Green Smarties

However, I still had vivid memories of a similar party on board a ship a few years before. An impromptu party such as the one I was about to embark on was commonly known as a ‘ClutchEx’. I later discovered this was naval shorthand for ‘clutching exercise’. It stood for dim lighting, close dancing, heavy breathing and a struggle to keep clothing in place.

On that previous occasion, I had been invited by an engineer officer from a training ship which had visited the bay. He had suggested I bring some of my friends back the following day. It was the early sixties, and innocence was still around. So most of us were like lambs to the slaughter – all except Lynda that is. She and I had been friends since school. She was very tall, had been to art school and was now training as an actress and was a force to be reckoned with. Having trodden the boards on stage a few times already, treading the boards of a naval vessel to her was a piece of cake.

Most of us though were from the Royal Victoria Hospital where I had been working at the time, and feeling responsible for their well being, I would occasionally count my friends like a mother duck continually checks her number of chicks. It was then that I realised Lynda was missing.

‘Do you think she’s OK?’ I asked my escort anxiously.

‘She’s fine’ he said breathing down my neck as the Beatles song ‘Love Love Me Do’ blared out at full volume ‘After all, she’s with the captain.’

Some considerable time later, Lynda and the captain returned to the wardroom. Lynda looked cool and relaxed, but the captain was flushed and dishevelled – his eyes darted about anxiously as though he had been traumatised.

‘You OK?’ I asked her.

‘Don’t worry about me,’ she replied in a hoarse whisper ‘I’m fine – he’s a bit shaken up though. Took me to his cabin but I managed to stay out of his clutches by diverting his attention.’

‘How?’ I asked.

‘Easy’ she said. ‘Every time I was getting in a tight spot, I just reached towards a button or handle and said and what does this one do?  He would then panic and shout don’t touch that’. Then she paused before adding ‘He was particularly upset about the red ones.’

‘Maybe they were nuclear missiles’ I suggested helpfully.