The admiral placed his hand on Highfield's arm. It was several seconds before the captain, all his senses still trained on the improbable sight before him, registered the gesture. 'This is what I came to talk to you about.'
'The damn fool's putting metal supports in the liftwells. Bunk supports, for goodness' sake. Don't you know what you're doing, man?'
'He's doing it under my orders, Highfield.'
'I'm sorry, sir?'
'The Victoria. There have been a few developments while you were in the sick bay. New orders from London. This trip isn't going to be quite as straightforward as you thought.'
Highfield's face fell. 'More POWs?'
'No.'
'Not enemy POWs? You remember the trouble we had on--'
'Worse, I'm afraid, Highfield.' He let out a long breath, his eyes steady on the captain's face. 'They're for women.'
There was a long silence.
'You'll still be taking your men home. But you've got extra cargo. Six hundred-odd Australian war brides bound for their men in Blighty. The liftwells will be used for the extra berths.'
The welder resumed his work, his torch sending sparks skittering off the metal frame.
Captain Highfield turned to the admiral. 'But they can't go on my ship.'
'It's the war, Highfield. People are having to make do.'
'But they travel on troop ships, sir. Liners, where they can cater for them. You can't have girls and babies and suchlike on an aircraft-carrier. It's madness. You must tell them.'
'I can't say I was entirely happy about it either. But needs must, old chap. All the liners have already been commandeered.' He patted Highfield's shoulder. 'It's only six weeks. Be gone before you know it. And after all that business with Hart and the mine, it might perk the men up. Take their minds off things.'
But it's my last voyage. My last time with my men. With my own ship. Highfield felt a great wail build inside him, a fury at the humiliation of it. 'Sir--'
'Look, George, the telephone lines to London have been burning up on this one. There's a bit of a political row brewing up over these wives. The British girls are holding demonstrations outside Parliament because they feel they've been forgotten about. Both the top brass and the Australian government are keen not to have that kind of thing repeated over here. It's caused a lot of bad feeling with the Aussie men, having so many of their women marry out. I think all sides feel the best thing is to get the women away as soon as possible and let the whole thing settle down.'
His tone became conciliatory: 'I know this is difficult for you, but try to look at it from the girls' point of view. Some of them haven't seen their men for two years or more. The war's over, and they're desperate to be reunited.' He noted the rigid set of the other man's jaw. 'Put yourself in their shoes, George. They just want to get home to their loved ones as fast and with as little fuss as possible. You must understand how that feels.'
'It's a recipe for disaster, women on board.' The strength of Highfield's feelings hardened his voice and several men nearby stopped work to watch. 'I won't have it! I won't have this ship disrupted by women. They must understand. They must see.'
The admiral's voice was soothing, but it had taken on the impersonal bite of someone losing their patience. 'There's no babies or children travelling. They've picked this lot very carefully. Just fit young women - well, possibly a few in the family way.'
'But what about the men?'
'No men. Oh, there might be the odd extra, but we won't know about that until a few days before boarding. Haven't had the final short cast on this one yet.' The admiral paused. 'Oh, you mean yours. Well, they'll be on different decks. The liftwells - with the cabins - will be closed off. There's a few - the, er, ones in the family way - in single cabins. Your men's work will continue as normal. And we're putting in all sorts of safeguards to stop any improper mixing - you know the sort of thing.'
Captain Highfield turned to his superior. The urgency of his position had stripped his face of its habitual impassiveness: his whole self was desperate to convey how wrong this was and how impossible. 'Look, sir, some of my men have been without - without female company for months. This is like sticking a match in a box of fireworks. Did you not hear about the incidents on Audacious? We all know what happened, for God's sake.'
'I think we've all learnt lessons from Audacious.'
'It's impossible, sir. It's dangerous and ridiculous and it stands to destabilise the whole atmosphere on the ship. You know how fragile these things are.'
'It's really not negotiable, Highfield.'
'We've worked for months to get the balance right. You know what my men have been through. You can't just drop a load of girls in there and think--'
'They'll be under strict orders. The Navy is to issue guidelines--'
'What do women know of orders? Where there's men and women in close quarters, there's going to be trouble.'
'These are married women, Highfield.' The admiral's voice was sharp now. 'They're going home to be with their husbands. That's the whole point.'
'Well, with respect, sir, that shows just how much you understand about human nature.'
His words hung in the air, shocking both men. Captain Highfield took a quivering breath. 'Permission to be dismissed. Sir.' He hardly waited for the nod. For the first time in his naval career, Captain Highfield turned on his heel and walked in anger from his superior.
The admiral stood and watched him travel the length of the hangar and disappear into the bowels of his ship, like a rabbit finding safety in its warren. In some cases such disrespect could prompt the end of a man's career. But, grumpy old stick that Highfield was, McManus had a lot of respect for him. He didn't want him to end his working life in ignominy. Besides, the admiral mused, as he nodded to the young ratings to carry on, much as he loved his wife and daughters, if he was truthful, and if it were his ship, he would probably have felt the same.
8
The brides had lectures and demonstrations during the voyage to help them with the shopping and cooking problems of rationing. Their diet on the later stages of the trip was slightly pruned so that the effect of the change to rationed food would not be too severe.
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 pl
ay?'
'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.