The Ship of Brides(23)
Author: Jojo Moyes

Admittedly there was no dramatic difference in the men’s behaviour, but he knew it was only a matter of time: at this very minute the women would be the main topic of conversation in the seamen’s and stokers’ mess, in the officers’ mess and even the marines’. He could feel a subtle sense of disquiet in the air, as when dogs scent an approaching storm.

Or perhaps it was simply that nothing had felt settled since Hart’s death. The company had lost the cheerful sense of purpose that had characterised its last nine months in the Pacific. The men – those who remained – had been withdrawn, more prone to argument and insubordination. Several times since they had slipped anchor, he had caught them muttering among themselves and wondered to what extent they blamed him. He concluded his speech, and forced the thoughts, as he often did, from his mind. The women looked wrong. The colours were too bright; the hair was too long; scarves dangled all over the place. His ship had been an ordered thing of greys and whites, of monochrome. The mere introduction of colour was unbalancing, as if someone had unleashed a flock of exotic birds around him and left them, flapping and unpredictable, to create havoc. Some women were wearing high-heeled shoes, for goodness’ sake.

It’s not that I don’t like women, he thought, as he did several times an hour. It’s just that everything has its place. People have their place. He was a reasonable man. He didn’t think this was an unreasonable point of view.

He folded the booklet under his arm and caught sight of some ratings loitering by the lashings – the chains that secured the aircraft to the deck. ‘Haven’t you got anything bloody better to do?’ he barked, then turned on his heel and strode into the lobby.

Dear Joe,

Well, here I am on the Victoria with the other brides, and I can tell you this: I’m definitely a land girl. It’s awful cramped, even in a ship this size, and wherever you go you’re bumping into people, like being in the city but worse. I suppose you’re used to it, but I’m already dreaming of fields and empty spaces. Last night I even dreamt of Dad’s cows . . .

Our four-berth cabin is one of many in what was apparently a giant liftwell, and I am sharing with three girls, who seem to be all right. One girl, Jean, is only sixteen – and guess what? She’s not the youngest. There are evidently two girls of fifteen on board – both married to Brits and travelling alone. I can’t say what Dad would have done if I’d come home at fifteen and announced I was getting married – even to you, dear. I’m also sharing with a girl who has been working for the Australian General Hospital out in the Pacific, and says almost nothing, and another who I think is a bit of a society type. I can’t say any of us has much in common, other than that we are all wanting the same thing.

One bride apparently missed the boat at Sydney and they’re flying her to Fremantle, where we will pick her up. So I guess you can’t say the Navy aren’t doing all they can to get us to you.

The men are all pretty friendly, although we’re not meant to talk to them much. Some girls go silly whenever they walk past one. Honestly, you’d think they’d never seen a man before, let alone married one. The captain has read us the Riot Act already, and everyone keeps going on about water and how we’re not meant to use any. I only had a flannel wash this morning – I can’t see how I’m going to run the ship dry on that. I think of you often, and it is a comfort to me to think that we are probably even at this minute, sailing on the same ocean.

Joe Junior, I’m sure, sends his love (kicks like a mule when I’m trying to sleep!).

Your Maggie

These were the other things that she hadn’t told Joe: that she had lain awake for most of the first night, listening to the clanking of chains, doors slamming above and below, the hysterical giggling and shrieking of other women behind thinly constructed walls, and feeling the vibrations of the great ship moving under her, like some groaning prehistoric beast. That among the incomprehensible pipes that sounded every fifteen minutes or so (‘Hands to action stations’, ‘Stand by to receive gash barge alongside’, ‘Special Sea Dutymen, close up’) their wake-up call had been a rendition over the Tannoy of ‘Wakey, wakey, show a leg’ (and that at five thirty, she had overheard the less savoury men’s version: ‘Wakey, wakey, rise and shine, hands off cocks, pull on socks’). That the ship was a bewildering mass of ranks and roles, from marines to stokers to airmen. That the canteen was big enough to seat three hundred girls at once, that together they made a noise like a huge flock of starlings descending, and that she had eaten better food at last night’s supper than she had for the last two years. That almost the first naval custom they had been taught – with great emphasis on its importance – was the ‘submariner’s dhobi’: a shower of several seconds to soak oneself, a soaping with the water turned off, then a brief rinse under running water. It was vital, the Red Cross officer had impressed upon them, that they conserve water so that the pumps could desalinate at a rate fast enough to replace it, and they could make the crossing hygienically. From what she had heard in the shower rooms, she was pretty well the only bride to have followed those instructions.

Behind her, hidden by her size and a carefully folded blanket, Maude Gonne lay sleeping. After the captain’s address, Margaret had raced back to their cabin (Daniel would have said ‘lumbered’) and subdued the little dog’s yelps with stolen biscuits, then smuggled her along to the bathroom to make sure she didn’t disgrace herself. She had only just got back to the bunk when Frances came in, and she had thrust herself on to her bed, a warning hand on the dog’s hidden head, willing her to stay quiet.

It was a problem. She had thought she would be allocated a single cabin – most of the pregnant brides had been. It hadn’t occurred to her that she might have to share.

She wondered whether Frances, on the bunk opposite, could be trusted. She seemed all right, but she had said little that suggested anything at all. And she was a nurse – some of whom got awfully tied up in rules and regulations.

Margaret shifted on her bunk, trying to get comfortable, feeling the engines rumbling beneath her. There was so much she wanted to tell Joe, so much she wanted to convey about the strangeness of it all – of being thrust from her home into a world where girls became hysterical not just about their future but over brands of shampoo or stockings (‘Where did you get those? I’ve been looking everywhere for them!’) and exchanged the kind of intimate confidences that suggested they’d known each other for years, not twenty-four hours.