The Ship of Brides

  He was lost in appreciation of some imagined scene upstairs. 'Looked bloody fantastic in her swimsuit for the Miss Lovely Legs, that girl. Great pair of pins on her. D'you think it's something they give them in Australia? I've heard half the girls back home have got rickets.'

  Tims, apparently oblivious, was staring at his watch.

  Plummer rambled on: 'All the officers get to see it, you know. How's that fair, eh? Two more nights on board, and all the officers get to see the girls in their swimsuits and we're stuck down here in bloody centre engine. You know the marines are switching shifts at nine so even they'll catch some of it. One rule for one lot, another rule for us. Hardly fair, is it? Now the war's over, they should take a look at all the injustices of the bloody Navy.'

  Plummer checked a dial, swore, then glanced at Tims, who was staring at the wall. 'Here, you all right, Tims? Something got on your wick, has it?'

  'Cover me for half an hour,' Tims said, turning towards the exit hatch. 'Something I need to do.'

  Had he been able to see the opening stages of the Queen of the Victoria contest, young Plummer might have felt less confident about his trip to Scarborough. For Avice Radley, despite being widely considered a shoo-in for winner, was looking curiously lacklustre. Or in racing terms, as one of the seamen put it, not dissimilar to a three-legged donkey.

  Perched on the makeshift stage alongside her fellow contestants, faced by the heaving tables that made up the women's last formal supper, she looked pale and preoccupied, despite the glowing scarlet of the silk dress she wore, and the glossy wheat sheen of her blonde hair. As the other girls giggled and clutched each other, trying to keep their balance in high heels as the ship dipped under them, she stood alone and aside, smile fading, eyes shadowed with some distant concern.

  Twice Dr Duxbury, the host for the evening's proceedings, had taken her hand, tried to get her to elaborate on her plans for her new life, to recall her favourite moments of the voyage. She had seemed not to notice him, even when he broke into his third rendition of 'Waltzing Matilda'.

  That'll be the morning sickness kicking in, at least one bride had observed. All mothers-to-be looked rotten for the first few months. It was only a matter of time. A few, less generous types suggested that perhaps without foundation garments and cosmetics Avice Radley had never been the beauty everyone had taken her for. And when you compared her to the glowing Irene Carter, resplendent in pale peach and blue, apparently heedless of the heaving waters, it was hard to disagree.

  Dr Duxbury tailed off to polite, scattered applause. There were only so many times one could applaud the same song, and it was possible the surgeon was too well lubricated to be aware of his audience anyway.

  At last he registered the frantically signalling lieutenant commander at the end of the stage and, after several attempts, pointed theatrically at the captain, raising his palms as if to suggest that no one had told him.

  'Ladies,' said Highfield, standing quickly, perhaps before Duxbury could start singing again. He waited as the hangar gradually fell silent. 'Ladies . . . As you know, this is our last night's entertainment on Victoria. Tomorrow night we will dock at Plymouth, and you will spend the evening organising your belongings and double checking with the women's service officers that you have someone to meet you and somewhere to go. Tomorrow morning I will discuss the arrangements more fully on the flight deck, but for now I just wanted to say a few words.'

  The women, many of whom were fizzing with nervous anticipation, watched, nudging and whispering to each other. Around the edges, the men stood, their arms behind them, backs to the walls. Ratings, officers, marines, engineers: all in dress uniform in honour of the occasion. For some, Highfield realised, it would be the last time they wore it. He glanced down at his own, knowing it would not be long before he would say the same.

  'I can't - I can't pretend this has been the easiest cargo I have ever had to transport,' he said. 'I can't pretend I even relished the prospect of it - although I know some of the men did. But I can tell you this, as a "lifer", as some of us naval folk are known, it has been the most . . . educational.

  'Now I won't bore you with a lengthy speech about the difficulties of the course you have chosen. I'm sure you've had quite enough of that.' He nodded towards the welfare officer and heard a polite ripple of laughter. 'But I will say that you, like all of us, will probably find the next twelve months the most challenging - and hopefully rewarding - of your lives. So what I wanted to tell you is this: you are not alone.'

  He looked around at the hushed, expectant faces. Under the harsh lights of the hangar deck the gilt buttons of his uniform shone.

  'Those of us who have always served are going to have to find new ways of living. Those of us who have found ourselves profoundly changed by the experience of war will have to find new ways of dealing with those around us. Those who have suffered are going to have to find ways of forgiving. We are returning to a country that is likely to be unfamiliar to us. We, too, may find ourselves strangers in that land. So yes, brides, you face a great challenge. But I want to tell you that it has been both a pleasure and a privilege to be part of your journey. We are proud to claim you as our own. And I hope that when you look back, in happiness, to the early years of your time in Britain, you think of this as not simply the journey to your new life but the start of it.'

  Few would have noticed that during some of this speech he seemed to be speaking to one woman in particular, that when he had said, 'You are not alone,' his gaze might have rested on her a little longer than on anyone else. But it was irrelevant. There was a brief silence, and then the women clapped, a few calling out until gradually the applause and cheering had ignited the entire room.

  Captain Highfield took his seat, having nodded gratefully at the blur of faces. It had not come solely from the women below him, he observed, trying not to smile as much as he wanted. It had come from the men. 'What did you think?' he murmured to the woman beside him, his chest still puffed with pride.

  'Very nice, Captain.'

  'Not a great one for speeches, generally,' he said, 'but in this case I thought it appropriate.'

  'I don't think anyone here would disagree. Your words were . . . beautifully chosen.'

  'Have the girls stopped staring at you yet?' He spoke without looking at her, so that from the other tables it might appear that he was simply thanking the steward for his plate of food.

  'No,' said Frances, taking a forkful of fish. 'But it's quite all right, Captain.' She didn't need to add: I'm used to it.

  Captain Highfield glanced at Dobson, two seats down, who was evidently not yet used to it. Having squinted at sea for almost forty years, Highfield's sight was not as good as it had been. But even he could discern the words emanating from the XO's downturned mouth, the expression of disapproval on his face. 'Making a mockery of the ship, he is,' he was muttering furiously into his damask napkin. 'It's as if he's set out to turn us all into a laughing-stock.'

  The lieutenant beside him noticed Highfield staring at them, and coloured.

  Highfield felt the ship lift under him as it broke another wave.

  'Glass of cordial, Sister Mackenzie? You sure you wouldn't like anything stronger?' He waited until it had ridden out, then lifted his glass in salute.

  It would only be for twenty minutes. The engine was running much better, or at least as well as she was ever going to. It was two whole pounds. And Davy Plummer was buggered if he was going to sit down there by himself in the engine room while every matelot from here to the Radio Direction Finder office watched girls parade in their swimsuits.

  Besides, he was leaving the Navy once they got back to Blighty. What were they going to make him do if they found him off duty for once? Make him swim home?

  Davy Plummer checked the temperature gauges that needed to be checked, ran a cloth over the more problematic pipes, stubbed out his cigarette underfoot and, with a swift glance behind him, ran two at a time up the steps on to the gangway and towards the exit
hatch.

  The votes were in and Avice Radley had lost. The judging panel, which comprised Dr Duxbury, two of the women's service officers and the chaplain, all agreed that they had wanted to give the prize to Mrs Radley (Dr Duxbury had been particularly impressed by her rendition a week earlier of 'Shenandoah') but felt that, given her extremely lacklustre performance on the final night, her marked disinclination to smile and her frankly perplexing answer to the question, 'What do you most want to do when you finally get to England?' (Irene Carter, 'Make the acquaintance of my mother-in-law'; Ivy Tuttle, 'Raise money for the war orphans'; Avice Radley, 'I don't know') and her immediate disappearance after it, there was only one choice for overall winner.

  Irene Carter wore her hand-sewn sash with the cooing, tearful delight of a new mother. It had been, she announced, the finest trip she had ever undertaken. She felt, frankly, as if she had made at least six hundred new friends. And she hoped they would all find the happiness in England she was sure they deserved. She couldn't begin to thank the crew enough for their kindness, their efficiency. She was sure the whole room would agree that the captain's words had been a real inspiration. It was when she started thanking her former neighbours in Sydney by name that Captain Highfield intervened and announced that if the officers and men would like to clear the tables to the sides of the room, the Royal Marines Band would provide music for a little dancing. ('Dancing!' chirruped Dr Duxbury, and several women moved swiftly away from him.)

  Davy Plummer, standing near the back of the bandstand, glanced in disgust at the handwritten betting slip Foster had given him not two days earlier, screwed it up and thrust it deep into the pocket of his overall. Bloody women. For all those fancy odds, that one couldn't have looked any worse with a paper bag over her head. He was about to return to the engine room when he saw two brides standing in the corner. They whispered something behind their hands.

  'Never seen a working man before?' he said, holding out the sides of his overalls.

  'We were wondering if you were going to dance,' said the smaller, blonder girl, 'but whether you could do it without getting us all oily.'

  'Ladies, you have no idea what a stoker can do with his hands.' Davy Plummer stepped forward, his betting slip forgotten.

  He was, after all, an optimist by nature.

  The crowning ceremony was due at a quarter to ten. That gave Frances almost fifteen minutes to nip along the passageway and pick up the photographs of the Australian General Hospital that Captain Highfield had asked to view. Her photograph album was in her trunk down in the hold but she always kept a few of her favourite snaps - the first ward tent, the dance in Port Moresby, Alfred, in a book by her bed. She ran lightly along the corridor that led from the hangar to the dormitories, occasionally touching the wall to keep her balance.

  Then she stopped.

  He was standing outside the dormitory, removing a cigarette from a soft packet. He put it into his mouth, glanced sideways at her. The way in which he did this told her that her appearance was no surprise to him.

  She had not seen him since he had arrived on the gun turret with Tims. She had had to fight the suspicion that he had avoided her since then, had several times considered asking the younger marine why he had taken over the night watch.

  She had pictured him so many times, had taken one side in so many silent conversations, that to see him in the flesh was overwhelming. Even as her feet took her towards him she felt her own reticence return and brushed vaguely at her skirt.

  She paused at the door, unsure whether to step inside. He was in his dress uniform, and she was overcome by a flash memory of the night they had danced, in which she had been held against that dark cloth. 'Want one?' he said, holding the packet towards her.

  She took one. He held the flame towards her so that she didn't have to bend to him as it lit. She found, as she ducked, that she could not take her eyes off his hands.

  'I saw you at the captain's table,' he said eventually.

  'I didn't see you.' She had looked. Several times.

  'Wasn't meant to be there.'

  His voice sounded strange. She drew on her cigarette, conscious that however she stood she felt awkward.

  'Quite unusual for him to invite one of the women to join him.'

  The temperature of her blood dropped a couple of degrees. 'I wouldn't know,' she said carefully.

  'I don't believe he's done it once this trip.'

  'Is there something you want to say?'

  He looked blank.

  She forgot her previous awkwardness. 'Surely what you're asking is why I, of all people, was seated at the captain's table?'

  He set his jaw. For the briefest moment, she could see how he might have looked as a child. 'I was just . . . curious. I came to see you the other afternoon. And then I saw you . . . outside the captain's--'

  'Ah. Now I see. You weren't asking, just implying.'

  'I didn't mean--'

  'So you've come to question me over the standard of my conduct?'

  'No, I--'

  'Oh, what will you do, Marine? Report the captain? Or just the whore?'

  The word silenced them both. She chewed her lip. He stood alongside her, his shoulders still squared as if he were on duty.

  'Why are you talking like this?' he asked quietly.

  'Because I'm tired, Marine. I'm tired of having every single one of my actions judged by ignorant people who then find me wanting.'

  'I didn't judge you.'

  'The hell you didn't.' She was suddenly furious. 'I can't be bothered to explain myself any more. I can't be bothered to try to improve anyone's opinion of me if they can't be bothered to see--'

  'Frances--'

  'You're as bad as the rest of them. I thought you were different. I thought you understood something about me, understood what I was made of. God knows why! God knows why I chose to invest you with feelings you were never capable of--'

  'Frances--'

  'What?'

  'I'm sorry about what I said. I just saw you . . . and . . . I'm sorry. Really. Things have happened that have made me . . .' He tailed off. 'Look, I came to see you because I wanted you to know something. I did things in the war . . . that I'm not proud of. I haven't always behaved in a way that people - people who don't know the full circumstances - might consider to be admirable. There's none of us - not even your husband probably - who can say they did.'

  She stared at him.

  'That's all I wanted to tell you,' he said.

  Her head hurt. She put out a hand to the wall, feeling the floor rise and fall under her feet. 'I think you'd better go,' she said quietly. She could not look at him. But she could feel his eyes on her. 'Goodnight, Marine,' she said, emphatically.

  She waited until she heard his footsteps walking smartly back towards the hangar area. The rocking of the ship's floor made no difference to their rhythm and she listened to them, metronomic, until the sound of a hatch door closing told her he had gone.

  Then she closed her eyes, very tightly.

  In the centre engine room, somewhere below the hangar deck, the number-two oil spray, the high-pressure feed pump that transferred fuel to the boiler, succumbed to what might have been age, stress, or perhaps the bloodymindedness of a ship that knows she is about to be decommissioned and, split. A tiny fault line, perhaps less than two centimetres long, which allowed the pressurised fuel to bubble out, dark and seething, like spittle in the corner of a drunk's mouth. And then to atomise.

  It is impossible to see the hot spots in a ship's engine, the places where small areas of metal, weakened by fractures or the strain on its joints, reach terrible internal temperatures. If they cannot be detected by the many gauges around the engine room, or by the treacherous act of feeling for them through rags, one discovers them by chance - conclusively when fuel leaks on to them.

  Unseen and unheard by the humans who relied upon it, the Victoria's centre engine hammered energetically forward, unseen, too red, too hot. The fuel hung briefly in th
e air in tiny, unseen droplets. Then the exhaust duct, inches from the cracked fuel pipe, glinted, like malice in a devilish eye, ignited and, with a sudden whumph! took its chance.

  Fool. Bloody fool. Nicol slowed outside the oilskin store. One more night until she left for good, one more in which he could have told her a little of what she meant to him, and instead he had acted like a pompous fool. A jealous adolescent. And in doing so he had shown himself to be no better than any of the other judgemental fools on this leaking old ship. He could have said a thousand things to her, smiled at her, shown her a little understanding. She would have known then. If nothing else, she would have known. As bad as the rest of them, she had told him. The worst of what he had always suspected of himself.

  'Blast it,' he said, and slammed his fist into the wall.

  'Something bothering you, Marine?'

  Tims was blocking the passageway, overalls thick with oil and grease, something more inflammatory illuminating his expression. 'What's the matter?' he said softly. 'Run out of people to discipline?'

  Nicol glanced at his bleeding knuckles. 'Get on with your work, Tims.' Bile rose in him.

  'Get on with your work? Who d'you think you are? Commander?'

  Nicol glanced behind him at the empty corridor. No one was visible on G Deck; those not on duty were all in the hangar area, enjoying the dance. He wondered, briefly, how long Tims had been standing there.

  'Your ladyfriend bothering you, is she? Not giving it up, like you thought?'

  Nicol took a deep breath. He lit a cigarette, extinguished the match between finger and thumb and thrust it into his pocket.

  'Got an itch you can't scratch?'

  'You might think you're a big man on this ship, Tims, but in a couple of days' time you'll just be another unemployed matelot like the rest of them. A nothing.' He tried to keep his voice calm, but he could still hear in it the vibration of barely suppressed rage.

  Tims stood back on his heels, crossed his huge forearms across his chest. 'Perhaps you're not her type.' He lifted his chin, as if a thought had occurred to him. 'Oh, sorry, I forgot. Everyone's her type, provided they've got two bob . . .'