TRAVEL: The Captain’s Table

British audiences were, titillated early this year by a new film farce called The Captain’s Table, which chronicled the social perils of a luxury-liner captain adrift in a sea of calculating female passengers. Last week all England was agog over a real-life-setting of The Captain’s Table. The captain: a tall, debonair Irishman named James D. Armstrong, master of the 28,000-ton Cunard liner Britannic, The plot: he had been royally sacked by Britain’s staid, prosperous Cunard Steamship Co. just a few months before he was due to become master of the Queen Mary, and eventually commodore of the line.

Though neither the captain nor Cunard would elaborate on the charges, word leaked out that the sacking—the first in Cunard’s 119-year history—was Cunard’s reaction to reports that Captain Armstrong, 55, had shown too much attention to women passengers at the captain’s table. That raised the fascinating question of what the captain could possibly have done in a public dining hall to bring down his 3O-year career with Cunard.

“Zzz . . . Zip!” Sensing an intimate glimpse into luxury-liner indiscretion, the British press tried to give an answer, leaped wildly on the story. Where facts failed, imagination soared. Headlined the Daily Express: WHAT HAPPENED AT THE CAPTAIN’S TABLE. PASSENGERS SAW THE LADY’S DRESS GO ZZZ … ZIP! The woman whose fastener broke on a recent transatlantic run—and whose dress nearly slipped off—was attractive Mrs. Susan Silverstone, thirtyish, of Manhattan, who was promptly dubbed “Black-Eyed Susan.” Passengers confirmed the incident, but it was not until farther down in the story that readers discovered where Captain Armstrong was during the unzipping: on the bridge. In the Daily Mail, a “former Cunard officer,” defending the captain, confided that “on cruises there are always women who travel with one object—to find romance. And there are always women who complain because they think they have been left out of things.”

Searching for passengers on the June 10 New York-to-Liverpool voyage, the Daily Express placed three transatlantic calls to Mrs. Mona Kucker, a Norwalk, Conn, dog breeder who had sat at the captain’s table. Mrs. Kucker gave the first real rundown on the charges. “I have a letter from Captain Armstrong,” said she, “saying that he has been accused of chasing young girls around the ship and sitting in the main lounge with Mrs. Silverstone on his knee, zipping and unzipping her dress.” Added Mrs. Kucker: “Nothing like that even loosely transpired.”

To the Rescue. Captain Armstrong denied the charges flatly, prepared a suit against Cunard, presumably for reinstatement. Passengers rallied to his defense, and one placed an ad in the New York Times urging passengers who had traveled on the Britannic to come forward. When the Britannic docked in Manhattan last week, nearly all of the major officers had been changed. The new officers stuck to their rooms to avoid the press, and a Britannic pressagent offered the reason: they did not have their pants on. Cunard was unmoved by the excitement, heightened speculation over the firing by announcing: “Obviously, a decision like this would not be taken lightly.” At week’s end, Cunard made yet another decision. From all its ships at sea, the company banned the showing of The Captain’s Table.