And we went on to Tobago, which was lovely, and to St Vincent and to St Lucia and Montserrat where I had a frightful row with a drunken dentist, I remember, who I was not consulting professionally, but he was just picking quarrels on the beach. And last stop Bermuda, and home in time for Christmas, so it was perfectly wonderful cruise.
And the other good thing about being a writer was that I didn't have to work watches. If I'd been a seaman, that'd be the port watch and the starboard watch, and every other night or every other day you would've been on duty and couldn't go ashore. I could go ashore whenever I liked, as long as I'd finished my work and didn't have anything urgent to do, I could go ashore. So I had far more freedom and much less discipline, really, than anybody else. Well, I mean, I wasn't the only one. There was another, a very nice man called Frank Sutcliffe, who was also working in the Captain's office. We slung our hammocks together. And he was preparing to be a classical organist. I don't know whether he made the grade, but he was jolly musical.