‘C’mon,’ she said. ‘We’re playing Stampede.’ She grabbed my hand and broke into a run again, dragging me through the crowd of girls. ‘Charge!’ she yelled and the whole retinue of big ones, middlings and even little Flora and Daisy went racing to the stern, their shoes slapping loudly on the wooden deck. The steamer seemed to rock under the force of us and I found a bubble of laughter moving up through my chest. It was the silliest race in the world, twenty girls running on the deck of a steamship.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw a crowd of sailors standing above us – even the black-faced stokers had come up from the furnace to watch the horde of girls and their flying skirts. And I saw Miss Thrupp and Eloise standing by an open door, shouting and waving for us to stop. But no one listened. The only voice that rang clear over the sound of the sea and the steamer was Ruby’s. ‘Stampede, stampede,’ she cried, and the girls squealed and shrieked and slid recklessly towards the other end of the ship.
We had turned for the next race when Mr Arthur came striding down the deck towards us. Ruby held my hand tighter. ‘Let’s charge him,’ she said, her eyes bright and fierce. That’s when I tried to twist free.
Some of the middling girls stopped running and began to murmur, disappearing around the stern of the steamer. Suddenly there were only a handful of us. Ruby hesitated. Mr Arthur grabbed her by both arms.
‘Stop that. You’re hurting me,’ she cried out.
‘You stupid girl! What do you think you’re up to? You’re leading a riot.’
‘We were only having fun. Playing,’ she said. ‘You said, “Go and amuse yourself, Ruby.” ’
‘You know perfectly well what I meant. Stop being childish.’
‘If you treat me like a child, why shouldn’t I act like one?’
‘You will go to your cabin and stay there for the rest of the day.’
‘You can’t keep us cooped up in those poky cabins any longer. What do you think we are? Pigs? You think you can keep us in our little piggy pens and then trot us out when you fancy?’ Then she started to oink, snort and squeal as if she really was a pig.
Mr Arthur grew bright red in the face. Then he did it. He slapped her face sharply with his open hand. I was standing so close to them both that I could feel the swish of his hand moving through the air. Instinctively, I raised an arm to protect myself. Ruby ducked, too late, covering her cheeks with both hands. That didn’t stop him, though. He boxed her ears twice until she was bent over with the shock of the blows. Then his hands flew like great ugly wings, slapping Ruby as she crouched down on the deck, trying to fold in upon herself. She fell to her side, panting and crying out like a wounded animal. I couldn’t bear it. I jumped at Mr Arthur and grabbed him by the arm.
‘Please, sir, please.’ I hung on his forearm with all my weight but he was much too strong for me. Ruby tried to crawl away while I shrieked for him to stop. Suddenly, we were surrounded by people. A group of sailors restrained Mr Arthur while Miss Thrupp leant over Ruby and tried to raise her to her feet. Ruby was howling now, with her mouth open and a stream of saliva running down her chin. She tried to push Miss Thrupp away too. Her hair fell wild and tangled across her face.
‘Tilly,’ cried Miss Thrupp. ‘Fetch Tempe and Clarissa, quickly.’
And I ran. Down below the decks, along the corridors I ran, calling out, shouting for the other girls. But only Poesy came. I fell into her arms and sobbed.
21
DANCING ON A WATERY GRAVE
Poesy Swift
I know what we did was wrong. I know Yada would have disapproved because we didn’t tell the truth. But if we’d been forced to stay on the boat any longer, something even more dreadful might have happened.
Since the stampede, nothing seemed right with the troupe. We sat in our cabins and picked at our clothes and skin and at each other. Tilly filed her nails into tiny sharp points that made me want to cover my eyes. The boys acted as if they were at war, raiding each other’s cabins at night, setting trip-wires across the corridors and launching into skirmishes for the least little offence. Charlie said the Kreutz twins were set to murder each other if they were cooped up in their cabin any longer. As it was, we witnessed another sort of crime and I saw my first dead body.
The last night before the quarantine was lifted, we went on deck to look at the lights of Singapore, imagining that soon we’d be ashore. Everyone was longing to see the yellow ‘cholera’ flag taken down from the mast. Then we heard the terrible news. Another crew member had fallen ill. Not simply ill. He’d up and died in the heat of the afternoon. If the authorities found out, it meant another two weeks in quarantine. The adult passengers, the Captain and Dr Whitehead had a meeting and made a plan.
Next day, we were all on deck to greet the inspectors’ party, as instructed. We were meant to make the ship look busy and happy, so we played quoits on the upper deck when the quarantine officer, the harbourmaster and his men came aboard for the inspection. The dead sailor was dressed in fresh clothes and sat in a deck chair with our electrician, Mr Milligan and Eddie Quedda and Mr Arthur sitting on either side and in front of him. They pretended to be playing cards together and they angled the dead man’s hat as if his hand had been played out and he was having a nice little catnap.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight whenever I had to walk past the corpse. It was too dreadful to see his white, waxy hands folded casually across his belly.
The men nodded at the health inspector and his assistants as they passed into the crew’s quarters. Before they could return, the dead man was lifted out of his seat and put inside a cupboard on deck while Charlie and Lionel were sent to the top of the stairs to keep guard. Then Tempe and Clarissa were stationed in front of the cupboard door. Tempe leaned against it in a way that looked so natural you’d never believe there was a dead body on the other side. She and Clarissa smiled and nodded at the quarantine officers as they passed by and I realised that those girls really were very good actresses. I don’t think I would have looked so easy with a corpse weighing heavy against the thin metal door behind me.
In the dining hall, we lined up for inspection. Daisy batted her lashes, trying to look sweet, but the health inspector suggested she needed glasses. Ruby looked hollow. Lionel’s hands trembled. The dining hall wasn’t big enough to contain all the unease in the passengers and crew. You could smell our desperation. But the doctor declared everyone fit and the Captain invited the quarantine officers to stay on board for a celebratory dinner and performance. We’d promised the rest of the passengers a show ever since we left Melbourne. Before the sailor died, I’d been looking forward to it, but knowing there was a corpse in a cupboard on the upper deck made the ship feel like a morgue.
Yada’s voice kept echoing in my mind: ‘Acting and theatre are cheap folly, only ritual is important.’ I didn’t want her to be right but it didn’t feel seemly to sing a ‘Chorus of Welcome’ when someone was passing over into the other world. It made me shudder to think of the poor dead sailor’s ghost wandering the ship as we sang and danced so gaily.
If we had to do a show, I was glad Mr Arthur had picked Florodora. It was set in the Philippines and there were lovely songs for the chorus of Florodora girls and even some good parts for the boys. Max was the detective, Tweedlepunch, and Freddie played the villain, Gilfain. Charlie played the romantic lead, Frank, to Ruby Kelly’s Dolores. I’m sure he hated having to pretend to be sweet on Ruby. She was too big to be playing opposite him but Mr Arthur was trying to make up to her for losing his temper by giving her a lead role.
Charlie looked so dashing, dressed as a captain in a lovely uniform with gold braid and a blue-and-gold captain’s cap set jauntily on his dark hair. Halfway through the first act he sang a duet with Ruby. It gave me the strangest feeling when he swept off his hat and knelt before her. I had to shut my eyes. I couldn’t bear to see him holding her hand and staring into her face with a sloppy expression. I tried to imagine that it was someone else, not Charlie, making love to Ruby. My st
omach began to churn. My chest grew tight, as if I might suffocate. When we reached the finale of Act 1, I slipped out of the dining hall.
I was standing on the rear deck when I saw two sailors taking the dead man out of the cupboard. The steward put his finger to his lips. ‘We have to dispose of the body before the ship gets any closer to shore, Miss, otherwise they’ll know it’s from the Ceylon.’
‘What are you going to do with him?’ I whispered.
‘Slip him over the side.’
The sailors carried the body aft. If you didn’t know, you would have thought they were throwing a bag of rubbish overboard. I heard a ‘plop’ as the body hit the sea and was swallowed into the watery darkness. I couldn’t help myself. I ran to the side and stared at the place where the corpse had disappeared beneath the waves, but it was as if the man had never lived.
Back in the dining hall, I was in time to put my costume on for the closing scenes. When we started singing ‘The Island of Love’, part of my mind was out on deck, at the stern of the steamer, gazing into the black waters of Singapore harbour, thinking of the sailor’s corpse and his bitter, lonely end.
I wanted to say a prayer for the sailor’s soul. Even if no one else heard it, I wanted to help his ghost find peace. I looked into the laughing, happy faces of the passengers and my mind was so jumbled with song lyrics that I couldn’t find the right words. As I curtseyed to the audience, a scrap of a poem that Yada used to read to me filled my head. Even though it wasn’t a prayer, I hoped it held the right thought.
No more the wild confused main,
Is tossed about with storms of fear.
The sea is singing; and the rain,
Is music to the ears that hear.
22
PLAYING FAVOURITES
Tilly Sweetrick
Feeling earth beneath my feet was heavenly.
I hooked my arm through Poesy’s as we waited for Mr Arthur to organise a dozen rickshaws to take us to our hotel.
‘This is more like it,’ I told her. ‘I feel so much safer now we’re in the British Empire again.’
‘But they have cholera here in Singapore too,’ said Poesy.
I gave her arm a little pinch. ‘Don’t be like that, Poesy. Don’t spoil things.’
‘How can you not think about that poor dead sailor?’ she whispered.
I glanced around the docks, at the crowds of Chinamen, Malays, Europeans and sailors of all nations. There were so many cheerful people alive in the world, it was awful the way Poesy wanted to spoil my chink of happiness. I was sorry that other people died but it was lovely to be alive. Thinking of dead people made me queasy. I shook off the feeling and climbed into the rickshaw, squashed between Poesy and Valentine.
As the rickshaw trundled through the streets, I leaned out and savoured every bit of the town. Hawkers shouted at passers-by and the air was filled with strange smells, spicy oils and sweet-smelling smoke. I wanted to shout, ‘Singapore, I love you!’
Our rickshaw had huge penny-farthing wheels, a black leather shade pushed back and long poles that the driver clasped in his sinewy hands. He was skinny and bare-chested with a lank scarf around his neck, ragged trousers and bare feet. I couldn’t see his face beneath his straw coolie hat but I’m sure he was a Chinaman.
‘I hope we don’t have too many natives or Chinamen come and watch us,’ I said. ‘My mother would faint if she knew that I was being watched by Orientals.’
Poesy gave me a snitty little look and said, ‘I can’t imagine that Mrs Sweeney has ever fainted in her life.’
‘No one likes a snide miss, Poesy Swift,’ I said.
Poesy sucked in her lower lip and frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that.’
‘She’s been spending too much time with Clarissa, Tempe and Ruby,’ said Valentine.
Poesy hung her head and fidgeted with her hands.
‘What did Tempe and that lot want with you anyway? You never did tell us why they invited you into their cabin. And what’s been going on between you and Eliza? You’ve turned into quite the little pet of the big girls, haven’t you?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. But of course she was lying.
‘Well, now that we’re in Singapore, things will be different. You can share with me and Valentine again. You don’t have to put up with those older girls bossing you around.’
‘Lizzie never bosses me.’
‘But she took you away from me. If it hadn’t been for me, you wouldn’t even be a Lilliputian, Poesy.’
She looked at me with those big blue eyes as if I had said something outrageous. Why couldn’t she admit that but for me she never would have joined up?
‘Can’t you see? Eliza doesn’t really like you,’ I said. ‘She’s only using you. She used to be best friends with Tempe and Ruby, but since they squabbled Lizzie refuses to share a cabin with them, so she’s made you her little puppet. It’s not fair. You’re my friend.’
Poesy frowned again and took a long time to reply. Sometimes I had to wonder if she was quite a duffer. ‘Why can’t I be everyone’s friend?’
I nearly snorted in irritation. Then Poesy slipped her damp little hand over mine.
‘You have to understand, Tilly. Lizzie is like a big sister to me. She’s almost a grown-up.’
‘No she’s not,’ I said. ‘She simply thinks she is.’
‘Let’s not argue,’ said Poesy, doing her trick of turning things away from what was important. She leaned forward to look out at the street. Valentine began prattling about Ruby, Tempe and Clarissa again, worrying at all the details of whether Mr Arthur would go on giving Ruby the best roles simply out of guilt. Poesy didn’t say anything; even though she must have seen and heard things that we hadn’t, she kept her little mouth shut tight.
I could have wept with relief when we reached our hotel, to have a proper roof over our heads. At last! A room where the floor didn’t creak and move beneath my feet! The whole building was white, with deliciously deep-set verandahs, and it overlooked the water. Palm trees grew in the small garden out the front and vermilion flowers tumbled down a trellis. We piled into the hotel, all the girls talking at once and the noisy boys shouting as they raced each other up and down the marble staircase. Twenty-one girls with stage voices and dancing feet. Eight boys with too much energy and not enough sense. Miss Thrupp covered her ears in despair as our voices ricocheted across the foyer. Her Timmy began to howl, as usual, and she disappeared, leaving Mr Arthur to organise everything.
Our trunks were unloaded and porters carried them upstairs to the rooms while Lo sorted us into our new groups. I wasn’t sure I even cared whether Poesy was put with us again, I was still feeling so cross with her. But Lo obviously had ideas of her own about Poesy and Eliza sharing a room. She placed me, Valentine and Poesy with three younger girls. Our room was on the second floor, above the tradesmen’s entrance. When I saw that the French windows opened out onto a balcony, I let out a shriek of pleasure. Valentine and I dragged two rattan chairs onto the balcony and sat with our arms resting on the railing, watching hawkers in the bustling street below. Poesy and the other girls took off their boots and flopped onto the white beds, pulling mosquito nets around themselves.
‘This weather is beastly,’ said Valentine, patting her brow with her hankie. ‘I hope it’s not like this everywhere we go.’
‘It will be hot in Manila too,’ I said. ‘But I still think it’s my favourite place in the East. Those American soldiers simply love giving chocolates and flowers.’
Suddenly Poesy piped up, contradicting me. ‘We’re not going to Manila at all.’
‘Oh, how would you know, Poesy?’
‘While everyone was shouting down in the lobby, I heard Mr Arthur talking with Mr Shrouts. Mr Shrouts had just come from having tea with someone from Liddiard’s Lilliputians. And Mr Shrouts told Mr Arthur that the Ramos brothers had all of Manila sewn up and no one wanted to see another child troupe so soon after Liddiard’s.’
‘That’s not what I heard,’ she said.
Valentine and I looked at each other and then at Poesy, still lying beneath the mosquito netting, so wise, so smug. ‘What else do you know, Poesy?’
‘Lizzie says we’ll be in India for a very long time and then go to China. We probably won’t get to America until 1911.’
‘Nineteen-eleven! That’s years away. I thought we were only going to visit Calcutta, not tour the whole ruddy sub-continent. I can’t wait until 1911 to reach America.’
‘You might have to,’ said Poesy. ‘We all have to do as we’re told.’
Then she turned on her side and put her pillow over her head, as if she couldn’t bear to hear what I would say next.
I stormed across the room and snatched the pillow away from her. ‘Listen here, Miss Poesy. I’ve had quite enough of your airs and graces. How dare you tell me that I have to do as I’m told, as if you’re the one who knows all about being a Lilliputian. And why didn’t you tell me the minute you heard we were going to be stuck in the East for years?’
‘I did tell you,’ whined Poesy.
‘Don’t contradict me,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s happened to you, Poesy. You’re not the girl I knew in Richmond.’
Poesy climbed off the bed, pushing her way past me as she walked to the door of our room. ‘Perhaps I’m not that girl any more. Maybe I’m not who you think I am. I might have my own ideas about things.’
‘Perhaps, might, maybe and s’pose,’ I called after her. ‘Make up your mind, Poesy Swift! Whose friend are you?’
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