Date: Sun, 10 Mar 2019 18:25:45 +0000 (UTC) From: Peter Brown Subject: Queen Mary Bell Boys Chapter 134 Queen Mary Bell-boys by badboi666 =============================================================================== If sex with boys isn't your thing, go away. If, as is much more likely, you've come to this site precisely to get your rocks off reading about sex with 14-year-olds then make yourself comfortable - you're in the right place. Don't leave, however, without doing this: Donate to Nifty - these buggers may do it for love but they still have to eat. http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html =============================================================================== Chapter 134 Once Slim had left us Prince no longer had any role. There was no reason to suppose that a black crew member would need to be assigned to the senior officers to maintain good race relations - he had been the right person in the right place at the right time, but the role was never reprised. The night after we unloaded and the ship was eerily empty after having been so full we were in the canteen - ours again for a few days - unwinding. "What will you do now?" asked Charlie. Prince said he had no idea. I said that he ought to think fast, because if he didn't approach one of the ship's officers he might well be kicked out and have to join the Australian Army. I was only half joking. Much useful information was offered about the various parts of the ship's operation that the rest of us knew something about. The only one definitely ruled out was running the brothel. After three or four beers the wireless room had been ruled out, as had the Bridge. Neither needed any more apprentices. That left the engine room and the galley. Prince didn't really fancy either, but when Graham pointed out that he was bloody lucky to be able to choose at all, remembering what service life would be like if he wasn't on Queen Mary, he smiled. "Yeah. I suppose the galley's less likely to kill me - at least it's above the water line." In the light of what was to happen this was somewhat ironic. The next morning I took him with me to the galley and we bearded Ryan. Agreement was quickly reached and I was detailed to spend the few days before we sailed again teaching Prince everything I knew about preparing, serving and cleaning up. "The next sailing will have damn few people on board, Patrick, so you've probably got a few weeks to get him up to speed. Can you cook, Prince?" Prince admitted that cooking was a skill that had passed him by. "Cleaning up, then. You might as well start at the bottom," and Ryan gave that bottom, into which he had been on innumerable occasions, a gently squeeze. ***** On that fateful July crossing 16 months later we witnessed the appalling overcrowding in different ways. Tim and Graham down in the engine room noticed little difference: the weight of the extra passengers and cargo had little effect down below, whereas on the Bridge the ship was noticeably slower to respond to changes of speed or course that Sam was used to. Nigel saw little change in the wireless room as we sailed in radio silence, listening but rarely transmitting. Charlie and I were worked to a frazzle catering for far more hungry mouths that we'd done before. My duty in the Officers' Dining Room had come to an end after only 6 weeks - it was hugely lucky that my being there had coincided with Slim's. Javid was hauled out of the catering back room to help with getting the food onto the soldiers' plates. By that crossing Prince was told to fit in and do whatever needed to be done. The catering operation had been pretty efficient when we were feeding only around 10,000, but it very quickly became apparent that we were going to have to work incredibly long hours to feed half as many again. They were down to two meals a day - breakfast and the other meal - we didn't care what they called it. The ones who had breakfast at 0600 got the other meal at around 1400 and probably thought of it as lunch. The guys at the tail of the donkey got breakfast - or lunch, if you like - at 1300 and dinner, or supper, or whatever, at 2100. We had less than an hour to switch from one meal to the other in the middle of the day, and about seven hours to clean up the whole shooting match before breakfast began again. We had two full watches working, of twelve hours each - 0130 to 1330 and 1330 to 0130. As we had on every voyage since the first one with Slim we kept a look-out for any of the boys we'd known in Kingston, but lightning never struck, not then anyway. I made sure I was serving as often as I could, and although I saw no faces I knew I saw a large number - a very large number - of faces which in different circumstances I'd have wanted to get to know better. Early on after the Slim voyage the eight of us had agreed that however much we fancied one of the GIs they were all strictly off limits - the risks were far too great. As Sam put it, "wank over the thought of them if you want, but not over the boy himself." I'm certain though that if Cy, or Abe, or any of the others had presented himself in the line for food I'd have found a way to break my own rule. But it didn't happen. Queen Mary did not carry Cy, Abe, Jakey, Esau or Harry to war. The first few days were uneventful - just bloody hard unending work. Charlie and I were on different watches, so we slept at different times. This hadn't happened before, and wouldn't happen again as we never carried anything like that number, so it was a strange new thing for both of us. Apart from the times before the War when I'd been recruiting, and in Philadelphia with Sir and Prince, we'd never slept apart since the first time we slept together. Luckily we were both so dog-tired that I think we'd have slept anywhere. On the fourth day it began to blow. And the weather got steadily worse. Sam told those of us off watch that we were heading for the deepest depression anyone on the Bridge could remember. In peacetime, of course, we'd have altered course to avoid the worst of a storm like that - after that first bad one on 1936 we'd learned that passenger comfort is more important that a record-breaking crossing - but in the War we had laid down course changes - zigzagging to confuse U-boats - and couldn't deviate from them. "It'll be a real bitch tonight and worse tomorrow," he said cheerfully. None of us was too bothered - we were all excellent sailors by then - but we were concerned about what effect this would have on the GIs. "At least there'll be fewer of them wanting to eat," said Charlie, looking forward to preparing fewer meals and having a more restful day. Very early in our troop-carrying it had been made very clear to the troops' officers that cleaning up vomit was a task we expected Uncle Sam to do for himself, although buckets and mops were provided. Luckily therefore there was no expected downstream extra work in the cleaning up department - not for us anyway. We turned in for the night, the ship beginning to bucket as she always did in a big sea. "Tie yourself down, Patrick, if Charlie's not there to wedge you in," said Tim cheerfully from across the cabin, securely held in place by the strong arms of his weather adviser. I was in bed for only a couple of hours as I had to go on watch at 0130. Getting up to the galley was quite a problem as the ship was rolling and pitching - a combination that we were used to, but which experience taught me that most passengers would find nauseating. The handrails so blithely ignored by the naval architects were vital that night, and I found myself hauling myself along the crew corridors and up the companion ways. It took a lot longer than it usually did. When I got there I found a scene very different from the one I'd left 12 hours earlier. There were a lot of broken plates on the deck and everyone was busily cramming as many of the remaining ones into cupboards - anywhere they could find. "This is going to get worse," someone said, "so grab something - anything - and find a place to stow it." I started to do what I could, but we were all just getting in each other's way. I saw Charlie and made my way over to him - even that took time as there wasn't much to hold on to. "The good news is we'll have far fewer to feed if this goes on," he said. The senior chef had decided not to cook anything until he saw how many turned up at 0600. "He reckons there'll be under 100, and we can whip up something for that many in no time. 'Plenty of hot coffee while they wait,' he said," said Charlie. "If she gets livelier than this it'll be a lot less than 100," I said. The two of us went on stowing while a few others got brooms and swept up the debris. By 0230 things were pretty much back to normal - provided you ignored the fact that nothing was in its right place and Queen Mary was doing the best imitation of a roller coaster than any of us had experienced. The senior chef bellowed for quiet. "Thanks, lads. The ship may turn over but at least we won't break any more of Cunard's crockery. Who wants a coffee?" Rather to my surprise virtually everyone - both shifts were on duty - stayed behind and most of us sat on the deck with our backs to a wall or a serving island with half-full mugs of coffee. I asked Charlie if he was going to bed. "Yes, I've been on for 13 hours with only a short break. I'm whacked. Don't suppose I'll sleep though, what with all this." I told him that Tim and Sam seemed to have tied themselves in for the duration. "Don't be daft," he said, "they'll have to be on watch from early morning. This is going to last all day and get worse. I don't envy Tim down in the engine room. If I slip here the worst than can happen is I cannon into a hard object. Down there there's all sorts of hot things flying about, pistons and suchlike. Nasty." I hadn't really thought about that kind of danger before. We'd all become inured to the idea of a torpedo slamming into us, and the longer it didn't happen the less worried we were. But danger on the ship herself was a new and unwelcome thing. The idea that Tim might be crushed if ... no, don't think about it, Patrick. Think about warm Charlie right next to you. I took his hand - they all knew we were lovers by then - and held it. "Are you scared, Patrick Mulloy?" "Yes," I said, "not of the sea, but of what I'd do if anything happened to you." "It won't," said Charlie, squeezing my hand, "and if it did it'd happen to you as well, so it won't matter." He finished his coffee, and - he hadn't done it publicly before - gently kissed me. "That's for if we sink in the night." We both grinned and he staggered off to make the hazardous journey down to the cabin. In the ordinary way the duty shift, instead of sitting on the deck drinking coffee, would have been split into three groups - one preparing the breakfast food to start cooking it at 0500, one larger group beginning the never-ending task of preparing the main meal for the first slug of 8,000-odd hungry GIs, feeding potatoes into the peeling machines, chopping vegetables, cutting meat: boring repetitive tasks a million miles from anything resembling 'cooking'. A smaller third group was there to 'make itself useful' in the senior chef's words, doing whatever looked as though it needed doing. So accustomed were we to this routine that we were all rather at a loss that night. There wasn't anything to do. The sea got bigger and the motion got worse. We stayed put, more coffee appearing from time to time. I got up to have a piss in the crew bogs behind the galley. Getting there wasn't easy. When I went in I found an unexpected scene. There was a pissing trough with room for four at a pinch and two cubicles. Usually you were in and out as fast as you could, spending more time washing your hands that on whatever activity had caused them to need washing. That night - for the first time since I'd been working in the galley - I found a couple of my fellow sailors busy in one of the cubicles. The door wasn't bolted so I could see all that was going on. Noisy oral sex was taking place, and was about to reach a culmination. One of them - Paul - was sitting on the bog with his eyes shut, his trousers at his ankles. The other (Henry), his face busy at work, was kneeling with his trousers nowhere to be seen. A sexy pair of buttocks presented themselves to me. I had entered the bog with no plan other than to piss, but seeing buttocks I decided I could postpone my primary purpose briefly. I knelt behind the buttocks and caressed them, allowing a finger to explore, as you do. The buttocks didn't flinch, but parted slightly. I interpreted that as an invitation to double the number of fingers I was deploying. The buttocks wriggled. Oh well, I thought, and in went a finger - just the one (I didn't wish to presume). Paul opened his eyes, sensing a change in the dynamic, and gave me a welcoming smile. "Hi, Patrick, joining in?" Henry ignored this, but at least he now knew who was attacking his prostate. Time was pressing for all of us, and this 3-way session was probably like millions of others in air-raid shelters or other conveniently dark intimate places in those years. Orgasm was the only thing that mattered - emotion was wholly absent. Paul jerked forward as his cock poured spunk into Henry's mouth. As I saw this I shoved a second finger in and gave Henry's prostate the green light. Henry hadn't planned coming in that position - perhaps they were going to swop after Paul had come - so when his cock squirted it did so into Paul's trousers, pooled at his ankles. Henry stood up to observe the result. "You're gonna love this Paulie, your trousers are full of my spunk, look!" Paulie looked and, rather to my surprise, seemed not displeased. He pulled them up and squished the cummy mess round his balls. "Yummy. Now, why are you here, Patrick? You didn't come all this way just for a piss, surely? I'm feeling peckish - would you like to give me something to keep me going?" He got his protein. I had my piss in the trough. "What a pity!" said Paulie, "I'd have liked that too." "Another day," I said, "now be sure to wash your hands before leaving." Paulie smiled. "I envy Charlie, young Patrick. You're quite sweet." At 0555 I was told to go and see what was happening outside the galley door. I found about 40 GIs instead of the usual several hundred. I led them in and said that because of the weather we hadn't started to cook until we knew whether anyone would turn up. Someone brought an urn of coffee and put it on a table. "Patrick, stay holding it, will you." Mugs appeared and they came staggering up, holding onto whatever they could, and got coffee. "Only half full, " I said, "you can always come back for more." Breakfast began to appear within 15 minutes and we spent the next couple of hours feeding people at a slower rate than we had in peacetime. A few officers came in to see what the arrangements were, and it was then we discovered just how awful the conditions were for the GIs. There had been a lot of injuries including several broken arms, and getting treatment had been a nightmare. The ship's motion was bad enough, but the decks where the GIs were sleeping (although damn few were doing that) were slippery with vomit and cleaning up was virtually impossible. In the circumstances I thought we'd done well to have the few dozen well enough to face a cooked breakfast that we had. Throughout the morning things got worse. The ship was rolling 30 degrees and more, and at that point we gave up trying to feed, or even to go on preparing. The senior chef called a halt. "Clear them out, we're locking down until this stops," he bellowed. We were all told to put everything that could move into a container of any kind. "I don't care what it is. Drawer, locker, cupboard. Put things in an oven if there's nowhere else. Once this is over we won't find too many wanting fed for a good few hours." 20 minutes saw the galley virtually bereft of anything that wasn't bolted down. "You can go below if you want, so long as there's a dozen of you here." I decided to stay - getting all the way down to the cabin would have been a nightmare and there was plenty to hold on to where I was. 30 degrees was about as bad as I remembered. The 1936 storm hadn't been that bad, but without handrails it had been a bloody sight more dangerous. I sat down in a corner and waited, confident that John Brown's had done a good job. Then, unexpectedly, Charlie appeared, white-faced. I saw him come in and look around amazed at the change. I called to him, "down here," and he staggered over. "This is the worst by a long way," he said as he slumped down next to me. "Why are you up here?" "When Tim and Sam went on watch I started to roll about. After you'd gone and it got worse we pushed the beds together and the three of us were wrapped in, but when it was just me ... well, I was scared if you must know." "And now that you're here with big strong me you aren't scared any more," I said, "but now you're here I'm not scared either so -" At that point the ship rolled more than she'd been doing, well over the 30 degrees we'd been used to for hours ... she kept on going ... things started to move, things that were supposed to be fixed ... lockers flew open ... plates, pans, knives, food all cascaded across the galley towards us ... we huddled together flat to the floor - was it the floor or the wall? ... still she rolled ... we held onto each other ... we're going to die ... Charlie, I love you ...and then, thank God, she gave a huge fucking shudder and ... started to roll back ... we were staring into each other's eyes ... we hadn't died ... nothing had hit us ... she rolled the other way but ... nothing like as far ... we embraced like two souls who hadn't seen each other for centuries ... we were alive! ... oh Charlie, Charlie, Charlie ... =============================================================================== The fun continues in Chapter 135 as we find out what happened. The episode is described at https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/wwii/voyages-to-victory-rms-queen-marys-war-service/ The photographs in Queen Mary 2 are real. I saw them while making a transatlantic crossing in 2017, and the boy I describe as "me" is really cute. I'm sure he had adventures ... I will be reacquainting myself with these pictures in Queen Mary 2 when I make another pair of Atlantic crossings in April. There will be a three-week pause in the wartime adventures of our eight friends - or perhaps their post-war escapades: who knows how quickly the story will develop. Drop me a line at badboi666@btinternet.com - that is after you've dropped nifty a few quid. =============================================================================