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Top dog of the Mary's engines is Chief Engineer Archibald S. Fisher. Top dog of the stewards and Staff Captain Jones's right-hand man is Chief Steward G. N. Whitaker. His chief job is to keep house for the shipload of passengers and see that they are properly fed. The Mary's cooking and catering are aimed, but without notable success, at American taste. British influence remains in the form of kippered herring and heavy puddings. The all-pervasive Swiss grand-hotel influence is also present, but not with sufficient force to flatten out the food to the dead level of tastelessness that prevails in four-fifths of the world's higher-priced hostelries. Chef John Pearse sees to it that the Queen Mary's food retains a certain distinction, even though few gourmets would consider it better than fair. Most Britons on board found the food near perfection. Faced with a choice of veal or steak, they would hesitate. A few ordered both.
The 1,883 passengers did not really need 800-odd stewards or the twelve bellhops to wait on them. Nor did they need 250,000 pieces of crockery or 500,000 pieces of linen. Yet not even the British Socialists (so set on seeing that everybody gets what he needs that few Britons get what they want) begrudge the Queen of the Atlantic the extras.
Nor did the belt-tightening Britons begrudge the tons of food required to stock the Mary's first westbound voyage. Britons know that the Queens should bring in dollars. Eastbound, the Mary's tourist-class reservations are sold out throughout June of 1948. Her cabin class is sold out through November of this year. First class is never quite sold until the last minute, but the Mary's is booked pretty solid through October. A prewar calculation (neither supported nor denied by the Cunard White Star Line) was that the Queen Mary could make money at an annual average of 75% of capacity. As far as anybody can foresee, the Queen will run close to capacity in both directions. That prospect should make the owners and the dollar-hungry British Government happy.
The great ship's welcome as she steamed into New York Harbor this week left no doubt that the return of the three orange smokestacks made American well-wishers happy. As shore sirens hooted and fireboats sprayed their jets, the Queen Mary slipped into her old berth.
Somewhere a band blared:
Rule, Britannia!
Britannia, rule the waves!
Britons never, never, never Shall be slaves.
-Director of British Security Coordination in. the Western Hemisphere.