The GI Bride (3 page)

‘How do you do?’ she said.
‘Nice to meet you.’

Blimey, I thought, she’s not going to
be much fun.

Next, there was Gladys, I don’t recall
her last name, but she was from the north of England and had a broad northern accent.
‘’Ow do? ’Ow are ye?’ she said, pumping my hand. Gladys was
short and chubby, and had served in the British Army, which perhaps explained the manly
handshake.

Last, there was an American. ‘Hi,
girls,’ she drawled, in what I later learned was a Southern accent: she was from
Atlanta, Georgia. I can’t remember her name but I do remember that she was
pregnant and had little to do with us three English girls since she had a number of
American friends on board.

We flipped a coin to see who would get which
bunk. I got a lower bunk but later gave it to the American girl who, because of her
pregnancy, had morning sickness.

Soon after I’d stowed away my few
belongings, Bob came to find me. ‘Come on, honey, let’s check out this
lovely hotel,’ he said, and hand in hand we explored the ship. First, and most
important, we found the showers and toilets.

‘Good thing I brought a
dressing-gown,’ I said. ‘I
wouldn’t fancy
walkin’ all this way in me nightie, not with all these men around.’ Next, we
discovered the dining rooms, the movie theatre, then walked around the different decks.
Knowing that the ship was about to set sail, we stayed on the main deck, standing at the
rail, arms wrapped around each other, until my uncle, who had come to see us off,
disappeared into the distance, and darkness swallowed England’s coastline. There
was no going back now, and I felt a dull ache in my heart as we went below for a
meal.

Our first day at sea was not too bad, but as
the water became choppier, I began to feel queasy. I’d been told that seasickness
usually passed in a day or two but, oh, how wrong that turned out to be at least for me.
The Atlantic became increasingly rough, making it more and more difficult to navigate
the corridors and stairwells. People were being sick everywhere and on one occasion, as
I attempted to make my way up a spiral stairway, someone vomited on me from two decks
above.

‘Shit!’ I heard someone mutter,
and I couldn’t have agreed more. I would struggle to one of the water fountains in
the corridor for sips of ice-cold water, which I thought might make me feel better, only
to find that it, too, had become a repository for vomit.

‘I’ll bring you some saltine
crackers,’ offered Barbara. ‘They’re supposed to help when you feel
sick.’ I already knew that was what our pregnant cabin mate was surviving on, so I
tried some. It might have helped some people but I was an exception. I remember going
into a toilet cubicle on a day when the sea was particularly rough and being unable to
sit on the commode because of the
pitching and lurching of the ship. I
kept flying head first into the door, each time almost knocking myself out. Eventually I
grabbed at the toilet-paper holder, trying to save myself from further injury, but it
came away in my hand and I crashed to the urine-soaked floor. There I sat, bawling my
eyes out.

During the second day of the voyage, we were
called for lifeboat practice: a nightmare. Those of us who were seasick had a dreadful
time getting ourselves into the life-jackets and finding our allotted mustering points.
It must have been far worse for the mothers: they had to hold their children while both
were wearing those cumbersome jackets it looked almost impossible. Many of those women
were German and could speak no English. I supposed they were asking questions about what
to do and where to go, but no one seemed able to communicate with them. Where were their
husbands? I wondered. Surely they had to take part in the exercise too. I saw one young
woman, with a baby in her arms, fall down some stairs. She sat sobbing into the
strangling life-jacket until someone finally came to help her. I vowed then that if
there was another lifeboat practice on this voyage, I wouldn’t participate.

With seasickness still making my life a
misery, I discovered that if I dressed early in the morning and made my way up to the
highest deck, where it was freezing cold and windy, I could stave off the nausea, at
least while I was in that semi-frozen state. Every muscle in my body, but especially my
abdomen, ached from heaving and vomiting. Up there, I would find a deck-chair and wedge
it in such a way that it wouldn’t slide around. Then, bundled
up
in my winter coat and a blanket, I’d stay huddled for as long as possible,
breathing in the frigid air. As soon as I went back below, the gut-wrenching nausea
began again, and I remember thinking what a blessed relief it would be if someone tossed
me into the churning sea anything to escape the agony.

Bob joined me when he could. ‘Come
here, sweetheart, let me hold you,’ he’d say, as he wrapped me in his arms
and tried to comfort me, but nothing took the nausea away. At night, I would swallow a
double or triple dose of Dramamine, curl into a ball on my bunk, and eventually drift
off into dreams of the nights I’d spent on a similar bunk in an air-raid shelter
during the war, while bombs fell all around us.

It was on the seventh day of the voyage
that the weather improved: the sun came out and the sea calmed. I could walk about
without fear of being flung against walls or down stairwells or, worse, swept overboard.
Life aboard ship became bearable. Our Atlantic crossing took ten days and I felt fairly
well for the last few and even managed to enjoy the experience. My three cabin-mates
were pleasant girls. Barbara McCarthy, who insisted we call her Bobby, and I became
close friends, and remained so for many years, in spite of my early reservations about
her being too posh for me. I was thrilled to learn that she, too, was heading for
Chicago. Throughout our friendship, Barbara and I were glad to have each other; we
shared many good times and were always there for one another, offering comfort and
support through the many traumatic events that were to occur in our lives.

Bobby and I had many bouts of the giggles over
our roommate Gladys: her size and shape meant she could hardly get herself up onto her
bunk.

‘Give ooz a boonk oop, will ye?’
she’d say, and of course, we did, all the time laughing until we cried.
Gladys’s husband, Arthur, was also short. He reminded me of a leprechaun and was
probably the minimum size accepted into US military service. When we spotted him on
guard duty, it was all we could do to stop ourselves laughing aloud: all you could see
under his helmet were his enormous horn-rimmed glasses and two big ears sticking
straight out. Poor lad, he reminded us of a chamber pot.

The four girls in our cabin were assigned to
one of the ship’s officers’ tables in the dining room. It was far too nice
to be called the mess we even had fresh flowers on our table each day. The food was
superb and I was sorry to have missed the first seven days of such fine fare. The men at
our table were great fun; they teased us unmercifully, mostly about our accents but
particularly about certain terminology. In my scrapbook, I have a paper table napkin,
often called a serviette in Britain, and the captain had written on it in large letters
‘THIS IS A NAPKIN’, then everyone at the table had autographed it. That was
just one example of how the differences between American and British English caused
confusion.

We saw little of our husbands during the
Atlantic crossing. They were still officially in uniform and had duties to perform,
including guard duty. We usually saw them for two or three hours each day and on one or
two evenings if they weren’t working. With so many newly married
couples on board, a great deal of hanky-panky went on in remote corners of the decks
and corridors. It was not unusual to turn a corner and run smack-dab into
someone’s moment of passion; I often wondered how people could do ‘it’
standing up. The small cinema on the ship showed films until the wee hours each night,
and when the lights dimmed, there was more lovemaking in those seats than appeared on
the silver screen. Perhaps limiting contact between couples was supposed to rein them
in. It didn’t work. I wasn’t interested in making a public spectacle of
myself, but then, I was just a baby in that department. I was happy enough with a cuddle
and remembering what had happened between us during our honeymoon in London. I could
hardly wait to get back to the warmth and closeness we’d enjoyed then, and
afterwards in our room at Mum and Dad’s house.

As our voyage neared its end, our
excitement grew. We newcomers to America could hardly wait to see the famous skyline of
New York and its welcoming Statue of Liberty. It was as though the whole ship was
holding its breath, just waiting for someone to announce the sighting of land.
Unfortunately, we all missed it: it happened while we slept on that last night at sea
and the announcement came over the loudspeaker at dawn.

Rising at that ungodly hour, I dressed with
trembling hands, knowing we had docked in New York’s harbour. I knew that Bob must
be as excited as I was but I had no idea when he’d be able to join me on deck.

As I stepped out into the frigid late
February air, I thought, This is it. I’m in the land of the Doris Day and
Fred Astaire movies and my new Technicolor life is about to begin. I
just knew it was going to be full of vibrant colour, unlike the drab grey England
I’d left behind.

I pushed my way through the animated crowd
and wriggled into a spot at the ship’s railing, which I grabbed with both hands.
Squinting against the bright winter sunlight, I scanned the harbour and skyline for
something that would tell me I wasn’t dreaming; that we had in fact arrived in
America. Then I saw it, the Statue of Liberty, recognized throughout the world as the
symbol of all that this great country represented. Many of my fellow passengers cheered
but I stared at her in silence, my heart beating wildly. I had seen black and white
pictures of Lady Liberty before, in magazines and newsreels, but now I discovered she
was green, and so much more beautiful than I had expected.

As I wiped away a tear, I thought of the
oceans of tears the Lady must have seen since she’d become the sentinel at the
gateway to the United States, as she watched the ships and their ‘huddled
masses’ pass through the portal and into the arms of America, their Promised Land.
She was silhouetted against the clear blue sky and the towering skyline of New York
City, a breathtaking scene.

I must have looked a complete idiot, gazing
in awe at the panorama before me. Until someone pushed in close behind me and rudely
poked a finger into my gaping mouth. I bit down, hard.

‘Ouch!’ I heard, followed by my
husband’s familiar chuckle.

‘I should have known it was
you,’ I said. ‘Serves you right.’ He never could resist teasing me. If
Mum had been
there, she might have done the same thing: she often made
fun of me when I daydreamed, mouth agape, ‘Catching flies,’ she’d say,
and called me Dilly Daydream. Suddenly, I missed her and my heart lurched, but there was
no time for that now.

‘Come on, honey, you can’t stand
there all day. It’s time to make sure we have everything packed and get ready to
go ashore.’

This is it, I thought. This is really
it.

We said our goodbyes to the USS
General
R. E. Callan
and its crew, waving at them as we disembarked. Then, herded
aboard ferryboats, we crossed the bay to a different pier. On the way, we passed close
to the Statue of Liberty. She was enormous and, quite simply, magnificent.

At our next landing place, we entered a huge
building, which I believe might have been part of Ellis Island. Still on wobbly sea
legs, my heart pounding and my stomach in a knot, I stood in line with the others,
waiting for clearance through Immigration and Customs. A girl behind me began cow-like
‘mooing’, and then another joined in. Soon we were all laughing, which
helped to ease the tension.

Once that tedious process was completed,
military personnel ushered us towards waiting buses, which transported us to a hotel in
the city where we were to stay while our husbands were processed out of the army and
back into the United States. Hooray, I thought. I get to sleep with Bob again. I was
like a wide-eyed child at Christmas as we rode across town, seeing all the huge cars in
so many different shapes and colours. I craned my neck to glimpse the tops of the
skyscrapers and then there it was, just as I’d seen it in movies and magazines,
the Empire State Building, just as spectacular as I’d expected, even without
King Kong
’s giant gorilla climbing up it. I mentally planned a trip
to the top before leaving New York.

When we arrived at our hotel, someone showed
us to our rooms. Compared to the cramped quarters we’d endured on board ship for
the past ten days, this was pure luxury. Bob turned up a few minutes later. We slammed
and locked the door, grabbed each other’s hands, jumped up and down with
excitement (well, I did), then melted into each other’s arms.