The Ship of Brides(26)
Author: Jojo Moyes

6

Among the ship’s complement were about thirty-five to forty Royal Marines, their smartness in appearance and manner was usually in direct contrast to us ‘matelots’, and was the subject of some amused wonderment on our part . . . The brass buttons and spit and polished boots shone, they were so fastidious in their appearance.

L. Troman, seaman, HMS Victorious

in Wine, Women and War

Two days in

In an effort to keep occupied those brides whose initial excitement might have given way to homesickness, HMS Victoria offered, on the second full day of the voyage, the following activities – neatly documented in the inaugural issue of the Daily Ship News:

1000 hrs Protestant Devotions (E Deck)

1300 hrs Recorded Music

1430 hrs Deck Games (Flight Deck)

1600 hrs Knitting Corner (4oz of pink or white wool and two pairs of needles per girl to be provided by the Red Cross)

1700 hrs Lecture: ‘Marriage and Family Life’, to be given by the Ship’s Chaplain

1830 hrs Bingo Party (Recreation Area, Main Deck)

1930 hrs Roman Catholic Mass

Of these, the Deck Games and the Bingo Party looked to be the most popular, and the lecture the least. The chaplain had an unfortunately forbidding manner, and at least one of the brides had remarked that they didn’t need a lecture on marriage from a man who looked like he wanted to wash himself whenever a woman happened to brush past him.

Meanwhile, the imaginatively titled newspaper, edited by one of the women’s officers with the help of two brides, also noted the birthdays of Mrs Josephine Darnforth, 19, and Mrs Alice Sutton, 22, and appealed to its readers to come forward with little snippets of gossip and good wishes that ‘might make the journey pass in a pleasant and congenial manner’.

‘Gossip, eh?’ mused Jean, to whom this piece had been read aloud. ‘Betcha by the end of the trip they’ll have enough to fill twenty bloody newspapers.’

Avice had left the dormitory early for Protestant Devotions. She suspected she might meet more her sort of people at church. She had felt a little perturbed when Margaret announced that she would be attending the Roman Catholic Mass. She had never met a papist before, as her mother called them, but she was careful not to let her pity show.

Jean, who had already announced her aversion to any kind of religion (an unfortunate experience with a Christian Brother) was making up, ready for Recorded Music. She suspected there might be dancing and pronounced herself as ‘itchy as a bare-arsed wallaby on a termite hill’ to escape the cabin and take to the floor.

Margaret was lying on her bed, a hand on the dog, reading one of Avice’s magazines. Occasionally she would snort derisively. ‘Says here you shouldn’t sleep on one side of your face too often in case it gives you wrinkles. How the hell else are you meant to sleep?’ Then she had recalled the sight of Avice the night before, lying flat on her back above Frances, despite the obvious discomfort of a headful of rollers, and made a mental note not to comment publicly again.

This left Frances free to disappear without comment and, dressed in pale khaki slacks and a short-sleeved shirt – the closest she could come to her old uniform – she had slipped out, nodding a brief greeting to the girls she passed, and made her way down the gangway.

She had had to knock twice before she got a response, and even then she drew back, checking and rechecking the name on the door.

‘Come in.’

She stepped into the infirmary, whose walls were lined from floor to ceiling with bottles and jars, secured on narrow shelves behind glass doors. The man behind the desk had short red hair, slicked close to his head like a protective shell, and was dressed in civilian clothes. His face was freckled, his eyes creased from years of what might have been squinting but, judging from his actions now, was probably smiling.

‘Come right in. You’re making the place look untidy.’

Frances flushed briefly, realised he had been joking, then took a few steps towards him.

‘What seems to be the problem, then?’ He was sliding his hand back and forth along the desk as if to some unheard rhythm.

‘I don’t have one.’ She straightened, stiff in her starched shirt. ‘Are you the surgeon? Mr Farraday?’

‘No.’ He gazed at her, apparently weighing up whether to enlighten her. ‘Vincent Duxbury. Civilian passenger. I’m probably not the man you had in mind. He – er – he failed to make the trip. Captain Highfield asked me to step in. And, frankly, given the standard of entertainment on board, I’m happy to oblige. How can I help you?’

‘I’m not sure that you can,’ she said, perplexed. ‘At least, not in that way. I was – I mean, I’m a nurse.’ She held out a hand. ‘Frances Mackenzie. Sister Frances Mackenzie. I heard that some of the brides were to be allowed to help out with secretarial duties and such, and I thought I might offer my services here.’

Vincent Duxbury shook her hand, and motioned to her to sit down. ‘A nurse, eh? I thought we might have a few on board. Seen much duty?’

‘Five years in the Pacific,’ she said. ‘Last posting was the Australian General Hospital 2/7 Morotai.’ She fought the urge to add ‘sir’.

‘My cousin was out in Japan, back in ’forty-three. Your husband?’

‘My? Oh.’ She looked briefly wrongfooted. ‘Alfred Mackenzie. Royal Welsh Fusiliers.’

‘Royal Welsh Fusiliers . . .’ He said it slowly, as if it had significance.

She folded her hands in front of her.

Dr Duxbury leant back in his chair, fiddling with the top of a brown-glass bottle. It looked as if he had been in the room for some time, although he was still in his jacket. Suddenly it dawned on her that the smell of alcohol was not necessarily medicinal.

‘So . . .’

She waited, trying not to look too hard at the label on the bottle.

‘You want to carry on serving. These six weeks.’

‘If I can be useful, yes.’ She took a deep breath. ‘I’ve had special experience in burns, treatment of dysentery, and revival of impaired digestive systems. That was the POWs,’ she added. ‘We had significant experience of those.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I don’t have much specialist feminine or obstetric knowledge, but I thought at least I could help with the men. I asked someone aboard the hospital ship Ariadne, where I last served, and they said that aircraft-carriers sustain a disproportionate number of injuries, especially during flight training.’