‘I’ll be fine.’ She slung the big bag over her shoulder, jamming her hand basket and food parcel under her free arm as she balanced herself. Then she took a deep breath, and made towards the ship.

Her father’s hand shot out. ‘Hang on, girl! You’ve got to go through Customs first.’

‘What?’

‘Customs. Look – they’re sending everyone that way before they get on board.’

She peered through the jostling crowds to where he was pointing: a huge corrugated-iron shed across the quayside.

‘That’s what the Red Cross woman was saying. Everyone through there first.’

Two girls were talking to the officers at the doorway. One was gesturing at her bag and laughing.

Her father peered at her. ‘You all right, girl? You’ve gone awful pale.’

‘I can’t, Dad,’ she whispered.

‘I can’t hear you, girl. What’s the matter?’

‘Dad, I don’t feel good,’ she said.

Her father stepped forward and took her arm. ‘What is it? Do you need to sit down?’

‘No . . . It’s the crowds. I’m feeling a bit faint. Tell them they’ve got to get me aboard.’ She closed her eyes. She heard her father bark at Daniel, and him sprinting off.

Several minutes later, two naval officers were standing beside her. ‘Are you all right, madam?’

‘I just need to get aboard.’

‘Right. Have you been—’

‘Look, you can see I’m expecting. I feel faint. The baby’s pressing on my bladder and I’m afraid of embarrassing myself. I can’t stay in this crowd a minute longer.’ Desperation had made her tearful, and it embarrassed them, she could tell.

‘This isn’t like her,’ her father was saying, his voice concerned. ‘She’s a strong lass. Never seen her come over faint before.’

‘We’ve had a few already,’ said one of the officers. ‘It’s all this commotion. We’ll get her aboard. Give us your bags, madam.’

She let go of her bag and the food parcel, the brown paper now softened with the sweat of her hands.

‘She going to be okay? You got a doctor aboard?’ Her father hovered by them, his face drawn.

‘Yes, sir. Please don’t worry.’ She felt him pause beside her. ‘Sorry, sir. You can’t come any further.’

One of the officers had reached for her basket. ‘Want me to take this for you?’

‘No,’ she snapped, pulling it to her. ‘No, thank you,’ she added, and tried to smile. ‘It’s got all my papers and things in it. Be terrible if I lost it.’

He grinned at her. ‘You’re probably right, madam. Today’s not the day to lose anything.’

They had each supported her under an elbow and were now propelling her towards the ship. Unlike the Victoria itself, she noted absently, the gangplank looked tired, its wooden struts half rotten from years of feet and seawater. ‘’Bye then, Maggie,’ her father called.

‘Dad.’ Suddenly it seemed too hurried. She wasn’t sure if she was ready after all. She tried to blow a kiss with her free hand in an attempt to convey something of what she felt.

‘Dan? Daniel? Where is he?’ Her father had spun round to locate the boy. He waved his hand for her to wait, to hang on, but the crowd was pushing against the barrier and he was already being swallowed into it.

‘I haven’t said goodbye properly.’

‘Bloody boy.’ Her father was almost in tears. ‘Dan! I know he wants to say goodbye. Look, don’t take any notice of all that—’

‘We should really get you aboard, Madam,’ said the officer beside her.

She looked at him, then at the Customs shed. Her feet were on the gangplank now. She could feel the pressure of her suitcase on her leg as the officer stood behind her, impatient to move on.

‘I can’t see him, love,’ Murray called. ‘I don’t know where he is.’

‘Tell him it’s okay, Dad. I understand.’ She could see that her father was blinking hard.

‘You’ll be sorry!’ A young navvy, cap pulled low over his head, grinned at her slyly.

‘You take care,’ her father yelled. ‘You hear me? You take care of yourself.’ Then his voice, his face and the top of his battered hat were lost in the mêlée.

The executive officer, or XO as he was known to the men, had tried three times to get his attention. Bloody man kept standing there, bobbing up and down, like a child begging permission to visit the little boys’ room.

Dobson. Always a little more informal than the occasion deserved. Captain Highfield, already in a foul mood, was determined to ignore him. He turned away, rang down to the Engine Control Room.

The damp was making his leg ache. He rested it briefly by placing his full weight on the other in a lopsided stance unusual to him. He was a stocky man, whose ramrod-straight posture had become ingrained over years of service – and led to countless irreverent imitations below decks.

‘Hawkins, let me know about the port outer engine. Is it still locked?’

‘I’ve got two men down there at the moment, sir. We’re hoping to free it up in the next twenty minutes or so.’

Captain Highfield exhaled. ‘Do your best, man. Otherwise we’re going to need another two tugs to get us clear, and that’s not going to look too clever today, is it?’

‘Not quite the image we want to give the old colonials when we’re running off with their daughters.’

‘Bridge, wheelhouse, Coxswain at the wheel.’

‘Very good, Coxswain. Stand by to steer one-two-zero.’ Captain Highfield stood up from the voice-pipe.

‘What?’

Dobson hesitated. ‘I . . . was just agreeing with you, sir. Not the kind of image we want to project.’

‘Yes, well, not something you need to worry about, Dobson. What was it you wanted?’

From the bridge, the whole harbour was visible: the huge, teeming crowds that stretched as far as the dry docks, the bunting strung below, and, one by one, the women who made their way slowly up the gangplank, waving as they came. Highfield had groaned inwardly at every one.

‘I came to talk to you about the mess report, sir. We’re still missing a few.’

Captain Highfield glanced at his watch. ‘At this hour? How many?’

Dobson consulted his list. ‘At this moment, sir, almost half a dozen.’

‘Bloody hell.’ Captain Highfield slammed his hand down on the dial. The slipping off was turning into a farce. ‘What on earth were the men doing last night?’

‘Sounds like there was something of a shindig at one of the drinking clubs, sir. We’ve had a few back been caught scrapping, a few who were frankly incapable. One man missed the gangplank and fell into the soup. Lucky we had Jones and Morris on watch, sir, or we might have lost him altogether. And then there are the six still absent.’

Highfield stared out of the bridge. ‘Bloody shambles,’ he said. Those around him knew that the ferocity in his voice did not relate entirely to the missing men. ‘Six hundred flapping girls can make their way aboard on time, but not England’s finest. Bloody embarrassment, the lot of them.’

‘There’s something else. Four of the brides are in with the Red Cross already.’

‘What? They’ve only been on board five minutes.’

‘Didn’t listen when we said they’d need to duck through the hatches. Too excited, I suppose.’ He smacked his forehead, mirroring the most common injury on board ship. ‘One’s a stitches job.’

‘Can’t the surgeon see to it?’

‘Ah. He’s – erm – one of those missing.’

There was a lengthy silence. The men around him were silent and expectant.

‘Twenty minutes,’ Highfield said eventually. ‘Just till we get the port outer engine working again. After that you can tell the mess men to start offloading their belongings. I won’t have this ship held up. Not today of all days.’

Avice leant on the rail, one hand keeping her new hat in place. Astride a gun turret, Jean was making a spectacle of herself. The dark-haired girl had become hysterical, and after yelling until she was hoarse at anyone who would listen, now had her arms slung over two ratings, as if she were drunk and leaning on them for support. Perhaps she was drunk: with that kind of girl little would have surprised Avice. It was why she had been rather careful to disassociate herself the moment they had come aboard half an hour earlier.

She looked down at the pleats on her new suit, satisfied by how superior her outfit was compared with those of the girls around her. Her parents, who had been unable to see her off, had sent a telegram and some money, and her mother had arranged for the suit to be delivered that morning to the hotel. Avice had been worried about what to wear, unsure of the etiquette for such an occasion. Now, with a clear view of at least a hundred other girls, hardly any of whom seemed to have dressed for the occasion, she wondered why she had fretted.

The ship was shabby. Avice had had her picture taken, been interviewed by the Bulletin for its society pages, and someone whom she had been pretty sure was the captain had shaken her hand, but it didn’t alter the fact that the Victoria was rusting in places, and bore no more resemblance to the Queen Mary than Jean did to her namesake Jean Harlow. As Avice had made her way up the rickety gangplank, her nostrils had curled at the faint but definite aroma of boiled cabbage, which reinforced the second-class nature of her transport.

Still, no one could accuse Avice of lack of fibre. Oh, no. She straightened her shoulders and forced herself to think about what she was heading to. In six weeks, she would discover what her new life held. She would get to know his parents, take tea at the Rectory, meet the ladies of the quaint English village where they lived, perhaps the odd duke or duchess. She would be introduced to his friends, those outside the RAF, who had known him as a child. She would begin to make their home.

She would finally be Mrs Ian Radley, rather than just Avice – or, as her mother put it, ‘Oh, Avice . . .’ – who might be married but, as far as her family was concerned, seemed no more deserving of respect or adult consideration than she had been as a child.

‘Watch her!’

Avice glanced down to the deck below: Jean had just slipped off the side of the gun turret. She was hanging, giggling, from the trouser pocket of one of the ratings, her slip and a good deal of leg exposed to anyone who cared to look. She was about to say something, when she realised that the deck was vibrating gently under her feet: the engines must have started, not that they could be heard in the din. She looked over the edge and saw, with a start, that the gangplank had been hauled up. There was a swell of noise, and a short distance away a winch was hoisting up several sailors who had apparently missed their opportunity to get aboard by normal means. They were laughing and cheering, covered with lipstick kisses. Possibly even drunk.

Disgraceful, thought Avice, smiling despite herself as they were dumped unceremoniously on the flight deck above. Around them, small tugs bossed and bullied the vast ship, negotiating its slow release from the harbour. The women were chattering excitedly, waving with greater urgency, their voices lifting as each tried to make sure their message was heard over the hubbub.

‘Mum!’ a voice below Avice yelled, increasingly hysterically. ‘Mum! Mum!’

Someone beside her was praying, then broke off to exclaim to herself: ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!’

The crowd, a sea of Australian flags and the odd Union Jack, frothed and bubbled as people pushed towards the edge of the quay, bobbing above their neighbours to be seen by those aboard. Several placards were held aloft: ‘God Speed, Audrey’, ‘Good Luck from the Dockyard Workers of Garden Island’. She found herself gazing around the port, then at the hills beyond. Is this it? she thought suddenly, her breath catching in her throat. My last view of Australia? Then, with a lurch, the streamers snapped, their cobwebby strands releasing the ship from the rails of the dockside and, with an audible groan, she lurched away from the quay, sinking a few degrees as she slipped anchor.