Ship of Brides Read online

  ‘No,’ she snapped, pulling it to her. ‘No, thank you,’ she added, and tried to smile. ‘It’s got all my papers and things in it. Be terrible if I lost it.’

  He grinned at her. ‘You’re probably right, madam. Today’s not the day to lose anything.’

  They had each supported her under an elbow and were now propelling her towards the ship. Unlike the Victoria itself, she noted absently, the gangplank looked tired, its wooden struts half rotten from years of feet and seawater. ‘’Bye then, Maggie,’ her father called.

  ‘Dad.’ Suddenly it seemed too hurried. She wasn’t sure if she was ready after all. She tried to blow a kiss with her free hand in an attempt to convey something of what she felt.

  ‘Dan? Daniel? Where is he?’ Her father had spun round to locate the boy. He waved his hand for her to wait, to hang on, but the crowd was pushing against the barrier and he was already being swallowed into it.

  ‘I haven’t said goodbye properly.’

  ‘Bloody boy.’ Her father was almost in tears. ‘Dan! I know he wants to say goodbye. Look, don’t take any notice of all that—’

  ‘We should really get you aboard, Madam,’ said the officer beside her.

  She looked at him, then at the Customs shed. Her feet were on the gangplank now. She could feel the pressure of her suitcase on her leg as the officer stood behind her, impatient to move on.

  ‘I can’t see him, love,’ Murray called. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Tell him it’s okay, Dad. I understand.’ She could see that her father was blinking hard.

  ‘You’ll be sorry!’ A young navvy, cap pulled low over his head, grinned at her slyly.

  ‘You take care,’ her father yelled. ‘You hear me? You take care of yourself.’ Then his voice, his face and the top of his battered hat were lost in the mêlée.

  The executive officer, or XO as he was known to the men, had tried three times to get his attention. Bloody man kept standing there, bobbing up and down, like a child begging permission to visit the little boys’ room.

  Dobson. Always a little more informal than the occasion deserved. Captain Highfield, already in a foul mood, was determined to ignore him. He turned away, rang down to the Engine Control Room.

  The damp was making his leg ache. He rested it briefly by placing his full weight on the other in a lopsided stance unusual to him. He was a stocky man, whose ramrod-straight posture had become ingrained over years of service – and led to countless irreverent imitations below decks.

  ‘Hawkins, let me know about the port outer engine. Is it still locked?’

  ‘I’ve got two men down there at the moment, sir. We’re hoping to free it up in the next twenty minutes or so.’

  Captain Highfield exhaled. ‘Do your best, man. Otherwise we’re going to need another two tugs to get us clear, and that’s not going to look too clever today, is it?’

  ‘Not quite the image we want to give the old colonials when we’re running off with their daughters.’

  ‘Bridge, wheelhouse, Coxswain at the wheel.’

  ‘Very good, Coxswain. Stand by to steer one-two-zero.’ Captain Highfield stood up from the voice-pipe.

  ‘What?’

  Dobson hesitated. ‘I . . . was just agreeing with you, sir. Not the kind of image we want to project.’

  ‘Yes, well, not something you need to worry about, Dobson. What was it you wanted?’

  From the bridge, the whole harbour was visible: the huge, teeming crowds that stretched as far as the dry docks, the bunting strung below, and, one by one, the women who made their way slowly up the gangplank, waving as they came. Highfield had groaned inwardly at every one.

  ‘I came to talk to you about the mess report, sir. We’re still missing a few.’

  Captain Highfield glanced at his watch. ‘At this hour? How many?’

  Dobson consulted his list. ‘At this moment, sir, almost half a dozen.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’ Captain Highfield slammed his hand down on the dial. The slipping off was turning into a farce. ‘What on earth were the men doing last night?’

  ‘Sounds like there was something of a shindig at one of the drinking clubs, sir. We’ve had a few back been caught scrapping, a few who were frankly incapable. One man missed the gangplank and fell into the soup. Lucky we had Jones and Morris on watch, sir, or we might have lost him altogether. And then there are the six still absent.’

  Highfield stared out of the bridge. ‘Bloody shambles,’ he said. Those around him knew that the ferocity in his voice did not relate entirely to the missing men. ‘Six hundred flapping girls can make their way aboard on time, but not England’s finest. Bloody embarrassment, the lot of them.’

  ‘There’s something else. Four of the brides are in with the Red Cross already.’

  ‘What? They’ve only been on board five minutes.’

  ‘Didn’t listen when we said they’d need to duck through the hatches. Too excited, I suppose.’ He smacked his forehead, mirroring the most common injury on board ship. ‘One’s a stitches job.’

  ‘Can’t the surgeon see to it?’

  ‘Ah. He’s – erm – one of those missing.’

  There was a lengthy silence. The men around him were silent and expectant.

  ‘Twenty minutes,’ Highfield said eventually. ‘Just till we get the port outer engine working again. After that you can tell the mess men to start offloading their belongings. I won’t have this ship held up. Not today of all days.’

  Avice leant on the rail, one hand keeping her new hat in place. Astride a gun turret, Jean was making a spectacle of herself. The dark-haired girl had become hysterical, and after yelling until she was hoarse at anyone who would listen, now had her arms slung over two ratings, as if she were drunk and leaning on them for support. Perhaps she was drunk: with that kind of girl little would have surprised Avice. It was why she had been rather careful to disassociate herself the moment they had come aboard half an hour earlier.

  She looked down at the pleats on her new suit, satisfied by how superior her outfit was compared with those of the girls around her. Her parents, who had been unable to see her off, had sent a telegram and some money, and her mother had arranged for the suit to be delivered that morning to the hotel. Avice had been worried about what to wear, unsure of the etiquette for such an occasion. Now, with a clear view of at least a hundred other girls, hardly any of whom seemed to have dressed for the occasion, she wondered why she had fretted.

  The ship was shabby. Avice had had her picture taken, been interviewed by the Bulletin for its society pages, and someone whom she had been pretty sure was the captain had shaken her hand, but it didn’t alter the fact that the Victoria was rusting in places, and bore no more resemblance to the Queen Mary than Jean did to her namesake Jean Harlow. As Avice had made her way up the rickety gangplank, her nostrils had curled at the faint but definite aroma of boiled cabbage, which reinforced the second-class nature of her transport.

  Still, no one could accuse Avice of lack of fibre. Oh, no. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to think about what she was heading to. In six weeks, she would discover what her new life held. She would get to know his parents, take tea at the Rectory, meet the ladies of the quaint English village where they lived, perhaps the odd duke or duchess. She would be introduced to his friends, those outside the RAF, who had known him as a child. She would begin to make their home.

  She would finally be Mrs Ian Radley, rather than just Avice – or, as her mother put it, ‘Oh, Avice . . .’ – who might be married but, as far as her family was concerned, seemed no more deserving of respect or adult consideration than she had been as a child.

  ‘Watch her!’

  Avice glanced down to the deck below: Jean had just slipped off the side of the gun turret. She was hanging, giggling, from the trouser pocket of one of the ratings, her slip and a good deal of leg exposed to anyone who cared to look. She was about to say something, when she realised that the deck was vibrating ge
ntly under her feet: the engines must have started, not that they could be heard in the din. She looked over the edge and saw, with a start, that the gangplank had been hauled up. There was a swell of noise, and a short distance away a winch was hoisting up several sailors who had apparently missed their opportunity to get aboard by normal means. They were laughing and cheering, covered with lipstick kisses. Possibly even drunk.

  Disgraceful, thought Avice, smiling despite herself as they were dumped unceremoniously on the flight deck above. Around them, small tugs bossed and bullied the vast ship, negotiating its slow release from the harbour. The women were chattering excitedly, waving with greater urgency, their voices lifting as each tried to make sure their message was heard over the hubbub.

  ‘Mum!’ a voice below Avice yelled, increasingly hysterically. ‘Mum! Mum!’

  Someone beside her was praying, then broke off to exclaim to herself: ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’

  The crowd, a sea of Australian flags and the odd Union Jack, frothed and bubbled as people pushed towards the edge of the quay, bobbing above their neighbours to be seen by those aboard. Several placards were held aloft: ‘God Speed, Audrey’, ‘Good Luck from the Dockyard Workers of Garden Island’. She found herself gazing around the port, then at the hills beyond. Is this it? she thought suddenly, her breath catching in her throat. My last view of Australia? Then, with a lurch, the streamers snapped, their cobwebby strands releasing the ship from the rails of the dockside and, with an audible groan, she lurched away from the quay, sinking a few degrees as she slipped anchor.

  There was a collective gasp. The engines began to power. A girl shrieked and over the din the band, now clearly visible on the quayside, struck up with ‘Waltzing Matilda’.

  A few items were hurled from the ship’s berth and fell short, sending up small splashes of futility. The thin ribbon of blue water widened beneath them, then became an expanse. The ship, as if oblivious to the madness around it, glided, surprisingly quickly, away from the harbour.

  ‘You’ll be sorry!’ came a solitary cry, over the music. It sounded like a joke. ‘You’ll all be sorry!’

  It was at this point that the ship’s passengers descended briefly into silence. Then, breaking it, the first of the girls began to cry.

  Murray Donleavy placed his arm round his sobbing son, and sat silently as the crowds melted away, the sound of grieving women becoming more distinct. Finally, only a few huddles of people remained, staring out as the ship gradually merged with the horizon. It was getting chilly and the boy was shivering. He took off his jacket and threw it about Daniel’s shoulders, then hauled the boy against him for warmth.

  Every now and then Daniel raised his head as if he wanted to speak, but was unable to find words and sank back into silent weeping, his face thrust into his hands as if the tears were a cause of shame.

  ‘Nothing to be sorry for, boy,’ he murmured. ‘It’s been a tough day.’

  Theirs was one of the few vehicles remaining, sitting in a sea of muddied streamers and discarded sweet wrappers. Murray walked round to the driver’s side of the pickup, then halted when he noticed that his son was standing still and staring at him. ‘You all right now?’

  ‘Do you think she’ll hate me, Dad?’

  Murray moved round and hugged his boy again. ‘Don’t be so bloody soft.’ He ruffled his hair. ‘She’ll be banging on about you visiting her before you know it.’

  ‘In England?’

  ‘Don’t see why not. You keep saving up that rabbit money and you’ll be able to fly there before you know it. Things are changing fast.’

  The boy gazed ahead at nothing, transported to a world of richly rewarded pelts and huge aeroplanes. ‘I could fly there,’ he repeated.

  ‘Like I said, boy, you save your money. The rate you’re going, you’ll be able to pay for all of us.’

  Daniel smiled then, and his father’s heart ached to see him meet another loss so bravely. This must be how it had felt for the women during the war, he observed, as he climbed into the truck. Except that they hadn’t known if we were coming back. Take care of her, he told the ship silently. Look after my girl.

  They sat in the cab for a few moments, watching people trail out through the dockyard gates, seeing exposed the vast expanses of ground that had been invisible, hidden under human traffic. The wind was picking up now, sending bits of paper scuttling around the quayside, to be dived on by seagulls. He sighed, suddenly conscious of the length of the drive home.

  ‘Dad, she’s left her sandwiches.’ Beside him, Daniel held aloft the greaseproofed package that Letty had put together that morning. ‘It was here, on the floor. She’s left her lunch behind.’

  Murray frowned, trying to remember what his daughter had said about leaving them at home. Oh, well, he thought. She must have been mistaken. That’s women when they’re carrying. All over the place. Noreen had been the same.

  ‘Can I have them, Dad? I’m starving.’

  Murray stuck his key into the ignition. ‘Don’t see why not. They’re no use to her now. Tell you what, save one for me.’

  It had finally begun to rain: the grey skies that had threatened to discharge their load all day were spitting against the windscreen. Murray started the truck, and reversed out slowly on to the dockside. Suddenly he hit the brake, sending Daniel shooting forward, his mouthful of sandwich spraying over the dashboard.

  ‘Hang on,’ he said, his face electrified with the memory of an empty basket and his daughter’s inexplicable hurry to get on board. ‘Where’s the bloody dog?’

  5

  An Australian bride missed sailing for England in HMS Victorious because at the last moment a charge, subsequently dismissed, was laid against her. Immediately she was released, she was rushed in a police car to No. 3 Wharf Woolloomooloo, but the brideship aircraft-carrier had sailed.

  Sydney Morning Herald, 4 July 1946

  One Day In

  HMS Victoria was seven hundred and fifty feet long, and weighed twenty-three thousand tons, comprising nine floors below the flight deck and four decks above it up to the vertiginous heights of the bridge and island. Even without the brides’ specially created berths it would have housed in its gigantic belly some two hundred different rooms, stores and compartments, equalling the size, perhaps, of several department stores or upmarket apartment blocks. Or even, depending on where the brides had come from, several large barns. The hangars alone, where most of the brides were housed, fed and entertained, were nearly five hundred feet long and situated on the same floors as the canteens, bathrooms, the captain’s sleeping area and at least fourteen sizeable storerooms. They were linked by narrow passageways, which, if one confused the decks, were as likely to lead to an aircraft repair shop or engineers’ mess as a brides’ bathroom – a situation that had already caused several red faces. Someone had pinned a plan of the ship in the brides’ canteen, and Avice had found herself studying it several times, mulling bad-temperedly over Vegetable Stores, Parachute Packing Rooms and Pom-Pom Magazines that should, by rights, have been grand ballrooms and first-class cabins. It was a floating world of unintelligible rules and regulations, of ordered and as yet unrevealed routines, a labyrinthine rabbit warren of low-ceilinged rooms, corridors and lockers, the vast majority of which led to places where the women were not meant to be. It was vast yet cramped, noisy – especially for those billeted near the engine rooms – battered, and filled to bursting point with chattering girls and men trying, in some cases half-heartedly, to do their work. With the sheer numbers of people moving around and a general unfamiliarity with the placing of the different flights of stairs and gangways it frequently took the best part of half an hour simply to traverse one deck, alternately pushing past people or pressing against the pipe-laden walls to give way to others.

  And still Avice could not lose Jean.

  From the moment she discovered they had been allocated the same cabin (more than six hundred brides and they had lumped her with Jean!) the g
irl had decided to take on a new role: that of Avice’s Best Friend. Having conveniently forgotten the mutual antipathy that had characterised their meetings at the American Wives’ Club, she had spent the greater part of the last twenty-four hours trailing after her, interrupting whenever Avice struck up conversation with anyone else to stake her claim with a suggestion of a shared history in Sydney.

  So it was that they were both on the early sitting for breakfast (‘Avice! Do you remember that girl who used to sew everything blanket stitch? Even her undies?’), walking the decks to try to get their bearings (‘Avice! Do you remember when we had to wear those necklaces made out of chicken rings? Have you still got yours?’) or sharing a packed queue for the bathroom (‘Avice! Did you wear those cami-knickers on your wedding night? They look a bit posh for every day . . . or are you trying to impress someone? Eh? Eh?’). She knew she should be nicer to Jean, especially since she had discovered she was only sixteen – but really! The girl was awfully trying.

  And Avice wasn’t convinced that she was entirely truthful either. There had been an exchange when Jean had chattered on at breakfast about her plans to get a job in a department store where her husband’s aunt held a managerial post. ‘How can you work? I thought you were expecting,’ Avice had said coldly.

  ‘Lost it,’ said Jean blithely. Avice gave her a hard, sceptical look. ‘It was very sad,’ Jean said. Then, after a pause: ‘Do you think they’ll let me have a second helping of bacon?’

  Jean, Avice noted as she walked briskly up the last flight of stairs, hardly ever mentioned her husband, Stanley. She herself would have mentioned Ian more often, but on the few occasions when she had Jean had tried to elicit from her some smutty confidence (‘Did you let him do it to you before your wedding night?’ And, even worse: ‘Did it give you a fright the first time you saw it . . . you know . . . sticking up?’). Finally Avice gave up trying to shake her off by movement. They were all due upstairs on the flight deck at eleven for the captain’s address. It should be simple enough to lose her among more than six hundred other women, shouldn’t it?