‘Ladies,’ the bosun’s mate said, ‘do you be looking for something?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I thought this was a store. That sells warm clothes?’
The mate chuckled. ‘No, ma’am, this is storage for the equipment the seamen need to do their chores on the ship. They come get what they need and bring it back here. Otherwise, all our tools would go missing. I can see that a landlubber might be confused by the name, though.’
‘I grew up on the east coast, so I should have known.’
‘What were you ladies looking for? Perhaps I could help.’
‘My friend was hoping to find a warm coat and hat,’ Olive said.
‘I can see that you’d rather not dirty that pretty coat,’ the mate said to me, eyeing what I was wearing. It might already be ruined, I thought. I’d picked up an oil smear when the ship had listed and I fell up against a jeep on our trek across the deck. ‘What you want is the Lost and Found.’
The mate led us deeper into the crowded space until we came to a set of shelves stuffed with clothing, including coats. ‘We keep whatever we find on the ship after a voyage is over. Sometimes seamen sign on for a trip without the right gear in their duffels. You can pick out whatever works for you and return it before you debark.’
Olive and I pawed through the clothing. The only coat I could find small enough and clean enough for me was a classic navy wool peacoat, the kind sailors had been wearing forever. It was twice as thick as my coat, had a rolled collar I could pull up around my neck, and every one of its big buttons. It fell past my knees. I threw off my coat and pulled on the peacoat. Instantly, I felt warmer. A slight odor of cigarette smoke wafted off it, but I didn’t care.
‘This seems fairly clean,’ Olive said, handing me a seaman’s watch cap – a black wool knitted hat I could pull over my ears. Just a few of its previous owner’s hairs adhered to the inside. I picked them off and pulled the cap on.
‘You look like an able-bodied seaman yourself now,’ the bosun’s mate said. ‘You might find someone ordering you to swab the deck!’
As Olive and I trudged back to our quarters, a group of seamen grinned and touched their caps, hollering out to us. We couldn’t understand much of what they said, but apparently they were amused that I was wearing a seaman’s clothes. I’d already noticed what a motley assortment of men the ordinary and able-bodied seamen were. They were all colors and several nationalities, as attested by the accents I’d overhead. I recognized a melodic Caribbean voice, and one who shouted out to me had a British accent. Maybe I’d made a couple of friends aboard ship who wouldn’t frown at me in the chow line.
We weren’t interested in staying outside on the deck for long. A thick, wet fog had fallen overnight and enveloped us. We couldn’t see any of the ships sailing nearby, or see their running lights, but we could hear their foghorns signaling their location.
We were about to duck into the door to our quarters when I saw Blanche sitting on a wooden cable spool near the rail, smoking and staring out to sea. She was bundled up in a tweed coat with a scarf tied around her head and had pulled a sou’wester over the scarf to repel the salty spray. She gripped a gold cigarette lighter and a packet of cigarettes in her lap.
‘Let’s go talk to Blanche,’ I said. The well-brought-up Southern girl in me felt the need to make an effort to be kind to this unhappy woman. If she rebuffed me, fine.
‘You go ahead,’ Olive said. ‘Not me. I’m freezing and wet. Let me take your good coat to your cabin and I’ll see you later.’
Blanche attempted a smile when she saw me approach and scooted aside so I could sit next beside her.
‘Being nice to the pariah?’ she asked.
‘You’re not a pariah.’
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ she said. ‘Most of the people on this ship think I murdered my husband.’
FIVE
I was so shocked by Blanche’s bold statement that it took a minute for me to collect my thoughts before I answered.
‘No, they don’t,’ I said. ‘I was told he committed suicide.’
‘He did. But “my behavior” caused a lot of suspicion, according to the master. I didn’t exactly grieve. So he felt obliged to call the police when we arrived in New York. Just to investigate, he said. According to him, I had opportunity and motive. Opportunity when Eddie’s orderly left him alone for a few minutes. Motive because I was a cold fish who didn’t take care of my hero husband. They didn’t know how plain mean and angry Eddie had become. He didn’t want me to touch him, much less care for him. Of course, there was no evidence I’d harmed him, which I hadn’t, so I wasn’t arrested.’
Blanche flicked her cigarette butt into the sea. A squadron of seabirds following the ship to scavenge our leftovers dived for it, but quickly realized their mistake and turned back to hover over the galley garbage chute.
‘So, you were on this ship coming over?’
‘Yes, I was. I didn’t want to sail back to England on it, but there were so few berths available. I didn’t want to wait. Of course, some of the same crew members are on board too – more than enough to tell the story to everyone else. I keep catching people staring at me.’
I didn’t know what to say. Blanche wasn’t a likeable person, at least under these difficult circumstances, but that didn’t mean she was a murderer.
‘Your husband was physically able to roll himself off the ship?’
‘Oh, yes. He exercised his upper body maniacally. He could lift himself in and out of a chair, the bed and the toilet. He could have easily rolled himself over to the ship’s rail, opened the gate and rolled himself right into the sea. And Nigel, Eddie’s orderly, told the police he’d been talking a lot about how he didn’t want to live the rest of his life in a wheelchair. A few others described what a lousy wife I was.’
‘Blanche, all this talk will blow over. Gossip always does. And you’re on your way home.’
‘Yes, thank God. I wasn’t welcomed by Eddie’s parents, that’s for sure. They were waiting to greet us when the ship docked, with flowers and a welcome banner and everything, only to find out Eddie was dead and the police were questioning me about it. I never spent a night in their home. They gave me enough money for my passage back to England and a hotel room. And they fired Nigel. Which stranded him in a foreign country without a job.’
I could understand why she was bitter. I wanted to advise her that it might help to be a bit more social and likeable to quell the gossip, but decided to keep my mouth shut. I tried another tack.
‘Come play hearts with me and Olive,’ I said. Maybe Blanche could relax a bit if she had some company. Olive didn’t like her, but I’d bet she’d be kind anyway.
Blanche brushed cigarette ash off her coat. ‘No, thanks,’ she said. ‘I just want to be left alone. I’m going to go back to my bunk and amuse myself by crossing another day off my calendar.’
I stayed on deck for a while, leaning over the rail, watching a school of dolphins follow the ship to pick off the galley trash the seabirds missed, until my hands and feet grew numb.
I almost didn’t make it back to my bunk in one piece. As I took the first step on the stairway down to the passengers’ quarters, the ship hit a swell and rolled to starboard. I hadn’t taken hold of the stair rail yet, and I started to fall. Fortunately, I fell toward the rail and managed to grip it, just banging my knees. Otherwise, I could have fallen all the way down the stairs and been seriously injured.
Grace greeted me at the foot of the stairs. ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’
‘Yes, I am, thanks. I should have been more careful.’
‘Even when the ship seems to be steady, you should never move around it without one hand on a bulkhead or a stair rail.’
I sat on the bottom step and rubbed my knee. I’d ruined my stockings, damn it, and a bruise was already forming. It was a good thing I’d brought some arnica salve with me.
Grace reached down a hand to help me up, and it was then I noticed she had my fur-coll
ared coat over her arm. ‘Miss Nunn gave me your coat when I was making her bunk. I told her I was going to your quarters next.’ Once inside, she set to making my bunk while I inspected my bedraggled coat.
‘I’m afraid it’s ruined,’ I said. ‘I got grease on it this morning.’
‘Let me try. I’ve got some cleaning fluid that might get it out. Anything else you need?’
‘I’m fine,’ I said. Then I let my curiosity get the better of me.
‘Gil told me this morning about Blanche’s husband’s suicide on their trip over. On this very ship. You were on that voyage too, weren’t you?’
Grace neatly tucked my sheets tight, tight enough that a quarter would bounce on them. After she’d arranged the pillows and blankets, she turned to me with a mischievous gleam in her eye. ‘I’m not supposed to gossip about the passengers. But you’ve probably heard most of the story already. Yes, I was on that trip. I was the room steward because of the women on board – an ambassador’s wife and her daughter – just as I am now.’
‘From what Blanche told me, there are others on our ship that sailed with you, too,’ I said.
‘Yes. Mr Fox, the man from the American Rubber Company. You’ve met him. The master and Chief Pitts. And some of the others, you know, like the bosun and the cook. Ensign Bates, but he commanded a different unit. His men this time are all on their first voyage. He’s training them, I guess.’
‘What about the seamen?’ The merchant marine was a civilian force, now supervised by the Navy, but it still operated much the way it always had. Once a merchant ship docked, the seamen could leave it, but they had to sign on to another ship within three weeks or lose their work card.
‘Some of their faces are familiar, but I’ve been crisscrossing the ocean for two years now and I can’t remember who was on what ship.’
‘Blanche told me the master called in the police when the Amelia Earhart docked in New York.’
‘He did. I think regulations required it. Of course, there was no corpse, and no real evidence anyway.’
‘Still, it must have been awful for her. Her husband’s family rejected her.’
Grace lowered her voice, although no one was nearby to hear her. ‘I don’t think anyone would have suspected her, except that their marriage was so bad. She spent little time with him. In fact, she slept in a separate berth and played bridge every afternoon in the wardroom. Her husband’s orderly picked up all his meals and took them to his room, but she’d eat in the wardroom. And she spent a lot of time with Ensign Bates.’
‘With Tom?’
‘When he was off watch, they’d smoke on the deck together. Or listen to records in the wardroom. Everyone noticed. It caused a lot of talk.’
I hadn’t noticed Tom and Blanche together on this trip, but it wasn’t surprising. I supposed they would want to avoid more gossip.
‘I’ve said enough,’ Grace said. ‘I need to go clean the Smit girls’ room. They are not as tidy as you are. I’ll take your coat; I’ll try that cleaning fluid on it.’
‘Thanks.’
After Grace left, humming to herself some jazz tune I couldn’t identify, I threw myself on my bunk to wait for the lunch bells. I couldn’t help puzzling over everything I’d heard. This was no business of mine, but the OSS had trained me not to accept the obvious, to ask questions and, of course, to keep my mouth shut. I wondered how likely it was that Blanche killed her husband. It seemed that she was looking at being tied to a cripple, and an unlikeable one at that, for the rest of her life. Not a pleasant prospect. People had murdered for much less.
We were allowed to use the wardroom as a lounge when it wasn’t mealtime. The seamen used their own mess next door. A cupboard held a record player, records, a stack of well-thumbed books, some games and playing cards. At the end of a watch there was fresh coffee and tea on the server, and sometimes cookies, depending on whether or not the baker had time to fix them.
Olive and I were teaching Corrie and Alida to play hearts. They picked it up quickly and soon we were all slapping cards down and laughing. The girls looked much alike, with blue eyes and blond hair. Corrie’s was straight, cut in a chin-length pageboy, but Alida had permed hers and pinned it up in a snood.
Corrie was dealing cards very carefully. Alida, restless as always, tapped the table with a painted fingernail. ‘I hate that we’re going to England,’ she said. ‘I wish we could stay in California. It was like heaven there. If I was eighteen, I wouldn’t have come. I’d have stayed behind and gotten a job.’
‘You can’t leave us, Alida!’ Corrie said. ‘Don’t you want to go home?’
‘There is no home,’ Alida answered. ‘The Netherlands is occupied. Nazis are living in our house. England is cold and everyone there is poor and hungry. And bombs fall every night.’
‘Can I ask why you’re headed to England?’ Olive asked.
‘Our father has been assigned to the Dutch government in exile,’ Alida said. ‘He’s an economist.’
‘I don’t think you’re supposed to tell,’ Corrie said.
‘I don’t care.’
‘Let’s play, girls,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘I have an excellent hand and I want to use it.’
‘I wish we had a radio,’ Alida said. ‘The records in the cabinet are so dull.’
Enough bells rang that I figured the current watch was nearly over. Which meant we needed to vacate the wardroom soon so the messmen could get it ready for dinner. The door swung open and Tom came in.
‘You should come up on deck,’ he said to us. ‘We’re in the Gulf Stream now and the weather is beautiful. It won’t last long.’ He closed the door behind him.
‘That ensign is the only decent-looking man on this ship,’ Alida said.
The entire ship’s crew, except for those on watch, gathered on deck to enjoy the sunshine. Several seamen tossed a football about while a few just lay flat on their backs on the deck to soak up the sun. A group of four threw dice furtively. Even the master and Popeye were outside, leaning on the rail of the bridge deck, smoking their pipes. Seabirds careened around us, squawking. It was lovely and warm, and I unbuttoned my peacoat and pulled off my watch cap.
For the first time I could see the ships sailing with us. I was no expert but I guessed they were two oil tankers, three more Liberty cargo ships and another large ship that looked like a cruise ship converted for troop transport. This motley fleet was protected by three corvettes, which didn’t look large enough to defend a fleet of fishing boats. Surely at least one destroyer would join us in Halifax for our voyage across the Atlantic!
Olive appeared on deck and we joined arms to stroll around the perimeter of the ship, probably the most exercise I’d had since coming aboard. We took our time, stopping to look out to sea, hoping to see dolphins or even sharks following us.
As we approached the afterdeck, we had to squeeze between two ambulances to stay on our course. We found ourselves in a secluded space between several jeeps. Tom and Blanche were lounging in one of the jeeps, well out of sight of most of the deck. We interrupted Tom in the act of lighting Blanche’s cigarette. They didn’t look as if they’d been necking or anything, but they didn’t seem pleased to see us either. But they collected themselves. Tom said, ‘We’re taking some time away from the crowd. Would you like to join us?’ He gestured to the back seat of the jeep.
‘We’re solving a number of world problems,’ Blanche said, drawing on her cigarette. ‘You can help us.’ To their relief, we turned down their invitation.
‘We’re getting some exercise,’ I said.
‘Good idea,’ Tom said. ‘The weather will turn nasty again by tonight, when we pass New York City and turn north.’
Olive and I kept walking and managed to hold back our giggles until we were out of earshot. Then we turned into teenagers.
‘Do you believe that!’ Olive said. ‘What does that nice young officer see in Blanche?’
‘She’s an attractive woman,’ I said. ‘Besides, we don’t
know if they were canoodling.’
‘Please! Don’t insult me.’
Then I told Olive that Blanche and Tom already knew each other. I figured it was OK since it wasn’t a secret that they’d sailed together on the Amelia Earhart on its voyage from England to the States when Blanche’s husband died. Finding them alone together raised all kinds of tantalizing questions without answers, but there was no evidence that the two of them had more than an acquaintance, and I didn’t want to be the person who spread gossip about them. Enough people on this ship already believed Blanche had murdered her husband.
The sound of multiple foghorns woke me early the next morning. And it was frigid again. I’d let a foot stick out from my covers overnight; I massaged it to bring back a little warmth and hoped it hadn’t developed frostbite. It was still some time before I could take my bath. No way was I going to get out of bed before then!
More ships must have joined our little parade as I heard many more foghorns than the previous day. We’d passed New York City and left the Gulf Stream overnight. Foghorns were far and away the worst sound I’d ever heard – I grew up with them, and the best description I ever had was an out-of-tune tuba. A constant, ear-splitting racket, but better than crashing into another ship. During the war, radio activity was kept to an absolute minimum. It was a relief not to hear the news every day.
The fog lifted once the sun came out and after breakfast all of us casual passengers went out on deck to watch our approach to Halifax. The idea of going into town energized us. We’d only been at sea for a few days but we were eager to escape our close quarters. Once we departed Halifax, we’d be at sea for several weeks. After breakfast we gathered at a table in the wardroom and laid our plans.
‘I going to find an Irish pub near the port,’ Ronan said, his voice muffled by the scarf wrapped around his face. ‘I need a pint – no, two pints – of Guinness in the worst way. And it must have a fire in the lounge. A big fire.’
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