I luxuriated in my hot bath the next morning. I had an entire half hour to feel warm before I had to dress. I’d already washed my undies and a pair of stockings, but didn’t see how I could wash my sweaters or trousers and get them dry. They’d be ready to walk off the ship on their own when we finally docked in Liverpool. As I drifted off into a daydream, I heard, far away, the thump of artillery. Since there were no sirens, I guessed one of the escort warships must be holding gunnery drills. I suddenly imagined a torpedo or an artillery shell crashing into the ship near the bathroom while I lay in the tub naked. I envisioned a team of rough seamen finding me that way, either dead in the tub or alive treading water. That got me out of the tub! I dressed hurriedly in my only fresh pair of stockings, clean underwear and the same sweater and trousers I had worn the day before. Within minutes I was flying down the passageway to my berth with my hair wrapped in a towel and my wet laundry clutched to me. I never relaxed in the bathtub again.
Olive and I stood together in the breakfast line. The menu chalked on a menu board looked delicious. It turned out that ‘fresh eggs to order’ didn’t exactly mean that. When I requested two scrambled eggs, the colored cook flashed a smile that was missing a couple of teeth. ‘That means one egg, over easy or sunny side up,’ he said. ‘Take your pick.’ I chose one egg over easy. The cook broke four eggs at a time, two in each hand, and dropped them on to a grill. The eggs reached from one end of the grill to the other, from raw to done. Another cook flipped them halfway through the process, then slid them on to plates. A messman added bacon and toast. In no time Olive and I had our meals and headed to the officers’ mess in the wardroom.
We joined Gil and Ronan at a table. ‘Where are the others?’ Olive asked.
‘I think the Smits are still asleep,’ Gil said, ‘recovering from seasickness. Blanche is probably adding eye of newt to a cauldron somewhere.’
‘That’s unkind, mate,’ Ronan said.
‘It certainly is,’ Olive said. ‘You don’t know what that woman has been through.’
‘I do,’ Gil said. ‘Her husband died on the way over to the States. On this very ship.’
That got my attention. I paused in the midst of enjoying my egg, which was perfectly cooked despite its assembly-line production.
‘How do you know that?’ I asked.
‘I sailed with them. We left Liverpool three months ago. I had to return to the States to be briefed on some new products by my company. Blanche and her husband and his orderly were on board. He was an American and they were returning to his home.’
‘He was injured, then?’ Olive asked.
‘Yeah, he was injured. He was a US Army Air Force pilot. He lost the use of both his legs in a plane crash and wound up in a wheelchair. He wasn’t very heroic about it, either. He was angry and nasty to his orderly and his wife. Sometimes you’d see him up on deck, the orderly pushing his wheelchair. They’d sit next to the rail and smoke. But if you tried to engage him in small talk, or ask him to play cards or something, he would refuse. Rather brusquely.’
‘Poor man,’ I said, thinking of Milt and his struggle to adjust to the loss of his arm.
‘Poor Blanche,’ Olive said. ‘What a bad spot to be in. How did her husband die? Did he have other injuries?’
‘He killed himself.’
Just then Blanche entered the officers’ mess with her tray. She saw us, but deliberately turned away and found an empty table to occupy. I didn’t blame her. I’d been widowed myself, and socializing was the last thing I had wanted to do for months. And my husband hadn’t committed suicide.
‘How did a bloke who couldn’t walk kill himself?’ Ronan asked.
‘He and the orderly were out on deck. But the orderly went back inside to get a cigarette lighter.’
‘Oh, no,’ Olive said. ‘He shouldn’t have left him.’
‘Eddie – Eddie Bryant was the pilot’s name – rolled himself over to the rail and to the gate where the portable stairway is moored. He unlatched the gate and rolled himself right off the ship. Of course, when the orderly came back, he wasted minutes trying to find him, and once the alarm was raised it was too late to do anything. The master wouldn’t have turned back to look for him anyway, but the rest of the convoy was alerted to keep a lookout. Eddie was deep in Davy Jones’s locker by then. Still buckled in his wheelchair, I bet.’
‘How awful,’ I said.
Gil leaned over the table and whispered to us. ‘There were some who suggested Blanche pushed Bryant overboard herself. She was out on deck at the time, smoking somewhere. It would have been easy. He was helpless in that chair. She could have pushed him right off the deck. With the wind and waves, no one would have heard him crying for help.’
I glanced over at Blanche. She ate silently, with her eyes fixed on her plate, and red rising up her neck. She must have guessed that we were talking about her. I was angry with Gil for gossiping. I felt sorry for her.
‘Stop it, Gil,’ I said. ‘You don’t know that’s what happened, do you? Have you got any evidence?’
Gil shrugged. ‘There weren’t any witnesses,’ he said. ‘But it could have happened that way. I’m not the only one who thought so.’
‘And people think Ireland is full of leprechauns and pots of gold,’ Ronan said. ‘But we haven’t found any yet. Leave the lass alone.’
Reprimanded, Gil fell silent. So did Ronan, Olive and I. We finished our meal and didn’t stay at the table for more coffee. I felt slightly dirtied by the conversation and determined to be nice to Blanche even if she was cold to me.
I had misinterpreted the words ‘bosun’s store’. I thought the boatswain had a shop – you know, where you could buy stuff. It was more like a library. When we ducked into the space over the bow after a cold, windy trek from amidships, we found shelves and hooks filled with everything from coils of rope to mops and wrenches, presided over by a bosun’s mate too tall to stand upright in the space. Nothing had a price tag on it and there was no clothing in sight.
‘Ladies,’ the bosun’s mate said, ‘do you be looking for something?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I thought this was a store. That sells warm clothes?’
The mate chuckled. ‘No, ma’am, this is storage for the equipment the seamen need to do their chores on the ship. They come get what they need and bring it back here. Otherwise, all our tools would go missing. I can see that a landlubber might be confused by the name, though.’
‘I grew up on the east coast, so I should have known.’
‘What were you ladies looking for? Perhaps I could help.’
‘My friend was hoping to find a warm coat and hat,’ Olive said.
‘I can see that you’d rather not dirty that pretty coat,’ the mate said to me, eyeing what I was wearing. It might already be ruined, I thought. I’d picked up an oil smear when the ship had listed and I fell up against a jeep on our trek across the deck. ‘What you want is the Lost and Found.’
The mate led us deeper into the crowded space until we came to a set of shelves stuffed with clothing, including coats. ‘We keep whatever we find on the ship after a voyage is over. Sometimes seamen sign on for a trip without the right gear in their duffels. You can pick out whatever works for you and return it before you debark.’
Olive and I pawed through the clothing. The only coat I could find small enough and clean enough for me was a classic navy wool peacoat, the kind sailors had been wearing forever. It was twice as thick as my coat, had a rolled collar I could pull up around my neck, and every one of its big buttons. It fell past my knees. I threw off my coat and pulled on the peacoat. Instantly, I felt warmer. A slight odor of cigarette smoke wafted off it, but I didn’t care.
‘This seems fairly clean,’ Olive said, handing me a seaman’s watch cap – a black wool knitted hat I could pull over my ears. Just a few of its previous owner’s hairs adhered to the inside. I picked them off and pulled the cap on.
‘You look like an able-bodied seaman yourself now,’ the bosun’s mate said. ‘You might find someone ordering you to swab the deck!’
As Olive and I trudged back to our quarters, a group of seamen grinned and touched their caps, hollering out to us. We couldn’t understand much of what they said, but apparently they were amused that I was wearing a seaman’s clothes. I’d already noticed what a motley assortment of men the ordinary and able-bodied seamen were. They were all colors and several nationalities, as attested by the accents I’d overhead. I recognized a melodic Caribbean voice, and one who shouted out to me had a British accent. Maybe I’d made a couple of friends aboard ship who wouldn’t frown at me in the chow line.
We weren’t interested in staying outside on the deck for long. A thick, wet fog had fallen overnight and enveloped us. We couldn’t see any of the ships sailing nearby, or see their running lights, but we could hear their foghorns signaling their location.
We were about to duck into the door to our quarters when I saw Blanche sitting on a wooden cable spool near the rail, smoking and staring out to sea. She was bundled up in a tweed coat with a scarf tied around her head and had pulled a sou’wester over the scarf to repel the salty spray. She gripped a gold cigarette lighter and a packet of cigarettes in her lap.
‘Let’s go talk to Blanche,’ I said. The well-brought-up Southern girl in me felt the need to make an effort to be kind to this unhappy woman. If she rebuffed me, fine.
‘You go ahead,’ Olive said. ‘Not me. I’m freezing and wet. Let me take your good coat to your cabin and I’ll see you later.’
Blanche attempted a smile when she saw me approach and scooted aside so I could sit next beside her.
‘Being nice to the pariah?’ she asked.
‘You’re not a pariah.’
‘Oh, yes, I am,’ she said. ‘Most of the people on this ship think I murdered my husband.’