Page 85 of The Ship of Brides
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, more loudly than she’d intended. ‘Oh! Good!’
‘I hope they turn the water on for a bit first.’ He grinned. ‘You girls will all run a mile faced with the scent of a thousand sweaty matelots.’
She glanced down at her creased trousers, but his attention had switched to a distant figure.
‘I’ll see you up there,’ he said, his marine mask back in place. With a nod that could almost have been a salute, he was gone.
The Royal Marines Band sat on their makeshift pedestal outside the deck canteen, a little way distant of the ship’s island, and struck up with ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’. TheVictoria’s engines were shut down for repairs and she floated serene and immobile in the placid waters. On the deck, several hundred brides in their finest dresses – at least, the finest to which they had been allowed access – were whirling around, some with the men and others, giggling, with each other. Around the island, tables and chairs had been brought up from the dining area, and were occupied by those unable or unwilling to keep dancing. Above them, in the Indian sky, the stars glittered like ballroom lights, bathing the seas with silver.
It could have been – if one bent one’s imagination a little and ignored the presence of the guns, the scarred deck, the rickety tables and chairs – any of the grand ballrooms of Europe. The captain had felt an unlikely joy in the spectacle, feeling it (sentimentally, he had to admit) no less than the old girl deserved in her final voyage. A bit of pomp and finery. A bit of a do.
The men, in their best drill uniform, were looking more cheerful than they had done for days, while the brides – mutinous after the temporary closure of the hair salon – had also perked up considerably, thanks to the introduction of emergency salt-water showers. It had been good for them all to have an excuse to dress up a bit, he thought. Even the men liked parading in their good tropical kit.
They sat in now well-established huddles or chatted in groups, the men temporarily unconcerned by the lack of defining rank structure. What the hell? Highfield had thought, when he was asked by one of the women’s service officers if he wanted to enforce ‘proper’ separation. This voyage was already something extraordinary.
‘How long does theVictoriatake to refuel, Captain Highfield?’
Beside him sat one of the passengers, a little Wren to whom Dobson had introduced him half an hour earlier. She was small, dark and intensely serious, and had quizzed him so lengthily about the specifications of his ship that he had been tempted to ask her if she was spying for the Japanese. But he hadn’t. Somehow she hadn’t looked the type to have a sense of humour.
‘Do you know? I don’t think I could tell you offhand,’ he lied.
‘A little longer than your boys do,’ muttered Dr Duxbury, and laughed.
In thanks for their fortitude over the water situation, Captain Highfield had promised everyone extra ‘sippers’ of rum. Just to warm up the evening a little, he had announced, to cheers. He suspected, however, that Dr Duxbury had somehow obtained more than his allotted share.
What the hell? he thought again. The man would be gone soon. His leg was painful enough tonight for him to consider taking extra sippers himself. If the water situation had been different he would have placed it in a bath of cold water – which seemed to ease it a little – but instead he was in for another near sleepless night.
‘Did you serve alongside many of the US carriers?’ the little Wren asked. ‘We came up alongside the USSIndianain the Persian Gulf, and I must say those American ships do seem far superior to ours.’
‘Know much about ships, do you?’ said Dr Duxbury.
‘I should hope so,’ she said. ‘I’ve been a Wren for four years.’
Dr Duxbury didn’t appear to have heard. ‘You have a look of Judy Garland about you. Has anyone ever told you that? Did you ever see her inMe and My Girl?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
Here we go, thought Captain Highfield. He had already endured several dinners with his proxy medic, at least half of which had culminated in the man singing his terrible ditties. He talked of music so much and medicine so little that Highfield wondered if the Navy should have checked his credentials more carefully before taking him on. Despite his misgivings, he had not requested a second doctor, as he might have on previous voyages. He realised, with a twinge of conscience, that Duxbury’s distraction suited him: he did not want an efficient sort asking too many questions about his leg.
He took a last look at the merriment in front of him; the band had struck up a reel and the girls were whooping and spinning, faces flushed and feet light. Then he looked at Dobson and the marine captain, who were talking to a flight captain over by the lifeboats. His work was done. They could take over from here. He had never been a great one for parties anyway.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, pushing himself upright painfully, ‘I’ve got to attend to a little matter,’ and with that he went back inside.
‘Jean would have loved this,’ said Margaret. Seated in a comfortable chair that Dennis Tims had brought up from the officers’ lounge, a light shawl round her shoulders, she was beaming. A good sleep and Maude Gonne’s recovery had significantly lifted her mood.
‘Poor Jean,’ said Frances. ‘I wonder what she’s doing.’
Avice, a short distance away, was dancing with one of the white-clad officers. Her hair, carefully set in the salon, gleamed honey under the arc-lights, while her neat waist and elaborate gathered skirt betrayed nothing of her condition.
‘I don’t think your woman there is worrying too much, do you?’ Margaret nodded.
Not two hours after Jean had gone, Avice had appropriated her bunk for storage of the clothes and shoes she wanted brought up from her trunk.
Frances had been so enraged that she had had to fight the compulsion to dump them all on the floor. ‘What’s the matter?’ Avice had protested. ‘It’s not like she needs it now.’
She was still celebrating having won that afternoon’s cleverest-use-of-craft-materials competition with her decorated evening bag. Not, she told the girls afterwards, that she would have had it within six feet of her on a night out. The important thing had been beating Irene Carter. She was now two points ahead of her for the Queen of theVictoriatitle.
‘I don’t think she worries about anything—’ Frances stopped herself.
