The Ship of Brides

She would not normally have asked a man for a cigarette. She would not have allowed herself to be drawn into conversation. She would certainly not have begun one. But she felt so much better. The sky had been so beautiful. And there was something so melancholy about his face.

He was leaning against the wall beside their door, cigarette cupped between thumb and forefinger, eyes fixed on a point on the floor in front of him. His hair had flopped forward and his shoulders were hunched, as if he was lost in some less-than-happy thought. As he caught sight of her he pinched out the cigarette and dropped it into his pocket. She thought he might have flushed. Afterwards, she remembered feeling mildly shocked: up to that point, he had seemed a kind of automaton. Like so many marines. She had hardly considered there might be room for something as human as embarrassment, or even guilt, behind the mask. ‘Please don’t bother,’ she said. ‘Not on my account.’

He shrugged. ‘Not meant to, really, on duty.’

‘Still.’

He had thanked her gruffly, not quite meeting her eye.

And for some reason, instead of disappearing into the cabin, she had stood there, her cardigan round her shoulders and, unexpectedly even to herself, asked whether she might have one too. ‘I don’t feel like going in yet,’ she explained. Then, self-conscious, she had stood beside him, already regretting her decision.

He pulled a cigarette from the pack, and handed it to her wordlessly. Then he lit it, his hand briefly touching hers as it cupped the flame. Frances tried not to flinch, then wondered how quickly she could smoke it without making herself dizzy and disappear. He had plainly not wanted company. She, of all people, should have seen it. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have a few puffs.’

‘Take your time.’

Twice she found herself in the unusual position of smiling, an instinctive, conciliatory gesture. His, in answer, was fleeting. They stood, one on each side of the door frame, looking at their feet, the safety notice, the fire extinguisher until the silence became uncomfortable.

She looked sideways at his sleeve. ‘What rank are you?’

‘Corporal.’

‘Your stripes are upside-down.’

‘Three-badge marine.’

She took a deep drag of her cigarette. She was already nearly a third of the way down it. ‘I thought three stripes meant sergeant.’

‘Not if they’re upside-down.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They’re for long service. Good conduct.’ His eyes flickered over them, as if he had rarely considered them. ‘Stopping fights, that kind of thing. I suppose it’s a way of rewarding someone who doesn’t want promotion.’

Two ratings walked along the passageway. As they passed Frances, their gaze flicked from her to the marine and back again. She waited until they’d gone, their footsteps echoing. A moment later the brief rise and fall in the sound of chatter told of the opening and closing of a cabin door.

‘Why didn’t you want promotion?’

‘Don’t know.’ Possibly he realised this had sounded a little abrupt, because he went on, ‘Perhaps I never saw myself as sergeant material.’

His face seemed frozen into disappointment, she thought, and his eyes, while not unfriendly, told of his discomfort with casual conversation. She knew that look: she wore it habitually too.

His gaze briefly met hers and slid away. ‘Perhaps I never wanted the responsibility.’

It was then that she spotted the photograph. He must have been looking at it before she came. A black and white picture, a little smaller than a man’s wallet, tucked into his right hand between finger and thumb. ‘Yours?’ she said, nodding towards his hand.

He lifted it, and looked at it as if for the first time. ‘Yes.’

‘Boy and girl?’

‘Two boys.’

She apologised, and they smiled awkwardly. ‘My youngest needed a haircut.’ He handed it to her. She took it, held it under the light and studied the beaming faces, unsure what she was meant to say. ‘They look nice.’

‘Picture’s eighteen months old. They’ll have grown some.’

She nodded, as if he had shared with her some piece of parental wisdom.

‘You?’

‘Oh. No . . .’ She handed back the picture. ‘No.’

They stood in silence again.

‘You miss them?’

‘Every day.’ Then his voice hardened. ‘They probably don’t even remember what I look like.’

She did not know what to say: whatever she was intruding on would not be eased by a cigarette and a few minutes of small-talk. She felt suddenly that engaging him in conversation had been rash and misjudged. His job was to stand outside their door. He had no choice if she chose to talk to him. He would not want to be bothered by women at all hours.

‘I’ll leave you,’ she said, quietly, then added, ‘Thank you for the cigarette.’ She trod it out, then bent down to pick up the butt. She was afraid to take it into the cabin – what would she do with it in the dark? But if she put it into her pocket it might burn through the fabric. He had failed to notice her predicament, but as she hesitated by the door he turned. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out a hand. The palm was weathered, leathery with years of salt and hard work.

She shook her head, but he held his hand closer, insistent. She placed the little butt on it, and blushed. ‘Sorry,’ she whispered.

‘No problem.’

‘Goodnight, then.’

She opened the door, was sliding silently round it into the darkness when she heard his voice. It was quiet enough to reassure her that her judgement of him had been right, but light enough to show he had not taken offence. Light enough to suggest some kind of offering.

‘So, whose is the dog?’ it asked.

10

The voyage was a nightmare. Due to breakdowns, it took eight weeks. We had one murder, one suicide, one Airforce Officer who went crazy etc. All of this against the background of a crew neglecting their work in order to have time to pursue ‘brides’ and later to engage in virtually public, gymnastic sexual activity with them. They appeared to use every available location on the ship, including one couple who specialised in the ‘Crows Nests’.

from the papers of the late Richard Lowery, naval architect

Sixteen days

The first Not Wanted Don’t Come arrived on the morning of the sixteenth day the brides had been on board. The telegram arrived just after eight a.m. in the radio room, shortly after the long-range weather reports. Its content was noted by the radio operator. He carried it swiftly to the captain, who was eating toast and porridge in his rooms. He read it, then summoned the chaplain, who summoned the relevant WSO, and all three spent some time pontificating on what was known of the character of the bride concerned, and how well – or otherwise – she was likely to take the news.

The subject of the telegram, a Mrs Millicent Newcombe (née Sumpter) was called in to the captain’s office at ten thirty a.m. – it had been thought only fair to let the girl enjoy a good breakfast first; many had not yet entirely recovered from seasickness. She arrived white-faced, convinced that her husband, a pilot, flying Seafires, had been shot down and was missing, presumed dead. So great had been her distress that none of the three was quick enough to tell her the truth, and merely stood uncomfortably as she sobbed into her handkerchief. Eventually Captain Highfield put matters straight, telling her in a sonorous voice that he was terribly sorry but it wasn’t that. It really wasn’t that at all. Then he had handed her the telegram.

Afterwards, he told his steward, she had gone quite pale – paler even than when she had suspected her husband’s death. She had asked, several times, whether they thought it was a joke, and when she heard that all such telegrams were investigated and verified as a matter of course, she had sat down, squinting at the words in front of her as if they didn’t make sense. ‘It’s his mother,’ she said. ‘I knew she’d do for me. I knew it.’

Then, as they stood in silence around her, ‘I bought two pairs of new shoes. They cost me all my savings. For going ashore. I thought he’d want to see me in nice shoes.’

‘I’m sure they’re very nice shoes,’ the chaplain murmured helplessly.

Then, with a heartbreaking look round the room, she said, ‘I don’t know what I do now.’

Captain Highfield, along with the women’s officer, had wired the girl’s parents, then contacted London, who had advised that they should put her off at Ceylon where a representative of the Australian government would take charge of the arrangements to bring her home. The radio operator would make sure that her parents or other family members had any relevant information. They would not let her go until they were sure that arrangements were in place to meet her at the other end. These procedures were laid out in the paperwork recently sent from London and had been put in place for the earlier return of GI brides.

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, once the arrangements had been made, thin shoulders straightening as she pulled herself together. ‘To put you all to so much trouble, I mean. I’m very sorry.’

‘It’s really no trouble, Mrs . . . erm . . . Millicent.’

The women’s officer had placed an arm round the girl’s shoulders to steer her out; it was hard to tell whether the gesture was protective or merely indicative of her determination to get her away from the captain’s office.

For several moments after she had left the room was silent, as if, in the face of such emotional devastation, no one knew what to say. Highfield, sitting down, the girl’s forlorn voice still echoing round his walls, found he was developing a headache.

‘I’ll get on to the Red Cross in Ceylon, sir,’ said the chaplain, eventually. ‘Make sure there’s someone who can stay with her a little. Give her a bit of support.’

‘That would be a good idea,’ said Highfield. He scribbled something meaningless on the notepad in front of him. ‘I suppose we should contact the pilot’s supervising officer as well, just to make sure there are no extenuating circumstances. You take charge of that, Dobson, will you?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Dobson. He had entered just as Millicent was leaving, and was whistling a jaunty tune that Highfield found intensely annoying.

He wondered whether he should have spent more time with the girl, whether he should get the WSO to bring her to dinner. A meal at the captain’s table might be consoling after her humiliation. But he had always found it difficult to judge these things.

‘She’ll be all right,’ Dobson said.

‘What?’ said Highfield.

‘She’ll probably have found another young dope by the time she leaves Ceylon. Pretty girl like that.’ He grinned. ‘I don’t think these Aussie girls are too fussy, as long as they find someone to get them off the old sheep farm.’

Highfield was speechless.

‘Besides, it’s one less bride on board, eh, Captain?’ Dobson laughed, apparently pleased with his own humour. ‘Bit of luck we could have jettisoned the lot by the time we reach Plymouth.’

Rennick, who had been standing in the corner, briefly met his captain’s eye, then quietly left the room.

Until that point the world as the brides had known it had steadily receded by nautical miles, and the Victoria had become a world of its own, existing discretely from the continuing life on land. The routines of the ship had become the routines of the women, and those faces who daily moved around them, scrubbing, painting or welding, their population. This new world stretched from the captain’s office at one end to the PX store (purveyors of lipstick, washing-powder, writing paper and other essentials – without a ration book) at the other, and from the flight deck, surrounded by its endless blue horizon to the bowels of the bilge pumps, the port and starboard engines.