Page 20 - Demo

28companied by a fiddle and a chap on the spoons. As each song ended,they all just looked at us and so we sung something back. By the end of the evening, we were all great friends and very drunk. We promised to wave at them the next day as we went down river and set off back to our ship. Unfortunately, the tide had turned, and this took about an hour. During that time the boson noticed that there was a fair bit of water in the bilges and so he started pumping the bilge pump. Someone put the end of the outlet hose down the back of his neck and so he spent the time pumping water from the bilges down his neck in a loop. He was so drunk that he didn%u2019t realise what was going on although the next day he complained that all his clothes were wet but could not understand why. When we got back to the ship there were lots of people running around including a lot of police. We brought the lifeboat alongside and winched it up only to find it was the wrong way round. We lowered it down, drove it round and tried again with the same result. The third time we got it right. Nobody appeared to have taken much notice of us while this was going on. In retrospect I think they realised we were so drunk that were best left alone. What later transpired was that as we approached our ship someone shot at us. They could of course just have fired in the air, but the police were taking no chances. In the morning when we left everyone was ordered below and told to keep clear of the portholes. Only the officer of the watch and the very nervous lad who was helmsman for the day was allowed on deck. And so, as we passed our pub of the night before the people who had gathered to wave us out so a sort of ghost ship sail past. In fact, we waved frantically at the portholes and so I hope they did not think us rude. I didn%u2019t have much money and the first voyage had cost me %u00a36. The fee was %u00a316 but the college gave me a %u00a310 grant. I had assumed that I would have to pay %u00a316 at the end of the voyage and so most of the time I just drove the lifeboat to take people ashore without landing myself. In fact, when I went to pay the captain said I was crew so there was no charge.