‘All right,’ he said, ‘but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
The following day, Kitty walked down the gangplank into Port Said. The smell of rotting fruit and unwashed bodies accosted her nose as she heard shouts ringing out along the busy port. A steady stream of crates, animals and human beings were moving to and from the steamships.
James was waiting for her, along with a tall red-headed girl and a rag-tag collection of children.
‘This is Stella.’ James introduced the red-headed girl, her sun bonnet pulled low to protect her white skin. ‘She’s been doing her best to take care of some of the younger ones downstairs,’ he said, turning to her with what Kitty recognised as utter adoration in his eyes.
‘A pleasure to meet you, Stella. And what are all your names?’ Kitty bent down to speak to the youngest, who could be no more than five.
‘Eddie,’ another boy with a strong Cockney accent answered for him. ‘’E don’t speak much.’
‘And that’s Johnny, Davy and Jimmy, then there’s Mabel and Edna and Susie . . . and I’m Sarah,’ said a bright-eyed, painfully thin young girl with sallow skin and lank brown hair, whom Kitty hazarded a guess was around fourteen or fifteen. ‘We’ve all adopted each other, ’aven’t we?’
‘Yes!’ chorused the grimy set of faces.
‘Well now, I am Mrs Mercer, and I know somewhere nearby that sells all sorts of different kinds of sweetmeats,’ Kitty announced. ‘Shall we go and take a look?’
‘Yes!’ the children cheered.
‘Come along then,’ Kitty ordered as, on instinct, she swept little Eddie up in her arms.
‘Glad you know your way round, Mrs Mercer. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,’ James said to her as they made their way through the clamour of street hawkers. Kitty looked behind her and saw Sarah and Stella holding tightly to the hands of the others.
‘Lots of darkies round here, in’t there, Davy?’ Kitty heard Johnny whisper to his friend as the local residents swirled round them in their bright coloured robes and fez hats.
She led the party beyond the docks and into the town itself. There, she knew a vast street market which sold delicious-smelling spices, fruit, and flatbreads baking in scorching hot ovens, the air around them rippling with the heat.
‘Ooh-er, look at those.’ Sarah pointed to a glistening jewel-coloured pile of Turkish delight, sprinkled with icing sugar.
‘Yes, it is absolutely delicious,’ Kitty said. ‘I’d like’ – she counted the heads – ‘eight bags containing three pieces each,’ she instructed the vendor behind the trestle table, then mimed and gesticulated until the man understood what she required.
‘Here, Eddie. Try this.’ Kitty held out the sweet to the little boy tucked into her shoulder. Eddie glanced at it and, with some reluctance, removed his thumb from his mouth and stuck out his little pink tongue to taste the icing sugar.
‘We’ll have to watch out that they’re not sick, Missus M,’ said Sarah, who was standing at Kitty’s other shoulder, doling out the paper bags. ‘They ain’t had a treat like this in the whole of their lives.’
‘Good God, some of them are positively emaciated,’ Kitty whispered to her.
‘They do feed us, missus. In fact, some o’ the grub is better than wot I got in the orphanage. It’s just that we all got a bit sick, wot with all the big waves. Especially the little ones. He,’ Sarah said, pointing at Eddie, whose face was a picture of bliss as he savoured the Turkish delight, ‘got really bad with it.’
They wandered around the market, ooh-ing and aah-ing at the roughly carved wooden replicas of the Sphinx and Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus.
They stopped by another stall where Kitty bought them each a fresh orange and they all stared at the fruit as though it was the best present they had ever received.
They returned to the gangplank just before four o’clock, the children’s faces sticky with icing sugar and orange juice. Kitty lifted a sleeping Eddie into Sarah’s arms.
‘Thanks, Missus M, we won’t forget your kindness,’ Sarah said. ‘You made everyone right ’appy today. And if you need anyone to darn your posh frocks, I’m yer girl. I don’t charge a quarter as much as them as are employed on board, and I’m much better than they are!’ Sarah gave her a grin and shepherded the children down the stairs.
*
‘I thought we could possibly accommodate two of the orphans per night in my bath tub,’ Kitty said that evening as James laid out her dress for dinner.
‘That’s very kind of you,’ James gulped, ‘but I’m not sure how the purser would take to me bringing the steerage passengers up to first class.’
‘Then you will just have to find a way. Let me tell you, James, one of the keys to health is cleanliness. At present, those children’s skins encourage a wealth of bacteria to breed. Will you be responsible for little Eddie being pronounced dead before he reaches the shores of Australia?’
‘Well, no, I—’
‘Then I am sure you can devise a plan. If you manage this, I can offer you a good, steady wage working for one of my companies when we arrive in Adelaide. So, will we try?’
‘Yes, Mrs Mercer,’ he said doubtfully.
That night, two children arrived at the door of Kitty’s suite of rooms. They were hurried in by James, who then left, banging the door shut behind him. After gasps ensued from the two boys, who could not believe that such luxury and space existed on the steamship, Kitty ushered them to the bathroom and asked them to undress.
‘Me mam said I was never to take off me clothes in front of a stranger.’ Jimmy – who was eight at the most – had crossed his arms and was shaking his head.
‘And me, Missus M,’ added Johnny.
‘Well then, why don’t I leave you in here alone? Please give yourselves a good scrub using the carbolic soap.’ Kitty pointed to it. ‘There’s a bath towel for each of you when you step out. When you’ve finished, there’ll be supper waiting for you.’
The boys slammed the bathroom door in her face. Kitty heard a whispered conversation, then some splashes, which eventually led to giggles of delight.
‘Dry yourselves off quickly, boys, your supper’s getting cold,’ she said through the door.
They emerged looking fresher, even if Kitty still noticed smudges on their necks. As she sat them down at the table in front of two large bowls of stew, she sniffed and realised there was still a rancid smell emanating from their unwashed clothes.
The following morning, as James was serving her breakfast, they discussed which two orphans would come up to take a bath that night.
‘It’s a good thing you’re doing for the children, Mrs Mercer.’
‘It would be even better if we could provide them with clean clothes. The weather is so much warmer now. All they will need is a shirt and a pair of shorts, then we could send their current sets of clothes to the laundry. Any ideas?’
‘Sarah is a great little seamstress. She’s darned all the boys’ socks and made a whole wardrobe of clothes out of scraps for Mabel’s doll.’
‘Excellent. Then we must set her to work.’