Ship of Brides Read online

  She would not normally have asked a man for a cigarette. She would not have allowed herself to be drawn into conversation. She would certainly not have begun one. But she felt so much better. The sky had been so beautiful. And there was something so melancholy about his face.

  He was leaning against the wall beside their door, cigarette cupped between thumb and forefinger, eyes fixed on a point on the floor in front of him. His hair had flopped forward and his shoulders were hunched, as if he was lost in some less-than-happy thought. As he caught sight of her he pinched out the cigarette and dropped it into his pocket. She thought he might have flushed. Afterwards, she remembered feeling mildly shocked: up to that point, he had seemed a kind of automaton. Like so many marines. She had hardly considered there might be room for something as human as embarrassment, or even guilt, behind the mask. ‘Please don’t bother,’ she said. ‘Not on my account.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not meant to, really, on duty.’

  ‘Still.’

  He had thanked her gruffly, not quite meeting her eye.

  And for some reason, instead of disappearing into the cabin, she had stood there, her cardigan round her shoulders and, unexpectedly even to herself, asked whether she might have one too. ‘I don’t feel like going in yet,’ she explained. Then, self-conscious, she had stood beside him, already regretting her decision.

  He pulled a cigarette from the pack, and handed it to her wordlessly. Then he lit it, his hand briefly touching hers as it cupped the flame. Frances tried not to flinch, then wondered how quickly she could smoke it without making herself dizzy and disappear. He had plainly not wanted company. She, of all people, should have seen it. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have a few puffs.’

  ‘Take your time.’

  Twice she found herself in the unusual position of smiling, an instinctive, conciliatory gesture. His, in answer, was fleeting. They stood, one on each side of the door frame, looking at their feet, the safety notice, the fire extinguisher until the silence became uncomfortable.

  She looked sideways at his sleeve. ‘What rank are you?’

  ‘Corporal.’

  ‘Your stripes are upside-down.’

  ‘Three-badge marine.’

  She took a deep drag of her cigarette. She was already nearly a third of the way down it. ‘I thought three stripes meant sergeant.’

  ‘Not if they’re upside-down.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘They’re for long service. Good conduct.’ His eyes flickered over them, as if he had rarely considered them. ‘Stopping fights, that kind of thing. I suppose it’s a way of rewarding someone who doesn’t want promotion.’

  Two ratings walked along the passageway. As they passed Frances, their gaze flicked from her to the marine and back again. She waited until they’d gone, their footsteps echoing. A moment later the brief rise and fall in the sound of chatter told of the opening and closing of a cabin door.

  ‘Why didn’t you want promotion?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Possibly he realised this had sounded a little abrupt, because he went on, ‘Perhaps I never saw myself as sergeant material.’

  His face seemed frozen into disappointment, she thought, and his eyes, while not unfriendly, told of his discomfort with casual conversation. She knew that look: she wore it habitually too.

  His gaze briefly met hers and slid away. ‘Perhaps I never wanted the responsibility.’

  It was then that she spotted the photograph. He must have been looking at it before she came. A black and white picture, a little smaller than a man’s wallet, tucked into his right hand between finger and thumb. ‘Yours?’ she said, nodding towards his hand.

  He lifted it, and looked at it as if for the first time. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Boy and girl?’

  ‘Two boys.’

  She apologised, and they smiled awkwardly. ‘My youngest needed a haircut.’ He handed it to her. She took it, held it under the light and studied the beaming faces, unsure what she was meant to say. ‘They look nice.’

  ‘Picture’s eighteen months old. They’ll have grown some.’

  She nodded, as if he had shared with her some piece of parental wisdom.

  ‘You?’

  ‘Oh. No . . .’ She handed back the picture. ‘No.’

  They stood in silence again.

  ‘You miss them?’

  ‘Every day.’ Then his voice hardened. ‘They probably don’t even remember what I look like.’

  She did not know what to say: whatever she was intruding on would not be eased by a cigarette and a few minutes of small-talk. She felt suddenly that engaging him in conversation had been rash and misjudged. His job was to stand outside their door. He had no choice if she chose to talk to him. He would not want to be bothered by women at all hours.

  ‘I’ll leave you,’ she said, quietly, then added, ‘Thank you for the cigarette.’ She trod it out, then bent down to pick up the butt. She was afraid to take it into the cabin – what would she do with it in the dark? But if she put it into her pocket it might burn through the fabric. He had failed to notice her predicament, but as she hesitated by the door he turned. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a hand. The palm was weathered, leathery with years of salt and hard work.

  She shook her head, but he held his hand closer, insistent. She placed the little butt on it, and blushed. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘Goodnight, then.’

  She opened the door, was sliding silently round it into the darkness when she heard his voice. It was quiet enough to reassure her that her judgement of him had been right, but light enough to show he had not taken offence. Light enough to suggest some kind of offering.

  ‘So, whose is the dog?’ it asked.

  10

  The voyage was a nightmare. Due to breakdowns, it took eight weeks. We had one murder, one suicide, one Airforce Officer who went crazy etc. All of this against the background of a crew neglecting their work in order to have time to pursue ‘brides’ and later to engage in virtually public, gymnastic sexual activity with them. They appeared to use every available location on the ship, including one couple who specialised in the ‘Crows Nests’.

  from the papers of the late Richard Lowery, naval architect

  Sixteen days

  The first Not Wanted Don’t Come arrived on the morning of the sixteenth day the brides had been on board. The telegram arrived just after eight a.m. in the radio room, shortly after the long-range weather reports. Its content was noted by the radio operator. He carried it swiftly to the captain, who was eating toast and porridge in his rooms. He read it, then summoned the chaplain, who summoned the relevant WSO, and all three spent some time pontificating on what was known of the character of the bride concerned, and how well – or otherwise – she was likely to take the news.

  The subject of the telegram, a Mrs Millicent Newcombe (née Sumpter) was called in to the captain’s office at ten thirty a.m. – it had been thought only fair to let the girl enjoy a good breakfast first; many had not yet entirely recovered from seasickness. She arrived white-faced, convinced that her husband, a pilot, flying Seafires, had been shot down and was missing, presumed dead. So great had been her distress that none of the three was quick enough to tell her the truth, and merely stood uncomfortably as she sobbed into her handkerchief. Eventually Captain Highfield put matters straight, telling her in a sonorous voice that he was terribly sorry but it wasn’t that. It really wasn’t that at all. Then he had handed her the telegram.

  Afterwards, he told his steward, she had gone quite pale – paler even than when she had suspected her husband’s death. She had asked, several times, whether they thought it was a joke, and when she heard that all such telegrams were investigated and verified as a matter of course, she had sat down, squinting at the words in front of her as if they didn’t make sense. ‘It’s his mother,’ she said. ‘I knew she’d do for me. I knew it.’

  Then, as they stood in silenc
e around her, ‘I bought two pairs of new shoes. They cost me all my savings. For going ashore. I thought he’d want to see me in nice shoes.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re very nice shoes,’ the chaplain murmured helplessly.

  Then, with a heartbreaking look round the room, she said, ‘I don’t know what I do now.’

  Captain Highfield, along with the women’s officer, had wired the girl’s parents, then contacted London, who had advised that they should put her off at Ceylon where a representative of the Australian government would take charge of the arrangements to bring her home. The radio operator would make sure that her parents or other family members had any relevant information. They would not let her go until they were sure that arrangements were in place to meet her at the other end. These procedures were laid out in the paperwork recently sent from London and had been put in place for the earlier return of GI brides.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, once the arrangements had been made, thin shoulders straightening as she pulled herself together. ‘To put you all to so much trouble, I mean. I’m very sorry.’

  ‘It’s really no trouble, Mrs . . . erm . . . Millicent.’

  The women’s officer had placed an arm round the girl’s shoulders to steer her out; it was hard to tell whether the gesture was protective or merely indicative of her determination to get her away from the captain’s office.

  For several moments after she had left the room was silent, as if, in the face of such emotional devastation, no one knew what to say. Highfield, sitting down, the girl’s forlorn voice still echoing round his walls, found he was developing a headache.

  ‘I’ll get on to the Red Cross in Ceylon, sir,’ said the chaplain, eventually. ‘Make sure there’s someone who can stay with her a little. Give her a bit of support.’

  ‘That would be a good idea,’ said Highfield. He scribbled something meaningless on the notepad in front of him. ‘I suppose we should contact the pilot’s supervising officer as well, just to make sure there are no extenuating circumstances. You take charge of that, Dobson, will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Dobson. He had entered just as Millicent was leaving, and was whistling a jaunty tune that Highfield found intensely annoying.

  He wondered whether he should have spent more time with the girl, whether he should get the WSO to bring her to dinner. A meal at the captain’s table might be consoling after her humiliation. But he had always found it difficult to judge these things.

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ Dobson said.

  ‘What?’ said Highfield.

  ‘She’ll probably have found another young dope by the time she leaves Ceylon. Pretty girl like that.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t think these Aussie girls are too fussy, as long as they find someone to get them off the old sheep farm.’

  Highfield was speechless.

  ‘Besides, it’s one less bride on board, eh, Captain?’ Dobson laughed, apparently pleased with his own humour. ‘Bit of luck we could have jettisoned the lot by the time we reach Plymouth.’

  Rennick, who had been standing in the corner, briefly met his captain’s eye, then quietly left the room.

  Until that point the world as the brides had known it had steadily receded by nautical miles, and the Victoria had become a world of its own, existing discretely from the continuing life on land. The routines of the ship had become the routines of the women, and those faces who daily moved around them, scrubbing, painting or welding, their population. This new world stretched from the captain’s office at one end to the PX store (purveyors of lipstick, washing-powder, writing paper and other essentials – without a ration book) at the other, and from the flight deck, surrounded by its endless blue horizon to the bowels of the bilge pumps, the port and starboard engines.

  The days were marked off for some women by letter-writing and devotions, for others by lectures and movies, punctuated by walks round the free sections of the blustery deck or by the odd game of bingo. With food provided, and their lives dictated by the rules, there were few decisions to make. Marooned on their floating island, they became passive, surrendered themselves to these new rhythms, surrounded by nothing except the slowly changing climate, the increasingly dramatic sunsets, the endless ocean. Gradually, inevitably, in the same way as a pregnant woman cannot imagine the birth, it became harder to look forward to their destination, too much of a struggle to imagine the unknown.

  Still harder to think back.

  In this stilled atmosphere, news of the Not Wanted Don’t Come filtered through the ship as rapidly and pervasively as a virus. The collective mood, which had taken on a hint of holiday as the girls felt less nauseous, was suddenly, distantly, fraught. A new low note of anxiety underlay the conversation in the canteen; a spate of headaches and palpitations presented themselves to the sick bay. There was a rapid rise in the number of queries about when the next batch of letters was to arrive. At least one bride confided in the chaplain that she thought she might have changed her mind, as if by saying the words, and hearing his reassurance, she could ward off the possibility of her husband doing the same.

  That one piece of paper, and its four bald words, had brought home to them rudely the reality of their situation. It told them that their future was not necessarily their own, that other unseen forces were even now dictating the months and years to follow. It reminded them that many had married in haste, and that no matter what they felt, what sacrifices they had made, they were now waiting, like sitting ducks, for their husbands to repent at leisure.

  Despite this, or perhaps because of it, the arrival that afternoon of King Neptune and his cohorts prompted an atmosphere on board that could at best be described as fevered and at worst as manic.

  After lunch Margaret had dragged the others up on to the flight deck. Avice had declared she would rather rest on her bunk, that she was feeling too delicate to enjoy herself. Frances had said, in her cool little voice, that she didn’t think it was her kind of thing. Margaret, who had not failed to notice the chill in the air between the two, and a little unbalanced herself by the discovery in the bathroom that morning of a weeping girl convinced – in the face of no evidence – that she was about to get a telegram, had determined it would do them all good to go.

  Her motives were not entirely selfless: she didn’t want to act as a buffer for the others’ jangling moods, couldn’t face yet another afternoon ricocheting aimlessly between the canteen and the confines of the dormitory.

  Jean, at least, had needed no persuading.

  When they had emerged outside, the flight deck – normally deserted apart from rows of attentive seagulls, lost brides, or lonely pairs of seamen scrubbing their way backwards in steady formation – was a seething mass of people, the sun bouncing off the deck around them, their chatter lifting above the sound of the engines as they seated themselves around a newly constructed canvas tank. It was several seconds before Margaret noticed the chair suspended above it from the mobile crane.

  ‘Good God! They’re not going to stick us in that, are they?’ she said.

  ‘Need a dockyard crane for you,’ said Jean, as she pushed, elbows out like elephants’ ears, through the crowd, oblivious to sharp looks and muttering. ‘Come on, girls. Plenty of room over here. Mind your backs! Pregnant lady coming through.’

  Now that most were seated, Margaret could see that the crowd was mixed. It was the first time since they had slipped anchor that so many men and women had been gathered together without formal separation. The officers, though, stood apart in their whites. The heat on the deck evoked an expectant, festival atmosphere, and as she lumbered through the crowd, she was conscious of the women’s bare arms and legs, the bolder attention of the men.

  A short distance away another heavily pregnant woman was looking for somewhere to sit, a sun hat on her head, her pale skin mottled in some uncomfortable reaction to the heat. She caught sight of Margaret and her face twisted into acknowledgement, part smile, part sympathy. Behind her, a man in overalls offered a laughing gir
l a paper cup, and she thought wistfully of Joe, buying her lemonade at a local fair on one of the first times they had walked out together.

  She lowered herself into the space Jean had cleared for her, trying to prop herself on the hard surface in a way that wouldn’t make her limbs ache. Minutes later she found herself ducking inelegantly as a large crate was passed over the women’s heads by one of the ratings to a moustachioed engineer, whom she recognised from Dennis’s mess. ‘There you go, missus,’ he said, placing it beside her. ‘Sit yourself on that.’

  ‘Very civil of you,’ she said, embarrassed, a small part of her resentful that her condition meant she required it.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘We’re drawing lots over there, and none of us wanted the job of hauling you to your feet.’

  Considering Margaret’s facility with bad language, it was perhaps fortunate that at that moment ‘Neptune’ arrived, in a wig made of unbraided rope, his face painted a violent green. He was surrounded by a number of equally outlandishly dressed companions, who were introduced as (a rather hairy) Queen Amphitrite, the Royal Doctor, Dentist and Barber, and the oversized Royal Baby, modesty protected by a towelling napkin and slathered in a layer of the grease more commonly associated with a well-tuned engine. Behind them, accompanied by the red-haired trumpet-player, came a band of bare-chested men, cheered loudly by the assembled troops and women, who were apparently to act as enforcers. They were introduced without explanation as ‘Bears’.

  ‘I’d dare to “bear”. Hey! I’d “bear all” for you, mate!’ Jean’s face was glowing with excitement. ‘Look at him! He’s as fit as a Mallee bull!’

  ‘Oh, Jean,’ sighed Avice.

  Despite her air of exasperation, it was clear to everyone that Avice was feeling better. It was apparent in the way she had spent a full twenty minutes doing her hair, even without the aid of a proper mirror or hairspray. It was apparent in the way that she sprayed herself so liberally with scent that Maude Gonne had sneezed for almost half an hour. But it was mostly apparent in the sudden lifting of her spirits at being in mixed company. ‘Look. There’s all sorts of ranks here,’ she said happily, neck craned to make out who was in the crowd. ‘Look at all the stripes! I thought it was just going to be a load of horrid old engineers.’