We Saw The Sea by John Winton

Paul had seen Frederick Augustus Spink for over three years. When they did see him, they hardly recognized him. He was wearing a pale beige Irish linen suit, a silk tie, light green nylon socks and white leather open sandals. As he sat in the Gloucester Lounge negligently sipping a German lager and smoking an American cigarette he seemed to Michael and Paul, in their heavy English clothes, the picture of the leisured oriental lounge lizard who may be observed in his natural surroundings in any first-class hotel lounge from Colombo to Honolulu. Fie had lost the greater part of his hair and the dome of his head was bronzed by the sun of Repulse Bay. He rose when he saw them.
    “Michael! Paul! How nice to see you again! “
    A Chinese waiter hurried to their table with two more lagers; Paul guessed that Freddie Spink was an old and valued customer.
    “I can recommend this stuff,” said Freddie.
    “God, Freddie,” said Paul, “what’s happened to your hair?”
    “Gone with the wind, dear boy. Penalty of the Orient. Now, how are you both? Well, I hope? Apart from being in love, of course. How’s Mary? Does she still love you?”
    “Yes,” said Michael. “I hope so.”
    “And how about your light o’love, Paul? I’ve forgotten her name for the minute. I only got it through the grapevine the other day. Anne?”
    “Bouncing,” said Paul. He was intrigued by the new Freddie Spink. This was not the shy nervous boy who had been so frightened by everything that happened to him in Barsetshire and about whom The Bodger had had so many misgivings. He was now a mature man, so mature that Paul thought that perhaps he had gone to seed; there was a lassitude about Freddie Spink which suggested that he had already tried everything and found none of it worth finishing. He was blasé. Paul found himself more surprised and interested by the present Freddie Spink than he had ever been by the old; Paul could say with truth that he had never really noticed Freddie Spink as a cadet.
    “Anybody I know in your mighty ark?” Freddie asked.
    “You might remember The Bodger,” Michael said, casually.
    “Is he really here? I heard he was. What a pity I’m just leaving. We need someone like him to brighten the place up.”
    “What about you, Freddie,” said Paul. “What’s this we hear about you marrying a Chinese girl?”
    Freddie paused with his glass to his lips.
    “ Eh? What’s all this?”
    “Tommy Mitchell told us he was relieving you to save you from a fate worse than death with a Chinese tottie.”
    “So that’s why he arrived so bloody early! I thought Their Lordships had got wise to one or two of my little activities. I can see how it all arose now. My uncle runs one of the better night-clubs on the Kowloon side, in fact the best night-club here. Whenever you see a first-class night-club you can bet it’s run by a Spink. Fords make motor cars, Rothschilds manipulate money and we run night-clubs. My uncle is half Chinese and he introduced me to a Chinese family here and the daughter is an absolute honey. She went to Oxford and all that and she’s one of the most charming girls you could meet anywhere. I used to take her about a bit, to the C.-in-C.’s ball and things like that. But I never intended to marry the girl.”
    “No, I don’t suppose you would,” said Paul.
    “Oh, it’s not on my side I can assure you,” said Freddie. “It’s her family who would never have allowed it.”
    “Why ever not?”
    “What, let their daughter marry a naval officer, even though he does come from the best white-slaving circles? They aim a bit higher than that, I can tell you.”
    “How very disappointing,” said Michael.
    “Mind you,” said Freddie, “I shan’t be sorry to go. The social set, so-called, of this place, was beginning to get me down a bit. D’you know, when Calypso arrived on the station a couple of years ago she gave a cocktail party. Their Captain’s Sec told me that it was like a party where the