Trooper to the Southern Cross Read online

  I am a chap that does not say very much, but I do a lot of quiet thinking at times. I was brought up Church of England, and these fancy religions have no appeal for me, but there are occasions on which I have thoroughly appreciated some of the R.C. padres. They were A1 in France, and lots of our boys used to go to mass because they respected the padre and wanted to do him a good turn. One batman I had, a Methodist he was, used to turn up regularly for mass, bringing six or seven R.C.’s with him who weren’t as keen as they should be, just to give the padre a better audience. Our padre on this ship, Father Glennie, was one of the whitest men I’ve ever met. Many’s the yarn I’ve had with him on deck at night. Most of the bad eggs were Irish of course, but if only Father Glennie had been in command, we should have had very little trouble. It often used to get me worried the way the Irish and the R.C.’s seem to stick together. I had a yarn to Father Glennie about it one night.

  ‘Look, Padre,’ I said, ‘why doesn’t the Pope send some decent R.C. padres to Australia, that could pull with the government and make their people a bit more patriotic?’ Then he explained to me that the Pope hadn’t much say in the matter, because Australia was an Irish mission. ‘Well, God help Australia,’ I said.

  Father Glennie laughed. He had a kind of a liking for me, and he was that kind of a chap you could say anything to, not like some parsons I have known.

  ‘See here, Padre,’ I said, ‘I don’t mind being the mug. If I wrote a letter to the Pope, explaining that we Australians don’t want a lot of Mick bastards with their ugly long upper lips coming preaching sedition, do you think he’d ever get it?’

  But the padre said he thought not.

  We had a great old yarn about it, and I could see that he agreed with me, though of course he couldn’t say so. I’d have gone to mass any day to please Father Glennie, though quite aware that it is a mistake, and not liking to do anything without my breakfast. There was nothing in the world he was afraid of, and if it hadn’t been for him, Sergeant Higgins would have had his brains knocked out with a bottle and been feeding the sharks long ago. He wasn’t any too strong either, and hardly any flesh on his bones, but nothing could stop him from his work. We used to have a song at school:

  Catholic dogs,

  Jump like frogs

  which we always yelled at the Micks. I didn’t know what the words meant then, and I don’t now, but the idea is all right. There’s one thing: a parson and a doctor have much in common, and that is very likely why Father Glennie and I got to be such good pals.

  By tea time we were as far down as the Bitter Lakes. The sun made the desert away to the east all pink and yellow. There is something about the desert very unlike anything else. I used to love those early days on the Canal, when we got over on the east side, and the nights were frosty and bright and the days hot, and you saw the old desert stretching into the distance for ever. It gets a fellow thinking somehow.

  Celia and Mrs Dicky were sitting on the boat deck, looking at the view, when I joined them, and we chatted a bit. One of the officers, Lieutenant Starkie his name was, was sitting not far off with his wife, one of the French girls. He was a weedy-looking fellow who had been an accountant before the War. She was a dark girl, not very tall but a good figure and black eyes. I only knew them by sight. Starkie used to come on deck nearly every morning with huge teeth marks on his neck, and naturally there had been a good deal of comment. When Starkie saw me, he came over to where I was sitting.

  ‘Can I have a word with you, Doc?’ he said.

  ‘Right oh,’ I said. ‘Bring Mrs Starkie over here and she can have a chat with my missis.’

  The moment I’d said that, I knew I was in for trouble, but Celia wasn’t the girl to let me down in public, however much she might towel me up in private, and Mrs Dicky was a good-natured little soul, so the French girl came over and took my chair.

  ‘Well, old son, what’s the trouble?’ I asked, as soon as we were where the women couldn’t hear us.

  ‘My God, Doc, it’s hell down in those cabins,’ he said. ‘Can’t anything be done about it? You might work the oracle with the purser — he’d believe you.’

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, getting somewhat interested.

  ‘You know where we are,’ he said, ‘on that damned lower deck?’

  ‘Well, I’m sorry for you,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t like to be on that deck myself. It’s bad enough where we are. But you aren’t the only one, and you’ve got your wife there.’

  At this he gave one loud laugh, which quite put the wind up me, for I thought Starkie was going off his head.

  ‘And who else’s wife?’ he said, laughing again in this disagreeable way.

  Seeing I looked a bit puzzled, he said I had better come down and see for myself. So down we went to the lower deck, D deck, where, as I think I told you, there were officers’ cabins all along the starboard side. They were the same cabins that Larry, the dirty dog, had tried to pass off on me and Celia, three-berth cabins, with three wives together in one, and three husbands together in the other. It seemed a bit hard, but there are ways of arranging these things, for our men are resourceful birds. So I didn’t see why Starkie should be rattled. He took me to an alleyway with a cabin on each side, and knocked at both doors. No one answered.

  ‘All right, I’ll show you,’ he said.

  The first cabin had three bunks. Two were made up, but I noticed the third one, which was really a couch under the porthole, had no bedding.

  ‘Plenty of room for three,’ I said.

  ‘And more for two,’ said Starkie, and laughed again.

  ‘Bromide’s what you want,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing wrong here, anyway.’

  Starkie opened the door of the opposite cabin. There were two bunks one above the other against the wall. The couch under the porthole was made up as a berth, and right up against it was a kind of bed made with a mattress laid on cabin trunks. A blanket was hung down the middle to separate the two sets of berths, and you could hardly turn around, let alone open a cupboard or get at the washstand.

  Then Starkie began to explain, and I don’t know that I’ve ever laughed so much in my life. It seems that as soon as the sea went down and we got into the Mediterranean, all the husbands and wives on D deck held an indignation meeting. There they were, shut up like a harem or a monkery, and they didn’t think it was a fair deal. It was like the old riddle of the fox and the goose and the bag of corn, three wives in one cabin and three husbands in another. They weren’t all each other’s husbands and wives either, which made matters worse, some being unmarried men, and a few civilians like Mrs Dicky and Miss Johnson. They went to the purser, but he hadn’t a word to say, blaming it all on Horseferry Road. So they had a meeting in the saloon one day and made a kind of committee for D deck. The husbands each drew a poker hand and the winner got the cabin for himself and the missis for a week. The other four went over into the opposite cabin, taking a spare mattress with them, and dossed down as best they could, while the unmarried ones, men and ladies, sorted themselves out separately. Opinion was divided as to whether the two berths against the wall, or the couch with the trunks for a twin bed was the better bargain. There were serious drawbacks to both. Every week they changed round in turn.

  ‘And where do you sleep?’ I asked Starkie.

  ‘My wife has the couch,’ said Starkie, ‘and I have to sleep on the trunks.’

  He was nearly crying, and when I looked at the bed of cabin trunks, and then looked at poor old Starkie with those tooth marks on his skinny neck, I laughed till I nearly cried myself. Whenever I looked at that poor chap afterwards, it was all I could do not to laugh.

  ‘And what does Madam say?’ I asked.

  ‘She makes me turn in early,’ said Starkie, blushing like a girl, ‘and she won’t let the others in till eleven. They don’t mind. Say, Doc, have a heart. Can’t you do anything?’

  ‘Sorry, old son,’ I said, ‘but I’m not the purser. If you get chicken pox or measles, I can s
end you to hospital, otherwise you’ll have to stay where you are. All I can do is to give Madam a sleeping draught.’

  Well, it looked as if the poor little blighter would burst into tears, but I couldn’t do anything, so I took him up again, and on the way I asked how they fixed things for the Captain’s inspection. He said they had all put into a pool to bribe the steward and he got everything shipshape for the Captain’s rounds, and afterwards he made up the beds as I had seen them, and hung up the blankets. The steward must have made about fifty pounds out of those poor couples.

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘when the ship does get on fire or strikes a reef, there will be some strange sights to be seen on D deck.’

  When I got back to the boat deck, Madam and Celia were taking a walk up and down. I asked Mrs Dicky if she knew anything about the cabins on D deck, where she slept. Mrs Dicky was one of those women that don’t need telling anything twice.

  ‘What D deck knows it keeps to itself,’ she said. ‘I have no troubles. I share my cabin with Miss Johnson and some woman who is going out to Australia to be married, and we go to bed early and see and hear nothing, and I’d advise you to do the same, Major Bowen.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ I said, ‘it won’t go any further, but I thought I’d let you know I’m in the secret.’

  Upon this she took one look at poor Starkie, leaning miserably over the rail, and we both laughed till the cows came home.

  This arrangement, I may now say, lasted the whole way out, and I don’t believe the Old Man ever knew. If he did, he turned a blind eye, and that was the best and wisest thing he could do. Poor old Starkie must often have wished he had let well alone. Not that I let the cat out of the bag, but it somehow got round the ship, and someone would be sure to start whistling ‘Mademoiselle from Armentiers’ and Starkie would get wild.

  The other French wife was quite a different sort from Madam Starkie, a nice quiet girl. She was going to have a kid — I mean you didn’t need to be a doctor to see that — and looked pretty rotten. I did what I could for her, and thank the Lord she held out till we got to Sydney. A confinement on that ship would have been the last straw. Her husband was a Lieutenant Stanley, promoted from sergeant in France, and an absolutely dependable fellow in every way. He was one of our little gang of oldtimers and pulled his weight every time.

  I forgot to mention another family that came on board at Port Said, an English naval officer called Pryce-Hughes, with his wife and kiddies. He was a decent fellow, going out to take a gunnery school at Flinders for two years. She was a Brisbane girl he had married when he was out there before, and a poisonous piece of work. It’s funny the way our girls get their heads turned when they marry English naval men. Some of the nicest girls I have known have been completely spoiled that way. They seem to think they are too good for this world when they’ve got a sailor husband. This one was no exception. She was a pretty little woman, but she spoilt it all by the way she went on. She had two dear little kiddies, but she kept the poor little things in their perambulator on deck most of the day, so that they wouldn’t play with the other kiddies, and only let them loose to play in the cabin. I was sorry for Pryce-Hughes, not to be able to stop his wife from making a fool of herself before the whole ship, but she had all the money and let him know it. She had a try for Smith, the Indian army man too, but got severely snubbed, much to the pleasure of all.

  When we got past Suez the awnings were put up, and a sports committee was elected. Jack Howe was president, Mrs Dicky secretary, and Celia treasurer and they fairly made things hum. The Old Man allowed some of the lifeboats to be slung outside instead of on deck, so we got a little more room for games. I saw very little of Celia those days, as she was always running round chasing people to play off their rounds. I couldn’t play regularly, but I came up when I could, just to please her. Of all the damn fool things in this world, chucking little bags of sand into a bucket is the one that appeals to me least, or throwing quoits. Deck tennis is more of a game, and I was pretty good at that, having won the mixed finals with Mrs Howe. Mrs Henley wouldn’t play. She gave a good subscription, but she got her chair pulled into a corner where she wouldn’t be in the way, and sat there all day with Smith. They were often there up till last thing at night, he always talking away and she not saying very much.

  It got warmer every day, which suited me down to the ground. The men mostly went about on their own decks stripped to the waist or just a singlet, and the whole place smelt like a cheap Turkish bath. It was about this time that I had a very disagreeable experience. Mrs Pryce-Hughes had somehow discovered that my Mater’s people were what she called of good family. It is true that the Mallards were connexions of the earl of that name, but they never made a song about it. Also the present earl was a real rip, who ran through several fortunes and was divorced by two wives, and they didn’t wish to encourage him. They had had enough trouble when he came out to Sydney as an A.D.C. and nearly married one of the richest girls in Woollalna, only her family discovered just in time that he was keeping two little establishments in different parts of the city and kicked him out. The dirty part of it was that he cleared out without doing anything for these two other girls, and I hear the language those Janes used was worth hearing.

  So this dame thought I was good enough for her, but she took no trouble to be nice to Celia, and that is what I won’t stand for. She had asked me once or twice to have drinks in her cabin, but I always made an excuse. If she wanted me, she could ask my wife.

  One morning I was down in the D deck surgery when she came in. I was surprised, because there was a surgery for the saloon deck, but she hadn’t come for medicine. She said she wanted to see the men’s quarters. I wasn’t at all keen, and I told her that Colonel Picking was the man to ask. She talked a lot of bunk about Picking not being quite our sort, and how she would feel safer with me. What the devil she wanted to do there at all, you can search me, but some women are born fools. Anyway there was the orderly grinning, and Higgins, who had come in with a message, looking at me to see how I’d get out of it, but nothing would stop her. So very much against my will I took her down the alleyway and showed her one or two cabins. The diggers were in some of them, smoking or playing cards on their bunks, and they didn’t get up and salute or do any tricks. I felt all kinds of a fool. The digger has a great pride of his own and much resents any kind of interference or condescension. I knew quite well what those fellows would be saying about Mrs Pryce-Hughes, and though she thoroughly deserved it, I was annoyed that they should get such a bad opinion of a naval man’s wife.

  We passed the galley and went out on to the well deck. Mrs Pryce-Hughes admired the washing hanging out, and she admired the two-up school, and I felt more of a fool than ever. She had on a pretty summer frock, some kind of a pink musliny affair it was, all fluffy and billowing, and a big pink hat, and I don’t deny that she looked very pretty. She got up on the grating over the cargo hatch and stood there, admiring everything, while I wished her husband would come and fetch her. The diggers were passing all kinds of remarks in a kind of aside, and I could only pray she wouldn’t hear them. Anyway if she had she probably wouldn’t have understood them. I hope not.

  Little Higgins, who understood me very well, had been hanging about, I didn’t know why, and presently he came up and saluted.

  ‘Excuse me, sir,’ he said, ‘I think the lady had better come off the hatch.’

  ‘Oh, must I, Sergeant?’ said that fool woman. ‘Am I breaking the rules?’

  ‘Not at all, madam,’ said Higgins, ‘but the troops on E deck, if you’ll excuse me mentioning it, have passed the word round that there’s something to see.’

  I jumped on the grating. About twenty diggers were standing just below that fool woman, looking up and laughing and joking very freely. Whether they did it on purpose I shall never know, or whether Higgins was bluffing, but Mrs Pryce-Hughes gave one hoot and jumped off the grating and streaked up the ladder on to the promenade deck. There was a coolness betw
een me and her after that, but I won seven quid off her husband at poker before we got to Colombo.

  It was pretty hot in the Red Sea, but nothing to what I have experienced. Going back to Australia after Gallipoli — I was at Mena House hospital with enteric and was sent home for a spell — we had a following breeze, and the Old Man had to stop sometimes to let us get a breath of air. I have heard of ships that had to go backwards to get cool, but seeing is believing, as they say. Two stokers died on that trip, poor chaps. We didn’t lose any this trip, but when I saw them come up for a spell, after their shifts, all black and sweaty, with their faces where they had rubbed them dead white, I felt there was much to be said against a stoker’s life. The elder kids all stood the heat wonderfully, but the babies began to look a bit peaky. Do what you may, you cannot keep babies properly fit on a long voyage. None of them were ill, but the poor little beggars got a bit off colour and didn’t seem as keen on their bottles as they used to be. I worked away like anything trying to please them, and giving them drinks of orange juice, but we were very short of fruit. However, we reckoned to get plenty more on at Colombo.

  From Suez to Colombo we had perfect weather all the way, and life fell into a sort of routine. After breakfast I had my surgery work, which now fell entirely on Colonel Bird and myself, as Lyon was more or less confined to his cabin after Suez, which was where he had his row with the old doctor. What with the babies and the diggers, this took me till nearly midday. There was plenty of grousing among the men, and the discipline was still very slack, but the idea that every day was bringing them nearer home seemed to cheer everyone up, and tempers were fairly good. I saw Cavanagh about far too often for my liking, but so tong as he didn’t give any trouble, I didn’t see the sense in making any. He often saluted me. We had a kind of understanding of each other ever since the day I had set his thumb.