After work I’d have a yarn and a drink in the smoke-room, or down with old Schultz, who was a great old fellow, or play some deck tennis. After lunch everyone who wasn’t on duty would have a kind of lay-down. There were sometimes some more surgery cases after tea, or I’d fossick round with Jerry and Jack Howe, picking up the news. I never belonged to the poker school, though I like a game occasionally. Those fellows played morning, noon and night. Most of them weren’t married and I never got to know them all. There they would sit all day, shirts open to the waist, sleeves rolled up, shorts or khaki slacks, and deck shoes. Never mind how hot it was, they were as happy as Larry. Celia and I would often get a game of bridge after dinner, if we could we got Jack Howe and Mrs Dicky to join us. Mrs Howe didn’t play bridge, but she had the finest poker sense I’ve ever known in a woman, or in most men, with a face that gave nothing away. It was her poker sense that got Mrs Dicky out of a difficulty after Colombo. She and Jack were having trouble below, because their cabin had, as I think I said, no ventilation except into the alleyway, and they had an electric fan that wouldn’t work. So they took their mattresses out in the little alleyway between the cabins and slept there. Catchpole made a bit of a fuss, but ten bob soon settled that.
It was here that we had all the trouble with the wind-shoots. As soon as we got past Suez, I told Catchpole to put ours in our port. He accordingly did so, and also put one in the port at the end of our alleyway, so that if we hooked the door back at night, we got quite a nice draught, besides the electric fan. Two days out from Suez the alleyway wind-shoot had gone. I roared Catchpole up, but he said it wasn’t his fault. Then one went from the cabin across the way, and one afternoon I found mine gone. Of course I raised hell, and next day it came back, only to vanish again that afternoon. But I had scratched my name on it, so I gave Catchpole five bob, and told him to find it. Sure enough he did find it, down on D deck, in one of the three-berth cabins. Of course the trouble was there weren’t enough to go round — there just wouldn’t have been on a ship like that. It was the D deck steward who had pinched it and several others from our deck. I got Catchpole to get the D deck steward, and I talked to him like a Dutch uncle. It turned out the diggers had been pinching the D deck wind-shoots, so the D deck steward had been pinching ours.
‘All right,’ I said, ‘this funny game will now stop. Pinch what you like, but the next time my wind-shoot, or the one from the alleyway is borrowed, I’ll do my damnedest as ship’s doctor, and everyone will wish they had left little Willie alone. You can pass the word round to the boys.’
After that I had no more trouble myself, but what went on in the other cabins was like hunt-the-slipper. The C. of E. padre, the Reverend Brown, was on our deck, and here his wife surprised us all by showing great determination. It turned out she had been all over the place doing missionary work with her husband, and had that pleasing feeling that all others but herself and family were not worth troubling about, except if they needed converting. She froze on to her wind-shoot like a bulldog. One day I was down there, and I saw the D deck steward sneak into her cabin. A minute later he came out with a wind-shoot. I was going to jump on him, but he went into the cabin opposite, where the padre’s kids slept. Hardly had he gone in, when there was a most almighty noise. I went to see who was being murdered, but it was only Mrs Brown, who had been laying for that steward all that afternoon. She had taken the wind-shoot away from him and was banging his head against the corner of the washstand. The door was hooked open, so I could hear it all through the curtain. She gave him a sermon, just for all the world as if he was one of her natives, and from that day he never came near her cabin. He go it both ways, because Catchpole half killed him for coming up again on his deck. But after that the Bowen and Brown families had all the wind-shoots they wanted.
6 – Andy gets his Bluff called
The sports committee were running a fancy-dress dance two nights before we were due at Colombo. There was to be a parade and prizes, and the following night the diggers were to have their dance on the starboard deck, to which ladies from the first class were invited, it standing to reason that there were enough men already. I always think a fancy-dress ball is a fool affair, but it pleased Celia. Old Colonel Bird wanted to go as some kind of a monk, so I said all right, I’d be on duty that night, and very pleased I was not to be mixed up in it. The committee wanted a fancy-dress dinner first, but didn’t get much support, so dinner was put half an hour earlier, to give people time to dress.
I haven’t mentioned before that Mrs Jerry had been having trouble with her nurse. She was quite agreeable to calling the girl Gladys, but she wasn’t agreeable to the way Gladys was making friends among the officers. Not that she was a wowser, nor did she not want the girl to have a good time; but after all she was the kiddies’ nurse, and Mrs Jerry wasn’t paying her to sit round with the officers.
‘That’s always the way with English girls,’ said Mrs Jerry when I went in to ask for some earrings she had promised to lend Celia. She was bathing the kids, and her temper was right up the pole.
‘You sit down, Tom,’ she said, ‘and dry these kids while I find the earrings. I’ve given that girl of mine some scarves and things to dress up in, and what do you think she has done?’
I didn’t know, so I didn’t say anything. There were times when it was safer not to.
‘She always goes to the first dinner,’ said Mrs Jerry. ‘So, if you please, she comes back here, dresses while I’m at my dinner, and walks out on me, leaving me to put the children to bed. I don’t know where she is. Probably on the boat deck with the second officer who is her latest. Oh, my God,’ said Mrs Jerry, sitting down and putting young Dick’s pyjamas on, ‘I always said I’d never have an English girl again and I wish I’d stuck to it. There isn’t one in a thousand that doesn’t get her head turned on the voyage. They all get to think they’re as good as their employers, and when they get to Australia and find they aren’t one of the family, it’s tears and sulks and wanting to go home. I’ve been had that way before, and I’m a fool to be had again. She’s a good girl, but if she goes on cutting a bit off her sleeves and the neck of her frocks every day, she will be left in her chemise, and then where shall we be?’
Of course this made the kids laugh, and we had a fine chase around the cabin. Then we tucked them up and I took the earrings. I asked Mrs Jerry if I could do anything for her, but she said no, she could manage all right.
‘But mind, Tom,’ she said, ‘don’t you let Celia have an English girl. You have to find friends for them, and they don’t get on with them, and they don’t understand doing a lot of different jobs. Give me an Australian girl every time. They may be a bit rough, but they are great workers, and they don’t mind what they do, because they’ve seen their mother do it all, and they know that I can do it all and better than they can. My girl I had in Adelaide was a treasure, but she wasn’t the only one like that. It’s true I gave her thirty-five shillings a week, but she’d cook, and do the whole house, and most of the washing, and take the children any time, and answer the telephone sensibly, and make lovely cakes. The only thing she wouldn’t do was wait at table, because she was shy of company, but I was just getting her trained when this war had to come along. And don’t stand there wasting my time,’ said Mrs Jerry, ‘because I’ve got to get Jerry and myself dressed, and it’s a surprise.’ So she pushed me out of the cabin.
Celia was in some sort of gypsy get-up, with Mrs Jerry’s earrings and her pretty hair in plaits, the way she wears it in bed. She is a bonzer kid — I don’t know when I’ve seen anyone to touch her. Whatever the committee may have thought, my little missis was the prettiest thing on the boat that night or any other night for that matter.
There was a ship’s band of sorts which was to play, so when I heard them starting, I went along to the smoke-room and had a yarn with Stone about the boxing competition we were getting up. He had some good navy champions, and we could put in some good fighters, so we reckoned we would get a go
od display. The A.I.F. officers were putting up a purse, and the fight was to come off after we left Colombo. Stone wasn’t dancing, and it was just as well, for he had already had as much as was good for him. Presently Anstruther came in.
‘Come on, Major, and see the parade,’ he said. ‘It’s a fine show, and Mrs Bowen looks lovely. We’ll bring old Stone along with us.’
‘Not on your life,’ I said.
‘But he’s one of the judges,’ said Anstruther.
However, Stone was by now half asleep on a seat, so we judged it best to leave him with Tim the barman, a hard case if ever there was one, though he never touched a drop himself.
‘Who are the other judges?’ I said.
‘Colonel Picking and Mrs Picking and Miss Johnson and Major Barrett.’
This Major Barrett was the staff major whose cabin I had pinched. He was a nice old bird, but his wife was a terror. However, I never had much to do with them.
Well, we got along the deck and watched the parade. Of course there was no question that Celia was far the prettiest, but there were some good costumes. Mrs Pryce-Hughes had some kind of an Eastern outfit with a veil, and she had bare feet and had put rouge on her toes. I suppose the idea was henna, but it wasn’t a success. Jack Howe and his missis were Merry Peasants. Mrs Dicky came as a Chinese coolie and looked very attractive, though hardly the figure for the part. Old Colonel Bird had put on a big black beard and a sort of robe and looked for all the world like one of the French priests. Indeed trouble was caused by people mistaking them all for each other, and the priests went to Captain Spooner to complain, but he sent them to blazes. Captain Smith had an Indian get-up with a turban, but he didn’t parade. He wanted to dance with Mrs Henley who was in a green evening dress with a mask, but not dressed up. The success of the evening were Jerry and Mrs Jerry as Dad and Mum, with two or three young officers as Joe and the rest of the family out of ‘On Our Selection’. Where Jerry had raised the togs he wore, you can search me, but I suppose he got the diggers to contribute. He had got some false whiskers and a filthy old pair of slacks all patched, and a seedy old coat and a real cocky farmer’s hat, all greasy with a broken brim. Mrs Jerry had a black skirt and an apron and a blouse with checks and a kind of bonnet. Joe and the others were champion too, and they all had the real back-block drawl, till we all got quite homesick. It was donkey’s years since I’d heard the word ‘cow’ said the way those boys said it — ‘keaow’ is the nearest I can get, but you can’t make it long enough in print. Everyone clapped like mad, and we all thought they’d get the prize. But the judges said it was difficult to decide, and would they all go around again. There were to be prizes for the most artistic lady’s and gentleman’s costume and for the best comics.
So the band struck up and the procession began again. By now Smith and Mrs Henley were dancing on the little bit of landing at the top of the companion way, just outside the lounge, looking as if they were drugged, not seeing anyone. It gave me the creeps to look at them. It wasn’t somehow natural. When the parade came round again, there were some fresh faces I hadn’t seen before. Anstruther was a toreador and looked quite the lady-killer with little sideboards. Anderson was got up as some sort of Dago and by God it suited him. You’d have said he had got into his own skin. I saw Mrs Jerry’s nurse rigged out as a fairy queen or something of the sort. But I didn’t take much notice of her costume, because near the tail of the procession came the handsomest girl I’d ever seen. We all stared at her. No one could place her, and it was supposed that she got on at Port Said and had been in her cabin all the time. It is extraordinary the way you can be on a full boat for days and not know who is there. She was fairly tall, a lovely figure, and moved as gracefully as a swan. She had a low-necked frock and a rope of pearls, and wore a wreath on her golden hair. I know it sounds like the Christmas pantomime, but there she was. And a lovely skin too, all pink and white. She didn’t look at anyone, but moved round with her fine big eyes on the ground. The band stopped, the judges began to consult, and we all buzzed round wondering who the girl was. She must have gone back to her cabin for something, as she was not to be seen just then.
Major Barrett told me later in the smoke-room that there was some unpleasantness about giving the prizes. He and Picking plumped for the strange girl as the most artistic, straight away, and for Jerry and his missis for the best comics, and Colonel Bird as the most artistic man. Mrs Picking wanted Celia for best lady, Anderson for best man, and the Fairchilds for best comics. Miss Johnson wanted Mrs Howe for best lady, Anderson for best man, and a couple from D deck who came as the Ugly Sisters for best comic. Of course the Fairchilds were miles and away the funniest, but ever since the row about the baths Miss Johnson had been sharpening her claws for Mrs Jerry, and also for Celia because she was my wife and I had been in the bath affair — though what I could have done I don’t know, for you must answer a lady when she speaks to you, and I couldn’t say the kiddies were mine when they weren’t. Neither of the ladies would so much as hear of the strange girl being suggested for a prize, and neither of the men were going to let that little squirt Anderson get away with it. So there they were. If old Stone had been more sober it would have been all right, as he could have given a casting vote. The time was passing, and the crowd was getting impatient, so they asked the Old Man, who was giving away the prizes, to give his views. He hadn’t seen all the show, so they had to have the parade once more. They were all getting a bit sick of it, and Colonel Bird’s beard was coming off. The strange girl slipped in again at the rear of the procession. The Old Man’s eyes fairly goggled when he saw her. It didn’t take him long to make up his mind, and the results were, the strange girl most artistic lady, old Doctor Bird most artistic man (for the Old Man hadn’t any use for Anderson), and the Fairchilds best comic. This seemed to me quite just. Celia was of course by far the prettiest girl on board, but this other girl made a wonderful efFect, and there is no doubt she had great style.
All this time the gramophone had been going at the head of the companion way, and Mrs Henley and Smith had been dancing in those few square feet like dumb lunatics. They looked very well together and would have had a good chance of a prize, but they were standoffish and wouldn’t take part in the fun. There are many times when I feel quite a want of sympathy for those I am among, but I always do my best to make things cheery. I always feel it is up to one to do this.
Mrs Dicky, who was secretary, went to ask the strange girl her name, but couldn’t find her, and when the prizes came to be given out, she was still nowhere to be found. All the men had a good look, but she had disappeared and the ladies said it was a pity to go on waiting, so the Old Man said the prize for the best woman should go to Mrs Dicky as the other lady hadn’t claimed it. Mrs Dicky was very popular, so no one objected, not even Miss Johnson.
When the ladies had gone to bed, a crowd of us were in the smoke-room, having a hand of poker, when Nancy walked in. He was still in his Dago’s get-up and looked pretty pleased with himself.
‘You missed the fun,’ said Jack Howe. ‘Why didn’t you come and help us look for that pretty girl.’
‘Perhaps I didn’t need to,’ said Nancy.
We all began to take an interest.
‘What do you know about her?’ asked Jack.
‘Ask the moon,’ said Anderson, with such an expression that I could have kicked his pants. He didn’t need pressing, and he told us the tale how he had been up on the boat deck with that lovely girl and what a little Don Juan he had been.
‘Oh, cut it out, Anderson,’ said Hobson, who was a promoted sergeant. He had been in Palestine with Allenby in the Light Horse. ‘You haven’t the guts to kiss a pretty girl.’
Anderson looked nasty, but he said nothing, he just pulled a pink garter out of his pocket and held it up for us to look at, and put it away again.
I am very broadminded myself in many ways, but I have never liked to hear a man speak disrespectfully of a lady in public. It is a great privilege to get
the love of a real good woman such as I have, and gives me a very chivalrous feeling about other women. I threw my hand in — a full house it was too — and said it was time for decent fellows to be in bed. All followed my example and Nancy was left alone with Tim. He wouldn’t cut any ice with Tim, who was known to have been married in Sydney and Perth, and found the War a great relief as the strain of keeping two families going was too much for him in every way.
Next day the whole ship was buzzing about the girl. No one had seen her again. All the cabin stewards and the stewardesses had been questioned, but could tell nothing, or wouldn’t. Surgery was heavy that day owing to a free fight between some Irish. They had given and received a fair number of black eyes, damaged shins, etc. I got Father Glennie down, and he read the Riot Act to his lot, while I towelled up the Orangemen. We settled to let them have it out at a boxing competition later.
One of the R.C. fellows called Casey had a cut on his neck.
‘Easy with the bandages, Doc,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to look my best for the dance tonight.’
‘If you weren’t a youngster,’ I said, ‘I’d shove you into hospital to teach you sense. What the devil does it matter to you what a man’s religion is?’
Trooper to the Southern Cross Page 10