Our Time Is Gone (51 page)

He turned to Mrs. Gumbs. ‘Take your friend away and get her a bucket, scrubbing-brush and soap. And not ship's soap like last time, but soft soap. Off you go.
Aronsa
, number five.'

As the two women approached the stores' hut, which stores were dealt out by a man of seventy, bearded, pink-faced and watery eyed, Mrs. Gumbs remarked, leaning her head towards Mrs. Fury: ‘I'm glad you stuck up for yourself. Shows you've got spirit. All the same, you watch him. He has a way of being nasty. Here we are,' she said as they stood at the hut door.

‘I know men when I meet them,' said Mrs. Fury, but Mrs. Gumbs paid no attention to this remark. She was too occupied with the bearded storekeeper.

‘Two buckets, two brushes, two cloths, and as much soft soap as you care to part with,' she said. ‘And don't always be eyeing people like that.'

The man handed out the things without a word. But as they moved off, each carrying their buckets, he called out after them in wheezy tones. ‘What ship?'

‘
Aronsa
, shed five,' shouted back Mrs. Gumbs.

Together they passed through one of the steel sliding doors. ‘Careful, for God's sake, woman,' cried Mrs. Gumbs as she caught Mrs. Fury's arm. ‘Another slip and you would have been right in the dock.'

‘Wait! I must stop just a minute. I got a bit of a shock. I'm all right now.'

But she wasn't all right. ‘I'm changing, changing,' she thought, ‘I was
never
like this before.' She was filled with horror. Perhaps she
was
getting old.

From every angle, from above and below, enormous shapes ran at them out of the deep fog, and Mrs. Fury could feel the dampness on her skin like a secondary skin that was cold and clammy. They picked their way past chutes, ropes, bollards, wire hawsers, great cases, and always hanging over them the steel, supplicating arms of cranes. Mrs. Fury was just a little afraid. This wasn't the sea. The sea was clean, bare. This was a world of machines, giant shadows, damp air, and through the flocculent web of ships and barges there rose waves, waves of sound, of smell, and from funnels jets of steam, glow-worm-like spirals of smoke.

‘Top of this quay, across that bridge'—Mrs. Gumbs pointed, but there was nothing to see—‘and into that shed and there we are,' she said, laughing.

The silence of Mrs. Fury roused misgivings—doubts, and she spoke with caution. ‘If you don't like it, you can always leave it. But let me say, for we aren't there yet, that it's the last job on earth, and the first in hell. It's the lowest of the low and it makes its own women and men too. See?'

‘Mrs. Gumbs,' replied Mrs. Fury. ‘I looked down before I looked up. Don't be afraid of me. I have always been able to look after myself. You see, I'll work as well as any of them and I'll be a better woman for it. I feel it already. It's something to do. Keeps me from thinking too much. I'm all right, really.'

In the black darkness Mrs. Gumbs smiled. ‘I think you're a bit of a boaster!' she said. ‘Well, that won't do you any harm. Look at me. I've worked like this for years. Once I thought I wouldn't be able to keep it up. But I did. And even though it's become pretty foul lately, what with this war—I still find I can do it. You know, Mrs., what I always say is, work. Doesn't matter what it is, just work. You're alive then. Not working—well——' and an unseen hand waved in the fog-strewn air.

They went on in silence.

Mrs. Fury had said her say. Mrs. Gumbs only thought of the safe negotiation of the quay. Safe hedging and safe aboard the
Aronsa
. But from time to time the elder woman stopped, looked back at the shed they had just left, and saw the sickly patch of light upon the water, for the gate was open and the cluster shone faintly in the fog.

‘Careful! Goodness, woman!'

‘Yes. Yes! Don't fuss, Mrs. Gumbs! I'm not a child,' said Mrs. Fury, a little excited.

‘Of course you're a child. Don't talk foolish. You're in the world, and you're a child in it. I can see you're afraid of the fog, all this noise—everything.'

‘I think
you
are the boaster,' replied Mrs. Fury.

They reached the end of the quay.

‘Catch my coat now,' Mrs. Gumbs said, as slowly, carefully, she piloted the other on to the floating steel bridge. One just
had
to be careful and she did not forget to say so. Of course, the woman was a child. She had seen from the first. All
this
world was new to her.

‘In this fog, Mrs., you can't tell whether the bridge is right or not. It may be swinging out the wrong way. Where'd we be then?'

Mrs. Fury didn't know, didn't much care. Denny was suddenly large in her mind. What made him appear so suddenly? The dock, the smell of the unseen sea? Perhaps. But she was suddenly longing for him, hoping for him, praying for him as she crossed the big bridge. On the other side they both halted.

Mrs. Gumbs sat on a bitt. ‘You sit down too. It's the last chance you'll get before six this evening.'

She became contemplative, looked sideways at her companion. Had she done the right thing? Bringing this respectable, good-living, innocent creature here? That mother of a large family, whose work was done already. Bringing her here amongst all the things of earth that were low and filthy. Well, by to-night she'd know. And she would get a clear picture of this tall dignified woman on her knees scrubbing. Scrubbing, scrubbing, scrubbing …

‘Better go now,' she said, and they rose and crossed over into the shed. Light shone brilliantly here—the whole shed was drenched with light, but shut off from the world.

‘Here she is,' cried Mrs. Gumbs, pointing to the long gangway amidships.

Yes, there was the ship, and the men, and the work for the day. They hurried down. Mrs. Gumbs began dealing out hurried advice in case Mrs. Fury and she should become separated during the morning.

‘Wait for me at the gangway at twelve,' she said. ‘In case. But on the other hand we might be sent to the same'tween-deck. In these troopships the floors are a sort of pink stone and not hard to scrub. It's worse on wooden floors,' and she spoke from long experience. ‘Here we are now.'

They ascended the gangway. At the top a quartermaster questioned them both. He looked at their buckets, said ‘Oh—muck women! Righto!' and they passed on to the deck. He had not looked at their faces at all. He never did. There was nothing about them to interest. Weren't young enough. A bedraggled crowd. He simply looked at the tools of purpose. Buckets, soap, brushes; and then sat down again in his wooden box.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Gumbs and her friend had passed a group of men standing about a hatch, and one of them as they passed made a playful pass at Mrs. Gumbs's behind. This in no way affected her. Mrs. Fury passed on indifferent, erect still, holding to dignity, yet in her heart a little shocked, a little afraid, and as they passed into the alleyway a short quick prayer framed her lips.

‘Christ, guide me this holy day,' she whispered to herself.

Into the alleyway.

‘Don't be scared! It's the wrong thing to be on these ships,' Mrs. Gumbs said. She had to shout into Mrs. Fury's ears on account of the frightful din.

Rattle of winches, crash of hammers, scream of steam, grind of wood, soft hiss of taut rope. Cries of men, above and below. Thunderous sounds down beyond those'tween-decks, and from the depths, the pestilential depths, the essence of that world. Mrs. Gumbs smelt it, Mrs. Fury smelt it.

Troopship. Not cargoes, but men, the area for pain when purpose had been served. From time to time Mrs. Fury stopped, looked round, noted this, examined that. This then was the great framework, the bones of that life of the sea. The sea on which her husband sailed, and Anthony kept watch with others upon sea's lanes, now become the corridors of Hell.

‘I wish you'd watch where you're going, woman. You quite startled me,' and Mrs. Fury found herself locked in the suddenly enforced embrace of a giant engineer who dashed out of a cabin and bumped into her.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘I didn't see you.'

When she had gone he stood looking after her. That seemed an entirely new language to him. Being sorry! Yes, he didn't quite understand, and he continued to stare after her, until Mrs. Gumbs, catching the woman's arm, they turned the corner and were lost to sight.

The lights above their head from cluster upon cluster gave the atmosphere a curious appearance. It seemed neither day nor night, just a morning the world of docks had never seen before. The wooden decks were black, smoke begrimed, littered with debris. Fog hung low, steam escaped from winches, men shouted, and other strange sounds rose out of the depths. At the entrance to the house aft both women stopped dead. Looked at each other. Mrs. Gumbs's bucket rattled.

‘Here we are, and here we wait,' she said, and promptly sat down on the brass-topped step. Beyond it Mrs. Fury saw a ladder. Mrs. Gumbs said quite casually, ‘When you get to the bottom of that ladder, well, you're there. But we have to wait till the forewoman comes. And I believe I can hear her coming now.' Suddenly she leaned on the other woman. ‘Don't mind what she says. Hear me?'

‘I hear you all right,' replied Mrs. Fury, and quickly rose, for a short, thin, hatchet-faced woman was looking out at them over the step, one hand clutching her throat, the other clutching the hard rail.

‘Oh, you two for here?' she managed to say, punctuating frightful wheezes. ‘Better get down. You're Gumbs, I can see. Who the bloody hell are you?'

Mrs. Fury stared down at the woman. ‘My name is Fury,' she said quietly, then looked across at Mrs. Gumbs as though for immediate confirmation of this. ‘I'm down for the
Aronsa
. Which way do I go?'

‘Don't be in all that hurry, Mrs. What's-your-name. They're just taking up a few stiffs. Poor bastards! Must have got lost on the way home.'

She looked up at the sky, and in her face there appeared the expression of a fugitive and frantic hope, as though in that very moment she were silently asking God to confirm her statement. She pulled up her skirt, revealed a calf like a man's, extracted a watch fastened to her garter, which garter held up a pair of long coarse black stockings.

‘Go down in ten minutes, and not before. And if you're sick don't blame me. I warned you. Somebody's been complaining. Got told the other day that some woman complained about something. Fancy that, complaining! These stiffs. Now they're the ones to complain. No use crying till ye're dead.'

She climbed over the step, dragging with her the ends of a seemingly endless skirt, took her nose, male-style, emptied it, and then roared along the ship's length: ‘Where
are
you, Dutchy? and that shrivelled Stoney? Hurry up there.'

She stood by the ventilator, put her arms round it, leaned on it. The clock in the near-by tower struck.

‘Come on,' Mrs. Gumbs said. ‘It's
work
now.'

Mrs. Fury followed behind her companion. They descended backwards, and with each foot upon the lower rung, the darkness below them seemed to rise and grip them, so that they looked up at the fast-receding light and somewhere beyond it the grey of sky. When Mrs. Gumbs spoke her voice thundered, it had a volcanic ring.

‘Here we are! Two more ladders. That's all. Two more.' She stopped. ‘Listen,' she said. ‘Hear it? They're working already.'

Mrs. Fury listened. The sounds of scrubbing, of swilling water, of rinsed cloths could be heard. ‘I've heard that too often,' she remarked to Mrs. Gumbs.

‘Careful now,' said Mrs. Gumbs. ‘Those chains aren't always safe,' and she pulled Mrs. Fury away.

She had been staring down into the lower holds. What she saw she could not describe. She felt a sickness in her stomach, turned away, followed Mrs. Gumbs.

‘We're on E deck,' Mrs. Gumbs went on. ‘Now you go that side of the rows of bunks and I go the other side. Better show you where to get your water,' and she took Mrs. Fury the length of E deck. Behind a tall iron support they found a tap from which they filled their buckets with hot water. Mrs. Gumbs put down her bucket.

‘Now look. It's easy. You go over there and begin from that tier of bunks. See.' She pointed to the starboard side of the'tween-deck. ‘All you got to do is scrub, and whenever you come to a mess clean it out, sweep, then scrub. We'll both meet at the end of this deck. Ta, ta.'

Picking up her bucket she went off, leaving Mrs. Fury holding hers and staring round at the scene.
Aronsa
. A hospital ship. No. A troopship. No. It couldn't be. It
must
be a hospital ship. And all those bunks. What beds! Wire and wood …

‘Well, I suppose I'd better begin too,' she said to herself, and went to the tier of bunks indicated by her friend. She removed her coat, hung it over one of the bunks, rolled up her sleeves, knelt down and began to scrub. After the first patch she rested on her heels, smiled, exclaimed, ‘Just like that—filth all over again. Easy!' and began to scrub the next patch. Her head and shoulders suddenly vanished from sight. She was scrubbing under the bunk. The scrubbing ceased. From under the bunk she flung out soiled paper, match-sticks, a mouldy sock, an old envelope, a filthy rag. She scrubbed on. A yellowish light shone down on her.

When she reappeared again, she stood up, stretched herself, looked round. The air was filled with those scrubbing sounds. She could see nothing of Mrs. Gumbs. And whilst she stood there, the forewoman came through. Mrs. Fury knelt again, got on with her work.

‘Scrub it clean. That's all you're asked to do. And don't fuss about anything. Not the time for fussing. Some fuss about spit here or there, and sometimes other things beside, but spit's nothing. Just something human. At twelve o'clock better get to A deck and get your tally.'

‘Tally?' Mrs. Fury said, pausing to look up at the woman. ‘Tally?' The word was familiar. Denny had often talked of tallies. ‘Tally,' she said.