MY WINNING STREAK & LUCKILY MY LOSING ONE
As Remembered By Bill Julian, Royal Signals Fayid
I was just one of Draft DGBBS when I sailed from Liverpool in the Empress of Australia on the 24th of February 1950. The band on the quayside was playing ‘Now Is The Hour’ and a waving crowd was singing along with it as the ship’s propellers churned the muddy waters of the River Mersey into white foam as she nosed her way into the thick mist blanketing it. Her hooter responded to the crowd with three loud blasts. We were on our way to Gibraltar, Malta, Greece, Cyprus and finally Egypt.
Days later Britain’s dismal weather was behind us. Regular card schools formed upon her open decks. Patrolling redcaps frequently broke them up but once they passed by they were always re-formed. I joined them, and fairly early in the voyage got so lucky that at one time I had over £12 in my pocket. This was the most money I had ever owned. But my good fortune did not last. When the time eventually came to land at Port Said it was with a single tanner in my pocket.
Yet it was aboard the Empress, because of the cards, that I witnessed one of the most memorable experiences of my life. It began off the Moroccan coast when as we could find nothing more exciting to do than study the distant peaks of the Atlas Mountains someone suggested a game of Brag. We returned to our mess table on E Deck, and as we were all short of cash but flush with duty-free cigarettes decided to use those. We were still playing after Officers Rounds. And after the ship’s bugler played Lights Out over the tannoy system we continued in the dim glow of the blue emergency lights. By then stacks of colourful packs had risen high on the scrubbed mess table below the swaying hammocks of snoring squaddies.
The pile of State Express, Peter Jackson, Woodbine, Players and Gold Flake cigarettes in front of me mounted until I had over eight hundred. I should have quit then. But being greedy I decided to stay in until I reached the magical one thousand.
Before dawn my lucky streak was over. My piece of table was bare. I had no choice but to announce that I was out. Each of the remaining players tossed me a packet of twenty. I could not use them to buy myself back into the game. That was one of the unwritten rules. Heavy-eyed, I climbed up the deserted stairwells and made my way onto the open deck where a fresh wind quickly revived me. The crew canteen was open, and from it I bought a mug of cocoa for pennies then found a sheltered spot to sip it while enjoying a smoke.
A ship was anchored not far from us. She was aglow with lights from stem to stern. The strains of a Victor Sylvester number was borne across the water on the wind. On her floodlit deck I could just make out men in dinner suits and women in long dresses. Later I learned that she was probably a casino ship moored outside the three mile limit. Torn with homesickness by the sound of the music I turned away. Then I noticed the first streaks of dawn lightening the sky. They grew brighter, and as the sun’s rays lengthened the most magnificent sight I had ever witness rose out of the sea before me. It was the Rock of Gibraltar, magnificent in its enormity, breathtaking and awe-inspiring as it was first seen by me.
For a lad who had never traveled further than Yorkshire words could not describe the majesty of the sight I saw that morning as I viewed it at what must have been its very best with the rising sun providing the perfect backdrop.
How fortunate I was that my winning streak had not continued. While others
slept and gambled I had been witness to a sight far more worthy than the cigarettes
the fickle pasteboards had stolen from my grasp.
FIRST THE CIGGIES – NOW A ‘BOOZE CRUISE’!!
We were only a couple of days out of Liverpool aboard the Empress of Australia bound for Egypt in February 1951 when we sailed into seas so rough that the open decks were put 'out of bounds'. Although the weather had abated a little by the following morning the majority of squaddies sharing my mess deck were ashen-faced seasick wrecks. When the Orderly Sergeant surveyed us during his Morning Rounds he detailed myself and about eight others who had also been spared the horror and indignity of mal de mer to a job of work that soon made us the envy of others on our draft.
On the Promenade Deck there was a cabin passengers bar which was used by officers and service families. For these more fortunate seafarers every night was party night with drinks at duty free prices. And how they took advantage of it! They would drink the bar almost dry and the following morning it had to be replenished from the bonded stores on G Deck. We were the ones detailed to carry the empty bottles down and the full ones back. Although a few tried it, there was no way you could get away with nicking full bottles for the bar stewards checked every crate as we delivered it.
But the empties we carried down were a different matter. Most of the bottles had contained spirits, liqueurs or wine. Often there was a quarter inch or more left in the bottom of them. This we emptied into small screw-top bottles secreted within our tunics. There was plenty of opportunity for this as our journey took us through seven decks. The duty usually involved four trips and lasted little longer than an hour. At the end of it we each possessed around half a pint of a more lethal cocktail than even the best versed barman could have ever dreamed up. And on no two days did it taste the same.
Once our chores were completed we relaxed upon the forward hatch sipping at our bottles and enjoying the luxury of cheap fags. But when we were well into the Med’ I used to save mine until after tiffin when I savoured it under the afternoon sun while marvelling at the sight of the school of porpoises which always accompanied us and the shoals of flying fish.
I still look back on the time upon that troopship as my first ocean-going cruise.
Although I have cruised many times since, sometimes all-inclusive where the
drinks were virtually free, none have ever been savoured with quite the same
relish as those very unique Empress of Australia cocktails of the day.