Louise's Crossing Read online

  She opened a door to a small cabinet fastened to the bulwark near the head of my bunk. ‘Here they are,’ she said, gesturing to the bucket and life preserver. ‘Do you get seasick, ma’am?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ I said. These seas were going to be rougher than any I’d experienced in a fishing boat off the coast of North Carolina.

  ‘I’ve got some ginger if you need it,’ she said.

  The top of the cabinet served as a nightstand. A small reading lamp and a metal ashtray were screwed to it. I didn’t smoke, but the ashtray would be a good place to leave my glasses, watch and Phoebe’s ring at night.

  ‘Did the chief steward tell you when dinner would be ready?’ Grace asked. ‘Lunch is long over, I’m afraid.’

  I remembered the bag of leftovers Dellaphine had put on the hall table for me and felt my empty stomach urge me to eat. ‘I’ve got my lunch with me,’ I said.

  Grace tucked towels and a washcloth in a cabinet which held the tiniest sink I’d ever seen. It wasn’t much bigger than a cereal bowl. ‘Hot water?’ I asked.

  Grace straightened up. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘just cold. But you will be able to take a hot bath every day, thanks to the engine boiler. The women are supposed to take their baths in the morning, the men at night. I’d suggest seven fifteen. That way you can sleep until seven, and since breakfast is at eight, you can get dressed and get your coffee right away.’

  ‘That sounds good,’ I said.

  ‘You can wash your undies and stockings in the bath with you, too.’

  I hadn’t taken my coat and hat off yet. ‘When will they turn on the heat?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh,’ Grace said, ‘I’m so sorry. There’s no heat.’

  I must have misunderstood her. ‘What did you say?’ I asked.

  ‘The only spaces in the ship that are heated are the mess hall and wardroom.’

  ‘You’re joking,’ I said.

  ‘I wish I was,’ she said. ‘But this ship was fitted for a southern run and hasn’t been upgraded. And it won’t be. We must ration fuel. You’ll just have to wear layers of clothes. You have plenty of blankets and the exhaust stack from the engine goes right through the center of the superstructure. So once we’re underway it’s not quite as cold as it is outside.’

  No wonder Grace was bundled up. ‘I’m going to need to get my trunk out of the hold. My heaviest clothes are inside,’ I said.

  Grace hid a smile behind a hand. ‘You can’t reach your trunk, Mrs Pearlie. It’s locked in a cage in the hold surrounded by boxes of ammunition. But when the bosun’s store opens in the morning, you might be able to pick up some warm clothes. They’ll be seamen’s work clothes, though.’

  I was exhausted. I’d gotten out of my cozy bed at four thirty in the morning, driven across DC to the Navy Yard, sat on hard benches in a waiting room for hours, finally got to my cabin, only to find I’d be crossing the icy Atlantic Ocean without heat. I was hungry and sleepy.

  ‘When you’re done unpacking, leave your suitcase in the hall and I’ll store it for you,’ Grace said. There was certainly nowhere to put it in my tiny cabin.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, turning as she was halfway out of my room, ‘I bring coffee, tea and cookies down every day at four o’clock. We have a great ship’s baker.’

  After Grace left, I felt all my pent-up excitement and anticipation drain away. I quickly unpacked the contents of my suitcase into the drawer set in the base of my bunk. I was angry that no one told me I would need my arctic parka and wool gloves on board ship. I hated to think I’d need to sleep in my good wool coat. It had a real fur collar and it took me months to pay off my Woodies’ charge account after I’d bought it. If I wore it constantly for weeks at sea, it would be ruined by salt spray. Not to mention that it wasn’t going to be warm enough.

  My musette bag with my personal items fit neatly into the drawer with my clothing and my tin of pralines. I put my big suitcase out in the hall. I didn’t hear a sound from my neighbors. Everyone must have been napping. Back in my room, I crawled into my bunk in my coat and wrapped two blankets around myself. Opening the brown paper bag Dellaphine had sent with me, I found fried chicken, a biscuit and apple pie. And a napkin. A cloth napkin, one of Phoebe’s many in a rose pattern. Phoebe loved roses. I would keep the napkin. It brought back good memories.

  The first piece of cold fried chicken I unwrapped was gone in about three bites. The second piece I savored, knowing how long it might be before I ate fried chicken again. Dellaphine had packed two pieces of apple pie. I ate one and tucked the other one, rewrapping it in wax paper, into the small drawer of what passed as a bedside table. While eating, I had warmed up considerably, and when I lay down, I fell sound asleep.

  I awoke to the sound of conversation and the rattle of dishes in the passageway. The coffee and tea must have arrived. Throwing my blankets off, I freshened up at the tiny sink in my cabin and went out into the hall. I found a clutch of my shipmates gathered around a pull-down table with tea, coffee and cookies in the passageway near the foot of the ladder. The table was hinged on one side so it could be stored flat against the bulwark, since you couldn’t possibly carry a table down the stairs.

  Mr Smit was balancing four cups of tea and a stack of cookies on a makeshift tray, the lid of his wife’s hatbox, to take back to his family. Ronan Murphy had drained his first cup of tea already and stood expectantly, waiting for us.

  ‘Ladies,’ Ronan said, ‘will you be drinking tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee,’ Olive and I answered in unison.

  ‘Aha! Lucky for me,’ he said. ‘I can have another cuppa.’ He emptied the teapot into his cup.

  ‘Anyone up for a game of cards?’ Gil asked.

  ‘Not now,’ I said. ‘Maybe some other time.’

  ‘I’m still knackered,’ Ronan said. ‘I’m going to rest in my cabin and read a copy of the Irish Times I found at a newsstand at the train station. I’ll see you all at dinner.’ He carefully balanced his full cup as he went back to his berth.

  ‘Is your wife feeling better?’ I asked Smit.

  ‘Much,’ he said. ‘She’s napped all afternoon. So have the girls.’ He turned and walked gingerly down the hall toward his cabin, taking care not to tip his tray.

  Gil and Olive stood at the table lacing their coffee with cream and sugar and adding cookies to their saucers. Gil still wore his heavy topcoat with a long scarf wrapped around his neck and over his head. Thick wool gloves stuck out of his pocket. Olive had on her army arctic parka. It was identical to the one packed in my trunk, unreachable in the hold.

  ‘How did you two know the ship isn’t heated?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ve crossed before on business,’ Gil said. ‘On this very ship, in fact.’

  ‘And I got a list from WAC HQ on what I would need on the crossing,’ Olive said. I’d had a list too, but it didn’t warn me about lack of heat. Was I just supposed to have guessed that the ship wouldn’t be heated? When I wrote my first letter to Alice Osborne, she was going to hear about this.

  ‘The coffee is still hot,’ Olive said, holding up the coffee pot. ‘It will warm you up. You know, you might be able to find something warmer than the coat you’re wearing in the bosun’s stores. And wool socks and mittens.’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said, filling my cup with steaming coffee. ‘Would you like to join me in my berth for a chat?’ I asked.

  ‘Love to,’ she said.

  We wrapped up in my blankets on my bunk and sipped on our coffee, which was quite good. No added chicory, thank goodness. Olive dipped her oatmeal cookies in her coffee, but I liked to crunch mine. She glanced at my left hand. ‘I see that you are single, too. Are you an old maid like me?’ she asked lightheartedly.

  ‘I’m a widow,’ I said. ‘For several years now. My husband died before the war.’

  ‘I’m so sorry! He must have been very young.’

  ‘He was. He contracted pneumonia after a case of the measles.’ My husband was a Western Union telegrapher and was ex
posed to dozens of people every day. A customer brought her sick children into the office to send a telegraph to her mother, asking her to come help her, and that was all it took for my husband to catch his death.

  ‘Is that your engagement ring?’ she asked, gesturing toward Phoebe’s ring on my right hand. ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘No, it’s a gift from my landlady,’ I said. ‘So why are you not hitched?’

  Olive had finished her coffee and put the cup down so she could draw her gloves back on. ‘Dearie,’ she said. ‘I had an engagement go very wrong. Horribly wrong. Gothic novel wrong.’

  ‘I’m sorry!’

  ‘He married my sister instead. Really, I thought I would die. Instead, I left home and enrolled in nursing school so I could support myself. It was the best thing that ever happened to me. I love nursing. I don’t mind being unmarried at all anymore. Do you have a beau?’

  ‘I do. I did. But then he was transferred and I don’t know where. He’s not allowed to write.’

  ‘How awful! And I can tell by the look on your face that you care deeply for him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do. But I decided not to mope, so I took this assignment.’ I focused on flicking crumbs off myself and then took both our empty cups out to the gangway to put on the table for Grace to pick up. I didn’t want Olive to see my eyes.

  We agreed to meet at the foot of our staircase to go to dinner.

  ‘How many bells ring for dinner?’ I asked. The ship’s bells rang constantly, with no rhyme or reason that I could tell.

  ‘I have no idea. I just look at my watch. Six o’clock.’

  ‘Should I knock on Blanche’s door and invite her to join us?’

  ‘I wouldn’t. She’s awfully unfriendly. Almost rude. She’s made it clear she wants to be left alone, so let’s honor her wishes.’

  ‘You’re right; she doesn’t want our company.’ I wondered what had happened to make Blanche so hard.

  I laid out all my clothing on my bed, figuring out what combination of items would keep me the warmest. Darn it! I had packed for a heated living area and I felt like a fool. How was I to have known? In the end I kept on my cotton knit stockings, pulled on long underwear, a blouse – what a useless item to bring – and buttoned my favorite hand-knit cardigan over it. That cardigan was a shade of blueberry that reminded me of the only evening dress I had ever owned. Finally, I pulled on socks over my stockings and shoved my feet into saddle shoes. I could just imagine how disgusting all this would be if I wore it for days! But then I guessed I wouldn’t be alone. And Grace had said I could wash my underclothes when I took my bath.

  I met Olive at the foot of the staircase. Together we found the ladder at the end of the passageway, descended safely and followed the scent of food until we found ourselves in line at the mess hall. The seamen wore no discernible uniforms, just heavy winter work clothes. But all of them had thick knitted watch caps and wool mittens shoved into their pants pockets. The Navy Armed Guard were easy to spot. They wore actual uniforms and carried sidearms. They were the only people on board who were allowed to carry guns and man the artillery on deck.

  As we passed down the line, messmen wearing aprons over their jackets slapped food on metal trays for us exactly as they did for the seaman. Since we’d just left port, it looked as if some of the food was fresh – beef tips on real mashed potatoes, but canned corn and peas, and real milk. Rolls and butter, of course. I passed on dessert – chocolate pudding – since I had Dellaphine’s pie and pralines back in my cabin. We tried to speak to the seamen in line, but they were decidedly frosty toward us.

  Olive and I went down the narrow space between the mess tables, which were already lined with seamen as tightly as sardines in a can, until we saw the door labeled ‘Wardroom’, which served as the officers’ mess during meals. We pushed it open and found a small crowded space with six tables and their chairs screwed to the floor. There was some sign of rank in here, mostly emblems on jacket sleeves and watch caps. The master, or captain, sat at the table near a double porthole with men I assumed were his officers. Gil was there, too. He must have had an invitation. Olive and I moved toward a far table where the Smits and Blanche were seated, but we were waylaid by the ensign in command of the Navy Armed Guard. I knew he was an ensign because of the single star on his uniform lapel and the gunnery emblem on his shirt.

  ‘Ladies,’ he said, ‘please sit with us. We would be honored.’ There were two other men at his table wearing naval winter deck gear, with their heavy coats hung over the backs of their chairs. I recognized the emblems on their coats: one was a radio operator and one a signalman. They stood up for us; the ensign pulled out my chair and the signalman seated Olive. I felt a little embarrassed, but the ensign was quite handsome and polite, even if he was a bit forward.

  Once seated, the ensign introduced himself. ‘Ensign Thomas Bates, ma’am, at your service. Everyone calls me Tom. This is Signalman Fred Wilson, one of our radiomen. Our unit has three radiomen, and they are all answerable to “Sparky”.’ The men looked very young, even the ensign. Almost ten years younger than me, I guessed.

  One good thing about eating with the military, I could see their surnames on their pockets. The merchant mariners wore patches on their work jackets that told me if they were assigned to the deck, engine or the steward, but that was all.

  When we sat down, the three men passed us salt and pepper and butter and filled our water glasses. Olive and I accepted their manners with grace, and soon we were talking as we ate. ‘So where are you from?’ Tom asked us. Olive and I answered their questions while revealing as little personal information as we could. There were few women on board and we didn’t want to be the subject of conversation among the men.

  ‘And you?’ I asked, after Olive and I had finished our short biographies.

  ‘I’m from Newport News,’ Tom said. ‘This is a new assignment for me. I don’t know these men myself yet. They’ve just finished training.’

  ‘I’m from Brooklyn, ma’am,’ Sparky said. ‘And Signalman Oates here is from Chicago.’

  ‘You’ve come a long way, then,’ I said to Oates.

  ‘Not as far as some – my brother’s in the Pacific.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you’re here to protect us,’ Olive said.

  ‘We’re responsible for guarding the entire ship,’ Tom said, ‘not just the people on it. Our boys in England desperately need the cargo we’re carrying, and the ship needs to stay afloat too, and make as many crossings as possible. I don’t mean to demean the value of human life, but the cargo and ship are just as important as the people on board.’

  ‘I saw the guns as we boarded,’ I said. ‘Somehow it doesn’t seem like enough.’

  ‘They have to be,’ Tom said. ‘There’s only so much room on deck. And remember, we’ll join a convoy in Halifax. We’ll have other cargo ships with us in a protected formation, flanked by warships, with air support. We’ll be in a slow convoy – a Liberty ship can only steam at about nine and a half knots. But we’ll make it.’

  ‘Did I hear you say Halifax?’ I asked. ‘Is that Halifax, Nova Scotia?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Sparks answered. ‘A little over six hundred miles from here.’

  Oh my God. We’d be at a latitude of over forty degrees! How much colder would it be there?

  ‘You look a little pale,’ the signalman said to me. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘No one told Mrs Pearlie that most of the ship isn’t heated,’ Olive said. ‘How cold is it in Halifax about this time of year?’

  ‘It ranges from fifteen degrees to maybe thirty,’ Sparky said. ‘Colder on the water, of course.’

  ‘Didn’t you bring warm clothes?’ Tom asked me.

  ‘Of course I did,’ I said. ‘They’re in my trunk in the hold – unreachable. I didn’t think I’d need them until I got to England.’ I didn’t want my shipmates to think I was chicken, so I quickly added, ‘I’m fine. I’ve got a wool coat back in my berth and I’ll just layer up. It�
��s not like I’ll have to take a deck watch or anything.’

  The bells that signaled the end of the dinner hour sounded. ‘Thank you for asking us to sit with you,’ Olive said. ‘The way the ordinary seamen in line acted, we didn’t feel too welcome. As if they’d prefer not to have passengers on the ship.’

  ‘It’s an old sailor’s superstition that women on board ship bring bad luck,’ Sparky said. ‘And, of course, women and children have to be evacuated in the first lifeboat if the ship needs to be abandoned. That means the seamen themselves have to wait to evacuate until after the first lifeboat is successfully launched.’

  ‘And the seamen aren’t allowed to curse in your presence,’ Tom said, smiling. ‘That cuts their vocabulary in half.’

  I thought Olive and I handled that little bit of information well, but perhaps our smiles were just a bit forced.

  As the wardroom emptied, Tom turned to me. ‘Would you like to go up on the bridge deck? You can see the entire ship from there, and there’s a waxing moon tonight.’

  ‘Yes, I would. But I need to go back to my cabin and get my coat.’

  ‘I’m sure Signalman Oates will lend you his coat,’ he said. ‘He’s off duty now and I’ll get it back to him.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Oates said, holding the coat for me while I slipped it on. I buttoned up the thick waterproof jacket.

  ‘Tell you what, Signalman,’ I said, ‘I’ll give you a hundred dollars for this coat.’

  ‘Sorry, ma’am, there’s not enough money for me to give up that coat. Not in this weather.’

  I wondered what time the bosun’s store opened in the morning.

  ‘The bridge deck is two levels up,’ Tom said.

  I grabbed at the handrails of both ladders and easily scrambled up them. When we reached the bridge level, Tom knocked on the metal door. A seaman opened the door and we entered.

  ‘Good evening, Deck Cadet,’ Tom said to the seaman. Then he turned to the captain. ‘Master Jacobs,’ he said, ‘can I show Mrs Pearlie our route?’

  ‘Certainly,’ the master said, ‘come in.’

  I was surprised by the bridge. You could barely see outside. There was only a tiny square window looking out over the ocean. The wheel occupied most of the floor space. The bulwarks were lined with mysterious instruments with dials the size of dinner plates. The master was bent over a screen glowing green next to the wheel.