The Open Sea.
Walter (your #8125),
Our paths seem to have crossed in so many ways. "Elmer's tune" was/is one of my favourites, too, and it fixes our time frame as 1941. I went out to the States for my flying training in the September of that year (it was on all the jukeboxes), returning to the UK in March '42, and went out to India in late October. By then they had got a Reception Centre going in Blackpool which did the preparations for overseas postings before going up to Gourock for my ship.
Like your "Ranpura", my "Stirling Castle" was dog-legged right across the Atlantic to Brazil (Bahia), then back round the Cape to Durban and Bombay. It was only on this Thread that I learned that that was to keep us away from the North African invasion traffic. But you had a cabin ! Jammy ! I was on the top of a 7-tier bunk in what had been the first-class dining saloon. So you've got as far as Takoradi now (don't know it). Pilgrim's Progress ! (of a sort).
What a lovely "boy meets girl" story. I've had 61 years with my Iris now, "and it don't seem a day too long". I can only imagine the scale of your loss, offer my profound sympathy, and hope it doesn't happen to me (the odds are in my favour, as I'm eight years older). But you never know.
Looking forward to your next instalments, when you'll be getting down to business.
Cheers, Danny