can go and look for work with the cargo people.’

‘But you have already given me money.’

‘I’ll meet you here just before eight o’clock in the morning and if I can see four flags flying from masts and all the lights are turned out, I’ll give you some more money.’

‘You are very kind, Terry, sir. God bless the Scottish British.’ I hadn’t the heart or time to explain to him that due to complications at birth I identified as Irish, but it was an absolute joy to see him so happy. On top of that, I’d rectified the huge blunder I’d made the previous morning that had almost deprived him and his family of food. Meanwhile, the Captain holding a coffee mug of something that probably wasn’t coffee looked down on us from an upper deck. He didn’t shout at me. He didn’t react at all. I was sure that he knew what I’d been up to and that he’d done similar during his own early years as a seafarer. It was an important part of our profession to be able to develop good working relationships with local people in the ports that we visited, as he demonstrated on an almost nightly basis.

The other cadet, senior to me by two academic years, was happy too. It was his job each evening to take down and fold the flags and turn on all the ship’s lights. I suggested to him that instead of returning all the flags to the locker on the bridge, he could just leave them in my cabin. He obliged willingly and unknowingly.

Around a week later the ship sailed for South Australia where we’d load another cargo of poverty relief grain. Every morning until our departure, Kavinda carried out his flags and lights duty to perfection and I was more than happy to hand over to him as many rupees as he was likely to earn elsewhere during the remainder of each day. His payment from me amounted to approximately one tenth of my own daily wage. We were both more than happy with the arrangement and we didn’t broach at all the subject of tax deductions or pension scheme contributions.

There was sadness for both of us when the time came to say goodbye. It was a strange sort of sadness that I had never known before, but the Baron Maclay returned to Colombo a couple of months later with me still on it, so we did meet again. I remained on the ship for six months in total, eventually flying home from Djibouti on the Horn of Africa for a few weeks’ shore leave at my parents’ home in Leeds. In my time on that first ship, I felt I’d aged mentally by a year for every month I’d been away from home. It was by no means an easy time of my life but I still look back on it with great fondness. I’ve often hoped that life got easier for Kavinda, but I doubt that it did.

Image:

The M.V. Baron Maclay, the ship on which I did my first trip as a Merchant Navy Navigating Officer Cadet. This is a copy of a real photograph that I acquired whilst living and working on the ship in 1976 and 1977. Strictly speaking it’s not my own picture but, as the shipping company ceased to exist in 1986, it’s highly unlikely that there’ll be any copyright issues.

Song Lyrics:

The Lewis Bridal Song is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported Licence which apparently makes me free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work.

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