The Ship of Brides(97)
Author: Jojo Moyes

‘Thank you,’ Highfield was saying. ‘I don’t really know what else to say. I’m not usually given to . . .’

She shook her head, as if whatever she had bestowed upon him was nothing. Then she smoothed her hair. He found himself stepping back into the shadows. I’m not given to . . . to what? Nicol’s breath lodged in his chest and his mind went blank. This was not how he had felt when his wife had revealed her affair. This was worse.

They muttered something he couldn’t catch, and then her voice rose again. ‘Oh, Captain,’ she called, ‘I forgot to say . . . Sixteen.’

Nicol could just make out Highfield staring at her, his expression quizzical.

She began to make her way towards the main hangar. ‘Sixteen penicillin left in the big bottle. Seven in the smaller one. And ten sealed dressings in the white bag. At least, there should be.’

He could hear the captain’s laughter the whole way down the gangway.

20

The boredom of weeks at sea has to be experienced to be fully understood and the frustrations of such an existence were to many, in the long run, infinitely more damaging to the mind than the potential hazards of being blown up by the enemy . . . when we were not fighting the enemy, we were fighting amongst ourselves.

L. Troman, Wine, Women and War

Two days to Plymouth

In the absence of horses and a track, or of trainee pilots who could be guaranteed to end up in the soup occasionally, it should perhaps have been of little surprise that such fierce betting lay on the immaculately coiffed heads of the Queen of the Victoria contestants. It was possible that Mrs Ivy Tuttle and Mrs Jeanette Latham might have been a little demoralised to know that they were joint forty to one against or, indeed, that knowing she was five to two on might have put a swagger into Irene Carter’s already undulating step. But for days now it had been common knowledge that the real favourite, with a good proportion of the ship’s company putting a shilling or more on her blonde tresses, was Avice Radley.

‘Foster says there’s some fair-sized punts on her,’ yelled Plummer, the junior stoker.

‘There’s some fair-sized somethings,’ roared the departing watch.

‘He reckons if she comes in first he’s going to have to pay out half the money he won on the gee-gees at Bombay.’

Within hours they would have entered the cool, choppy waters of the Bay of Biscay, but more than a hundred feet below the flight deck, down in the engine pit, the temperatures were still at a shirt-drenching hundred or so degrees. Tims, naked to the waist, swung the polished wheels that sent the steam into the engine’s turbines while Plummer, who had been oiling the main engine, felt round the bearings for overheating, occasionally swearing as his skin met scalding metal.

Between them, the bridge telegraph dial relayed the orders from above to put the engines over to ‘make smoke’ or ‘full speed’ in an effort to get through the rough as soon as possible, and around them, above the incessant grinding and roaring of the engine, the tired old ship creaked and groaned in protest. Steam persisted in escaping through valves in little belches of effort; the rags that tried to quell them were damp and sodden with scalding water. In these emissions, the Victoria insisted on showing her age; her many dials and gauges looked out at them with the blank insouciance of a bloody-minded old woman.

Plummer finished tightening a bolt, secured his spanner in its wall-mounting, then turned to Tims. ‘You not had a few bob on one of them, then?’

‘What?’ Tims glowered.

He was a mean-looking man in a bad mood, but Plummer, who was used to him, rattled on: ‘The contest tonight.’ The noise of the engine was such that he used gesture to convey added meaning to his words. ‘There’s a lot of money riding on it.’

‘Load of rubbish,’ said Tims, dismissively.

‘Like to see them all lined up in their little swimsuits, though, eh?’ He drew curves in the air, and pulled a lascivious face. It sat almost comically on his adolescent features. ‘Get you in the mood for the missus.’

This seemed to make Tims more bad-tempered. He wiped his shining forehead with a filthy rag, then reached down for a wrench. The choppier waters sent tools thumping and clanging across the floor, a hazard to shins and toes. ‘Don’t know what you’re getting so excited about,’ he growled. ‘You’re on duty all night.’

‘Two pounds I’ve got on that Radley girl,’ Plummer said. ‘Two pounds! I got my bet on when she was still three to one against so if she wins I’m bloody quids in. If not, I’m in the drink. I promised my old ma I’d pay for us all to go to Scarborough. But I’m an optimist by nature, see? I reckon I can’t lose.’

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.