Charlie Chaplin. There was also a small bespectacled Matador.
The last class was for boys and girls between eleven and sixteen. The Bodger’s voice had long grown hoarse. The Captain showed signs of strain. The bachelor passengers and ship’s officers ranged round the walls began to despair of any excitement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” croaked The Bodger. “The last class is for boys and girls over eleven. Phyllis Featherday. . .
There was a scuffle by the door and Michael heard Sam Crayshaw’s despairing voice.
“ Please , Mr Hobbes, sir, give me a hand with this one! “
Michael and Paul swung round to see Sam Crayshaw and Phyllis Featherday in an apparently intimate embrace.
“. . . Joan of Arc! “
“No, I’m not! “ Phyllis cried. “I’m Salome! “
Wrestling herself from Sam Crayshaw’s grasp, Phyllis Featherday sprang past Michael and Paul. She had a nightdress clasped about her and, throwing it away, she began to dance, shaking her hips and wriggling in a manner which The Bodger afterwards admitted was a first-class rendering, considering the girl's age and experience, of an Algerian danse du ventre .
While the lounge remained thunderstruck, Phyllis cavorted across the floor, flexed her body in front of the Captain’s astonished nose and disappeared back the way she had come.
At once, Mrs Featherday rose up and struck the amazed Goldilocks with her handbag.
“You satyr! “ she hissed.
Recovered from their first stupefaction, the bachelors round the walls found their voices.
“Encore!”
The Bodger struggled to make himself heard above the uproar.
“Ladies and gentlemen! The next entry. . .”
“We want Salome!”
“The next entry!” shouted The Bodger.
“To hell with the next entry! “ roared back the bachelors round the walls. “We want Salome!”
The tumult died a little as the Captain was seen to bend and whisper to the O.C. Troops.
“That girl’s got a future, Bushy.”
“I should say so, sir. Shall we go on with the show?”
“No. Anything else would be an anticlimax, don’t you think?”
The Purser, who had watched the show from a strategic position near the door, went away to the Chief Steward’s cabin and drank whisky with him. Their shouts of “We want Salome! “ and the drunken squawkings and flutterings of the six parrots kept officers in the neighbouring cabins awake until early the next morning.
Phyllis Featherday’s danse du ventre was the sensation of the voyage. (It was judged by the ship’s officers the best entertainment put on by the passengers since the night before Southampton when the wife of an R.A.M.C. captain did a strip-tease in the lounge and inadvertently sneezed off her brassiere.) Mrs Featherday was mortified and obscurely blamed Goldilocks. Phyllis herself became a ship’s celebrity and was surrounded by interested young men whenever she appeared. Tommy Mitchell was interested enough to suggest that Phyllis give a repeat performance of her danse du ventre in the privacy of his cabin. Goldilocks had another lecture from O.C. Troops.
With Goldilocks as impotent as Napoleon in exile and the Fancy Dress Party over, there were no more social events until the ship reached Singapore.
No leave was allowed until the families had cleared the jetty and the young bloods who were going on to Hong Kong watched the disembarkation with cynical eyes.
“Makes you think what a two-timing lot of twisters they all are,” said Sandy, the Olympic torch bearer, bitterly. “Get Delilah there. Dig that shark skin outfit. It’s about twenty times as much as I saw her wearing the night before last.”
“Don’t get all bitter and twisted,” Paul said. “Put yourself in her husband’s place. He wants to see his wife come down the gangway calm, chaste and exquisite. Not dashing down in her dressing-gown as though the lecherous lascars were still after her. Besides, he’s got plenty of time to put two and two together and find out just what did go
The last class was for boys and girls between eleven and sixteen. The Bodger’s voice had long grown hoarse. The Captain showed signs of strain. The bachelor passengers and ship’s officers ranged round the walls began to despair of any excitement.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” croaked The Bodger. “The last class is for boys and girls over eleven. Phyllis Featherday. . .
There was a scuffle by the door and Michael heard Sam Crayshaw’s despairing voice.
“ Please , Mr Hobbes, sir, give me a hand with this one! “
Michael and Paul swung round to see Sam Crayshaw and Phyllis Featherday in an apparently intimate embrace.
“. . . Joan of Arc! “
“No, I’m not! “ Phyllis cried. “I’m Salome! “
Wrestling herself from Sam Crayshaw’s grasp, Phyllis Featherday sprang past Michael and Paul. She had a nightdress clasped about her and, throwing it away, she began to dance, shaking her hips and wriggling in a manner which The Bodger afterwards admitted was a first-class rendering, considering the girl's age and experience, of an Algerian danse du ventre .
While the lounge remained thunderstruck, Phyllis cavorted across the floor, flexed her body in front of the Captain’s astonished nose and disappeared back the way she had come.
At once, Mrs Featherday rose up and struck the amazed Goldilocks with her handbag.
“You satyr! “ she hissed.
Recovered from their first stupefaction, the bachelors round the walls found their voices.
“Encore!”
The Bodger struggled to make himself heard above the uproar.
“Ladies and gentlemen! The next entry. . .”
“We want Salome!”
“The next entry!” shouted The Bodger.
“To hell with the next entry! “ roared back the bachelors round the walls. “We want Salome!”
The tumult died a little as the Captain was seen to bend and whisper to the O.C. Troops.
“That girl’s got a future, Bushy.”
“I should say so, sir. Shall we go on with the show?”
“No. Anything else would be an anticlimax, don’t you think?”
The Purser, who had watched the show from a strategic position near the door, went away to the Chief Steward’s cabin and drank whisky with him. Their shouts of “We want Salome! “ and the drunken squawkings and flutterings of the six parrots kept officers in the neighbouring cabins awake until early the next morning.
Phyllis Featherday’s danse du ventre was the sensation of the voyage. (It was judged by the ship’s officers the best entertainment put on by the passengers since the night before Southampton when the wife of an R.A.M.C. captain did a strip-tease in the lounge and inadvertently sneezed off her brassiere.) Mrs Featherday was mortified and obscurely blamed Goldilocks. Phyllis herself became a ship’s celebrity and was surrounded by interested young men whenever she appeared. Tommy Mitchell was interested enough to suggest that Phyllis give a repeat performance of her danse du ventre in the privacy of his cabin. Goldilocks had another lecture from O.C. Troops.
With Goldilocks as impotent as Napoleon in exile and the Fancy Dress Party over, there were no more social events until the ship reached Singapore.
No leave was allowed until the families had cleared the jetty and the young bloods who were going on to Hong Kong watched the disembarkation with cynical eyes.
“Makes you think what a two-timing lot of twisters they all are,” said Sandy, the Olympic torch bearer, bitterly. “Get Delilah there. Dig that shark skin outfit. It’s about twenty times as much as I saw her wearing the night before last.”
“Don’t get all bitter and twisted,” Paul said. “Put yourself in her husband’s place. He wants to see his wife come down the gangway calm, chaste and exquisite. Not dashing down in her dressing-gown as though the lecherous lascars were still after her. Besides, he’s got plenty of time to put two and two together and find out just what did go
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