This is something I wrote back in '03 but I have edited it, it really did happen and I remember it as though it was yesterday!

In 1953, as a young seaman, I joined the MV Saint Arvans in Liverpool; she was an all welded Liberty ship, a vessel of British design but built in the USA during the Second World War.
Hundreds of these ships were built and being welded rather than riveted they weren’t expected to last more than a couple of voyages; however I have seen Sam boats in Singapore Harbour as recently as 1999 so they were certainly well built.
The welded ship was a new concept and the British didn’t trust this method of ship building but it was wartime, ships were needed for the war effort and welding them was the quickest way to do the job, the ship yards were launching one ship a day, so welding was the way.

I joined the Saint Arvans and was allocated to a watch along with two other young fellows, Tommy Flynn was nineteen and Mal twenty, both were from Liverpool so we had something in common and we got on well together. There was three watches with three men to a watch the first being the 12 to 4 then the 4 to 8 and finally the 8 to 12 and so on around the clock. Tommy, Mal and I were in the 12 till 4 watch, working four hours on and eight hours off. During the daylight hours the ship was on automatic pilot (the Iron Mike) so no wheelman was required, therefore we worked on deck; at midday our watch was over but we then worked an extra two hours overtime and that extra money was needed to make our wage acceptable, during the hours of darkness we would take turns steering the ship and keeping a lookout for other ships and anything out of the ordinary such as a lifeboat … you never know, sometimes ships do sink and survivors would have to take to the lifeboats?

We sailed from Liverpool and were soon out in the Atlantic heading for Buenos Aires which is in on the east coast of South America; BA was a favourite port of call for all young seamen, plenty of pretty girls and lots of booze, my watch mates had been there before and from the stories I was hearing it sounded like paradise … wild women and song and for a young man that’s what life was all about.
As we headed south the weather was fine and starting to warm up, so the three of us would lie around on deck during our time off to work on our bronzies (Suntans), we wanted to be ready for the senioritis down South America way, we could hardly wait to get there, laughing and joking about what we were going to do when we finally arrived, our futures were looking better by the hour.

Soon we were crossing the equator and having a rollicking time introducing the first trippers to King Neptune; it was all good clean fun, apart from when we put the grease where you couldn’t show your mother, after which we would throw them into a very small canvas Pool we had rigged up especially for the occasion.
The weather was still fine and really warming up. A couple of Albatross had joined us, they spent their time gliding backwards and forwards around the ship never seeming to flap their massive wings which had a span of about 12 feet.
They are beautiful birds and I used to take great delight in watching them gliding over the wave tops, taking advantage of the updrafts to skim majestically above the ocean.

The day arrived when we were close enough to the coast to see the distant mountains but not close enough to see the beautiful senioritis who haunted our dreams and consumed our thoughts … soon we would be with them, drinking, laughing, dancing and playing never ending games of plant the sausage, soon we were down to counting the hours, in a little while we would be picking up the pilot to take us down the River Plate and finally into the anticipated paradise that was Buenos Aires.

After tying the ship up at the wharf we set to work preparing the ship to discharge cargo, stripping hatches and topping derricks; the amount of cargo we had for BA would take the Dockers about five days to discharge and during that time we would take the opportunity to prepare the ships sides for painting.
Usually we finished work at 1600 Hrs. when after a meal and a shower it would be into our “go ashores” then off to meet the natives. We could sub 2 pounds per week, which is nothing now and it wasn’t very much then but it was just enough to scrape through, subsidized our sub by the sale of the duty-free cigarettes we had saved for the purpose.

My watch mates and I really went to town making gluttons of ourselves; the exuberance of youth was driving us to the limit of wild women and song and our money was soon gone. Shore leave was no longer an option; no point in going ashore if you had no money, it was time to stop and think of what the future held for us, the incubation period for Gonorrhea was seven to fourteen days, 28 days for Syphilis and God only knows how long for a full house … anyway who cares we were driven by the exuberance of youth and nothing was going to happen to us, we were just waiting for our next sub!

When the ship had arrived the ships agent had come aboard and given the Oldman the orders; from BA we were crossing the River Plate to Montevideo, just a day’s run and in just a week and a half away it was to be on up the River, to a place called Rosario, to commence loading for the return trip to England.
My watch mate Tommy said he knew a couple of nice senioritis up in Rosario, from a previous voyage and he reckoned he would be able to organise for them to line up another girl so the three of us would have a memorable shore leave, here we come Rosario, ninety nine a hundred, I don’t care if I do go blind!

After discharging the last of our cargo in Montevideo we set sail up the river to, another days run.
The trip up was beautiful and fortunately we did the best part during daylight hours; the
wild Pampas grasslands stretched out for miles on either side and at one time we were enthralled by the sight of Gaucho’s (Cowboys) galloping along, rounding up the cattle; it was like a dream for these three lads from Liverpool.

The following morning we were alongside the wharf and Tommy slipped ashore to make contact with his girlfriend at the local bar.
Soon he was back, hardly able to contain himself, contact had been made and we were to meet the girls at the bar as soon as possible. it so happened that this was our free day, a day to go ashore to do some shopping but we had better things to do.

After showering, shaving, and almost drowning ourselves with after shave lotion we were off to meet the girls. It was a beautiful warm Sunny day, we arrived at the bar and the girls were sitting around a table by an open window; they really were beautiful young women but then again we had been at sea for a while and all women looked beautiful to us. I noticed they were wearing jodhpurs (Horse riding pants) which I found bit unusual but they explained that were taking us horse riding after we’d had a few drinks.
This was a bit of a worry for us three amigos, the closest any of us had been to a horse was the cart horses that trudged backwards and forwards, their carts loaded with cargo, from the railway goods yard at Edge Hill to the docks, now we were going to ride one?

Tommy was soon up buying a round of drinks, the girls were drinking Pims, a mild drink, and we guys were knocking back shots of Anisette, an aniseed tasting drink that crept up on you. It was so pleasant to the taste that it seemed harmless, it was only when you stood up and got outside into the fresh air that it hit you like a ton of bricks.

The girl I was with, Olga Matinez was a real South American beauty. She had coal black hair, big brown eyes and a body to die for, man or woman, I was really trying to impress with my impersonation of Pal Joey, a character Frank Sinatra had played in a movie.
Pal Joey wore a fedora, and when he was drinking he would nonchalantly push it back on his head as he swigged his Bourbon, I didn’t wear a hat so I raised one eyebrow and knocked back my shot of Anisette, I was feeling really cool, I was sure Olga would be impressed.

We held off as long as we could but soon the girls insisted that we get down to the riding stables to get fitted for a horse, besides it was getting late and we’d had quite a few drinks. Staggering out of the Bar we fell into a Taxi and it wasn’t long before we fell out at the Riding Stables, the girls chiding us and telling us to sober up but that was pushing it a bit, we’d thrown back quite a few Anisettes’ and were feeling no pain, Tommy said he was ready to fight a bull.

The time came to get a horse. I asked the girls to explain and told them it was a long time since we’d been on a horse and to make sure we got a quiet one; didn’t want to tell them the only horses we had ever been on were on a roundabout.
We managed to get up on the horse, facing in the right direction, and I was feeling a little more confident.
One of the stable girls was coming with us to make sure we got back on time.
Off we went at a very slow pace, the horses didn’t seem to want to go anywhere, they just plodded along and that suited us fine. I sat there, drunkenly just like my two amigos and tried to get into a rhythm of up & down, so as not to bruise my bum and the plumbs that were taking a pounding. I could see Tommy and Mal were experiencing the same feelings as me, it wasn’t easy but we persisted and began to believe that this horse riding was for wimps …it was easy!
I was feeling a little worse for wear and slightly ill we reached our destination, a small Bar well away from the town, the relief from us three amigos was obvious, we needed another drink to help us make the return journey … the slow pace was okay so we had no worries in that regard but the backside and the plumbs were still not use to it.

Once in the Bar we got some drinks in, the girls were still on the Pims but we guys decided to slip into a few beers … a big mistake.
After a while the Stable girl started getting agitated, she told us that we needed to get back as it was close to the horses feed time and the Stable was due to shut up for the day.

Reluctantly we staggered out of the bar to where the horses were hitched to a rail. That rail turned out to be a Godsend when it came to mounting the horse. Tommy was so drunk that this time he got up on the horse but was facing the wrong way.
With much laughing and jostling we finally managed to get him round to face the right way but he was so pi**d that had we left him facing the horses arse he wouldn’t have known the difference.

I was also pi**d out off my head, I felt there was something different about my horse, he seemed a little frisky and trying to get into the gentle up & down rhythm wasn’t too easy … I realized my horse was beginning to move faster.
Suddenly I heard Tommy coming up behind me, “How’d yeah stop this bloody animal”, he was yelling as he galloped past me.
I wasn’t in any position to be giving him any advice; as Tommy’s horse raced past my horse lifted his ears and took off after him. I was petrified and hanging on for grim life, I’d fallen forward onto the horse’s neck and was trying to stretch my arms right around,
it was only a matter of time before I would fall off.
The next thing I remember was Mal galloping past screaming, “Hi Ho Silver!” he’d lost the plot and was soon flying through the air as his horse bucked him off.
I was very lucky, still lying forward with my arms trying to encircle the horse’s neck, my bum started to slipping sideways and soon I was hanging next the front leg of the horse; fortunately I had the presence of mind to let go, otherwise I would have been under the horse, I tumbled to a stop and just lay there thanking my lucky stars.

When I finally raised my head and looked around it was like a scene from the Crimea after the charge of the Light Brigade.
The three horses were galloping off into the distance followed closely by the four senioritis and the three amigos were left lying sprawled around the field, I could hardly believe what had happened, in fact I didn’t know what had happened, or why it had happened.

Dragging myself up I staggered over to where Mal was lying motionless, I was hoping he was alright when suddenly he raised his head and our eyes locked and we just stared for a moment before breaking into uncontrolled laughter. Tommy’s laughter soon joined with us as we sat in a little circle licking our wounds and thinking if we hadn't been so drunk we could well have been dead.

We had paid for the horses before we left the Stables now we didn’t know what to do. We decided to wait for the girls to come back for us but had we waited a long time before we realized that wasn’t going to happen. We made our way back to the ship, went into the mess room for a drink only to be confronted by our shipmates, the very people we had been boasting to about our technique with the girls. Sheepishly we told the boys what had happened and joined in their laughter as they ribbed us.
A couple of days later we sailed back down the River Plate and out into the Atlantic, pointing NNE the ship started steaming towards England.
We never saw, nor heard of the girls again even though we went back to the Bar a few times.
I can only imagine them telling their friends about the three English gringos who thought they were going to have their way with them.
If only we were accomplished horsemen the story may have been different.
Oh! Yes, we did find out what had spooked our horses. The proprietor of the Bar explained … on the way out the horses were in no hurry but coming back they knew they were on their way to dinner …. They were just eager to get back to their bag of oats, we had also been after our oats but it wasn’t to be.

If only we were as good horsemen as these 3 Gaucho’s

Good yarn Tony! Just shows horses and drink do not mix, especially if you are looking for a ride! Argentina was always a good destination. Mention of Rosario stirs up some nice memories; I seem to recall needing to adjust mooring lines because of the tidal rise and fall. Unlike you I didn't get to ride any horses - I went straight for the 'gauchoess'.

It was good, Tony. It was good story.