Ship of Brides Read online

  She was staring at him.

  ‘So go. Go on – now.’

  It took her several seconds to grasp that she had been dismissed. He waved away her offered hand.

  ‘And enjoy yourself! Come and sing a few tunes! “Make way for tomorrow . . .”’

  She could hear him singing the entire length of the gangway.

  That evening the marine arrived at a minute before nine thirty. A slim man with dark, slicked hair, who moved with the economy of someone used to making himself invisible, he positioned himself at the entrance to their dormitory, placed his feet a little more than eighteen inches apart and stood with his back to the door, eyes focused on nothing. He was responsible for watching over the two cabins on each side of theirs, and the five above. Other marines were posted at similar intervals by the others.

  ‘Trust us to have one actually outside our door,’ muttered Margaret.

  The brides had been lying on their bunks reading or writing, and Avice had been painting her nails with a polish she had bought at the PX shop in the wardroom lounge. It was not a particularly pretty shade, but she had felt she needed a treat to help her through what was already proving a testing journey.

  Hearing his footfall, able to see a sliver of his body through the half-open door, they glanced at each other. Almost unconsciously, Margaret looked down at her sleeping dog. They waited in case he uttered some greeting or perhaps an instruction, but he just stood there.

  At a quarter to ten Jean stepped outside with her cigarettes, and offered him one. When he refused, she lit one for herself and began to ask him questions: where was the cinema? Did the men get the same food as the brides? Did he like mashed potato? He answered monosyllabically, smiling only once when she asked him what he did when he needed to visit the dunny. (‘Oh, Jean,’ muttered Avice, behind the door.) ‘I’m trained not to,’ he said drily. ‘So, where do you sleep?’ she asked coquettishly, leaning against one of the pipes that ran up the wall.

  ‘My mess, ma’am.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘Official secret,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t come the raw prawn,’ said Jean.

  The marine looked straight ahead.

  ‘I’m only curious . . .’ She stepped closer to him, peering into his face. ‘Oh, come on, I’ve had toy soldiers that talked more than you.’

  ‘Ma’am.’

  She apparently assessed her remaining firepower. Conventional weapons were going to be ineffective. ‘Actually,’ she said, stubbing out her cigarette, ‘I wanted to ask you something . . . but it’s a bit embarrassing.’

  The marine looked wary. As well he might, thought Avice.

  Jean traced a pattern on the floor with her toe of her shoe. ‘Please don’t tell anyone, but I keep getting lost,’ she said. ‘I’d like to walk around but I’ve got lost twice already, and it’s made me a bit of a joke with the other girls. So I don’t really like to ask them. I even missed dinner because I couldn’t find the canteen.’

  The marine had relaxed a little. He was intent, listening.

  ‘It’s because I’m sixteen, you see. I didn’t do too good at school. Reading and stuff. And I can’t . . .’ she let her voice drop to a whisper ‘. . . I can’t understand the map. The one of the ship. You couldn’t explain it to me, could you?’

  The marine hesitated, then nodded. ‘There’s one pinned up on that noticeboard. Want me to talk you through it?’ His voice was low, resonant, as if he was about to break into song.

  ‘Oh, would you?’ said Jean, a heartbreaking smile on her face.

  ‘Golly, Moses, she’s brilliant,’ said Margaret, who was listening from behind the door. When Margaret and Avice looked out the pair were standing in front of the map, fifteen or so feet along the gangway. Margaret, carrying an oversized washbag, gave them a merry wave as she hurried along in her dressing-gown. The marine saluted her, then turned back to Jean to explain how she might use the map to get from the hangar deck to, for example, the laundry. Jean was apparently concentrating intently on whatever he had to say.

  ‘It’s not ideal,’ said Margaret afterwards, sitting down heavily on her bunk as the dog plodded round the dormitory, sniffing at the floor. ‘It’s not like a proper walk for her. I mean, she’s used to fields.’

  Avice stifled the urge to remark that she should have thought of that beforehand. She was now smoothing cold cream into her face in front of her little travelling mirror. The sea air was meant to do terrible things to one’s skin, and she was darned if she was going to meet Ian looking like a strip of Bombay duck.

  The door opened.

  ‘Great,’ said Margaret, as Jean came in, grinning, and closed it behind her. ‘You were great, Jean.’

  Jean simpered. ‘Well, girls, you’ve either got it—’ She stopped. ‘Blimey, Avice, you look like a haddock with your mouth like that.’

  Avice closed it.

  ‘I’m ever so grateful, Jean,’ Margaret told her. ‘I didn’t think he was going to move. I mean, that bit about not being able to read was a masterstroke.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d never have come up with it. You must really be able to think on your feet.’

  Jean gave her an odd look. ‘No thinking about it, mate.’ She directed her next words at the floor. ‘Can’t read a word. ’Cept my name. Never have.’

  There was an awkward silence. Avice tried to gauge if this was another of Jean’s jokes, but she wasn’t laughing.

  Jean broke the silence. ‘What the bloody hell is that?’ She stood up, flapping her hands.

  There was a second’s grace, then a putrid smell explained her outburst.

  Margaret winced. ‘Sorry, ladies. I said she was clean. I never said she wasn’t windy.’

  Jean burst out laughing, and even Frances managed a rueful smile.

  Avice raised her eyes to heaven and thought, trying to keep bitterness from her heart, of the Queen Mary.

  It was on the second night that homesickness struck. Margaret lay awake in the darkened cabin, listening to the odd creak and sniff as her travelling companions shifted on their bunks, her exhaustion swept away paradoxically by the opportunity to sleep. She had thought she was fine: the strangeness of it all and the excitement of leaving the harbour had conspired to stop her thinking too hard about her new environment. Now, picturing the ship in the middle of the ocean, heading out into the inky blackness, she was gripped by an irrational terror, a childlike desire to turn round and run for the familiar safety of the only house in which she had ever spent a night. Her brothers would be going to bed now: she could picture them round the kitchen table – they had barely used the parlour since her mother had died – their long legs stretched out as they listened to the wireless, played cards or, in Daniel’s case, read a comic, perhaps with Colm leaning over his shoulder. Dad would be in his chair, hands tucked behind his head, the frayed patches showing at his elbows, eyes closed as if in preparation for sleep, occasionally nodding. Letty would be sewing, or polishing something, perhaps sitting in the chair her mother had once occupied.

  Letty, whom she had treated so shabbily.

  She was overwhelmed by the thought of never seeing any of them again, and bit down on her fingers, hoping that physical pain might force away the image.

  She took a deep breath, reached out and felt Maude Gonne under the blanket, tucked into the restricted area where her thigh met her belly. She shouldn’t have brought the little dog: it had been selfish. She hadn’t thought of how miserable she would be, stuck inside this noisy, stuffy cabin for twenty-four hours a day. Even Margaret was finding it difficult, and she could go to the other decks at will. I’m sorry, she told the dog silently. I promise I’ll make it up to you when we get to England. A tear trickled down her cheek.

  Outside, the marine shifted position on the metallic floor and murmured a quiet greeting to someone passing. She heard his shirt brush against the door. In the distance, several sets of heavy footfalls tramped down the metal stairs. Above
her, Jean murmured to herself, perhaps in sleep, and Avice pulled the blanket further over her rollered hair.

  Margaret had never shared a room in her life; it had been one of the few advantages of growing up female in the Donleavy household. Now the little dormitory, without the door open, without light or a breath of air, felt stifling. She swung her legs over the side of the bunk and sat there for a minute. I can’t do this, she told herself, dragging her oversized nightdress over her knees. I’ve got to pull it together. She thought of Joe, his expression warm and faintly mocking. ‘Get a grip, old girl,’ he said, and she closed her eyes, trying to remind herself of why she was making this journey.

  ‘Margaret?’ Jean’s voice cut into the darkness. ‘You going somewhere?’

  ‘No,’ said Margaret, sliding her feet back under the covers. ‘No, just . . .’ She couldn’t explain. ‘Just having trouble getting to sleep.’

  ‘Me too.’

  Her voice had sounded uncharacteristically small. Margaret felt a swell of pity for her. She was barely more than a child. ‘Want to come down here for a bit?’ she whispered.

  She could just make out Jean’s slender limbs climbing rapidly down the ladder, and then the girl slid in at the other end of her bunk. ‘No room at the top end.’ She giggled and, despite herself, Margaret giggled back. ‘Don’t let that baby kick me. And don’t let that dog slip its nose up my drawers.’

  They lay quietly for a few minutes, Margaret unable to work out whether she found Jean’s skin against hers comforting or unsettling. Jean fidgeted for a while, legs twitching impatiently, and Margaret felt Maude Gonne lift her head in enquiry.

  ‘What’s your husband’s name?’ Jean asked eventually.

  ‘Joe.’

  ‘Mine’s Stan.’

  ‘You said.’

  ‘Stan Castleforth. He’s nineteen on Tuesday. His mum wasn’t too happy when he told her he’d got wed, but he says she’s calmed down a bit now.’

  Margaret lay back, staring at the blackness above her, thinking of the warm letters she had received from Joe’s mother and wondering whether courage or foolhardiness had sent a half-child alone to the other side of the world. ‘I’m sure she’ll be fine once you get to know each other,’ she said, when continued silence might have suggested the opposite.

  ‘From Nottingham,’ said Jean. ‘D’you know it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nor me. But he said it’s where Robin Hood came from. So I reckon it’s probably in a forest.’

  Jean shifted again, and Margaret could hear her rummaging at the end of the bunk. ‘Mind if I have a smoke?’ she hissed.

  ‘Go ahead.’

  There was a brief flare, and she glimpsed Jean’s illuminated face, rapt in concentration as she lit her cigarette. Then the match was shaken out, and the cabin returned to darkness.

  ‘I think about Stan loads, you know,’ she said. ‘He’s dead handsome. All my mates thought so. I met him outside the cinema and he and his mate offered to pay for me and mine to go in. Ziegfield Follies. In technicolour.’ She exhaled. ‘He told me he hadn’t kissed a girl since Portsmouth and I couldn’t really say no in the circumstances. He had a hand up my skirt before “This Heart Of Mine”.’

  Margaret heard her humming the tune.

  ‘I got married in parachute silk. My aunt Mavis got it for me from a GI she knew who did bent radios. My mum’s not really up for all that stuff.’ She paused. ‘In fact, I get on better with my aunt Mavis. Always have done. My mum reckons I’m a waste of skin.’

  Margaret shifted on to her side, thinking of her own mother. Of her constancy, her bossy, exasperated maternal presence, her freckled hands, lifting to pin her hair out of the way several hundred times a day. She found her mouth had dried.

  ‘Was it different, when you got . . . you know?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did you have to do it differently . . . to have a baby, I mean.’

  ‘Jean!’

  ‘What?’ Jean’s voice rose in indignation. ‘Someone’s got to tell me.’

  Margaret sat up, careful not to bang her head on the bunk above. ‘You must know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking, would I?’

  ‘You mean no one’s ever told you . . . about the birds and the bees?’

  Jean snorted. ‘I know where he’s got to put it, if that’s what you’re talking about. I quite like that bit. But I don’t know how doing that leads to babies.’

  Margaret was shocked into silence, but a voice came from above: ‘If you’re going to be so coarse as to discuss these matters in company,’ it said, ‘you could at least do it quietly. Some of us are trying to sleep.’

  ‘I bet Avice knows,’ giggled Jean.

  ‘I thought you said you’d lost a baby,’ said Avice, pointedly.

  ‘Oh, Jean. I’m so sorry.’ Margaret’s hand went involuntarily to her mouth.

  There was a prolonged silence.

  ‘Actually,’ Jean said, ‘I wasn’t exactly carrying as such.’

  Margaret could hear Avice shifting under her covers.

  ‘I was . . . well, a bit late with my you-know-what. And my friend Polly said that meant you were carrying. So I said I was because I knew it would help me get on board. Even though when I worked out the dates I couldn’t really have been, if you know what I mean. And then they had to postpone my medical check twice. When they did it I said I’d lost it and I started crying because by then I’d almost convinced myself that I was and the nurse felt sorry for me and said no one needed to know one way or the other, and that the most important thing was getting me over to my Stan. It’s probably why they’ve stuck me in with you, Maggie.’ She took a deep drag of her cigarette. ‘So, there you are. I didn’t mean to lie exactly.’ She rolled over, picked up a shoe and stubbed out her cigarette on the sole. Her voice took on a hard, defensive edge: ‘But if any of you dob me in, I’ll just say I lost it on board anyway. So there’s no point in telling.’

  Margaret laid her hands on her stomach. ‘Nobody’s going to tell on you, Jean,’ she said.

  There was a deafening silence from Avice’s bunk.

  Outside, an unknown distance away, they could hear a foghorn. It sounded a single low, melancholy note.

  ‘Frances?’ said Jean.

  ‘She’s asleep,’ whispered Margaret.

  ‘No, she’s not. I saw her eyes when I lit my ciggie. You won’t tell on me, Frances, will you?’

  ‘No,’ said Frances, from the bunk opposite. ‘I won’t.’

  Jean got out of bed. She patted Margaret’s leg, then climbed nimbly back up to her bunk, where she could be heard rustling herself into comfort. ‘So, come on, then,’ she said eventually. ‘Who likes doing it, and what is it that makes you actually get a baby?’

  On the flight deck, a thousand-pound bomb from a Stuka aircraft looks curiously like a beer barrel. It rolls casually from the underbelly of the sinister little plane, with the same gay insouciance as if it were about to be rolled down the steps of a beer cellar. Surrounded by its brothers, flanked by a bunched formation of fighter planes, it seems to pause momentarily in the sky, then float down towards the ship, guided, as if by an invisible force, towards the deck.

  This is one of the things Captain Highfield thinks as he stares up at his impending death. This, and the fact that, when the wall of flame rises up from the armoured deck, engulfing the island, the ship’s command centre, its blue-white heat clawing upwards, and he is possessed of the immobilising terror, as he had always known he would be, he has forgotten something. Something he had to do. And in his blind paralysis even he is dimly aware of how ridiculous it is to be casting around for some unremembered task while he faces immolation.

  Then, in the raging heart of the fire, as the bombs rain around him, bouncing off the decks, as his nostrils sting with the smell of burning fuel and his ears refuse to close to the screams of his men, he looks up to see a plane, where there is no plane. It, too, is engulfed, yellow flames licking at the cockpit, the t
ilted wings blackened, but not enough to obscure, within, Hart’s face, which is untouched, his eyes questioning as he faces the captain.

  I’m sorry, Highfield weeps, unsure if, through the roar of the fire, the younger man can hear him. I’m sorry.

  When he wakes, his pillow damp and the skies still dark above the quiet ocean, he is still speaking these words into the silence.

  7

  I, like many others, had developed a love-hate relationship with the Vic. We hated the life, but we were proud of her as a fighting unit. We cursed her between ourselves, but would not hear anyone outside of the ship say anything derogatory about her . . . she was a lucky ship. Sailors are so superstitious.

  L. Troman, seaman, HMS Victorious,

  in Wine, Women and War

  Two weeks previously

  According to her log, HMS Victoria had seen action in the north Atlantic, the Pacific and, most recently, at Morotai where, carrying Corsairs, she helped force back the Japanese and bore the scars to show it. She, and many like her, had stopped repeatedly over the past few years at the dockyards at Woolloomooloo to have her mine-damaged hull repaired, bullet and torpedo holes plugged, the brutal scars of her time at sea put straight before she was sent out again, bearing men who had themselves been patched up and readied for battle.

  Captain George Highfield was much given to fanciful thinking, but as he walked along the dry dock, staring up through the sea mist at the hulls of Victoria and her neighbours, he often allowed himself to think about the vessels as his fellows. Hard not to see them as suffering some kind of hurt, as having some kind of personality when they had allied themselves to you, given you their all, braved high seas and fierce fire. In forty years’ service, he’d had his favourites: those that had felt undeniably his, the occasional alchemic conjunction of ship and crew in which each man knew he would lay down his life willingly for its protection. He had bitten back private tears of grief when he left them, less privately when they had been sunk. He often supposed this was how previous generations of fighting men must have felt about their horses.