ROME EXPRESS by TIMMI MILSOM (beach read book txt) 📖

the standards of the of the night so releasing my pillar I staggered onto deck avoiding any large men in Sou Westers, the pools of vomit and the stench of a thousand strange people.

I worked my way to the end of the boat and gripped hold of the railings a bit like Leo and Kate years later. I watched entranced as the sea fell away and the propellers whizzed round in mid air.

How cool is that

For the next few hours with the lights of Dover glittering in the distance I clung to the railing watching the sea and the bronze propellers whizzing aimlessly in the air.

What the fuck

I had been found out by another large man in a Sou Wester

You’ll get yourself killed you idiot, Get inside
No it’s smelly

He dragged me to shelter under a gangway

Don’t move

So there I stood a small bedraggled floppy haired boy in shorts, shivering the last of the night away. As dawn seeped through the pouring rain, the sea calmed and amid much cheering we finally made port, 14 hours after leaving Boulogne.

The passengers fled the ship like so many sick rats; the cars all damaged to some extent shot out of the hold as fast as was practically possible.
Well that was fun.

I wandered off in search of my suitcase which I found jammed under a seat, at sometime in the endless night it must have shot off the shelf and smacked someone. The nice man in the gold bits with a grey face helped me drag it to the gang plank and I was off.

No one had asked about my Mummy for hours, people were so happy to be on land that they took no notice of a small wet boy dragging a suitcase to the train.

This being England, British Rail put on the smallest train they could find, the one without food, water, toilets and heating. We were jammed in like sardines and hanging out the window. For added comic amusement the train stopped at every station on the way, perhaps people were on the roof?
I sat on my suitcase attempting to look cool, which as everyone else looked like a refugee from East Germany, wasn’t to hard.

Some time latter, as they say in the movies, we arrived in London. We popped out of the train, a heap of sick people, screaming kids, moaning parents and battered luggage onto the platform of Victoria Station.

Can I help you Sonny?
Errr, No, thanks

That’s strange, what was all the music, I could here a brass band and lots and lots of people singing. As I dragged my oversized suitcase down the platform a huge cheer went up, Victoria Station was full of thousands of people all singing hymns and cheering, they were everywhere.

How very odd

I struggled on with my luggage, wondering what was going on. Then a man shoved a TV camera in my face.

How was is it?
Oh, fun

Apparently the BBC wanted a little more than that, tears and sobbing and stuff, but I was a 14 year old floppy haired English Italian food expert and didn’t come from East End, where ever that might be, so they went off and filmed the grey sick lady in the Mac.

Timmmm

My mummy grabbed me and burst into tears. This was a bugger and frankly a bit weird and I still had half a bottle of Tuscan Red to finish, so I reverted to brat.

Why are you here? I can catch a train you know

But you almost died
I was on a boat
But it almost sank
No it didn’t
Yes it did

Ok, shut up Tim, back to nice but dim and look suitably pathetic.

We have to call your Gran and Dad
Why?

I dragged my oversized suitcase across the concourse, wet shorts flapping in the hot air, Mummy trying to find change for the phone. It was an amazing scene, Victoria Station was full to bursting, people crying all over the place, TV crews everywhere, interviewing everyone, The Salvation Army singing songs for the survival of people on the deep.

All very strange, what was going on?

My Gran made no sense whatsoever, my Dad

Oh you made it then
Yes
See you in a bit then
Ok


Mummy and I trekked across London to Euston Station through the morning tube rush hour traffic. Londoners hardened to the world’s iniquities muttered dark thing about floppy haired boys with large suitcases and quietly sobbing over loving mothers.

All very strange, where’s James Bond when you need him.

Finally ensconced on the Shrewsbury train with a Chocolate drink, a sandwich and a grey faced Mummy, I tried to sleep.

But not before my story unfolded.

Apparently sailing out into the big channel seas had been a mistake of major proportions. When we left the port of Boulogne a storm hit, the worst in a recorded history, the coast guard had fully expected us to sink, some 1500 people and me.

Please I had survived The Rome Express, Italian Food, French sailors, eager Italian girls and women from somewhere called East End.

For the 14 hours I had been aboard a Ferry, the English Channel had been closed, all shipping stopped, the Coast Guard and Navy were on high alert waiting to pick up the survivors of one of the worlds worst shipping disasters, which obviously, as I am writing this, didn’t happen. Whilst I, was happily watching grey faced people being sick and the propellers whiz about.

The media, being ever helpful in an emergency had broadcast live, continually and scared the country and more especially the families to death. So en mass they had descended on Victoria station crating pandemonium throughout London with The Salvation Army giving the Musical accompaniment.

My dads few words as a typical Yorkshire man

You alive then

I woke up for long enough to be carried home and put to bed.

Get him

What

I was being dragged into the street.

What, now?

A big old pine tree had fallen down in the night and was balanced, precariously on the apex of the roof.

Immediately above my bed.


Be careful what you wish for.


Timmi Milsom,
20 January 2010
Imprint

Publication Date: 01-21-2010

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