Help! Help!
First impressions are most lasting. I still remember my first trip to
England which took place a great many years ago.
In the early morning we took a sea pilot from the pilot station situated across the
Southend-on-sea and proceeded
sailing along the River Thames toward Tilbury Docks, our place of destination
Soon a thick fog covered everything around us and the ship began blowing loud hoots every
two minutes. Suddenly I heard cows’ mooing on the port side. “Poor beasts, probably,
do not like traveling by sea and not feeling solid ground under their hooves”, I
thought.
At breakfast I told the seamen in the officers’ mess about my supposition concerning the
cows. The old sea wolves burst out laughing.
– How do you know they were cows? Maybe they were bulls? – they joked.
– He is a novice, don’t mock him, interceded the chief engineer, who explained that
those were special sounding buoys, imitating various sounds when visibility becomes poor.
A few years later I remembered that voyage once more and there was a good reason for it.
We were sailing along the coast of Denmark. It was about midnight and the weather was warm
and windless, but a little bit foggy. Some passengers were promenading in the night air.
They were mostly young couples who got acquainted on board the ship and were looking for a
cozy corner for cloistering themselves from stranger’s eyes.
Such warm nights were hated by Ahpanasy, the captain’s fire security mate, an
experienced and vigilant specialist – but at sea with English. He succeeded in learning
the only useful phrase for his occupation: “Please, refrain from smoking!” He repeated
those words, instead of greeting his friends with the usual “Good morning!”, and the
saying became a never-failing joke.
He used to pronounce those words when he saw hugging and kissing passengers, warning them
from throwing cigarette butts overboard, for they might set fire.
Once, going on the rounds when the whole ship and especially her aft was wrapped in
darkness, he came across a couple in a cosy corner. Aphanasy was taken aback seeing a girl
engaging in amorous excercises and shouted: “Refrain from smoking, please!”
But let us return to our trip. It was about 1 a.m. when I went to bed and soon was aroused
from my half sleep by a loud telephone ring.
– Come up to the bridge, immediately! I heard the second officer saying in an agitated
tone. – A passenger has fallen overboard!
When I appeared on the bridge I saw there not only sailors and officers on duty, but also
the captain and our fireman with two tourists – an Englishman and a Finnish girl, both
in their early twenties.
Aphanasy was patrolling the ship and saw the couple at the aft. He pronounced his famous
words, but the passengers were neither smoking nor making love. They were glad to see a
crew member and waved towards the dark water on the portside saying something to the
fireman. He did not understand much and decided to take them to the bridge.
– They noticed a man in the waves and thought he was a passenger from our ship. We have
changed course and are returning to the place where the watchful couple had seen a
drowning man or a woman, – narrated the captain. He asked me to go together with the
young people and ask them to show us the place were they were an hour ago.
We came to the aft. We then heard somebody cry: “Help!” three times in a husky voice.
“Sure, it was a man” – said the girl.
– Listen! There he is again! – exclaimed the gentleman.
Now I could hear the sound resembling a man’s voice and saw in the distance a dark round
object.
I cast my mind back and recollected my first voyage and how the seamen made a laughing
stock of me, when I told them about the cows’ mooing. Adversity is the best
schoolmaster.
I thanked the young people for their pain and explained to them the origin of the cry
“help”.
The captain also agreed with my conclusion, adding that the ship’s position was just at
the place where the vigilant tourists had observed a “drowning” man.
That was a happy ending to the incident.
By Evgeny Kunitsyn,
teacher of English at the
New University of Humanities
of Natalya Nesterova
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