Survivor

by Lesley Pearse

  The equator was crossed with the ceremony she’d been told about by her mother and Mog. A sailor dressed as Neptune was doused with water and then other members of the crew acted out shaving him with a giant shaving brush and razor. Those on board who had never crossed the equator before, including Mariette and Stella, were dunked into a bath of water and given a certificate of crossing the line.

  It was soon after crossing the equator that Stella and quite a few of the other passengers became seasick. Mariette wasn’t affected by it at all, and she didn’t have much patience with those who were. She kept telling Stella that she’d feel better on the upper decks in the fresh air, but the girl didn’t listen and lay in her bunk getting worse. The smell of vomit never seemed to leave the cabin – sometimes Mariette could hardly bear it – but because Mog had said she must be kind and helpful to those who were sick, she did begrudgingly look after Stella, washing her face and hands, brushing her hair and emptying the sick bowl when necessary.

  Stella recovered when they got to the Panama Canal, and the novelty of passing through locks and seeing land close by meant that Mariette was on the deck watching all day. She couldn’t wait for the ship to reach Venezuela, where they would be stopping at Curaçao for two days and could go ashore.

  7

  The day before they were due to arrive in Curaçao, Mariette became ill. She was in perfect health until about an hour after lunch, when she suddenly felt as if she was on fire, her tongue seemed to have swollen up and a rash sprang up all over her. She felt so bad that she was glad when Stella fetched Dr Haslem, who took her to the sickbay. She heard him telling Stella that he thought it could be measles and she would have to stay in isolation without any visitors.

  She was glad to be in that cool room and to be allowed to sleep. She barely noticed the next morning that the ship’s engines had stopped, nor did she care when she heard clattering feet and excited voices from the deck above as the passengers disembarked. She must have slept all day because, the next thing she knew, it was dark again outside and she could hear faint sounds of music which, she assumed, were coming from the port. During all that time she was vaguely aware of a man with an English accent coming in and out, getting her to drink water, giving her some medicine and putting something cool on her forehead. But she was aware of little else.

  When she opened her eyes again, there was a shaft of sunshine coming through the porthole. It took her a moment or two to remember why she was in the tiny white room and where it was. Gingerly, she sat up and poured herself a glass of water from the jug beside the bed. Her tongue felt its normal size again, she was no longer on fire, and, looking at her arms, she saw that the rash had vanished.

  She had no idea how long she’d been in the sickbay, but as the ship wasn’t moving it couldn’t be more than two days. She got out of bed to use the chamber pot, and looked out of the porthole. Unfortunately, it was facing out to sea and all she could see were some small boats, most of them like canoes, with bare-chested brown- or black-skinned men paddling them.

  She had been looking forward so much to going ashore, and she was incensed that she’d missed the chance. She looked down at the cotton gown she was wearing and realized her clothes had been taken away, but when she tried to open the door to find them, she found it was locked.

  While she knew this was purely to prevent any passengers coming in and exposing themselves to infection, it still made her feel neglected and imprisoned.

  Getting back into bed to wait for someone to come, her stomach began to rumble with hunger. After about half an hour of listening to it, and craving at least a cup of tea, she got out of bed and began hammering on the door and calling out.

  ‘Hold on, I’ll get the key,’ a male voice called back.

  ‘I’m starving,’ she shouted. ‘There’s nothing wrong with me now. I want to come out.’

  ‘Alright, don’t get yourself in a tizz,’ he retorted. ‘Get back into bed, and I’ll go and see if I can find the doctor.’

  As his accent was English, and all the crew members she’d met until then were either New Zealanders or Italians and other Europeans, she thought he must be the man who had been looking after her since she was brought here.

  After another interminable wait, the door was unlocked by Dr Haslem, a scrawny little man with a big nose and horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Now, what’s all this fuss about?’ he asked, looking very annoyed at being called.

  ‘I’m better,’ she said, sitting up on the bed. ‘And I’m really hungry. I want to go back to my cabin.’

  The doctor closed the door and peered first at her face, then picked up one of her arms to look at it, then the other. ‘The rash has gone,’ he said, and put a thermometer in her mouth. As he waited for the result, he looked at both her legs and her back. Then, taking the thermometer out of her mouth, he pronounced her temperature normal.

  ‘Well, you obviously don’t have measles,’ he said. ‘It must have been a reaction to something you ate. But I can’t let you go until you’ve eaten something, and I’ll see how you are then.’

  ‘But if you know I’m not infectious, surely I can go back to my cabin, or at least up on deck?’ she asked. ‘And can I have my clothes back?’

  Somewhat reluctantly, he agreed he would get the steward to bring her clothes and also a meal for her. But he said she was to stick to a light diet for the next few days, and she was not to go ashore. ‘If you begin to feel ill again, you must come straight back here,’ he said.

  Some while after the doctor had left, the sickbay door opened and the steward came in with a tray of food. All Mariette had been able to think of while she was waiting was food, but the sight of the English steward made her forget how hungry she was.

  His likeness to Errol Flynn, the Hollywood actor, was incredible, with dark hair swept back from a devastatingly handsome face, perfect white teeth and dark eyes that sparkled. As he smiled at her, she saw there was a deep cleft in his chin.

  ‘Not exactly a feast,’ he said, handing the tray to her. ‘But I was ordered to get something light. It’s good to see you looking better; you’ve been in a bad way. I was really worried about you.’

  It wasn’t just his looks that affected her. His voice made her think of home because his accent was something like Mog and her mother’s, and the tone was as deep as her father’s. Mariette glanced down at the pallid-looking omelette and the bowl of rice pudding. If anyone else had brought it to her, she might have been sarcastic, but coming from him it looked like the nectar of the gods.

  ‘It’s lovely, thank you,’ she said, blushing because she knew he’d seen her looking her absolute worst, and she just had to hope she hadn’t said anything stupid. ‘Aren’t you going ashore today?’

  ‘No, I’ve got to stay here in case anyone else becomes sick.’

  ‘That’s a shame. I really wanted to see Curaçao, I’m sure you did too.’

  ‘I’ve seen it before. It’s not much to write home about. I’d only get drunk, and it can be tough dealing with sick people after a night on the tiles.’

  ‘Are there any other people here for you to look after?’

  ‘No, only you. Everyone else miraculously recovered as we came into port. We were all concerned about you, though, you were really poorly. Are you really feeling OK now?’

  ‘Fighting fit,’ she said. ‘Will you get my clothes, so I can go back to my cabin?’

  ‘I will, and you eat that food. I’ll be back in a minute.’

  Mariette noted how quiet and peaceful the ship was as she left the sickbay. No throbbing of the engines, or passengers milling around. Most of the crew appeared to have gone ashore too. She showered, did her hair and changed into a blue and white striped sundress that she felt really flattered her slender waist. It was also short enough to show off her legs, which people had said were one of her best assets. Then she went back to the sickbay.

  While she was eating her lunch, the handsome steward had stayed with her. He told her his name was Morgan
Griffiths, he was twenty-five and had been in the Merchant Navy for six years. He also told her he’d drawn the short straw when he was made a sickbay steward. But he laughed as he said it, so she felt he quite liked it really.

  He had also dropped into the conversation the comment that his day would drag as there was nothing to do until the passengers began to come back later in the afternoon. She was certain that was a hint for her to come back.

  It obviously was, because his face lit up as she came through the door. ‘Not sick again already, I hope?’ he said.

  ‘No, I thought you might like some company.’

  ‘I was just going up there to sit in the sun and have a smoke,’ he said, pointing out the narrow stairs that led to the upper deck. ‘If anyone needs me, I can hear them from there.’

  Morgan was one of the easiest people to talk to that she’d ever met. Conversation just flowed between them about anything and everything. He told her he wanted to leave the Merchant Navy because he was tired of being at everyone’s beck and call. ‘You just wait till we leave port and it turns rough across the Atlantic,’ he said with a deep sigh. ‘Seasickness will strike nearly everyone. Going back to England isn’t usually quite as bad as coming out, because most passengers have experienced it before, but there’re quite a few first-timers on this voyage. They all think they’re dying, and it can be hell.’

  He was vague about his background, only mentioning that he’d spent some of his childhood in London. ‘I ought to have become a mechanic, I’m good at that, but for some reason I got the idea that going to sea was for me. I’d be happier in the engine room, but they made me a steward. If I stay at it much longer, I’ll go mad. I want a real man’s job.’

  ‘If war does break out, you’ll get one,’ she said. ‘You could join the Royal Navy.’

  ‘Spare me that,’ he laughed. ‘It’s bad enough being at sea for weeks waiting on people, but to be under fire with very little chance of escape would be even worse. I wouldn’t mind the army so much, if I could be driving trucks or tanks.’

  Mariette couldn’t imagine him in a job where he’d get mucky. He looked so right in his clean white jacket, his hair as immaculate as if he’d just come from the barber’s. She thought he was the perfect man – he had both charm and looks – and she loved the way he asked her questions about her family and their life back in New Zealand with real interest. All he’d seen of New Zealand was Auckland, but he said he’d heard the Bay of Islands was beautiful and hoped to get there one day. He also wanted to know what she was going to do in England, and he talked about places there which he thought she ought to see.

  ‘Your father and your uncle in England would probably want to knock my block off for suggesting this, but along with seeing all the sights, Buckingham Palace and the Tower of London, you should also go to the East End of London,’ he said, with that wide, lovely smile he had. ‘It will give you a more balanced view of what England and English people are really about. It might be squalid and grim, but it’s also vibrant and real. We lived there for a time when I was growing up, and I learned more there than I ever did in school. You won’t learn anything much in St John’s Wood. It’s all about money and position there.’

  There were some things about Morgan that reminded her of her father. He had always been staunchly on the side of the underdog, he didn’t kowtow to people just because they were rich or influential, and he also had that keen interest in people that Morgan appeared to share.

  But she felt that, like Papa, Morgan wasn’t a man to cross. All her life, Mariette had heard people in Russell remarking on this fact about Etienne. They implied he could be dangerous – in fact, Peggy often joked that in olden days he would have been a pirate. Mariette had always been baffled by such remarks because she thought Papa to be absolutely perfect. He was strong, protective, kind and understanding. But when she’d heard how ferociously he’d beaten Sam and forced him to leave Russell, she realized that this was the side of him others had always sensed.

  She had grown up with boys boasting about how tough they were, but when put to the test they usually failed. Morgan had said nothing to imply he was tough – if anything, when he was talking about caring for sick people, some might have thought him very soft – but she sensed he had a harder centre. And from what little he’d said about his childhood, she guessed it had been harsh, as her father’s had been.

  Mariette knew she shouldn’t even be thinking about any man so soon after getting her fingers burned by Sam. And yet, sitting out on a secluded bit of deck in the hot sunshine, just talking, it seemed like the most natural and harmless thing in the world. It wasn’t as if he was trying to seduce her.

  Their conversation ended abruptly when a booming voice from below called out, ‘Griffiths!’

  Morgan jumped to his feet and threw his cigarette overboard. ‘That’s Lieutenant Hoyle. I’ve got to go,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t come down the stairs to the sickbay. Walk round the deck, or I’ll be in trouble for mixing with the passengers. See you again soon.’

  He kissed his index finger, and then touched her cheek with it before disappearing down the stairs.

  8

  When Stella came back late that same afternoon on the ship’s tender, her face was scarlet with sunburn. While she changed for dinner, she talked constantly and animatedly about the day. She had spent it in the company of three couples who Mariette thought were the dullest people on board. From what Stella said, they had been affronted by the squalor in the port, the number of drunken sailors and the young native girls who appeared to be selling themselves.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ Stella kept repeating. ‘Men kept pressing us to buy things, they said such cheeky things to me, and I’d have been really scared if I’d been there alone.’

  Mariette felt a pang of jealousy that she hadn’t seen it. The ship had been moored so far out of the port that she’d been unable to see any detail, only getting a tantalizing sense that it was a colourful and boisterous place. But then, if she’d been able to go, she would never have met Morgan.

  Stella didn’t shut up for about an hour, and it was only when she ran out of steam that she remembered to ask how her friend was.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ she squealed. ‘Whatever must you think of me going on about the port, when you were so ill.’

  ‘I’m better now,’ Mariette snapped. She thought Stella could be such a drip sometimes. ‘The doctor says I probably had a reaction to something I ate.’

  ‘Mrs Jago said that yesterday,’ Stella agreed. ‘Her sister gets ill if she eats anything with almonds in it.’

  Mariette bit back a sharp retort. Stella couldn’t help but be influenced by people like Mrs Jago, who thought they knew everything. But Stella would be hurt if she said as much.

  ‘I expect it was that spicy dish I had for lunch,’ Mariette said. ‘Heaven only knows what was in it! It tasted a bit strange and, within an hour, I was feeling bad.’

  ‘I bought you something today,’ Stella said, pulling a colourful scarf out of her bag. ‘I expected you to still be in the sickbay, and I thought it might cheer you up.’

  The scarf was all different shades of blue, and very lovely. As annoying as Stella could be, she was a generous soul. Mariette gave the older girl a hug and said it would always remind her of this voyage, of how she missed seeing Curaçao, and of her dear friend.

  ‘I didn’t think we’d get on at the start,’ Stella said, glowing not only from her sunburn but also from the compliment. ‘I thought you were a bit hard, but you aren’t really. You’re just as soft as me.’

  Later that evening, after dinner, Mariette went out on to the deck and made her way round to where she’d sat with Morgan earlier in the day, hoping to see him again. The ship was due to leave the port early the next morning. One of the stewards in the saloon had told her many of the crew were still ashore, but she didn’t think Morgan had gone.

  It was a beautiful, very warm night, and an almost full moon was casting
a silvery path on the dark sea. She could hear someone playing ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’ on the piano in the saloon, but from the port wafted the sound of less genteel music, brass instruments playing something wild that made her want to dance.

  She knew that in a few days they’d be sailing into much colder, stormy weather. But here, where the warmth was like a gentle caress on her bare arms, it was hard to imagine that she’d soon need to open up her trunk to find woollens, the coat Mog had made for her and thick stockings.

  ‘Looking for me?’ Morgan’s voice made her turn from the ship’s rail she’d been leaning against.

  ‘I ought to say no, that I was just passing by,’ she laughed. ‘But you’d know that wasn’t true.’

  ‘To tell the truth, I’ve been up and down these steps a dozen times this evening, hoping you’d show,’ he said with a wide smile. ‘In a few days’ time, it will be far too cold to linger out here. It will be hard to see you then.’

  They chatted for a little while. Morgan said the sickbay was still empty, but he and the two nurses who worked there had been preparing for what they knew would be a busy time in a day or two. Mariette told him about Stella coming back with a sunburned face, and how she’d been shocked by the dirty, noisy port.

  ‘She wouldn’t like Cairo then,’ he chuckled. ‘I was on a ship that called there a couple of years ago. That would make Curaçao look and smell like paradise. Not a place for the squeamish, but I loved it.’

  ‘What kind of music are they playing in the port?’ Mariette asked. ‘I like it, it’s very wild and makes you want to dance.’

  ‘Jazz. Haven’t you heard it before?’

  ‘No. In Russell we get a piano and a fiddle player at a dance, and occasionally someone visiting has a guitar or an accordion. People do have gramophones, of course, but mostly the records they have are classical or opera. On the wireless we hear popular music, but I’ve never heard anything like that.’