8
EMMA HAD BEEN standing on the dockside for over an hour when she spotted the Kansas Star nosing its way into port, but it was another hour before the ship finally docked.
During that time, Emma thought about the decision she’d made, and was already beginning to wonder if she had the courage to go through with it. She tried to dismiss from her thoughts the sinking of the Athenia a few months before, and the possibility of never even making it to New York.
She had written a long letter to her mother, trying to explain why she’d be away for a couple of weeks – three at the most – and only hoped she would understand. But she couldn’t write a letter to Sebastian to let him know that she was going in search of his father, and was already missing him. She kept trying to convince herself that she was doing it as much for her son as for herself.
Sir Walter had once again offered to introduce her to the captain of the Kansas Star, but Emma had politely declined, as it didn’t fit in with her plan to remain anonymous. He’d also given her a vague description of Dr Wallace, and certainly no one who looked remotely like that had disembarked from the ship that morning. However, Sir Walter was able to pass on two other valuable pieces of information. The Kansas Star would be departing on the last tide that evening. And the purser could usually be found in his office between the hours of two and five every afternoon, completing embarkation forms. More important, he was responsible for the employment of non-crew members of staff.
Emma had written to her grandfather the day before to thank him for his help, but she still didn’t let him know what she was up to, although she had a feeling he’d worked it out.
After the clock on Barrington House had struck twice, and there was still no sign of Dr Wallace, Emma picked up her small suitcase and decided the time had come to walk the gangplank. When she stepped nervously on to the deck, she asked the first person she saw in uniform the way to the purser’s office, and was told lower deck aft.
She spotted a passenger disappearing down a wide staircase, and followed her to what she assumed must be the lower deck, but as she had no idea where aft was, she joined a queue at the information desk.
Behind the counter stood two girls, dressed in dark blue uniforms and white blouses. They were attempting to answer every passenger’s query while keeping smiles etched on their faces.
‘How can I help you, miss?’ one of them asked when Emma eventually reached the front of the queue. The girl clearly assumed she was a passenger, and in fact Emma had considered paying for her passage to New York, but had decided she was more likely to find out what she needed to know if she signed on as a member of the crew.
‘Where will I find the purser’s office?’ she asked.
‘Second door on the right down that companionway,’ replied the girl. ‘You can’t miss it.’
Emma followed her pointing finger, and when she reached a door marked Purser she took a deep breath and knocked.
‘Come in.’
Emma opened the door and stepped inside to find a smartly dressed officer seated behind a desk that was strewn with forms. He wore a crisp, open-necked white shirt which had two gold epaulettes on each shoulder.
‘How can I help you?’ he asked in an accent she’d never heard before, and could hardly decipher.
‘I’m looking for a job as a waitress, sir,’ said Emma, hoping she sounded like one of the maids at the Manor House.
‘Sorry,’ he said, looking back down. ‘Don’t need any more waitresses. The only available position is on the information desk.’
‘I’d be happy to work there,’ said Emma, reverting to her normal voice.
The purser gave her a closer look. ‘The pay’s not good,’ he warned her, ‘and the hours are worse.’
‘I’m used to that,’ said Emma.
‘And I can’t offer you a permanent position,’ continued the purser, ‘because one of my girls is on shore leave in New York, and will be rejoining the ship after this crossing.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ said Emma without explanation.
The purser still didn’t look convinced. ‘Can you read and write?’
Emma would like to have told him that she’d won a scholarship to Oxford, but simply said, ‘Yes, sir.’
Without another word, he pulled open a drawer and extracted a long form, passed her a fountain pen and said, ‘Fill this in.’ As Emma began to answer the questions, he added, ‘And I’ll also need to see a reference.’
Once Emma had completed the form, she opened her bag and handed over Maisie’s letter of recommendation.
‘Very impressive,’ he said. ‘But are you sure you’re suited to being a receptionist?’
‘It was going to be my next job at the Grand,’ Emma said. ‘All part of my training to be a manageress.’
‘Then why give up that opportunity to join us?’
‘I have a great-aunt who lives in New York, and my mother wants me to stay with her until the war is over.’
This time the purser did look convinced, as it wasn’t the first time someone had wanted to work their passage in order to get away from England. ‘Then let’s get you started,’ he said, jumping up. He marched out of the office and led her on the short journey back to the information desk.
‘Peggy, I’ve found someone to replace Dana on this voyage, so you better get her started straight away.’
‘Thank God for that,’ said Peggy, lifting a flap so Emma could join her behind the counter. ‘What’s your name?’ she asked in the same almost impenetrable accent. For the first time Emma understood what Bernard Shaw had meant when he suggested that the English and the Americans were divided by a common language.
‘Emma Barrington.’
‘Well, Emma, this is my assistant, Trudy. As we’re so busy, perhaps you could just observe for now, and we’ll try to fill you in as we go along.’
Emma took a pace back and watched as the two girls handled everything that was thrown at them, while somehow managing to keep smiling.
Within an hour, Emma knew at what time and where passengers should report for lifeboat drill, which deck the grill room was on, how far out to sea they had to be before passengers could order a drink, where they might find a partner for a round of bridge after dinner, and how to get to the upper deck if you wanted to watch the sunset.
For the next hour, Emma listened to most of the same questions being asked again and again, and during the third, she took a step forward and began to respond to the passengers’ queries herself, only occasionally needing to refer to the other two girls.
Peggy was impressed, and when the queue had dwindled to a few latecomers, she said to Emma, ‘Time to show you your quarters and grab some supper while the passengers are having a pre-dinner drink.’ She turned to Trudy and added, ‘I’ll be back around seven to relieve you,’ then lifted the flap and stepped out from behind the desk. Trudy nodded as another passenger came forward.
‘Can you tell me if we have to dress for dinner tonight?’
‘Not on the first night, sir,’ came back the firm reply, ‘but every other night.’
Peggy never stopped chatting as she led Emma down a long corridor, arriving at the top of some roped-off steps with a sign declaring in bold red letters, CREW ONLY.
‘This leads to our quarters,’ she explained as she unhooked the rope. ‘You’re going to have to share a cabin with me,’ Peggy added as they walked down, ‘because Dana’s bunk is the only one available at the moment.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Emma.
Down, down and down they went; the stairwells becoming more cramped with each deck. Peggy only stopped talking when a crew member stood aside to let them pass. Occasionally she would reward them with a warm smile. Emma had never come across anyone like Peggy in her life: so fiercely independent, yet somehow she managed to remain feminine, with her bobbed fair hair, skirt that only just fell below the knees, and tight jacket that left you in no doubt how good her figure was.
‘This is our cabin,’ she said finally. ‘It’s where you’ll be sleeping for the next week. I hope you weren’t expecting anything palatial.’
Emma entered a cabin that was smaller than any room at the Manor House, including the broom cupboard.
‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ said Peggy. ‘In fact, this old tub has only one thing going for it.’ Emma didn’t need to ask what that might be, because Peggy was only too happy to answer her own questions, as well as Emma’s. ‘The male to female ratio is better than almost anywhere else on earth,’ said Peggy, laughing, before she added, ‘That’s Dana’s bunk, and this is mine. As you can see, there isn’t enough room for two people in here at the same time, unless one of them is in bed. I’ll leave you to get unpacked, and come back in half an hour to take you down to the staff canteen for supper.’
Emma wondered how they could go any further down, but Peggy had disappeared before she could ask. She sat on her bunk in a daze. How could she get Peggy to answer all of her questions if she never stopped talking? Or might that turn out to be an advantage; would she, given time, reveal everything Emma needed to know? She had a whole week to find out, so felt she could afford to be patient. She began to stuff her few possessions into a drawer that Dana had made no attempt to empty.
Two long blasts on the ship’s horn, and a moment later she felt a little shudder. Although there was no porthole to look through, she could feel that they were on the move. She sat back down on her bunk and tried to convince herself she’d made the right decision. Although she planned to return to Bristol within a month, she was already missing Sebastian.
She began to look more carefully at what would be her residence for the next week. On each side of the cabin a narrow bunk was attached to the wall, whose dimensions assumed that any occupant would be below average height. She lay down and tested a mattress that didn’t give, because it hadn’t any springs, and rested her head on a pillow that was filled with foam rubber, not feathers. There was a small washbasin with two taps, both of which delivered the same trickle of tepid water.
She put on Dana’s uniform, and tried not to laugh. When Peggy returned, she did laugh. Dana must have been at least three inches shorter and certainly three sizes larger than Emma. ‘Be thankful it’s only for a week,’ said Peggy as she led Emma off for supper.
They descended even further into the bowels of the ship to join the other members of the crew. Several young men and one or two older ones invited Peggy to join them at their table. She favoured a tall young man who, she told Emma, was an engineer. Emma wondered if that explained why it wasn’t only his hair that was covered in oil. The three of them joined the queue at the hotplate. The engineer filled his plate with almost everything on offer. Peggy managed about half, while Emma, feeling a little queasy, satisfied herself with a biscuit and an apple.
After supper, Peggy and Emma returned to the information desk to relieve Trudy. As the passengers’ dinner was served at eight, few of them appeared at the desk, other than those who needed to ask for directions to the dining room.
During the next hour, Emma learnt a great deal more about Peggy than she did about the SS Kansas Star. When they came to the end of their shift at ten o’clock, they pulled down the grille and Peggy led her new companion back towards the lower deck staircase.
‘Do you want to join us for a drink in the staff canteen?’ she asked.
‘No, thank you,’ said Emma. ‘I’m exhausted.’
‘Do you think you can find your way back to the cabin?’
‘Lower deck seven, room one-one-three. If I’m not in bed by the time you get back, send out a search party.’
As soon as Emma had entered her cabin, she quickly undressed, washed and slipped under the single sheet and blanket provided. She lay on the bunk trying to settle, her knees almost tucked under her chin, while the irregular bobbing of the vessel meant that she couldn’t remain in the same position for more than a few moments. Her last thoughts before she drifted into a fitful sleep were of Sebastian.
Emma woke with a start. It was so dark she had no way of checking the time on her watch. At first she assumed the swaying was caused by the movement of the ship, until her eyes focused and she was able to make out two bodies in the bunk on the other side of the cabin, moving rhythmically up and down. One of the bodies had legs that stretched far beyond the end of the bunk and were braced against the wall; it had to be the engineer. Emma wanted to laugh, but she just lay very still until Peggy let out a long sigh and the movement stopped. A few moments later, the feet attached to the long legs touched the floor and began to wriggle into some old overalls. Not long afterwards, the cabin door opened and closed quietly. Emma fell into a deep sleep.