Ship of Brides (16 page)

Daily Mirror
, 7 August 1946

Five days

With a change of mood as abrupt and capricious as those of the brides on board, the sea conditions altered dramatically outside the stretch of water known as Sydney Heads. The Great Australian Bight, the men said, with a mixture of glee and foreboding, would sort out the sailors among them.

It was as if, having lulled them into a false sense of security, the fates had now decided to demonstrate their vulnerability, the unpredictability of their future. The cheerful blue sea darkened, muddied and swelled into threatening peaks. The winds, born as whispered breezes, grew to stiff gusts, then amplified to gale force, spitting rain on the men who, smothered with oilcloth, attempted repeatedly to secure the planes more firmly to the decks. Beneath them, the ship bucked and rolled her way through the waves, groaning with the effort.

It was at this point that the passengers, who had spent the previous days meandering round the decks like a restless swarm, retired, at first one by one, then in greater numbers, to their bunks. Those remaining on their feet made their way unsteadily along the passageways, legs braced, leaning whey-faced against the walls. Lectures were cancelled, as was the planned lifeboat drill when the ship’s company realised that too few women could stand to make it worthwhile. The women’s service officers still able to walk did their best to distribute anti-nausea pills.

The pounding of the seas, the periodic sounding of the ship’s horn and the incessant clanging of the chains and aeroplanes above them made sleep impossible. Avice and Jean (it would be Jean, wouldn’t it?) were lying on their bunks locked into their private worlds of nauseous misery. At least, Avice’s world had been private: she thought she knew Jean’s every symptom – how her stomach felt like it had curdled, how even a piece of dry bread had led her to disgrace herself outside the flight-deck canteen, how that horrible stoker who kept following them along by the laundry had eaten a cheese and Vegemite sandwich right in front of her, just to make her go even more green. It had all been hanging out of his mouth and—

‘Yes, yes, Jean. I get the picture,’ Avice had said, and blocked her ears.

‘You not coming for some tea, then?’ said Margaret, standing in the doorway. ‘It’s potted steak.’ The dog was asleep on her bed, apparently unaffected by the rough weather.

Jean was turned to the wall. Her reply, perhaps fortuitously, was unintelligible.

‘Come on, then, Frances,’ said Margaret. ‘I guess it’s just you and me.’

Margaret Donleavy had met Joseph O’Brien eighteen months previously when her brother Colm had brought him home from the pub, along with six or seven other mates who became regular fixtures in the Donleavy household in the months leading up to the end of the war. It was her brothers’ way of keeping the house busy after their mother had gone, she said. They couldn’t cope with the emptiness at first, the deafening silence caused by the absence of one quiet person. Neither her father nor her brothers had wanted to leave her and Daniel alone while they drowned their sorrows in the pub (they were mindful sorts, even if they didn’t always come across that way) so for several months they had brought the pub to the farm, sometimes fourteen or fifteen men hanging off the back of the pickup truck, frequently Americans bearing spirits and beer, or Irishmen singing songs that made Murray’s eyes brim with tears, and the house was filled nightly with the sound of men singing, drinking, and occasionally Daniel weeping as he tried to make sense of it all.

‘Joe was the only one who didn’t ask me out or make a nuisance of himself,’ she told Frances, tucking into mashed potato as they sat in the near-empty canteen. ‘The others either treated me like some kind of barmaid, or tried to give me a squeeze when my brothers weren’t looking. I had to whack one with a shovel when he came on a bit fresh in the dairy.’ She grabbed her metal tray as it slid across the table. ‘He didn’t come back.’ A week later Colm had caught another peeping through the door when she was in the bathroom, and he, Niall and Liam had thrashed him to within an inch of his life. After that they had stopped bringing men home.

Except Joe, who had come every day, had teased Daniel into good humour, had offered her father advice gleaned from his father’s own smallholding in Devon, and had cast surreptitious glances at her with offerings of too-small nylons and cigarettes.

‘I had to ask him in the end,’ she said, ‘why he hadn’t made a move on me. He said he thought if he hung on long enough I’d decide he was part of the furniture.’

They had walked out for the first time three months to the day before the US Airforce dropped the atom bomb on Hiroshima, and had wed several weeks afterwards, Margaret in her mother’s wedding dress, on the last occasion Joe could get leave. She had known they’d be all right together. Joe, she said, was like her brothers. He didn’t take himself or her too seriously.

‘Was he pleased about the baby?’

‘When I told him I was expecting, he asked me whether it was due at lambing season.’ She snorted.

‘Not the romantic kind.’ Frances smiled.

‘Joe wouldn’t know romance if it smacked him in the face,’ Margaret said. ‘I don’t mind, though. I’m not really one for all that sappy stuff. Live with four farming men long enough, it’s hard to associate romance with the same sex that have spent years flicking nose-pickings at you under the kitchen table.’ She grinned, took another mouthful. ‘I wasn’t even going to get married. To me marriage was just more cooking and wet socks.’ She glanced down at herself, and the grin disappeared. ‘I still ask myself every now and then how I’ve managed to end up like this.’

‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ said Frances. She had had a second helping, Margaret noted – the baby’s position meant she couldn’t manage very much without indigestion – yet she was as thin as a rake. Pudding had been a ‘bathing beauty’, blancmange, so named, the chef had said, smirking, because it shivered and had lovely curves.

‘How did she die? Sorry,’ said Frances, hurriedly, as Margaret’s pale skin coloured. ‘I don’t mean to be . . . indelicate. It’s the nursing.’

‘No . . . no . . .’ said Margaret.

They clutched the table, which was clamped to the floor, arms shooting out to stop salt, pepper or beakers sliding off.

‘It came out of nowhere,’ she said eventually, as the wave subsided. ‘One minute she was there, the next minute she was . . . gone.’

The canteen was almost silent, apart from the low muttering of those women brave or hardy enough to contemplate food, and the occasional crash as a piece of crockery or a tray fell victim to another swell. The queues of the early days had evaporated, and the few girls with an appetite dawdled in front of the serving dishes, taking their time to choose.

‘I’d say that was rather a good way to go,’ said Frances. Her eyes, when she looked at Margaret, were clear and steady, a vivid blue. ‘She wouldn’t have known a thing.’ She paused, then added, ‘Really. There are far worse things that could have happened to her.’

Margaret might have dwelt on this peculiar statement longer had it not been for the giggling in the corner. Distantly audible as background noise for some minutes, it had now built up into a peak, rising and falling in volume as if in conjunction with the waves outside.

The two women turned in their chairs to see that some women in the corner were no longer alone: they had been joined by several men in engineers’ overalls. Margaret recognised one – she had exchanged a greeting with him as he had scrubbed the decks the previous day. The men had closed in around the women, who appeared to be enjoying a little male attention.

‘Jean should be here,’ said Margaret, absently, and turned back to her food.

‘Do you think we should take them something? Some mashed potato?’

‘Be cold by the time we get it there,’ said Margaret. ‘Besides, I don’t fancy Jean bringing it up over my bunk. It smells bad enough in there as it is.’

Frances stared out of the window at the water heaving and churning around them, occasionally meeting the salt-stained windows with an emphatic slap.

She was reserved, thought Margaret, the kind who always seemed to have a second conversation taking place in her head even as she spoke. ‘I hope Maude Gonne’s all right,’ she said aloud.

Frances turned, as if brought back reluctantly from distant thoughts.

‘I’m torn between wanting to make sure she’s okay, and feeling like I can’t stand one more minute in that bloody cabin. It’s driving me nuts. Especially with those two moaning.’

Frances nodded almost imperceptibly. It was the furthest she would come, Margaret suspected, to outright agreement. But she leant forward, so that her voice could just be heard over the noise in the canteen. ‘We could take a walk round the decks later, if you want. Give her a bit of air. Maybe you could put her in that wicker basket and we could hide her with a cardigan.’

‘Hello, ladies.’

It was the engineer. Margaret jumped, then glanced behind him at the skittish girls he had just left, some of whom were peering over their shoulders at him. ‘G’day,’ she said neutrally.

‘I’ve just been speaking to my friends over there, and I thought I’d let you ladies know that there’s a little “welcome aboard” party in the stokers’ mess tonight.’ He had an accent, and an ease born of long-rewarded confidence.

‘Nice thought,’ said Margaret, sipping her tea. ‘But we’ve got a bloke posted outside our door.’

‘Not tonight you haven’t, ladies,’ he said. ‘Big shortage of morality monitors because of the weather. We’ll have a night or two of freedom.’ He winked at Frances. He had probably been born winking. ‘It’ll just be a bit of a laugh. We’ve got some grog, we’ll play cards and maybe introduce you to a few English customs.’

Margaret raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Not for us, thanks.’

‘Cards, missus, cards.’ His expression was of shock and offence. ‘I don’t know what you had in mind. Blimey, you a married woman and all . . .’

Despite herself Margaret laughed. ‘I don’t mind a game of cards,’ she said. ‘What do you play?’

‘Gin rummy. Newmarket. Perhaps the odd game of poker.’

‘Only card game there is,’ she said, ‘but I only play for stakes.’

‘My kind of girl,’ he said.

‘I’ll probably thrash you,’ she said. ‘I’ve learnt from the best.’

‘I’ll take my chances,’ he said. ‘I’m not fussy who I take money off.’

‘Ah. But will there be room for me?’ she said, pushing herself back in her chair, so that the full expanse of her belly was revealed. She was waiting to see his reaction.

His hesitation lasted a fraction of a second. ‘We’ll make room for you,’ he said. ‘Any decent poker player’s welcome in the stokers’ mess.’

It was as if they had recognised something in each other.

‘Dennis Tims.’ He thrust out a hand.

She took it. ‘Margaret – Maggie – O’Brien.’

He nodded at Frances, who had failed to proffer her own hand. ‘We’re four decks below, almost directly under you. Make your way down the stairs by the officers’ bathrooms, then follow the sound of a good time.’ He saluted, made as if to walk away, then added, in a stage whisper, ‘If you get wedged in the stairs, Mags, give us a shout and I’ll get a few of the lads to come and give you a shove.’

The prospect of a few hours in male company made Margaret feel distinctly chipper. It was not the flirtation she craved – unlike many of the other women – just the uncomplicated maleness of home. She let out a huge sigh: Dennis’s arrival had shown her what a strain she had found her new all-female existence. ‘He seemed all right,’ she said cheerfully, heaving herself out from behind the table.

‘Yes,’ said Frances. Already she was taking her tray towards the washing-up trolley.

‘You coming with me? Frances?’

Margaret had to jog to keep up as the tall, slim girl strode down the passageway, barely shifting her weight despite the violent rocking of the floor. Frances had kept her face turned away from Dennis for almost the entire time he was talking, she thought. It was several minutes more before she realised that during the entire two hours they had spent together Frances had told her not a thing about herself.

Dear George,

I hope this letter finds you well, and that your leg is much recovered. I was not sure that you received my last letter as I have not had a reply for so long. I have taken the liberty of numbering this one so that you might tell which order mine were sent in. We are all well here in Tiverton. The garden is looking simply lovely, and my new borders are filling out nicely. Patrick is working hard, as always, and has taken on a new chap to help him with some of the bigger accounts. That will bring his total staffing to five, which is quite a tally for these thin years.

I am rather anxious to hear from you, George, as I have asked you several times now whether you want to take up the rental of the cottage on the edge of the Hamworth estate. I have spoken to Lord Hamworth personally (we have met occasionally at his wife’s social gatherings) and he has said he is happy to consider you, with your glowing service record, but he does need to know soon, dear, as other people have indicated an interest. There is a retired teacher next door, Mrs Barnes, a nice sort, from Cheltenham. And we have already lined up a lady to do for you, so you need not worry about your hot dinners!

And as I have mentioned before, Patrick is quite happy to introduce you to the better side of Tiverton society – he is a not inconsiderable force in the local Rotary Club and could make sure you have an ‘in’ with the right sort around here. Now that you will have some more time at your disposal, perhaps you might like to join the local car club? Or even do a bit of yachting? I’m sure you will want to carry on ‘messing about in boats’, even in your twilight years.

Another retired serviceman and his wife have just moved in locally, although I think he might be RAF, so you would have someone to exchange your ‘war stories’ with. He is a quiet sort – said hardly a word to me in the lane! – and seems to have something wrong with his eye. I assume it is a war injury, but Marjorie Latham swears he is winking at her.