Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2019 19:04:01 +0000 (UTC) From: Peter Brown Subject: Queen Mary Bell Boys Chapter 139 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 139 Charlie and I had been running the restaurant in Aylesbury since the mid 1950s. We'd decided we wanted to be in the restaurant business while we were still on Queen Mary, and in the years since then we'd been in a variety of places, learning how it was done and - in two places - learning very swiftly how it was not done. We bought our own place in 1955 - I was 33, he 35. It was time to settle down. We had kept in touch with Sir (or James as we'd been calling him for donkey's years) and some of our colleagues after the War, mainly by exchanging Christmas cards. We saw Tim and Sam regularly, and the others whose addresses we had we saw occasionally. Charlie, were he looking over my shoulder, would have wanted me to be more specific. OK, Charlie, I'll do better. We saw Javid and Nigel about five years ago when we went to Chicago, and George three years ago when he came to spend a weekend with us. Apart from that we haven't really kept in contact. There, Charlie, happy now? It was therefore a surprise to get a letter from Sir in April 1965. I read it to Charlie. "Dear Patrick and Charlie, "I know you keep in touch with your former colleagues, and I'm hoping you will be able to help me. I've been tipped the wink that Queen Mary is to make her last crossing - indeed it will be more than just another crossing - in autumn 1967. She will finish her days preserved - thank God! - in California. I think the plan is to keep her as a floating luxury hotel. This is all very hush-hush, by the way - Cunard are keeping it a big secret. They have told me and the other officers from before the War. There will be 80 free trips for former crew members on the last voyage, and this is where you come in. If you can round up all of the ones who served in our gang there's a place for each of them. You're younger and more inventive than I am, so I'm turning this over to you, as I've turned so much over to you before, my dears. "My love to you both, as always. "James" "That'll keep you busy," said Charlie, "it'll give you something to do while I keep the wolf from the door." He went to get another coffee for us both and I got a large piece of paper. When the coffee arrived I had made two lists. There were 18 names altogether. "Do you think he wants to include any of the original 12 who weren't part of the ring?" I said. "No, he's clear. He says 'served in our gang'. He doesn't say 'bell boys'. Cross them off. Some of them would have been crossed off anyway, but I wanted to start with as full a list as I could. "Let's see what you've written." I passed him the list. Original gang The other 6 from 1936 The 1938 gang Alan Chris George Andrew Dave Graham Charlie Harry Javid Patrick Peter Nigel Sam Roger Prince Tim Stewart Vincent "I agree we can't invite Chris's lot, but it might be fun to try to see whether we could all have a get-together, nothing to do with James's invitation." I said. "You'll have your work cut out," said Charlie, "let's see. We know about five of them." "No, we've seen five of them in the last few years, but we know about quite a few more, don't we." I took the list back and wrote it out again in a different way. "Here," I said. Alan killed on HMS Hood 1941 Andrew killed on HMS Eclipse 1943 Charlie ) living together in Aylesbury Patrick ) Sam ) living together in York Tim ) Chris ? Dave ? Harry ? Peter ? Roger ? Stewart ? George living in Canterbury Graham ? Javid ) living together in Chicago Nigel ) Prince last heard planning to return to Nigeria 1960? Vincent died, but don't know when "That's a lot of questions, Patrick. Where do you want to start?" "Nigel's bound to know what Graham's up to, so I can write to them. The 1936 lot will be a lot harder, but you know how I like a challenge." "I do, love, I do." ***** A month later I was a lot further forward. Nigel had written back by return. Since we'd stayed with them in 1960 they'd moved out of the city as Javid's business had grown. Nigel was still commuting into the Loop each day to the Stock Exchange. It was a far cry from those days on their backs in Queen Mary. He was surprised that we didn't know about Graham. He and Prince were still together. Prince had returned to Nigeria when that country became independent in 1960, hoping as he had put it, to 'make a difference'. After the War he and Graham had used their wits to set about getting themselves proper qualifications, and after some months of trying various things Prince had settled on learning something about agriculture, and specifically agriculture in Africa, while Graham had decided to train as a science teacher. They had had spells in various colonies, but as Prince had said 'independent countries need us most'. So they had gone to Ibadan in the autumn of 1960. Nigel had written " ... they have to be careful, of course. It's easy for Jav and me, being queer in Chicago, and although everybody knows they all pretend not to (apart from our queer friends, of course). I guess it's the same for you two, and for Sam and Tim. Prince and Graham could get their throats cut if they got unlucky. They're so fucking brave." He enclosed their address. "Don't address it to both of them though - just to Graham. It's safer that way." I'd written to Cunard, explaining that I had been one of the original bell boys and that I was keen to make contact with others of my generation. Did they keep records of the whereabouts of former crew members? They did, and if I cared to write back with the names of the boys I wanted to trace they would do their best. (Try doing that nowadays, what with all this data protection and privacy nonsense!) I wrote back with as good a list as I could muster, which was, of course, completely lacking in surnames. All I could put was things like "Chris, originally from Swansea, born 1920?" and hope for the best. After all, we were the youngest among the crew, so there shouldn't be much difficulty. I got a long letter back: someone had gone to a lot of trouble. I hadn't given any hint of the California matter, but Charlie said he thought that the Cunard record-keeping people must have known that tracing long-lost former crew members was important. Chris was living at an address in London; Harry and Dave had disappeared completely; Stewart was in Australia. Roger had been killed by a V2 along with his family while on leave in 1944. Peter was the interesting one though. He was now Father Peter, a priest in Birkenhead, just across the Mersey from Liverpool. "You won't believe this, Charlie," and I showed him the letter. "We must go and see him," I said, "and maybe James's brother, if he's still alive." "Are you sure that's a good idea? Not Peter, but your Father Corrigan. Won't it be terribly embarrassing for him?" Charlie was much better at restraining me after all these years together." "We know nothing about Chris," he said. "What if he's happily married? Do you think a reunion with us sinners is going to be the wisest thing? Getting the gang together is fine - we all know what we were up to, but Chris and his lot were never a part of it. Besides, James has made it clear that he's not wanting them on the voyage. I think that's unkind, but it's not our call." "Maybe Cunard will contact them." "Maybe. Best just leave them out. Going to Liverpool might be interesting though." In the end we decided to close the restaurant for three days (Monday to Wednesday were always the quietest of the week) in 10 days' time. We had two bookings, so I phoned them and explained that we would be away unexpectedly. Before either of them grumbled I said that their bill would be reduced by 30% if they were willing to come a week later. I'd learnt the art of pricing attractively all those years ago. I made a note in the book that I'd give them a free bottle of fizz when their menus and nibbles were brought. One of them was a regular married couple who came every month or so; losing their custom would have been foolish. The other two were more like Charlie and me, and when their fizz and nibbles arrived they would be brought by Kevin. I'll tell you more about Kevin later - you'll like him. We do. ***** 10 days later found us in Birkenhead. We'd travelled up the day before and leaving Lime Street station in Liverpool was really emotional. I'd been back only once since Tim and I left when we were 14. That had been in 1948. Our mother had died during the War and with her gone neither of us had any desire to see the rest of the family. The evil Connors were all still alive but the rest of our brothers and sisters had fled as soon as they could. Michael who, you'll remember, had introduced me to the joys of wanking way back when I was 9, wrote to me out of the blue in 1948 suggesting that we should meet. I wrote back saying I was happy to meet him, but in no circumstances would I see the Connors. In the event Tim and I met him in a hotel in Liverpool where he gave us the family news, such as it was, and the three of us went to visit our mother's grave. Neither Tim nor I felt any desire to see Father Corrigan, although Michael told us he was still his parish priest. As he said this with a completely straight face neither of us sinners got the impression that he had sinned with Michael. We had not been back since. We found Peter's church. Outside was the usual notice advising the faithful that Mass would be celebrated at such-and-such a time by Father Peter Doyle. "Did you know Peter was a Catholic?" said Charlie. I shook my head. The matter of religion had never come up. There had certainly been no sign of any observation on Sundays, or any Days of Obligation, I said. Charlie was curious. "What are they?" It had been a long time since I'd been bothered with such things, and I did my best, but my ex-Catholic explanations to my ex-Calvinist lover didn't greatly enlighten him. Still, we were men now (45 and 43) and owed at least a degree of respect to Peter's cloth. During the evening before we'd discussed how to approach Peter. We'd not reached any conclusion. That was why we were standing outside a very drab church at 11 o'clock on a Monday morning, still undecided. "Come on," I said, "we'll go in." It hadn't occurred to me until that moment that Charlie had never been inside a Catholic church; indeed his pre-Queen Mary life had been one in which the Scarlet Whore of Babylon lived in such a place. "For a pair of ex-whores ourselves we shouldn't be frightened of her then," I said when he had informed me of what he'd been taught before I got hold of him. I marched in; he followed warily, the stench of whoredom not wholly absent. There were the confessionals, but the doors were open: no sign of Father Peter there. The obligatory middle-aged parishioner was seeing to the flowers and I asked where we might find Father Peter. He was doing a hospital visit, she said, but he would be back in the afternoon. When we got back outside Charlie pulled me to a seat in the church garden. "I'm really unhappy about this," he said, "not about the church or anything like that. What are we going to say to him? 'Hello, Peter, we used to fuck about with you?' If he's caught religion how on earth is he going to reply? The poor bugger will be so embarrassed. If like Sir's brother he's fucking the altar boys it'll be ten times worse. He'll think you're going to blackmail him. Please, Patrick, now that we've found him, can we just creep away and go home?" As I've said, Charlie is a good restrainer, and I've learnt to pay attention when he's as earnest as he was then. "OK, love, we'll go home. He'll never know we were here." Since we weren't expected back in Aylesbury until the Thursday morning Charlie suggested we should see if George was free to meet for a meal the next day. I found his phone number and tried to ring, but there was no answer. As it was lunchtime on a weekday this was hardly surprising: George was a teacher. "Let's get as far as London and try again this evening," said Charlie. All this adventuring was so unlike the routine of the restaurant. ***** I got through to George that afternoon and he immediately invited us to Canterbury for the night. "I can put you up," he said, "and there's a nice restaurant nearby. Not up to your standards, of course, but it will be quiet and we can talk." I said we'd be at the station at around 6.30 (we'd stopped using the 24-hour clock years earlier) and he said he would meet us there. Over dinner (about which George had been far too modest) I told him about the Queen Mary reunion. He was very keen to be part of it. "Who else have you got?" he asked. I told him that Sir had made it clear that only the members of his gang were invited, so there would be a maximum of nine. "Vin would have loved it," he said sadly. When George had visited us in Aylesbury three years ago he hadn't said anything about how - or even when - Vincent had died. I wondered whether it had been very recent then, and he had just not been able to speak about it. But now, three years later, surely he could tell us what had happened. And since 'Vin' had been mentioned it was crazy not to pick up the thread. "What happened?" asked Charlie simply, "you've never told us." George told us that the two of them had been posted separately during the War after they finished their training in Canada. They met up again as soon as they could after they were demobbed in 1946 and had a very tiring night together in, of all places, Southampton. "Quite like old times," he said, smiling. "We found pretty soon that we still felt the same about each other, although we'd neither of us been slow to seek entertainment from other guys. We were both 23 and had to find careers. I decided to train as a teacher and Vin decided to use his diving experience to become a swimming coach. I'd had enough of diving and swimming by then, but Vin loved it. Anyway, we lived together in London while we got our qualifications. We ended up here with Vin working in the University and me teaching at a local school. We were very happy - there were ups and downs, but nothing serious. If the neighbours knew we were queers they never seemed bothered by it." "Were there no problems with being a teacher?" I asked. George smiled. "No. I've always taught at girls' schools. I know that I still find boys attractive, and if I don't spend all day among tempting lads I won't make a fatal mistake one day. So it's girls. They're safe, and I'm safe." He paused; Charlie and I waited. We would soon hear about Vincent. "Vin was killed trying to stop a fight," he said quietly. "It was four years ago on holiday in Spain. A nice Spanish boy who had spent the night with us was attacked by a pair of English thugs. They were threatening Pedro and one of them drew a knife. Vin, who was about twice the size of the thug with the knife, pulled him off Pedro and the thug spun round. I don't think he meant to stab Vin, but the knife slashed him in the groin. He bled to death in my arms less than three minutes later." Charlie put his hand on George's arm, and George patted Charlie's hand. "It was so fucking sudden. One minute the three of us were having a laugh and thinking about the night's fun ahead; the next minute my whole life had changed and Vin was gone. The police and ambulance people came, but Vin was dead by then. The cops hauled the two thugs off - I've no idea what happened to them and if there was a court case I didn't get summoned. By the time Vin's body had been taken away the crowd had largely gone, and I found Pedro still still there, kneeling on the street, weeping and blaming himself. I couldn't leave him there - he was only 16." George paused; we waited, aware that he was reliving the whole ghastly business. "We stayed kneeling together on the pavement, Vin's blood still soaking my shirt and trousers. 'Come on,' I said, 'we can't stay here. Vin doesn't need us at the moment, and we have to get away from here'. Pedro was in no state to go anywhere on his own, so the two of us went back to the flat Vin and I had rented. We got cleaned up and eventually we had to eat. The whole thing was so surreal - all round us everybody was having fun and getting on with their lives, and here were two souls: one utterly bereft and the other bewildered and frightened. We spent the night together, each comforting the other, holding, reassuring, just being beside a warm living human being. The next morning Pedro went back to his family and I went to the morgue to collect Vin's body. He had no family, so it was my decision about what to do. Cremation wasn't an option so I flew back with him and he was cremated here." He paused again, and Charlie stroked his arm. We were almost the only people still in the restaurant. "I went back a month later to get in touch with Pedro again to see how he was. He was very shaken up, not surprisingly, and I felt bad that I'd not stayed longer with him. They're vulnerable at 16." I didn't want to remind him how we'd all been at that age, and vulnerable wouldn't have been a word I would have used. "We spent the whole of the next week together. It sounds awful now, but sex with Pedro was the only thing that kept me sane, and I think he felt exactly the same. Vin was dead, dying protecting Pedro; the best way to celebrate Vin and honour his sacrifice was to live life to the full. Maybe that's just an excuse, I don't know. We certainly paid for it though," he said bitterly. "Why? What happened?" I said. "Pedro's family knew about Vin's death, and that Pedro had been attacked, but they didn't know anything about the three of us. Someone told his father what he had been doing with Vin and me, and the father hit the roof. He threw Pedro out - 'never darken my doorstep again', all that Victorian melodramatic crap - and Pedro threw himself under a train. I wish he'd told me instead, because I'd have brought him back here. I don't know how I'd have fixed it all, but I know damn well I would have done. As it was I lost my lover and a beautiful innocent boy I cared about, both within six weeks." Neither Charlie nor I could think of anything to say, so the three of us sat in silence. It was George who said, "they'll want us out - we're the last ones. It was all four years ago, and the pain is easing. Seeing you and the other sinners will be something big to look forward to. Vin would have loved it." "Has there been anyone else?" asked Charlie gently. "No. I'm too fucking scared. I couldn't face losing anyone else." The three of us sat up late, drinking whisky and remembering the old times. Vin would have loved that too. George asked if we still had Robert. He had been the kitchen boy - the second we'd employed. Naturally he fulfilled other functions for us, and George had learned about (and, with Robert's enthusiastic agreement, shared) these when he'd stayed with us in 1962. Charlie said "No, he left us when he was 19 to go to catering college. He'd been with us since he left school, over four years. We have Kevin now. He left school last Christmas when he was 15, and he's been with us for three months now. He's very sweet - you'd like him." Well after midnight George suddenly said, "come and see Vin". He led us out into the small garden where, at a corner at the far end, there was a little stone set in the grass. "There he is," said George, "it's sunny there in the morning, so I know he's nice and warm each day. Silly, isn't it." I didn't think it was silly at all: I knew that if I had to look after Charlie after he was dead I'd want something special for him. As you know, that wasn't anywhere warm in the end, but it was romantic, and that helped. Well, it certainly helped me. There were words carved into the stone. "VINCENT ADAMS 5-2-1923 to 8-8-1961" Charlie and I sought each other's hand as we looked down, remembering the boy we had known so well and for so short a time - less than 18 months. The only remaining piece of the puzzle was to be found in Nigeria. I'd written to Graham but there had been no reply. =============================================================================== The fun continues in Chapter 140 as plans advance further. 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 adventures of our eight friends. Drop me a line at badboi666@btinternet.com - that is after you've dropped nifty a few quid. =============================================================================