Saturday, September 14, 1940
When Bess woke up on Saturday morning, there was no sign of land. She looked through the porthole window and saw other ships sailing in formation beside the Benares. The convoy must have joined them during the night.
The sky and the water were the same shade of grey. The ship was rolling around on the waves. The movement reminded Bess of a fun ride at the fair. She headed up to the dining room for breakfast with Beth, laughing and bouncing off the corridor walls as the ship pitched.
But by the time the stewards brought them their eggs and rashers of bacon, Bess was weak and sweaty. Her stomach was churning. She took one look at breakfast and rushed outside, making it to the rail just in time to throw up over the side. Beth joined her a minute later.
“This is horrible,” moaned Beth, wiping her mouth.
“Friends who vomit together, stay together?” said Bess. She took her glasses off and leaned over the water, hoping the cool wet spray would make her feel better.
“I’ve got to get back to my cabin. I’ve got to lie down,” said Beth, clutching the rail.
“Me too,” said Bess weakly.
As they rounded the corner near their cabins, Bess saw Annie Ryan, one of the navy stewardesses, helping Eleanor down the corridor.
“Oh, dear, another two casualties. Get yourselves into bed and I’ll be right in with something to ease your tummies,” she said cheerfully.
“Thank you, Miss Ryan.” Bess mumbled.
“It’s Annie, Just plain Annie. Now, don’t you worry. We’ll have you right as rain soon enough.”
As Bess crawled into her bed she heard a terrible retching noise in the bathroom and realized that her cabin mate, Patricia, was also sick.
Annie came in with mugs of barley water. “Try and drink a bit of this,” she said, handing them each a mug. Bess couldn’t imagine swallowing anything, but Annie insisted that a bit of the barley water would calm her stomach.
“When is it going to stop?” Patricia moaned. “I hate this. This never happened on the Volendam. I wish I were home,” she whispered softly.
“There, there,” said Annie. “This is just a bit of seasickness. We’re in a storm, that’s all. The steward says that we’ve got some bad weather to get through, but then we’ll be sailing into the sunshine.”
Bess’s head was spinning. She wasn’t sure she could make it from her bunk to the toilet and was terrified that she’d throw up on her bed.
“Oh, dear, Bess, you do look a bit green. I’ll go fetch you a bucket.”
Bess felt sweat dripping into her hair. At the same time, she felt cold and began to shiver. She was aware of Annie sponging her face with a soft warm flannel. She tried to still her breathing.
“Just relax. That’s it. See if you can sleep.” Annie’s voice drifted into her ears. Perhaps the barley water had helped. Perhaps a little nap …
* * *
Ken woke up feeling terrifically hungry. He got up and dressed. Why couldn’t he have any long trousers? It was ridiculous. Short trousers didn’t make any sense on a ship. He put on his overcoat, and shoved his notebook and pencil into the pocket. Terry was softly moaning in bed, so Ken left him and headed to the dining room.
Miss Day greeted him at the entrance. There were hardly any children in the dining room. “My, you’ve got a good strong stomach, haven’t you?” she said. “Here, you three should eat together. Louis and Fred, make some room for Ken. Aren’t many going to come in for their breakfasts. You’ll get as much as you can eat this morning, that’s for sure.”
Louis looked up at him with a full mouth of fried potatoes. “We’ve got the place to ourselves,” he said. “My sister Bess was here for a minute, but then she went outside to throw up. A lot of them have been throwing up over the rails.”
“There’s lots didn’t even get outta bed,” said Fred. “But I feel great!”
“Me too,” said Ken, as he helped himself to a huge steaming plate of scrambled eggs, with thick rashers of bacon. “Here’s to life on the high seas!”
He had several portions of eggs, bacon, potatoes, and toast, congratulating himself on his strong stomach.
“Let’s go out on deck! I want to feel the sea spray in my face,” said Louis. Ken thought it sounded like a line he’d read in a book, but he also thought it would be a great feeling to stand outside as the ship cut through the waves.
“Bet I can spit farther than you can,” said Fred, knocking over his chair as he raced to the door.
The wind hit them as soon as they walked out on deck. Ken hadn’t realized how loud the sea would be. The ship smashed through the waves, rising and falling through crest and trough. Their boat had seemed enormous when they were in the harbour. Now, with nothing but ocean on the horizon, it felt like a tiny speck.
The sea spray smacked their faces. It wasn’t cold, but it sure was wet. As soon as they got to the rail, Fred spit out into the wind. But the spit flew backward toward them!
“Look out!” Ken laughed.
“Let me try!” said Louis, puckering up his mouth.
“Hey, you lot,” a voice growled behind them. Ken turned to see Gunner Peard glowering. He’d seen Peard before, sitting lookout in his gunner’s nest. He was short, incredibly muscular, and gruff. He looked like he could take on most of the German army all by himself. He was the oldest sailor he’d seen on the boat and Ken was afraid they were in trouble.
“You’ve got to put some muscle into those lips to get a good spit out. Like this.” Peard horked a mighty gob of spit and managed to hit a passing sea gull. The three of them exploded with laughter.
“Come on then. I’ll show you my lookout.”
Peard strode toward the bow. The boys had to race to keep up with him. “Now I can’t take you up on my crow’s nest—leastways, not until you’ve had a bit more experience as a sailor,” he said. “But you can watch how I climb up there.”
Quick as a flash, he was climbing up the rope ladder high, high above their heads. “How ’bout I spit from up here?” he yelled down at them. Ken covered his head. Peard laughed and slid back down the rope, barely touching the rungs.
“Do you watch out for submarines from up there?” Fred asked.
“No, they’d be a bit hard to see from up there. It’s my job is to watch for Focke-Wulf Condors,” Peard said proudly. “Those are Jerry’s special aircraft that are out looking for us. If they spot us, they tell their submarine buddies where to find us.”
“And what would happen if you saw one of them?” Louis asked, wide-eyed.
“Well, I’d get on one of those six-inch anti-aircraft guns on the bow and blow them out of the sky,” said the gunner proudly.
“Will you let us know if you see one? Please?” Fred was jumping up and down with excitement.
Ken looked at Gunner Peard. Then he looked across the rolling sea at all of the ships in convoy, just the way that Signalman Mayhew had said they’d be. He’d be happy for it to be like this forever. He didn’t care if they ever got to Canada.
* * *
Sonia was drinking little sips of tea. They’d had a tray brought to the room, with a silver tea service. There were soft-boiled eggs in little eggcups, and thin toast soldiers to dip. Barbara was really sick. A nurse had been in to see her earlier. Derek and their mother were sleeping in the next room. Sonia’s stomach was a bit rocky, but she’d had a bit of egg and really felt fine. She was sitting in bed pretending that she was a princess, escaping from the war. She imagined coming back from Canada, with crowds lining the streets and cheering. She’d be older, of course, and a prince, maybe a Scottish one, would see her looking pale but brave as she waved from the open car to the people, her people. She took another sip from the thin china cup.
A knock on the door startled her from her daydream. Barbara moaned softly. Sonia crept quietly to the door and opened it a crack. Colin was standing there in his bright red life jacket, grinning from ear to ear.
“Oh good, you’re up! Everyone else is down for the count. Want to go to the lounge and see if we can find the captain? I’d love to know our position.”
“Be with you in a tick,” said Sonia. She got dressed as quietly as she could, making sure to put her kapok vest over her cardigan. She grabbed her life jacket and headed out into the hall. She loved this feeling of freedom, of being special while everyone else was sick.
“Mother says our family have always been good sailors, but I’m the only one up today,” she said to Colin. “I guess that’s because I take after Father.”
“Never felt better, myself,” said Colin.
A sudden lurch of the ship sent them both skidding into the wall of the corridor. Colin laughed. “You can sure tell we’re at sea! Nothing like it back home!”
They slid from side to side as they worked their way down the corridors and into the lounge. A few of the adult passengers were there reading, playing cards, and drinking tea. Mr. Davis, the man from the BBC, looked up when they walked in and gave them a wave before scowling down at his papers.
“Maybe he’s writing about us for the radio,” Sonia said to Colin.
“Look at all of these empty chairs,” said Colin. “Come on over here. We can build a great hiding place. No one will find us!”
Sonia helped Colin haul together eight chairs to build a fort in the corner of the lounge. They stacked them up so that they were completely hidden from view.
“Here, this will make it perfect,” said Colin. He grabbed one of the white tablecloths from off a table and draped it over the upturned chairs.
“It’s kind of like a teepee,” he said, smiling at his handiwork.
“And no one is using these,” said Sonia, picking up a deck of cards from a side table. “Do you know how to play Happy Families?”
They settled themselves under the chairs, Sonia using her life jacket as a cushion. But suddenly the ship pitched and the chairs slid and started to fall on top of them.
“Look out!” Sonia yelled. Colin grabbed at the falling chair.
“Quiet over there, you two,” said a gruff adult voice from the other side of the lounge.
“Sorry, sir,” Colin called out. “Here,” he said to Sonia quietly, “this’ll be a bit steadier.” He laid the chairs down, making a circle. “More like a wagon train than a fort, but I don’t suppose anyone really minds.”
He put two chairs in the centre of the circle and draped the cloth over them. There was just enough room for them to fit under unnoticed.
Colin was dealing out the cards when a man’s voice spoke quite close to them. “Allow me, Miss Grierson.” Sonia heard the sound of a cigarette lighter.
“Thank you, Mr. Nagorski. So kind.” Ruby Grierson’s gravelly voice preceded the distinct smell of cigarette smoke.
“They don’t know we’re here,” mouthed Sonia to Colin.
“You are untroubled by the stormy seas, Miss Grierson?”
“No, I’m not bothered at all. However, many of the children are down. No point in trying to do much filming today.” Sonia heard the woman take a drag on her cigarette.
“A shame,” said Mr. Nagorski. “Seasickness is a terrible affliction. I am thankful not to suffer from it.” He spoke with a soft, formal voice. While his English was very good, Sonia could tell that he was a foreigner.
“I had it the first few times I crossed. I can just imagine how miserable those little kids are. I saw a couple of them throwing up over the side this morning. Not something I really wanted to film.” Miss Grierson laughed softly.
“But I did get a good photograph out on deck this morning,” she continued. “A nice shot of some boys with one of the sailors. They weren’t sick. They were learning how to spit into the wind, I think.”
Sonia and Colin had to stuff their hands in their mouths so as not to laugh and give themselves away.
“Ah, yes, young boys. The same in every country in the world.”
Sonia could easily imagine Derek in a spitting contest. Mother would have a fit.
“I am fascinated by your project, Miss Grierson,” Mr. Nagorski continued. “Why is it that your British Broadcasting Corporation is interested in these children? Why have they hired you to make this movie?”
Smoke wafted down to where Sonia and Colin were eavesdropping. Sonia held her nose so that she wouldn’t sneeze.
“Well, Mr. Nagorski, these kids are a kind of experiment. The English government has launched one of the greatest sociological experiments of all time.”
Sonia still couldn’t figure out why those children were so special. They were all of them leaving England. Colin was travelling without his parents, just like the children at the other end of the boat. Why was Miss Grierson’s movie only about the children at the other end of the boat, the ones who couldn’t pay for the trip?
“Never before have so many children been evacuated—sent to the countryside, shipped to other countries—leaving parents and family behind. Never before has a country paid millions of pounds to send a generation away. A hundred thousand children sent to Wales alone! And now this CORB plan to send another hundred thousand across the ocean to the colonies: New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada—and many more to America. They estimate that more than a million children are going to be sent away over the next few months.
“They say that since all of the children have gone, London is now a city without heart. Perhaps England will become a whole country without a heart, without a future.”
“There are many without a future now,” said Mr. Nagorski quietly. “My city, my country, is now lost to me. I am one of the lucky ones. I escaped before the invasion. I will have a future, a future in America where my wife and daughters already await me. But for many thousands in Poland, there is no future. There is only death.”
Miss Grierson spoke gently. “This is what the English fear; that England will fall as Poland has. We were not there for Poland. We did not help. And if England is invaded, we fear there will be no help for us.
“And so we send our children away while we can. We English hope, we believe, that our children will return one day. But no one knows how long will they be gone or what they will be like when they come back. Will there be an England? Will there be parents for them to come back to? How will it be for parents to meet grown-up children, with different accents and different ideas?”
Sonia hadn’t thought of the evacuation this way. For her, it felt more like a long holiday than anything else. Might she be so changed that her own father wouldn’t know her when she got back? Would she end up with one of those horrid American accents? And for the children at the other end of the boat, might they never know any of their family again?
“Ah, but I’ve disturbed you, Mr. Nagorski,” said Miss Grierson. “I can see you want to get back to your book.”
“Not at all, Miss Grierson. I am grateful for your conversation. It has been a long time since I have felt safe to talk of such things,” he replied.
“I fear I am not yet able to conceive of a time of peace,” he continued sadly, “but for the moment I can feel a kind of contentment. Even with this storm of nature, life on board our SS City of Benares seems full of ease and refinement. It is a life we must allow ourselves to enjoy. For whatever time we are allowed.”