Thursday, September 12, 1940
Bess started up the gangplank of City of Benares with Louis, who was juggling his train engine with his case and gas mask.
A brown-skinned man in a bright white turban and shiny black shoes that curled up at the toes stretched out his hand to help them aboard. “Please madam, welcome. Welcome, little sir. Welcome to you. Welcome to our ship.”
A line of Indian men dressed in coloured turbans and light white cotton uniforms with ornate blue sashes at their waists all bowed as they stepped onto the deck of the ship.
Louis’ eyes were wide as he turned to Bess. “It’s like the Arabian Nights!”
“It’s like a floating palace,” Beth whispered behind them.
“Ah, memsahib,” said one of the Indian men to Miss Hillman. “Please to follow me, memsahib.”
Bess, Beth, and the other girls in their group followed Miss Hillman as the Indian man led them along the deck to a metal stairway. They walked down two levels, along a corridor to a series of cabin rooms with beautiful heavy wooden doors. One of the doors was open, and Bess saw a girl looking out a shiny brass porthole window. The girl had a huge smile on her face as she turned to Bess.
“Oh, hi!” she waved. “Are you going to be next door?”
“I think so,” said Bess.
“Rosemary and I are in Miss Day’s group. We’re going to swap beds every other night. She gets the top bunk tonight, and I’ll get it tomorrow. My name’s Eleanor.” There was another girl with long blond braids stretched out on the top bunk, her hands behind her head, grinning.
“I’m Bess. I’ll visit later,” she said, waving as she hurried to join up with the rest of her group.
Miss Hillman assigned Bess to a cabin with a girl named Patricia. Patricia was a bit younger than Bess, with dark curly hair and a sense of being in charge. She seemed to Bess to be immediately comfortable in their room.
“You could fit everything my family owns in this wardrobe!” said Patricia, striding over to open it. There were drawers along each side, and a pole to hang dresses.
“The royal tour will begin in ten minutes,” said Miss Hillman. “Unpack your things, girls, and meet me up on deck.”
Bess and Patricia carefully put their clothes away in the wardrobe. “What about this?” she said to Patricia, holding up her gas mask. “Do you think we’ll need them at sea?”
“We’re supposed to keep them with us until we set sail,” said Patricia knowledgeably. “I was on the Volendam, and that’s what we were told there.”
“You were on the Volendam?” said Bess. She remembered that Gareth’s brother had been on the ship, that it had been torpedoed, but that everyone had been rescued.
“Yes!” said Patricia with pride. “After I got rescued they took me straight to Fazakerley. I didn’t even go home.”
“What? You’ve just gone from one ship to another?”
“Well, my home had been bombed out so there wasn’t a home to go to.” The girl shrugged her shoulders. “It’s hard to imagine that I started off two weeks ago, and here I am, starting again. This ship is a lot bigger, though, and much prettier.”
Bess picked up her gas mask. “I need to go and find my brother,” she said. “I’ll see you up on deck?”
“For sure!” said Patricia.
Bess went out into the corridor and poked her head into the cabin next door, where Beth was unpacking with Joan.
“Meet you on deck in ten minutes,” she said as she set off to find Louis.
But after she’d turned several corners she soon realized that she wasn’t sure which way to go. Just as she was thinking she might be lost, one of the Indian men appeared as if by magic.
“Is little madam lost?” he asked politely.
“I am trying to find my brother. I think his cabin is on the starboard side.” She wasn’t quite sure if that was the right word. Miss Hillman had said that the girls were on the port side, the side facing the port. She thought that the boys were probably on the other side, which she thought was called starboard.
“Yes, of course. Please to follow me.” Bess followed the man as he turned and twisted though several corridors. She was soon completely disoriented.
“Excuse me,” Bess started to speak to the man before she really knew how to ask her question. “Excuse me, but what am I to call you?”
“Ah, yes, little madam. I am Ramjam Buxoo. I am the serang on the ship. But you may call me boy.”
“Boy?”
“You may call most of the lascars boy and they will answer to you. If boy is not their rank, they will still answer.”
“Lascars?”
“We lascars are the crew who make the ship to run. We have come from our home in India with this ship, City of Benares. We help to cook, we serve, we grease the engine, we scrub and paint the ship to keep everything looking ‘ship shape and Bristol fashion,’ as you say. We do everything that is needed.”
Bess looked at Ramjam Buxoo’s richly embroidered uniform. There were intricate designs on the scarf around his waist, and he wore a silver chain around his neck that held a small ornament. “What does a serang do?” she asked
“It is my job to make sure that everyone else does his job. That is why I wear the silver pipes. From this they know that I am in charge.” He smiled broadly beneath his huge moustache. “The tindal, the kalasis, the bhandary, the paniwallah—they all report to me. I have sailed with the ship from Bombay to Liverpool four times,” he said proudly.
Bess didn’t really know how to talk to this thin, dark man. She had never met anyone like him. She knew he was a kind of servant, but he was clearly in charge. She could not imagine calling him “boy.”
“Do you like sailing?” she asked as politely as possible. She felt it was a stupid question, but she wanted to be polite. Her father had always taught her to be polite.
Ramjam Buxoo laughed. “Yes, little madam. I like to sail. Because of the war, we will get many more rupees. This is good for my family.”
They turned a corner and Bess heard loud laughing and cheering. Familiar boys’ voices were coming from the cabin ahead.
“Louis!” Bess called, breaking into a run. As she got to the cabin she suddenly remembered her manners and turned to say thank you to Ramjam Buxoo. But he had already vanished, as quietly as he had appeared.
“Bess!” Louis poked his head out of his cabin. “Come see! There’s hundreds of sailors on the deck of a ship beside us. It’s called the Duchess of Atholl.” He pulled Bess down the corridor and into a cabin strewn with clothes. “Look! You can see them through Fred’s window. I just waved at them and they waved back at me!”
Bess recognized Fred as he jumped up and down by the window. A shy-looking boy with thick glasses was quietly putting his clothes into the dresser. An older boy stood by the door, looking awkward.
“That’s Paul,” said Fred. The boy with glasses nodded at Bess.
“And that’s Rex,” said Louis, gesturing to the older boy “Our room’s next door, but Fred and Paul’ve got the best view in here.”
Louis and Fred were banging on the round window, trying to get the sailors’ attention.
“Don’t bang the window so hard!” Bess cried. “You’ll break it. Besides, you are making a terrible racket.”
Suddenly, they heard a loud pinging sound echoing along the corridor. Louis and Fred rushed to the door. “Michael!” shouted Louis.
Bess looked out and saw Louis’s escort jogging down the corridor, bouncing a large ball. Derek and Alan followed him. Louis and Fred fell in, marching and laughing as they headed to the stairs. Rex and Paul joined in and straggled behind.
Bess began to head to the staircase when she was almost knocked over by a small boy as he barrelled down the narrow corridor. “Hey!” she cried as he disappeared around the corner.
“Johnny, wait for us!” a voice behind her called. “Bobby, run ahead and see which direction your brother goes at the next turning.”
The boy called Bobby pushed past Bess. His face was as careworn as an adult’s, but he couldn’t have been much older than Louis. “’Scuse me,” he said pulling a lock of thick hair out of his eyes.
“Yes, all right,” she said, flattening herself against the wall. “You’d better hurry.”
“That Johnny will be the death of me!” said Reverend King to Bess as they passed by. “Ken, can you bring up the rear and make sure that Terry and the others don’t get lost?”
Bess watched the reverend lead his troop of boys down the hall. She followed the sounds of laughter and the echo of the bouncing ball up the stairs. Two levels up and she emerged into the open and breathed in the fresh smell of sea air.
She was surrounded by faces that had so quickly become familiar. She saw Ken peering over the railing to look at the water below. Reverend King had little Johnny wriggling under his arm. Louis, Fred, Derek, and Joyce’s brother Jack were jumping up trying to get the ball from the ridiculously handsome Michael Rennie. Gussie was trying to keep her brothers and sisters still—a never-ending and seemingly impossible task. Joyce was holding Marion’s hand and happily chattering. Rex, who was sharing the cabin with Louis, was standing behind them and Bess could tell just by looking at him that he must be Marion’s brother. Eleanor and her roommate Rosemary were leaning on the rail posing glamorously as the wind blew in their faces. Patricia was laughing with Joan, the girl from the cabin next door. And Beth, her absolutely new best friend, was waving her over. Sunshine was glinting off the water and a soft autumn breeze blew her hair.
Bess realized that she was grinning from ear to ear. Her life was beginning. This was the adventure and it was glorious.