Read Online S.O.S. by Joseph Connolly - Free Book Online Page B

be
nice
…
    â€˜Chock-a-
block
,’ continued Nobby, quite chattily, ‘is actually a nautical term, I don’t know if you’re aware? Oh yes. ‘Block’, you know, is a seaman’s term for a pulley – a pulley, yes? Up and down? While ‘chock’, you see, is the term employed when, as it were, rendering it solid. So when two, so to say, pulley blocks have been hoisted right up to the point where no further purchase may be directly obtained, we reach a stage where we are in a very literal sense, full to capacity, if you follow. Chock-a-block. Interesting.’
    Aggie nodded wildly. ‘Nobby knows all the terms,’ she assured them. ‘Ask him anything. Really knows the ropes. I’m Aggie, by the way, and this is my husband Nobby.’ And then she snapped to attention and saluted. ‘Safe passage, shipmates!’
    â€˜Nobby …’ repeated Jennifer, very slowly – and she could have been either held, or drifting. ‘I’m, er – Jennifer – this is Stacy.’
    â€˜Charmed,’ said Nobby. ‘And a little while back there when my trusty Captain advised you that I ‘know the ropes’, yes? You recall? This term in fact dates back to the days when the rigging on one of the larger sailing vessels could comprise, oh – quite literally miles of rope, you know.’
    â€˜Really?’ put in Stacy, quickly (Jennifer had that look in her eye).
    â€˜Quite literally
miles
of rope,’ Nobby assured her. ‘Well of course it was often vital that each and every one should be identified correctly and at considerable speed, this much is plain, and therefore an old ‘hand’ – crewman, yes? An old ‘salt’ – same thing – was said to, and here it comes: know the
ropes
. Fascinating, isn’t it?’
    â€˜It’s …’ Jennifer managed. Maybe she was going to say more – possibly here was just the sum total. Either way, Aggie was talking, now:
    â€˜That’s what
we
are, really, at this game, now. Old hands. We just love this ship, don’t we Nobby?’
    â€˜Love her.’
    â€˜How many times we’ve sailed on her, Nobby?’
    â€˜This crossing will comprise our seventeenth voyage on this particular liner – which is, in my humble opinion, the very finest.
QE2
also, of course – very fine ship. They’re building a new
Queen Mary
, you know, and needless to say we’ve booked up for the maiden voyage, have we not, love? About two years, they reckon. But there’ll never be anything quite like the
Transylvania
. Very special place in our affections.’
    â€˜Really?’ threw in Stacy, again.
    The queue was edging forward, which was something. Jennifer could be about to laugh in the man’s face, or possibly occasion him physical damage (Nobby’s sort of language, I can only think – thought Stacy – is catching, maybe?).
    Aggie chortled conspiratorially. ‘We’ve got a nickname for her, haven’t we, Nobby?’
    Nobby smiled his secret smile, while nodding with pride. ‘Our own little nickname, yes. Know what it is?’
    â€˜Well of
course
we don’t …’ snapped Jennifer.
    â€˜What is it?’ put in Stacy – but she needn’t, apparently, have worried: both Nobby and Aggie seemed quite unperturbed – were beaming, indeed, in tandem, as if newly beatified.
    â€˜You tell them, love,’ offered Nobby, with great magnanimity.
    â€˜Oh no
you
, Nobby –
you
. Your invention, after all.’ And she trained her struck-wide-open eyes on Jennifer and Stacy in turn. ‘It is, you know: all his own invention.’
    Nobby cast down his eyes, as if to deflect the wilderapplause. ‘Just came to me one day on Quarter Deck, as I gazed at her aft.
Sylvie
, I said. Just like that. And she’s been Sylvie to us ever