Good Enough For Nelson Read Online Free PDF

menace out of sight whence all those waves of thunderous sound were coming. This man was ... The Bodger searched for the word … too cosy , even cuddly.
    This was not Attila the Hun, but Santa Claus.
    Spicer’s lecture was delivered in a high-pitched, cockney voice and was clearly word-perfect, rehearsed to the last nuance , with every practised gesture made with superb élan . At the far end of the wardroom, listening behind the panels, The Bodger could see the shadowy figures of a group of stewards. Spicer’s lecture was obviously a party piece.
    ‘Now pay attention this way. Knife and fork drill. Or, in uvver words, general mess etiquette. Or, in uwer words, ‘ow to conduct yourselves at table so you won’t disgrace the Andrew or the muwers wot bore you. We can’t ‘ave awficers and gentlemen in Her Majesty’s Navy eating peas orf of their knives, can we, and anybody ‘oo has actually managed to eat his peas orf of his knife is a better man than I am Gunga Din.’ Expressions of faint concern and bewilderment fleeted across the watching Gromboolian countenances.
    ‘The first item of dining equipment to take cognisance of is the table mat, known in the PO’s mess as the doily. This is put down where it is so every awficer knows where to sit and there’s no unseemly rush and he don’t get himself mixed up with anybody else. The eating utensils are mustered on either side of the table mat, in the order in which they will be used. Starting from the outside and working inwards, that is from right to left on the right hand side and from left inwards to right on the left hand side and remembering as they say in the old joke only don’t let me ‘ear any of you laugh that the bottle-opener always goes on the right. Where a course normally only requires one eating utensil, that is to say for a for instance soup which normally only requires one implement, to wit, one spoon, that spoon will be found dressed on the right side of the table mat with no corresponding utensil on the left. But the next course, say, will be some kind of fish, then there will be a fish knife on the right and a fish fork on the left. And so on, with eating utensils for meat, pudding, savoury ...’
    At last, one of the Gromboolians stirred. ‘Excuse me, sir, but what if you are left-handed?’
    ‘I thought somebody would ask that, I was waiting for somebody to ask that, somebody always asks that. Makes no difference, right- or left-handed. Because there are no left-handed men in the Navy. We don’t have left-handed rifles we don’t salute left-handed you don’t slope arms left-handed you don’t button your reefer jacket from right to left like the Wrens just because you’re left-handed, do you? We don’t have left-handed binoculars left-handed oars left-handed gunsights left-’anded ships . Everybody in the Navy is right-handed. So any of you ‘oo ‘as got the mistaken idea that he is left-handed should take my advice and decide that he is right-handed. I won’t say that life is easier in the Navy if you’re right-handed I’ll only say that life is bloody impossible if you’re left-handed. So ‘ eed the gypsy’s warning.’
    The Gromboolians looked at each other, as though it were Swahili to the Asians, and Urdu to the Africans, and Greek to all of them.
    ‘When you sit down at table, you first pick up your napkin. It’s called a napkin, not a serviette, or anything else. It’s a napkin. And you don’t tuck it in under your chin when you eat. The Captain can and may in the sacred privacy of ‘is cuddy, but yew will place your napkin across your lap. So.’
    Spicer sat down at the place, flicked out the folded napkin, and spread it with tremendous panache across his lap. ‘So. Note, that I do not place my elbows on the table but keep them smartly to my sides. If I need something from the table I do not reach across and grab it like King Kong’s younger bruvver . I ask my neighbour on the appropriate side politely if he