Read Part 1: C'est la guerre!
Lieutenant Plagnes, an aviation engineer of the French Air Force, is not very happy aboard P A Foch. He hasn't met his fiancée for over four months, his salary could not afford him a fast tour of north India, and he has to cope with tremendous manpower shortage.

"I miss everything which is not here," says the tall, handsome youngster.

He is on deputation to the French Navy to look after a Puma helicopter. He looks forward to returning home and getting married. Lt Plagnes' eyes are fixed on his personnel and the Puma as he talks.

Life on Foch is a unique experience for its 80 officers, 550 chief and petty officers, 700 seamen and recruits, and 450 additional sailors including pilots, technicians and administrators.

"Most of them come and pray with me. I think sometimes they feel lonely," says Father Grais Charles, the Catholic priest aboard. He says Mass at 1845 hours everyday. On Sundays over 100 people attend it.

Some sailors "think of their homes, their dear ones. That turns them to God" and Father Charles' beautiful chapel on the ship.

Ever smiling Lieutenant Christophe Le Tallec will not tell you that he misses home. But when he begins to talk of his fiancée, he turns a trifle sad. As we were leaving the ship, he handed 12 postcards brought from Taj Mahal with messages in French. He asked us to post it somewhere in Bombay, "as we may hit the coast only days after."

While the officers can articulate their feelings or control them, can buy expensive cards and send it home, those like Charles and Dominique just put up a poker face. They are among the hundreds of school dropouts and former drug addicts who have been taken on contract by the French Navy.

In tee-shirts, they clean the floors, assist in ground duties of the attack squadron, drive trolleys, move aircraft from the lower to the upper deck where from they take off, etc. Called the Short Contract Marines, the revolutionary attempt to induct them as part of the uniformed service has been "successful", say senior officials.

"French Navy volunteered to take over 1,000 of them and give them jobs. Because of their low level of productivity they leave after a few years. The contract is for a maximum of four years," says Lt Le Tallec.

During their stay on ship, these men have a chance to attend some informal schooling and are given a "disciplined life".

"When they get back to their towns, they find the experience with the navy an added advantage and are able to start a good life," says Lt Tallec.

Dominique, a man in his late 20s from the Rochefort area of France, says he is "happy". If he were to have continued in France "life would have been worse, I would not have got this kind of disciplined life."

Men like him are many aboard. Assisting in small jobs. At the bakery, where over 8,000 loaves of bread a day are baked, at the mess serving food. Today, they are an integral part of life on Foch.

Silently sharing the sorrows and joys of her sailors and officers, Foch steams through the high seas like a huge township. Tonnes of frozen food are stored in huge containers. From eggs to French wine and a variety of cheese, almost everything that one can imagine is available on board. At the Bombay port, they shopped for over Rs 500,000. Indian fruits and mineral water came aboard in large quantities.

"Fruits are quite cheap here," says Le Tallec, who is also the catering officer.

There are three kitchens on Foch. The captain and the fleet commander have a small private mess.

The mammoth ship consumes over 350 tonnes of water. Over 220 tonnes of fresh water is produced on board from seawater daily.

"The rest of the water needed is drawn from the sea," says Chief Petty Officer Gouard, who heads the 10-man force that extracts pure water.

Besides the 8000-plus loaves of bread, about 1,000 croissants, several kilos of chocolates and huge quantities of meat, both beef and pork, are consumed on board everyday.

"The ship is like a huge hotel," says an officer as he pours good quality red wine at the officer's mess.

At the well-kept mess, we came across an added attraction: Three women officers, the only members of the fair sex on board. They weren't very forthcoming.

"Life is good here. It is part of our job," was all they would say.

The lucid cartoons on display at various notice boards, how do you deal with those? "It is all in the game," one of them remarks.

At the mess, Richard Merlini stands out. He has no rank on his shoulders, but a cross. He is the Protestant priest who "help to boost the morale of men and share difficulties with everybody."

Merlini admits that most sailors come to him talking about "the difficulties of sailing for long. It does have an impact on the family life of some of them."

Lt Queffelec Christian, who is in charge of the propulsion unit, is one of Merlini's frequent visitors. He agreed to divorce his wife "as it was unjustifiable to leave her all alone back home for over four to five months." He has an 11-year-old son, with whom he "travels around Europe during holidays. Next year we will go to the US."

Lt Christian do not regret the decision to divorce his wife, "it was right for me to do that." At present, he has no plans to remarry as he is busy with the 63,000 horse power turbine. He reigns over the deck that houses the propulsion unit, where the temperature is over 60 degree Celsius, where shafts 110 metres long and of 200 tonnage weight are in motion all the time, where 6.5 tonnes of oil is consumed by each boiler every hour... In the heat and noise of the propulsion room, Lt Christian forgets his sorrows.

Those with jobs that are less engaging have 150-odd television sets as diversion. "There are very few modes of entertainment here, so the TV channel is hugely popular," says one official. Besides, the ship has an in-house newspaper too.

The ship reminds one of the Kafkaesque buildings with winding alleys, narrow stairways and unknown destinations. The only difference is that it is well lit everywhere. One thing that came back to us over and over was the possibility of an accident. It could be horrifying.

"We have our own ways of taking care of any eventuality," says an official. "There are over 100 firemen on board, and we have a well-planned strategy to fight any accident. It will take us less than a minute to kill a fire on the deck in case an aircraft crashes there."

It was in 1983 that Foch had an accident last. One of the wheels of a Super Etendard bomber broke away while landing.

"The pilot escaped unhurt, and we killed the fire in a minute," he says.

On the evening of February 29, after a splendid show of formations with Indian ships, Foch sailed southwards into the Indian Ocean. From there, it will enter the south Atlantic Ocean. This would be the last journey around the globe for Foch. The ship will soon find a buyer, change its colours, get a new name, new men...

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Photographs: Jewella C Miranda
Design: Dominic Xavier