A Dangerous Crossing

by Rachel Rhys

  You remember the Austrian woman, Maria Katz? We did not see eye to eye and it angered me that she somehow won your friendship. It seemed to me that she poisoned your mind against me. One night when all the passengers were sleeping on deck, I crept up and laid my hands on her while she slept. This was not a sexual advance, I assure you. I wanted only to scare her, to make her retreat back into herself and leave you alone. I used to follow her also, making sure she could hear me behind her but ducking into doorways when she turned. I had overheard her say how, after fleeing Austria, she had nightmares about people pursuing her, and I realized that following her would play on her fears. When your friendship continued unchecked, I went one step further, substituting her salt tablets with the lithium salts I had been prescribed by a doctor back home in England when I was feeling not quite myself. If you remember, the salt tablets were laid out on the tables for us before we sat down to eat, so it was a simple enough thing to do.

  I must impress upon you that this was not sport, Lily. I did not gain enjoyment from Miss Katz’s suffering. I saw her then – and see her now – as the enemy. My father had removed me from the proximity to war, yet I still saw myself as a soldier, doing my bit to make the world safer. To make you safer, Lily.

  Yet she persisted in pressing for your friendship, trying to gain advantage over me. I saw her talking to you that last day, and overheard her begging you to meet her that afternoon. I could tell it made you uncomfortable and, when you didn’t turn up to meet her, I decided you needed someone to intercede. I only meant to warn her off, but she was half crazed. She thought I had come to hurt her and she sprang to the railings like some kind of wild creature. I lunged forward to grab hold of her. To stop her, you understand. But she misinterpreted my intention and flew at me. We tussled, and I admit I lost control. It was all over in seconds.

  In the days and months and years that followed, I told myself Miss Katz was another casualty of war. To tell the truth, she seldom crossed my mind. There were so many horrors happening in the world at that time, this was just one more. But lately, she has been much more in my thoughts. I see her even in my nightmares. Who would have thought I could remember her face after so many years? Yet I do.

  That is why I wanted to make this confession to you now. In the hope of laying the whole business to rest. You were always fair, Lily. I remember this so clearly about you. I know you won’t judge me too harshly. Everything is different in war, isn’t it?

  Your friend

  George Price

  Document Two

  Goulburn Reformatory, 12 February 1951

  Dearest Lily

  How thrilled I was to receive your letter with all your news. When they moved me from Sydney all the way out here to Goulburn, I worried we might lose contact, so you can imagine my relief when I saw your familiar, messy handwriting on the envelope. (Don’t make that face. It is messy. Messy but so very dear.)

  Lily, I can’t tell you how proud I am of what you’ve achieved. A published novel! I always knew you would put that fine brain of yours to good use. I hope you will still remember me when you are a rich and famous authoress. Perhaps you can send a signed copy of your book for the prison library when it comes out – that would win me some popularity points around here.

  Oh, Lily, please don’t feel bad about describing your life back in Sydney. It gives me such pleasure to picture you and your husband and Helena and Ian on the beach with all the children on a sunny Sunday afternoon. What a wonderful life you have all built for yourselves. You will have so much to show your parents when they visit next month. I can’t imagine how excited you must be.

  Please stop worrying about me, Lily. I am fine. Although I hate being so far from you all, my new home suits me well enough. I have been putting my legal training to good use in helping some of the fellows here with their cases and appeals. They call me ‘m’lud’, which makes us all laugh.

  Like you, I cannot believe it has been twelve years since the Orontes. In so many ways it feels like yesterday. But you know, dearest Lily, we cannot go backwards. No matter how much we might wish we could. And despite where I am and the terrible thing I did, I am more fully myself here than I ever was in England. I would be lying if I said I was happy. But I am at peace.

  Your Edward

  Document Three

  August 1942

  GREETINGS FROM THE NEW LADY CULLEN STOP MARRIED TWO WEEKS STOP SETTING OFF FOR NYERI KENYA TOMORROW STOP IF EATEN BY LIONS MY PEACH SILK IS YOURS STOP ELIZA

  Author’s Note

  At the tail end of 2015 I was nosing around my mum’s bookcases when I came across a curious home-printed, spiral-bound notebook with a laminated cover showing a bleached photograph of a smiling young woman in 1930s clothing standing on the deck of a ship. I started idly leafing through what turned out to be a memoir written some years ago by a late friend of my mother’s called Joan Holles, who, as a young woman, had taken advantage of a government scheme offering assisted passage to Australia for anyone prepared to go into domestic service in one of the large British-owned family houses over there. At the time there was a shortage of trained young help in the New World, and organizations such as the Church of England Migration Council were helping recruit young British women prepared to act as maids and cooks and housekeepers in return for a chance to see the world.

  The memoir was based on the diaries Joan kept during the five-and-a-half-week voyage from Tilbury Docks to Sydney Harbour. In it, Joan chronicles in meticulous detail the various ports they visited during the voyage, what she wore, how much things cost, which musical numbers the ship’s band played. She talks of the friendships she made on board, the romantic dalliances, the balls, the fancy-dress parties.

  But more than that, with the ship setting sail in July 1938 and arriving in September of that same year, she also captures the social nuances and tensions of a world in flux. Joan and the other young women travelling on the assisted-passage scheme were in tourist class, alongside professionals and ‘respectable’ middle-class passengers. The upper-class deck was for wealthy families and debutantes, successful business people and the odd celebrity. As the ship passed through Europe, they also picked up – much to the distrust of many of the British passengers – Italians, who crowded together on the lower deck where the laundries were situated, and Jews from Austria and Germany, fleeing the Nazis. In the shadow of World War Two, the ship became a floating tinderbox of political and social tension.

  As soon as I’d read the memoir, I realized the scenario Joan described had all the elements of an intriguing historical crime novel. A world teetering on the brink of war. The enclosed world-within-a-world of the ship itself, with its claustrophobic mix of volatile social groups. A young woman leaving behind everything that is familiar and heading for a brave new world about which she knows next to nothing, mingling socially for the first time in her life with people from all strata of society, both from Britain and abroad.

  On the ship, passengers are forced together in the infernal building heat, day in, day out, with no way of getting away from each other. Wouldn’t tensions rise? Particularly with the threat of war hanging over their heads. What if something happened on board this boat? Something awful. How would a young, naive woman who had never before left England deal with that?

  I decided to move the action of the book forward a year so that the ship leaves England in July 1939, when conflict looks likely but by no means inevitable. I made my heroine a high-spirited young woman called Lily Shepherd, who is escaping from a terrible secret but is nevertheless determined to wring every last ounce of adventure out of this once-in-a-lifetime voyage. By the time the ship docks in Sydney five and a half weeks later, two people are dead and the world is at war. Nothing will ever be the same again.

  Though I have written other books, this is my first historical novel and I have had to learn to negotiate the tightrope between fact and fiction. While Joan Holles’s memoir provided an invaluable starting point, Lily Shepherd’s story is enti
rely her own. Likewise, all the characters she meets on her journey – the Campbells, the Fletchers, George Price, Maria Katz – exist only on the pages of this book.

  As always with historical fiction, certain liberties have been taken with the truth. While the ship Lily sails on, the Orontes, shares a name with a real passenger liner that served the same route between London and Sydney, its layout and operational routines owe as much to my imagination as to any notion of factual accuracy.

  The assisted-passage scheme existed in various forms for decades during the twentieth century. While the vast majority of Britons who took advantage of it travelled to Australia in the thirty years following World War Two, there was targeted subsidized migration during the inter-war period as well, mostly aimed at young people, particularly young women with experience of domestic service. However, while these crossings continued well into 1939, the departure date of 29 July is entirely my own wishful thinking.

  While writing the book, I researched the stories of many young women who, like Joan and Lily, made the decision to leave home and family behind and journey to the other side of the world, some earlier, others much later. Their circumstances differ wildly, but their hopes and dreams for the future are all touchingly similar. A better life. Kindness. Adventure.

  This book is for them.

  Rachel Rhys, October 2016

  Acknowledgements

  A big thank-you to Joan Holles, whose journal provided the inspiration for this book, and to my mum, who had the very good sense to become her friend all those years ago.

  Huge thanks to my agent Felicity Blunt, who said, ‘Why don’t you try writing something historical?’ and was involved in every stage of this novel’s evolution, from the opening scene to making sure it found the best possible publishing home. And to Melissa Pimentel at Curtis Brown, who has worked so hard to get Lily’s story read in all four corners of the world (well, almost).

  Thanks eternally to Jane Lawson at Transworld and Beverley Cousins at Penguin Random House Australia for responding to A Dangerous Crossing in the way all authors fantasize about publishers doing. I am so thrilled to be in the capable hands of the Transworld team, especially the incomparable Alison Barrow. Special thanks also to Alison’s dad, Bill Barrow, for his valued input. And heartfelt gratitude to Richard Ogle for his stunning cover design.

  Thanks to the many people who attempted to answer my often random research queries, especially Holly Pritchard and Jill Chapman at the National Archives of Australia and Rachael Marchese at the Victoria League; also to the Church of England Record Centre. Thanks, too, to Dr Paula Hamilton of the University of Technology in Sydney, who directed me to the oral history collection at the National Library of Australia, which includes fascinating accounts from British women who ended up in domestic service in Australia.

  Book bloggers are among the most generous of people, giving up their time to spread the word about the books they love. My thanks to Cleopatra Bannister, blogger extraordinaire, who won a CLIC Sargent charity auction to have a character named after her in this book, and helped raise money for children and young people with cancer.

  The final thank-you is to my two earliest readers, Rikki Finegold and Amanda Jennings. The Pink Ladies are on me.

  About the Author

  RACHEL RHYS is the pen-name of a successful psychological-suspense author. A Dangerous Crossing is her debut under this name and is inspired by a real-life account of a 1930s ocean voyage. Rachel Rhys lives in north London with her family.

  TRANSWORLD PUBLISHERS

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  www.penguin.co.uk

  Transworld is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Doubleday

  an imprint of Transworld Publishers

  Copyright © Rachel Rhys 2017

  Cover Art Direction: Richard Ogle

  Cover Design and Illustration: Leo Nickolls

  Rachel Rhys has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

  This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Version 1.0 Epub ISBN 9781473543126

  ISBN 9780857524706 (hb)

  9780857524713 (tpb)

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

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