The Boat Girls

by Margaret Mayhew

  When she said goodbye, he kissed her cheek briefly. ‘After the war’s over, Frances, I hope we meet again.’

  Then he kissed Ros’s cheek, and Prue’s too, and said exactly the same thing to them. As she pointed out triumphantly to Ros, she’d got it all wrong about Hugh liking her.

  Ros looked at her. ‘No, I hadn’t, darling. He’s just waiting for you to wake up, that’s all.’

  The ice-breaker had cut a pathway of open water down the centre of the cut and they followed in its wake. Blisworth tunnel was clear, the air inside almost warm, but further on they faced the Bugby seven all alone. The boats nosed great lumps of loose ice into the entrance to each lock, which then had to be propelled out before there was enough room for them to go all the way in. It was a long battle and they took it in turns to be up on the wall, wielding the long shaft from a height, or staying down in the butty hatches which meant using the short shaft and working on their knees for fear of overbalancing into the water. The blocks of ice kept slipping and sliding away from them and floating off in the wrong direction. The trick, as they discovered, was to harpoon them firmly in the centre and pass them on until they could be pushed firmly out into the cut. Struggling through the first lock took more than three hours and they had to stop and rest. After sitting down to a proper dinner they had recovered, and went on to the next where the lock-keeper appeared, shaking his head.

  ‘You’ll not get far today, ladies. There’s more trouble ahead.’

  With his help, they manoeuvred the boats into the lock and got the bottom gates shut. The lock filled, the top gates opened and they went very slowly on their way. The open channel was already freezing over and, once again, Orpheus had to act as ice-breaker as well as pulling the loaded butty. If the engine breaks down now, Frances thought grimly, we’ve had our chips. But, by a miracle, it didn’t, and they climbed laboriously through the third lock before tying up for the night. They had been on the go for more than nine hours and slept like the dead for twelve more.

  It was another two days before the ice melted enough for them to continue and deliver their cargo of steel to Birmingham, where the snow had beautified the normally ugly scene. When they loaded up with coal at Longford wharf it had been churned to a dirty grey. There was snow all the way down to the Glaxo factory where they unloaded. Back at the Bulls Bridge lay-by with the empty boats, Frances reported to the company office and collected their mail. Ros’s family rarely bothered to write, but there was a letter from Vere and another from Aunt Gertrude and a small package for Prue. She took them all back to the boats and started to read the one from Vere.

  I seem to be making progress, at last, though they’re keeping me in prison for a while longer, though I’m determined to return to the squadron as soon as possible. For once, I have to take orders, not the other way round. I expect that will amuse you.

  Prue gave a choked sob; she was staring at the piece of paper in her hand.

  ‘What is it, Prue?’

  She didn’t answer and Frances took it from her. It was a brief letter and rather badly typed.

  We regret to inform you that Sergeant Stephen McGhie is listed as missing on active service, believed killed. We are therefore returning your letters to him herewith.

  ‘Oh, Prue . . . I’m so sorry. So very sorry.’

  Nineteen

  SHE REMEMBERED WHERE his flat was and went up in the rickety lift to the top floor. He opened the door, yawning and scratching.

  ‘Remember me, Ken?’

  ‘Of course I do, love. Once seen, never forgotten. Come on in.’

  She picked up her carpet bag and went inside.

  ‘I’ve been having a kip. Generally do that, if it’s not a matinee. How’ve you been, Rosalind? Still sailing those boats?’

  ‘You can’t sail them. No sails. One has an engine and pulls the other.’

  ‘Yeah . . . Like sometea? I’ve got some somewhere . . . make us both a mug, would you?’

  She found the packet of Lyons Green Label and a teapot in the cubbyhole that passed for a kitchen, and put the kettle to boil on the gas ring. When she carried the mugs into the other room he was lying on the sofa, smoking. He heaved himself up and made room for her at one end.

  ‘Thanks, love. Have a fag.’

  He was still doing the Rattigan, he told her, and had reached the stage where he went through every performance like an automaton, speaking the lines but thinking of something else entirely – like what he’d have for supper afterwards – the steak and kidney or the bangers and mash, or maybe the liver and onions.

  ‘I come to when the audience starts clapping at the end and I can’t remember a bloody thing about the bit in between.’

  She laughed. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true, love. And it looks like we’re going to run for another three months at least.’

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m getting sick of it. I’m ready for something else.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, a bloke from Stratford came backstage the other evening . . . wanted to know if I’d be interested in auditioning for them.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I said I’d think about it – which I’m doing.’

  She would have given her right arm for the chance. ‘Sounds exciting. But I thought you wanted to direct.’

  ‘Yeah, I do. I don’t want to get bogged down in Shakespeare. Prancing about in doublet and hose, doing what some airy-fairy git tells me.’ He waved his arms around and launched into an excruciating parody.

  To be or not to be, that is the question . . .

  ‘I’m thinking of starting up my own company – putting on brand new plays, not ones written three hundred years ago. Trying out new things, new ways, new ideas. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say, don’t forget me when you do.’

  ‘Not likely. Not with your looks. Are you staying here again tonight?’

  ‘I have to be back at the boats first thing in the morning.’

  ‘Up to you, love. I can get you a ticket for the play this evening. And we’ll go and grab some nosh after. We can have another chat then.’

  She sat in the front row of the stalls and he was just as good, close up, as from the back row of the gods. If he was thinking about something else entirely, nobody in the audience would ever have known.

  It was bitterly cold again when they let go from Bulls Bridge and took the empty boats down to Limehouse. They were all afraid of the docks. At first it had been because of the German bombers, then the doodlebugs and now the V2s. The boats were sitting ducks trapped in a landlocked basin, and they’d seen what blast could do, let alone a direct hit. Rather than sit there waiting for a rocket to arrive, they clambered up the vertical iron ladder and went off to the Prospect of Whitby pub to spend the evening in the rowdy company of merchant seamen, who bought them drinks and treated them with perfect courtesy.

  The foreign sailor who had stared so hard at Prudence in the Chinese restaurant that Pip had taken them to, came in and stared at her again. She tried to ignore him but, after a while, he came over. His name was Aleksei, he told her, and he was Russian. He had seen her once before and had hoped very much to see her again. He would like to know her name. Also, where she lived. Everything about her. His English was hard to understand, but his pale eyes weren’t. She had a fiancé, she said quickly, looking away and going red. A Canadian airman. They were going to be married after the war.

  ‘But you have no ring.’

  ‘We haven’t bought it yet.’

  ‘Where is he, this airman?’

  ‘I don’t know at the moment.’

  ‘You do not know?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  He moved closer and she retreated until her back was up against the wall.

  ‘But I am here. And he is not. So we can talk together. Please to tell me your name.’

  In the end, Frances and Ros rescued her and they went back to the boats.
She wept silently into her pillow. But I am here. And he is not.

  In the morning, they were loaded with bundles of rusty iron bars which thudded and clanged into the holds, making poor Orpheus and Eurydice shudder as they sank lower and lower and lower. The holding chains slithered away like snakes and the job of sheeting-up was painfully done with frozen fumbling fingers. When they finally let go and moved away from the wharf, the loaders, already busy on another pair, stopped work to whistle and wave.

  With Ros steering the motor and Frances the butty, Prudence occupied herself making a new fender for the motor’s stern. The old man in the sailmaker’s shop at Braunston had shown her how to work the cotton line into a beautiful round shape, like a great fat ball of woven string. When it was done, she was going to start on a pair of hemp tip-cats to hang each side of the fender, so that the blades and the elum were protected. Keeping busy helped her not to think so much about Steve. He’d talked a whole lot more about Canada and how much she’d like living there. About his family – mother, father, two sisters and two brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins. And he’d talked about where they might live and how in summer he’d take her to the cottage on the lake and they’d catch fish and cook them over a fire. Even how many children they’d have. Four, at least, he’d said – if she didn’t mind. He liked big families. And he’d told her about his other ideas for inventions: a machine that cleared away snow from pathways, a heated steering wheel, heated driving gloves. They’d talked and they’d talked and she could remember every single thing he’d said. She’d never give up hope. Missing, believed killed wasn’t at all the same thing as killed in action. It meant that there was a chance. Nobody had actually found Steve dead, or knew what had happened to him. But missing where? Over the sea – in which case there was really no hope at all. Or over land – over France or Germany – which meant that there was some, but that it would be a long while until anything was officially reported. One of the cashiers at the bank had waited nearly six months for news of her son who’d been missing after Dunkirk. The Red Cross had eventually sent word that he was a prisoner of war in a camp in Poland. Only, since Prudence wasn’t officially next of kin, nobody would notify her. Only Steve himself would do that. All she could do was wait and pray and never give up hope. Every night she prayed, not kneeling like she used to but in bed, in the dark, before she went to sleep. Please God, let Steve be alive. Let him come back safely. She said it under her breath, over and over again.

  At Cowley it was her turn to lock-wheel. She stepped off at the bridge-hole, bike under her arm, and cycled along the towpath to the next lock. The chain kept coming off and she had to keep stopping to put it back on, so it was a rush to get the lock ready in time for the boats. At Black Jack the old lock-keeper came out to help her shut the top gates and draw the bottom paddles as Orpheus and Eurydice approached.

  ‘Half a paddle first, missy. We don’t want to swamp the boats. More haste, less speed, that’s the trick. An’ make sure that safety catch is on.’

  Like most lock-keepers, he moved slowly and steadily, never seeming to hurry but getting it all done with time to spare while Prudence scurried hither and thither.

  ‘Good news, isn’t it?’ he said as they were standing waiting for the lock to empty.

  ‘What news?’ For all they knew, Hitler was dead, which would certainly be good.

  ‘Thought you would’ve heard by now. They’re over.’

  ‘Over what? Who?’

  He clicked his tongue at her ignorance. ‘The Yanks. Over the Rhine. And they’ve took Cologne. Nothing to stop them now. The war’ll soon be finished.’

  That evening, after they’d tied up at Rickey, they toasted the Americans at the pub.

  ‘God bless America,’ Ros said, lifting her beer mug high.

  ‘And Canada,’ Prue added.

  ‘And Canada, sweetie. God bless them too.’

  Next day they crossed Tring Summit. Frances took a turn at lock-wheeling and went off on the bike for the Mathus seven. Ros steered the motor, Prudence the butty. There was another pair of boats not very far ahead and so the downhill locks were all against them, and what with the hard frost the night before everything took longer. Prudence could see Frances sliding all over the place. They reached the last lock and the boats sank down side by side as it emptied. Ros, who had opened the bottom gates, launched herself onto the motor-cabin top below and slipped and fell heavily as she landed.

  She lay there, not moving, and, to begin with, they thought she’d broken at least one leg, if not two. She waved them away.

  ‘It’s my ankle, that’s all. No need to fuss. I’ll be OK in a minute.’

  But she wasn’t OK. When they helped her up she could hardly walk and her right ankle was swelling fast. Between them they got her into the cabin where she collapsed onto the side bed.

  ‘We’ll go on to Leighton,’ Frances said. ‘We can get a doctor to look at you there.’

  ‘I hate doctors.’

  ‘Well, you’re going to have to see one, Ros. It might be broken for all we know.’

  ‘I can still steer.’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot. You can’t even stand properly. Prue and I will manage the boats perfectly well between us. It worked OK with you two when I had to go off.’

  At Leighton Buzzard Frances went in search of a doctor, who agreed to come to the boats. They waited outside the cabin anxiously until he emerged, cracking his head. The ankle wasn’t broken, he told them tersely, but it should be X-rayed and treated. The probability was that the ligaments were badly torn and he’d left some painkillers. Ros, apparently, had refused point-blank to go to hospital.

  He very plainly disapproved of the whole situation. ‘You young girls shouldn’t be doing this job. It’s much too dangerous. She’ll have to go home anyway.’

  ‘Silly old goat,’ Ros said when he’d gone. ‘It’ll be fine in a few days.’ But her face was sheet-white and she was biting her lip with pain.

  Frances shook her head. ‘I don’t think so, Ros. You must go home – he said so. We can get a taxi to take you to the station and ask the driver to see you onto the train.’

  ‘I told you, Frankie, it’ll be all right soon. Probably fine by tomorrow.’

  ‘It won’t. You’re supposed to get it X-rayed and treated. And how are you going to manage on the boats if you can’t walk properly? You’ll just get in the way and be a nuisance.’

  ‘Well, there’s not much point going home.’

  ‘Why not? They can look after you properly.’

  Ros laughed ironically. ‘I’ll be sleeping on the sofa. They usually let my room.’

  ‘Not if you need it, surely?’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on that. I think I’ll just stay here.’

  ‘You can’t do that, Ros. You can’t be a passenger – the company won’t allow it. And we’re going to have to get someone else to help us till your ankle’s better. Actually, I’ve just had a brilliant idea. You can go down to Averton and stay there. Aunt Gertrude would love to have you – remember how well you both got on? I’ll send her a telegram to say you’re on the way. You can leave tomorrow.’

  There was another argument, of course, just like there’d been over Havlock Hall but the other way round, with Ros saying it wouldn’t be right to impose and Frances asking why on earth not, and that she hadn’t minded at all about doing that before. Prudence listened to them going on at each other. This time it was Ros who gave in, but Prudence saw the tears shining in her eyes before she wiped them away.

  The ankle was worse by the morning and the doctor’s bandage looked rather like a fat cushion on the end of her leg. She could only hobble slowly and the journey ahead would probably be a nightmare. News of her accident had spread up and down the cut, and one of the old boatmen appeared to present her with a walking stick. He made them as a hobby, cut from the hedgerows, and he’d carved the top of this one into a beautiful duck’s head which fitted neatly and smoothly into the palm of her hand. As wel
l as the walking stick, he gave her a toothless smile and called her ‘little lady’, though she towered over him. If it hadn’t been for the strict code of the cut she would have given him a big kiss on his leathery cheek.

  The taxi driver who took her to the station handed her carpet bag to a porter, who carried it to the train compartment where an RAF sergeant slung it up on the rack. When they reached Euston the sergeant saw her into a taxi across to Waterloo, where a very charming army major took over and insisted on escorting her to the right platform and finding her an empty seat. Three hours later the train steamed into Bridport station, and the naval rating who had been entertaining her all the way with salty stories jumped up to convey her and the carpet bag gallantly onto the platform.

  At first she thought the platform was empty, but then a figure detached itself from the shadows and came towards her. She saw, with surprise and rather a shock, that it was Vere.

  He’d come to collect her in a van – one they used on the home farm, he told her, which qualified for extra petrol coupons. ‘You’re lucky I didn’t come with the horse and cart.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have minded.’

  ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t. You’ve cut your hair. That’s a pity.’

  ‘I had lice. We all did. We were lousy. I’m growing it again.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘About the lice?’

  ‘No, about growing your hair again. I see you’re still wearing Father’s riding mac.’

  ‘It’s been very useful.’

  ‘That’s good, too.’

  There were two strong-smelling dustbins sitting behind her seat in the back of the van.

  ‘Pigs’ swill,’ he said. ‘Sorry about that. I’ve been collecting it from one of the hotels. They save us all their peelings and scraps.’

  ‘It’s better than having the pigs in here. I’d no idea you were home, Vere. Aren’t you supposed to be convalescing, not driving about the countryside?’

  ‘I got fed up with that. It’s your turn now.’

  ‘But are you really better?’