"My father's was Sir Christopher Cradoc, who went down at Coronel in 1916. My father was his pilot, and would have gone down with him but for a last-minute transfer. Sir Christopher Cradoc wore steel-boned corsets and used scent. He used regularly to arrive on the bridge when my father was bringing the ship into harbour, and say 'Thirty seconds late, Pilot,' to which my father would reply, 'Sir, kindly get off my bridge, you are upsetting my compass.' Years later, when I came to know about such things, I said to my father, 'Was he a homosexual?' My father looked at me with clear surprised eyes, and said, 'No, just Elizabethan, like Drake and Raleigh.'"
no subject
"My father's was Sir Christopher Cradoc, who went down at Coronel in 1916. My father was his pilot, and would have gone down with him but for a last-minute transfer. Sir Christopher Cradoc wore steel-boned corsets and used scent. He used regularly to arrive on the bridge when my father was bringing the ship into harbour, and say 'Thirty seconds late, Pilot,' to which my father would reply, 'Sir, kindly get off my bridge, you are upsetting my compass.' Years later, when I came to know about such things, I said to my father, 'Was he a homosexual?' My father looked at me with clear surprised eyes, and said, 'No, just Elizabethan, like Drake and Raleigh.'"
"Upsetting my compass"! Indeed.
Nine