Broody had been enthusiastic about the Visitors’ Book, always passing it round when there were guests present. ‘If nothing else, it’ll give you and Ollie something to read during the refit,’ he had said to Dagwood.The Visitor’s Book was, in its own way, as complete a record of the commission as the control-room log. On the first pages were signatures of the visiting dignitaries and shipyard officials who attended the ship’s launching and the commissioning cocktail party, followed by the names of the admirals, members of Parliament, scientists and public figures who had visited the Navy’s latest submarine. There was even one page containing a Royal signature, but the social tone dropped sharply on the next page in a scrawling, interlocking jumble of pencil signatures which commemorated the party given for the officers of the American nuclear Samuel P. Peyton. Then there was page after page of signatures of harbour masters, mayors, governors, naval attaches, members of the chorus, chief constables, burgomasters, wives and girlfriends, and officers from submarines lying in company, all the assorted social flotsam and jetsam of two years’ commission, including a dog’s footprint in indelible ink and several lip-sticked kiss impressions (a memento of an occasion when one of Gavin Doyles’ less inhibited girl friends had had her bare bosom franked with the ship’s Personal and Confidential rubber stamp).One morning, when Dagwood was idly thumbing through the book, he came across two signatures dating from a visit Seahorse had paid to Oozemouth very early in her commission.‘Jane Dodd, Oozemouth 2733, Senior Service Satisfy!’ read one entry and ‘Hilda Judworth, Oozemouth 3941, Ring me when you’re sober!
