Luxury Liners
pp. 38-39 · Read in the full issue
A Pacific Islands Nightmare
OF course, I know that shipping com 'panies have their worries; and I’m not the type to complain unduly; but when they advertise their ships as “luxury” ships—well, that is when I be gin to sneer.
I admit that they do a little for the comfort of passengers, and that sort of thing. One company even announced that they intended to improve their services (a long time ago). If they want any help, I can think of a few improvements, my self.
Port-holes that would open and shut would be one of them. Yes, I know it sounds startling, but travellers would soon get used to it.
Why not have two Captains to every ship? When the people in the adjacent cabin complained to one of them, be cause your friends kept them awake all night with a bottle party—“and when James and Muriel were so frightfully sick, too, Captain”—then you could go and complain to the other one.
“Say, look here, Captain”, you would say, “I don’t know what this service is coming to; but, really, if people must have these confounded noisy sicknesses, they might at least have some consider ation for others who are trying to have a quiet little bottle party.”
Then he could go and tell them off, just as the other told you off, and every one would be quits, with no favouritism.
Another thing. I would sack all those sailors who never seem to have anything to do, between 1 a.m. and 3 a.m., but go around folding up deck-chairs. No matter what corner you creep into, there always is one of them snooping about. You can’t go to her cabin, because her mother is a light sleeper, and yours is out of it, because your cabin-mate is a misogynist; and the darned ship is lit up like noon time all over, except the top deck. And when you sneak up there, you find those blasted chair-folders!
And how about manning some of these Islands vessels with ladies? All right, smart Aleck, you know what I mean. We have business women, and women cricketers, footballers, politicians, lawyers and what nots. But has ANY shipping company ever done anything about giving us a crew of women sailors? Not they!
Think of the happiness of the poor plantation overseers, when they found that the feminine passenger-list was made up of grandmas and marrieds (as it always is) and they could visit the crew’s quarters.
“How about coming ashore for an hour or two, klddo?” you would say to a snappy young deck-hand.
“Sorray, Bo—can’t possibly make it”, would be her reply. “You see, I’m on ballet duty at seven, on the after hatch.
But if you stick around about eightlsh, I’ll meet you somewhere and teach you to splice.”
Well—it might not exactly be luxury, but you must admit it would not be hard ship, even if you didn’t really want to learn splicing.
There is another thing those shipping companies should wake up to—those musicians. They seem to think that a musician’s job is to supply music. That is not what I should call luxury, in these days of radio and gramophones. In my ideal ship there would be hundreds of musicians—real musicians. They would
come out on warm tropical nights dressed in a misty white veil, strumming softly on guitars and ukeleles. Decks would be il luminated by the moon and stars only; and around those decks they would wander, looking for lonely passengers. As soon as they saw one, a few would sit at his feet, crooning sweet songs, whilst one of them plucked grapes from her bunch and, with graceful swaying move ments, would deftly introduce them be tween his smiling teeth. Others would prop him up with cushions of softest silk, and the sweetest of them would kneel beside him and listen to the story of his mis-spent life. The other musicians, be ing perfectly trained, would disappear at a gesture. Oh, boy! That is what I’d call luxury!
I could think of a lot of improvements, if I were encouraged—little things, like boot-stewards who would really polish your boots, and buzzers that would really buzz, and a bar that wouldn’t be always shut when your tongue was clinging to the roof of your mouth. And —how about it, you Islands people?—a ship might pull in for a night, sometime, with dancing deck where the floor was half a cut ahead of a coral reef and the M.C. had taken the trouble to buy a couple of new re cords down South. Would you call that luxury!
Just imagine that the Captain came along and said: “Well, my friends, I know you see each other only at steamer time, and your steamer comes only every so often, and as I don’t have to get into before daylight, I’ve decided to put off sailing till one or two o’clock in the morn ing. which will allow me plenty of time.
So go ahead, friends —have a dance, and enjoy yourselves, and the bar won’t shut till you leave,”
It would be terrible! His hospital would be full of mental cases —loons who just stared vacantly in front of them and mumbled “Yah Gah” when spoken to — as is the custom of all unfortunate people who have their minds unbalanced by great shocks. Probably, even tough old planters would collapse and copra pro duction would suffer.
Yes, those luxury ships could be too
luxurious.-