Ship of Brides Read online

  ‘How ’bout you, Maggie?’ Jean leant over the side of her bunk.

  Her head heaving suddenly into view made Margaret jump and contort into a peculiar shape. Avice wondered if this travelling companion was going to prove even odder than she had suspected. Margaret seemed to sense that her reaction had been a little strange: she reached behind her, picked up a magazine and flicked it open with studied nonchalance. ‘No,’ she said. ‘Thank you. I – I should probably rest.’

  ‘Yeah. You do that,’ said Jean, hauling herself back into her bunk and taking a long drag on her cigarette. ‘The last thing we want is you dropping it in here.’

  Avice was searching for her hairbrush. She had been through her vanity case several times, and climbed down from her bunk to gaze at the others. Now that the excitement of the slipping off had dissipated, and the circumstances in which she was going to have to spend the next six weeks had come into focus, her mood had darkened. She was finding it difficult to keep smiling through. ‘I’m sorry to bother you all, but has anyone seen my brush?’ She thought it rather noble of her not to direct this at Jean.

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘Silver. It has my initials on the back. My married ones – AR.’

  ‘Not up here,’ said Jean. ‘A few things spilt out of our cases when the engines did that juddery thing earlier. Have you looked on the floor?’

  Avice knelt down, cursing the inadequate light from the one unshaded overhead bulb. If they’d had a window, she would have been able to see better. In fact, everything would have been more pleasant with a sea view. She was sure some of the girls had got windows. She couldn’t understand why her father hadn’t made it a requirement. She was just stretching her arm under Frances’s bunk when she felt a cold wet touch high on the inside of her thigh. She shrieked and jumped up, smacking the back of her head on Frances’s bunk.

  ‘What, in heaven’s name—’

  Pain shot through the top of her head, making her stumble. She pulled her skirt tight round her legs, twisting round in an effort to see behind her. ‘Who did that? Was it someone’s idea of a joke?’

  ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Jean, wide-eyed.

  ‘Someone goosed me. Someone stuck their cold wet . . .’ Here, words failed Avice, and she gazed round suspiciously, as if perhaps some madman had stowed away when no one was looking. ‘Someone goosed me,’ she repeated.

  No one spoke.

  Frances was watching her silently, her face impassive.

  ‘I’m not imagining it,’ Avice told her crossly.

  It was then that all eyes fell on Margaret, who was leaning over the edge of her bunk, muttering to herself. Avice, cheeks flushed, heart racing, legs crossed defensively, stared at her.

  Margaret looked up at her with a guilty expression. She stood up, went to the door, closed it and sighed. ‘Oh, hell. I need to tell you all something. I’d thought I’d get a cabin to myself because of being . . . like this.’

  Avice took a step backwards – which was a difficult manoeuvre in so little space. ‘Like what? Oh, Lord! You’re not one of those . . . deviant types? Oh, my goodness.’

  ‘Deviant?’ said Margaret.

  ‘I knew I shouldn’t have come.’

  ‘Pregnant, you eejit! I thought I’d get a cabin to myself because I’m pregnant.’

  ‘Are you making a nest under your bunk?’ said Jean. ‘My cat did that when she had kittens. Made a terrible mess.’

  ‘No,’ said Margaret. ‘I was not making a ruddy nest. Look, I’m trying to tell you all something.’ Her cheeks were flushed.

  Avice crossed her hands protectively over her chest. ‘Is this your way of apologising?’

  Margaret shook her head. ‘It’s not what you think.’ She lowered herself on to her hands and knees and uttered a soft crooning sound. Seconds later, her broad hand emerged from under her bunk. In it she held a small dog. ‘Girls,’ she said, ‘meet Maude Gonne.’

  Four sets of eyes stared at the dog, who stared back with rheumy disinterest.

  ‘I knew it! I knew you were up to something!’ crowed Jean, triumphantly. ‘I said to myself, when we were on the flight deck, “That Margaret, she’s as furtive as a fox in long grass eating guts.”’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake.’ Avice grimaced. ‘You mean that was what . . . ?’

  ‘Those cami-knickers really do the job, eh, Avice?’ scoffed Jean.

  Frances studied the dog. ‘But you’re not allowed pets on board,’ she said.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t hope to keep it quiet,’ Avice said. ‘And it’ll make the dorm smell.’

  There was a lengthy silence as unspoken thoughts hung in the air.

  In the end, anxiety overrode Avice’s natural delicacy. ‘We’re on this thing for almost six weeks. Where’s it going to do its business?’

  Margaret sat down, ducking to avoid banging her head on the top bunk. The dog settled on her lap. ‘She’s very clean – and I’ve worked it all out. You didn’t notice anything last night, did you? I ran her up and down the end gangway after you’d gone to sleep.’

  ‘Ran her up and down the gangway?’

  ‘And cleaned up afterwards. Look, she doesn’t bark. She doesn’t smell. I’ll make sure I keep her “business” well out of your way. But please, please, don’t dob me in. She’s . . . old . . . My mum gave her to me. And . . .’ she blinked furiously ‘. . . look, she’s all I’ve got left of my mum. I couldn’t leave her, okay?’

  There was silence as the women exchanged looks. Margaret stared at the floor, flushed with emotion. It was too soon for this level of confidence, she knew it, and so did they. ‘It’s just for a few weeks, and it’s real important to me.’

  There was another lengthy silence. The nurse looked at her shoes. ‘If you want to try to keep her in here, I don’t mind.’

  ‘Nor me,’ said Jean. ‘Long as she doesn’t chew up my shoes. She’s quite sweet. For a rat.’

  Avice knew she couldn’t be the only one to complain: it would make her seem heartless. ‘What about the Royal Marines?’ she asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The ones they’re posting outside our doors from tomorrow night. Didn’t you hear that WSO? You won’t be able to get her out.’

  ‘A marine? For what?’

  ‘He’s coming at nine thirty. I suppose it’s to stop the men below coming up and ravishing us,’ said Jean. ‘Think about it – a thousand desperate men lying just a few feet below us. They could storm the doors if they wanted to and—’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ Avice’s hand flew to her throat.

  ‘Then again,’ said Jean, grinning lasciviously, ‘it might be to keep us lot in.’

  ‘Well, I’ll have to get her out before the marine comes.’

  ‘Gangway’s too busy,’ said Jean.

  ‘Perhaps we should just tell someone,’ said Avice. ‘I’m sure they’d understand. And perhaps they’ll have . . . facilities for this kind of thing. A room they can put her in. She’d probably be much happier with a bit of space to run around, wouldn’t she?’ It wasn’t just the dogginess that bothered her, she realised, it was the sense that someone was getting away with something. They had all had their luggage weighed to the last ounce, their food parcels restricted, and had been made to leave behind their favourite belongings. And this girl had had the gall to bypass it all.

  ‘No,’ said Margaret, her face darkening. ‘You heard the captain this morning. We’re still way too close to home. They’d put her off in a boat and send her back to Sydney and that would be the last I ever saw of her. I can’t take the risk. Not yet, anyway.’

  ‘We’ll keep it quiet,’ said Jean, stroking the little dog’s head. Avice thought that Jean would have been up for anything that smacked of subverting authority. ‘Won’t we, girls? It’ll be a gas. I’m going to sneak her a bit of dinner later.’

  ‘Avice?’ said Margaret. It was as if, Avice thought afterwards, she had alrea
dy been earmarked as a killjoy.

  ‘I won’t say a word,’ she said, her voice strained. ‘Just keep her well away from me. And if you do get discovered, make sure you tell them it was nothing to do with us.’

  6

  Among the ship’s complement were about thirty-five to forty Royal Marines, their smartness in appearance and manner was usually in direct contrast to us ‘matelots’, and was the subject of some amused wonderment on our part . . . The brass buttons and spit and polished boots shone, they were so fastidious in their appearance.

  L. Troman, seaman, HMS Victorious

  in Wine, Women and War

  Two days in

  In an effort to keep occupied those brides whose initial excitement might have given way to homesickness, HMS Victoria offered, on the second full day of the voyage, the following activities – neatly documented in the inaugural issue of the Daily Ship News:

  1000 hrs Protestant Devotions (E Deck)

  1300 hrs Recorded Music

  1430 hrs Deck Games (Flight Deck)

  1600 hrs Knitting Corner (4oz of pink or white wool and two pairs of needles per girl to be provided by the Red Cross)

  1700 hrs Lecture: ‘Marriage and Family Life’, to be given by the Ship’s Chaplain

  1830 hrs Bingo Party (Recreation Area, Main Deck)

  1930 hrs Roman Catholic Mass

  Of these, the Deck Games and the Bingo Party looked to be the most popular, and the lecture the least. The chaplain had an unfortunately forbidding manner, and at least one of the brides had remarked that they didn’t need a lecture on marriage from a man who looked like he wanted to wash himself whenever a woman happened to brush past him.

  Meanwhile, the imaginatively titled newspaper, edited by one of the women’s officers with the help of two brides, also noted the birthdays of Mrs Josephine Darnforth, 19, and Mrs Alice Sutton, 22, and appealed to its readers to come forward with little snippets of gossip and good wishes that ‘might make the journey pass in a pleasant and congenial manner’.

  ‘Gossip, eh?’ mused Jean, to whom this piece had been read aloud. ‘Betcha by the end of the trip they’ll have enough to fill twenty bloody newspapers.’

  Avice had left the dormitory early for Protestant Devotions. She suspected she might meet more her sort of people at church. She had felt a little perturbed when Margaret announced that she would be attending the Roman Catholic Mass. She had never met a papist before, as her mother called them, but she was careful not to let her pity show.

  Jean, who had already announced her aversion to any kind of religion (an unfortunate experience with a Christian Brother) was making up, ready for Recorded Music. She suspected there might be dancing and pronounced herself as ‘itchy as a bare-arsed wallaby on a termite hill’ to escape the cabin and take to the floor.

  Margaret was lying on her bed, a hand on the dog, reading one of Avice’s magazines. Occasionally she would snort derisively. ‘Says here you shouldn’t sleep on one side of your face too often in case it gives you wrinkles. How the hell else are you meant to sleep?’ Then she had recalled the sight of Avice the night before, lying flat on her back above Frances, despite the obvious discomfort of a headful of rollers, and made a mental note not to comment publicly again.

  This left Frances free to disappear without comment and, dressed in pale khaki slacks and a short-sleeved shirt – the closest she could come to her old uniform – she had slipped out, nodding a brief greeting to the girls she passed, and made her way down the gangway.

  She had had to knock twice before she got a response, and even then she drew back, checking and rechecking the name on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  She stepped into the infirmary, whose walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bottles and jars, secured on narrow shelves behind glass doors. The man behind the desk had short red hair, slicked close to his head like a protective shell, and was dressed in civilian clothes. His face was freckled, his eyes creased from years of what might have been squinting but, judging from his actions now, was probably smiling.

  ‘Come right in. You’re making the place look untidy.’

  Frances flushed briefly, realised he had been joking, then took a few steps towards him.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, then?’ He was sliding his hand back and forth along the desk as if to some unheard rhythm.

  ‘I don’t have one.’ She straightened, stiff in her starched shirt. ‘Are you the surgeon? Mr Farraday?’

  ‘No.’ He gazed at her, apparently weighing up whether to enlighten her. ‘Vincent Duxbury. Civilian passenger. I’m probably not the man you had in mind. He – er – he failed to make the trip. Captain Highfield asked me to step in. And, frankly, given the standard of entertainment on board, I’m happy to oblige. How can I help you?’

  ‘I’m not sure that you can,’ she said, perplexed. ‘At least, not in that way. I was – I mean, I’m a nurse.’ She held out a hand. ‘Frances Mackenzie. Sister Frances Mackenzie. I heard that some of the brides were to be allowed to help out with secretarial duties and such, and I thought I might offer my services here.’

  Vincent Duxbury shook her hand, and motioned to her to sit down. ‘A nurse, eh? I thought we might have a few on board. Seen much duty?’

  ‘Five years in the Pacific,’ she said. ‘Last posting was the Australian General Hospital 2/7 Morotai.’ She fought the urge to add ‘sir’.

  ‘My cousin was out in Japan, back in ’forty-three. Your husband?’

  ‘My? Oh.’ She looked briefly wrongfooted. ‘Alfred Mackenzie. Royal Welsh Fusiliers.’

  ‘Royal Welsh Fusiliers . . .’ He said it slowly, as if it had significance.

  She folded her hands in front of her.

  Dr Duxbury leant back in his chair, fiddling with the top of a brown-glass bottle. It looked as if he had been in the room for some time, although he was still in his jacket. Suddenly it dawned on her that the smell of alcohol was not necessarily medicinal.

  ‘So . . .’

  She waited, trying not to look too hard at the label on the bottle.

  ‘You want to carry on serving. These six weeks.’

  ‘If I can be useful, yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve had special experience in burns, treatment of dysentery, and revival of impaired digestive systems. That was the POWs,’ she added. ‘We had significant experience of those.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘I don’t have much specialist feminine or obstetric knowledge, but I thought at least I could help with the men. I asked someone aboard the hospital ship Ariadne, where I last served, and they said that aircraft-carriers sustain a disproportionate number of injuries, especially during flight training.’

  ‘Well researched, Mrs Mackenzie.’

  ‘So . . . it’s not even that I’d like to occupy my time usefully, Doctor. I would appreciate the chance to gain a little more experience . . . I’m a good learner,’ she added, when he didn’t speak.

  There was a brief silence. She looked at him, but was discomfited by the intensity of his gaze.

  ‘Do you sing?’ he said eventually.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Sing, Mrs Mackenzie. You know, show tunes, hymns, opera.’ He began to hum something she didn’t know.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ she said.

  ‘Pity.’ He wrinkled his nose, then slapped his hand on the desk. ‘I thought we might get some of the girls together and put on a show. What a perfect opportunity, eh?’

  The brown bottle, she saw, was empty. She still could not make out what was written on the label, but now the scent of what it had contained burst softly on to the air with his every utterance.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I’m sure that would be a . . . a useful idea, Doctor. But I really wondered whether we could just discuss—’

  ‘“Long ago and far away” . . . Do you know “Showboat”?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

  ‘Pity. “Old Man River” . . .’ He closed
his eyes and continued to sing.

  She sat, her hands clasped in her lap, unsure whether or not to interrupt. ‘Doctor?’

  His singing segued into a low melodic humming. His head was thrown back.

  ‘Doctor? Do you have any idea of when you might like me to start?’

  ‘“He just keeps rollin’ . . .”’ He opened an eye. Continued to the end of the line. ‘Mrs Mackenzie?’

  ‘I can start today, if you’d like. If you’d find it . . . useful. I have my uniform in my dormitory. I kept it deliberately in my small bag.’

  He had stopped singing. He smiled broadly. She wondered if he would be like this every day. She’d have to start secretly counting bottles, as she had with Dr Arbuthnot.

  ‘You know what I’m going to say to you, Frances? May I call you Frances?’ He was pointing at her now with his bottle. He looked as if he was enjoying his moment of possible munificence. ‘I’m going to tell you to go away.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  He laughed. ‘That got you, didn’t it? No, Frances Mackenzie. You’ve been serving your country and mine for five years. You deserve a little break. I’m going to prescribe a six-week holiday.’

  ‘But I want to work,’ she said.

  ‘No buts, Mrs Mackenzie. The war’s over. In a few short weeks you’re going to be engaged in the hardest job of your career. You’ll be raising children before you know it and, believe me, those sick soldiers will look like a holiday then. That’s the real work. Take it from someone who knows. Three boys and a girl. Each one a little dynamo.’ He counted them off on his fingers, then shook his head, as if lost in distant appreciation of his offspring.

  ‘That’s the only work I want you interested in from now on. Real women’s work. So, much as I enjoy the company of an attractive young woman, right now I’m going to insist you enjoy your last days of freedom. Get your hair done. Watch some movies. Make yourself look pretty for that old man of yours.’