Ship of Brides (38 page)

Finally, on the last occasion, as the bar grew noisier and the stairs were heavy with footfall, Hun Li had caught her when she ducked into the cellar. She had secreted a bottle of rum there and, faced with two off-duty servicemen who had gleaned the impression from Mr Radcliffe that they might get the chance to spend some time with her, she had stood in the corner between the Castlemaine and McCracken barrels, swigging from a bottle that was already half empty.

‘Frances!’

She had whipped round. Drunk, it had taken her time to focus, and she recognised him only by his blue shirt and broad arms. ‘Don’t say nothing,’ she slurred, putting down the bottle. ‘I’ll put the money in the till.’

He had stepped closer to her, under the bare lightbulb, and she wondered whether he wanted to paw at her too. ‘You must go,’ he said. He flicked at a moth near his face.

‘What?’

‘You must go from here. This place no good.’

It was the most he had said to her in almost eighteen months. She had laughed then, bitter, angry laughter that turned into sobbing. Then she had bent over, clutching her sides, unable to catch her breath.

He had stood awkwardly in front of her, then stepped forward gingerly, as if fearful of touching her. ‘I got this for you,’ he said.

She had wondered, briefly, if he was going to give her a sandwich. And then she saw that his fist was full of money, a dirty great wad of it. ‘What’s this?’ she whispered.

‘That man last week. The one—’ He faltered, not knowing how best to describe Mr Radcliffe’s latest ‘friend’. ‘The one with the flash suit. He got a gambling place. I stole this from his car.’ He thrust his fist at her. ‘You take it. Go tomorrow. You can pay Mr Musgrove to take you to the station.’

She didn’t move, and he thrust his fist forward insistently. ‘Go on. You earned it.’

She stared at the money, wondering if she was drunk enough to have imagined this scene. But when she put out a finger, it was solid. ‘You don’t think he’ll tell Mr Radcliffe?’

‘So what? You be gone then. There’s a train leaves tomorrow. Go on. You go.’ When she said nothing, he made a mock-angry face. ‘This is no good for you, Frances. You’re a good girl.’

A good girl. She stared at this man, whom she had thought hardly capable of speech, let alone such kindness. She took the money and put it into her pocket. His sweat had softened the notes, and they crumpled as they slid between the fabric. Then she moved to take his hand to say thank you.

When his failed to meet hers she grasped that Hun Li’s sympathy might be tinged with something she didn’t want to think about. Something that in just three months her ‘profession’ had bestowed on her.

He nodded at her, as if ashamed of his own reticence.

‘What about you?’ she said.

‘What about me?’

‘You don’t need this for yourself?’ She didn’t want to ask him: she could already feel it glowing beneficently in her pocket.

His face was unreadable. ‘I never needed it like you,’ he said. Then he turned, and his broad back vanished into the darkness.

16

Laundry: Limited facilities only exist for laundry onboard . . . Never hang anything out of a scuttle or port hole or anywhere where it can be seen from outboard.

Instructions for Women Passengers, HMS
Victorious

Twenty-five days

‘Poor old girl. It wasn’t a fate you deserved, however you look at it.’ He laid his hand gently on her, sensing, he fancied, the years of struggle echoing through the cool metal. ‘Too good for them. Far too good.’

He straightened up, then glanced behind him, conscious that he was talking aloud to his ship and keen to ensure that Dobson had not witnessed it. Dobson had been thoroughly discomfited by the captain’s changes in normal routine, and while he had enjoyed unbalancing the younger man, he recognised that there was only so far he could go before he became answerable to someone else.

There had not been a square inch of
Indomitable
that Highfield hadn’t known, no part of her history with which he wasn’t familiar. He had seen her decks submerged in high seas in the Adriatic, her huge frame tossed around as if she were a rowing-boat in a storm. He had steered her through the Arctic in the winter of ’41, when her decks had been six inches thick with snow, and her gun turrets had become so encrusted with ice that twenty ratings with picks and shovels had had to spend hours trying to keep her workable. He had held her steady as she fought off the suicide bombers of the Sakishima Gunto airfields, when the kamikaze aircraft had literally bounced off the flight deck, covering her with tidal waves of water and aviation fuel, and he had swept her through the Atlantic, listening in silence for the ominous echo that told of enemy submarines. He had seen her flight deck a huge crater when, during the early part of the war, no less than three Barracudas had collided in mid-air and crashed on to it. He was not sure whether he could count the number of men they had lost, the funerals at sea that he had presided over, the bodies committed to the water. And he had seen her at her last. Watched her deck canting as she slid down, taking with her those few men they had told him were already gone, his beloved boy, his body somewhere in the inferno that belched foul smoke over what remained above the surface, his funeral pyre. When her bow had sunk and the waves closed over her, there had been no sign left that she had existed at all.

The
Victoria
’s layout was identical to that of her twin; there had been something almost eerie about it when he had first stepped aboard. For a while he had been resentful. Now he felt a perverse obligation to her.

They had contacted him that morning. The commander-in-chief of the British Pacific Fleet had wired him personally. In joking terms he had told Highfield that he could lay off the painting parties for the remainder of the voyage: no need to exhaust the men with too much maintenance. The
Victoria
would be examined in dry dock at Plymouth before being modified and sold off to some merchant shipping company or broken up. ‘Nothing wrong with the old girl,’ he had wired back. ‘Suggest most strongly the former course.’

He had not told the men: he suspected most would not notice what ship they were on, as long as the messes were of a decent size, the money regular and the food edible. With the war over, many would leave the Navy for good. He, and the old ship, would be no more than a dim memory when war stories were exchanged over dinner.

Highfield sighed, and placed his weight tentatively on his bad leg. They would dock at Bombay the following day. He would pay no attention to the C-in-C’s instruction. For several days now he had had teams of dabbers and ratings buffing, painting, polishing. The Navy knew that sailors kept busy were sailors less likely to get into trouble – and with a cargo like this one that struggle was constant. There would not be a brass bolt on the ship that he couldn’t see his face in.

The men, he guessed, were speculating that something was wrong with him. It was possible too that the governor of Gibraltar would notice. He was not a stupid man. I’m buggered if I’m leaving you early, he told the ship silently, tightening his grip on the rail. I’ll hang on to you till my damn leg falls off.

‘What you do, ladies, is mix one level tablespoon of the powdered egg with two tablespoons of water. Allow it to stand for a few minutes until the powder has absorbed all the moisture, then work out any lumps with a wooden spoon. You may have to be a bit vigorous . . . a bit of elbow grease, you know.’ She took in the blank faces. ‘That’s an English expression. It doesn’t mean . . . grease as such.’

Margaret sat with her notebook on her lap, her pen in her hand. She had given up writing several recipes ago, distracted by the murmur of conversation around her.

‘A prostitute? I don’t believe it. Surely the Navy wouldn’t let one travel with all the men.’

‘Well, they didn’t know, did they? They can’t have.’

‘There are all sorts of things you can bake with powdered egg. Add a bit of parsley or watercress and you can make quite a good . . . approximation of scrambled egg. So don’t feel limited just because you may not have the ingredients you’ve been used to at home. In fact, girls, you will not have the kind of ingredients you’ve been used to at home.’

‘But who on earth would have married her? Do you think it was one of her . . . customers?’

‘And what if he doesn’t know? Don’t you think the Navy should tell him?’

It had been the same story all over the ship. For the last few days Frances Mackenzie, possibly the least conspicuous passenger the
Victoria
had ever transported, had become its most notorious. Those who had had any dealings with her were fascinated that this supposedly demure young woman had such a chequered past. Others found the story of her past career compelling, and felt obliged to embellish it with information that no one was yet in a position to disprove. That was if anyone had had the inclination to do so; the next shore leave was still a fair distance away and there was little doubt it was the most fascinating thing that had happened on the voyage so far.

‘I heard she was on the train. You know, the one they used to send up to the troops. It was full of . . . those sorts.’

‘Do you think they had to check her for diseases? I know they did on the American transports. I mean, we might have been sharing a bathroom with her, for goodness’ sake.’

Margaret had fought the urge to interrupt, to inform these stupid, gossiping women that they didn’t know what they were talking about. But it was difficult when she herself had no idea of the truth.

It wasn’t as if Frances was saying anything. On the night of the accident, she had retired to her bed and lain there, pretending to be asleep until the others had gone out in the morning, often doing the same when they came back. She had barely spoken, keeping her conversation to an absolute practical minimum. She had given the dog some more water. Had propped the door ajar. If that was all right with them. She had avoided the main canteen. Margaret wasn’t sure that she was eating anything at all.

Avice had asked, rather ostentatiously, to be moved to another cabin, and when the only other bunk on offer had proven not to her liking, she had announced loudly that she wanted as little to do with Frances as possible. Margaret had told her not to be so bloody ridiculous, and not to listen to a load of bloody gossip. There would be no truth in it.

But it was difficult to be as vehement as she would have liked when Frances was doing so little to defend herself.

And even Margaret, never usually lost for words, had difficulty in knowing what to say to her. She was, she suspected, a little naïve at the best of times, and was having trouble reconciling the severely dressed, rather prim young woman with ‘one of those’. Margaret’s only knowledge of such women came from the poster with a picture of one in Dennis Tims’s mess, with the uncompromising message: ‘Venereal Disease – the Silent Killer’; and the Westerns she had seen with her brothers, where the women all sat together in the back of some saloon. Had Frances worn tight-bodiced dresses and a dollop of rouge on her face to welcome men in? Had she enticed them upstairs, spread her legs and invited them to do God only knew what to her? These thoughts haunted Margaret, colouring her every exchange with Frances, despite all the kindnesses the girl had shown her. She knew it and it made her ashamed. She suspected that Frances knew it too.

‘Well, I think it’s disgusting. Frankly, if my parents knew I was travelling with someone like that they would never have let me on board.’ The girl in front of her straightened her shoulders with a self-righteous shudder.

Margaret stared at the powdered-egg recipes in front of her, at her distracted scrawl.

‘It makes you wonder,’ said the girl next to her.

Margaret stuffed her notebook into her basket, got up and left the room.

Dear Deanna,

I can’t tell you what fun I’m having on board – quite a surprise, all things considered. I somehow find myself in the running for Queen of the
Victoria
, a prize they award to the bride who has proven themself a cut above in all matters feminine. It will be lovely to be able to show Ian that I can be such an asset to him and his career. I have so far won points in craft, dressmaking, musical ability (I sang ‘Shenandoah’ – the audience were most appreciative) and – you’ll never guess – Miss Lovely Legs! I wore my green swimsuit with the matching satin heels. I hope you didn’t mind too much me taking them. You seemed to wear them so seldom, and it seemed silly you keeping them ‘for best’ when there is so little social life left in Melbourne now the Allies are leaving.

How are you? Mummy’s letter said you were no longer in correspondence with that nice young man from Waverley. She was rather vague about what had happened – I find it very hard to think anyone would so cruelly drop a girl like that. Unless he had found someone else, I suppose.

Men can be such an enigma, can’t they? I thank goodness every day that Ian is such a devoted soul.

I must go, dearest sister. They are ‘piping the hands to bathe’, and I am simply desperate for a swim. I will post this when we next dock, and be sure to tell you of any adventures I have there!

Your loving sister,

Avice

It was the first time the brides had been allowed to bathe, and there were few who, still feeling the effects of the water shortage, were not making the most of it. As Avice finished her letter and headed out on to the foredeck, she could see around her hundreds of women submerged in the clear waters, squealing as they floated around lifeboats, while the marines and officers not manning the boats leant over the ship’s side, smoking and watching them.

There was no sign of the baby yet. Avice had examined herself with some pride, the still-flat stomach but an attractive hint of fullness to her bosom. She wouldn’t be one of these flabby whales, like Margaret, who sat puffing and sweating in corners, ankles and feet as grotesquely swollen as an elephant’s. She would make sure she stayed trim and attractive until the end. When she was large she would retire into her home, make the nursery pretty and not reveal herself again until the baby came. That was a ladylike way to do it.