TWENTY THREE
SYDNEY SEPTEMBER 1906
Florence's eyelids flicked open and she wondered for a moment where she was and what had awoken her.
'Mrs Lowe, Mrs Lowe.' The voice of young Alfie the cabin steward cum Dining Room waiter called her name gently through the closed door of their cabin. Suddenly she remembered where she was. 'Mrs Lowe, you asked me to give you a knock at five o'clock.' Florence nodded her head and called to him equally softly,
'Alright Alfie, I'm up now. Thanks love.' She settled back under the counterpane and scratched herself luxuriously whilst listening to the soft footsteps of the young man retreating back along the corridor outside the cabin. The cabin was dark and silent, except for the gentle snoring of Martha in the other bed. Florence slid one arm out from under the covers and pulled to one side the curtain which covered the small porthole in the wall by her side. The small amount of black sky it revealed showed it was still night time. She slid the covers off her warm body, eased her legs over the bed and felt with her toes for her shoes on the floor beneath. Even though it was dark, she found them and pushed her feet into them. Standing up she stepped to the cabin door and in the darkness felt for her coat hung on the back of the door. She wrapped the coat around her and turned to collect a towel from the bottom of her bed and the toilet bag which sat beside it, then on tiptoe left the cabin, closing the door quietly behind her and walked along the silent corridor to the nearest of the bathrooms on that deck. Twenty minutes later she opened the door of the bathroom, having enjoyed a quick, but hot, bath. Looking first one way then the other to check no one else was in the corridor she scuttled quickly back to her room, holding her coat around her over her naked body, carrying her nightdress and toilet bag in her hand. She opened the door gently and stood in silence in the corridor, listening to the noise of Martha, still asleep, snoring in her bed. Florence grinned to herself and gently called her name. She heard Martha move under the blankets and mumble to herself. She called her name again a little louder, but still in a low voice. 'Martha'
'Mmm. Coming' Martha replied, still asleep.
'Martha'
'Yes. Coming'
'Martha.' Her friend’s voice rose a little.
'Yes Flo. I’m up.'
'Martha' This time Flo’s voice lifted a little more.
'Yes Florence. I’m awake.'
'Martha!' Florence heard the movement of a body as bedclothes were thrown off the bed, and she stepped quietly into the room, closing behind her. She was just in time to see her friend swing her legs off the bed and stagger to her feet in the space between the two beds. Martha turned to face her, eyes almost closed, hair sticking out from her head looking like a goat dragged through a hedge. She stood in the space between the beds, her legs apart; her right arm extended pointing at Florence.
'YOU,' she screeched, 'You are evil! You are a rotten thing, and if you ever do that to me again I will break your legs and feed you worms.' Her hand went to her head and attempted to control her bedraggled hair. Florence sagged on the edge of her bed convulsed in laughter.
'Oh Martha, you look wonderful first thing in the morning. No wonder your husband loves you.' She said grinning widely.
'Why do you do that?' Martha asked, her voice lowered to a normal tone.
'’Cos it works. Worked great on my kid brother Victor. Used to get him standing at the top of the stairs in our house screaming at me. He couldn’t do a thing about it. Once you start answering the only way to stop it is to get out of your bed.' She paused then added, 'My Pa used to do it on me. Worked every time, I hated it.'
Florence started to dress herself, pulling her drawers on under her coat. Martha gently eased herself past her to go to the bathroom. 'See you on deck Martha' she said.
'Alright, or in the Dining Room. I’m starving.' When Martha left the cabin, Florence threw off her coat and continued to dress herself, finishing by reaching across the bed to pick the wristwatch out of the small recess in the wall by her pillow. Strapping it on, she saw the time was five twenty five. She flicked open the curtains on the porthole to allow light into the cabin. Outside the sky was cloudy, the deep grey clouds merging in with the dark night sky behind them. Florence pulled her coat back on then folded her towel into a neat oblong and placed it over the bottom edge of the bed, along with her canvas toilet bag. She stepped out into the corridor and gently closed the door behind her so as not to wake any of the passengers who had not been as keen as the two of them to see the sun rise, and get their first view of Sydney. She walked quickly along the corridor and up the stairs leading to the outside promenade deck, her leather soled shoes tapping on the linoleum floor like a lazily beaten snare drum.
Stepping out onto the deck she glanced upwards to the navigation deck and saw a movement there, it was the First Mate Mr Cookson. He looked down at her and raised his hand silently in greeting as he saw her illuminated by the lights from the public rooms. Florence raised her hand in response and turned to look along the bows towards the direction in which the ship was sailing. Along the entire left hand side of the ship she made out in the darkness a black outline of hills. Some of them did not look to be very high whilst others appeared to drop off down into the sea at a steep angle. It was difficult in the low light to make out any distinguishing features, if Florence had known any of the features to recognise. The sea had calmed since the storms of the previous days and now slapped gently along the sides of the ship with little more than a three foot swell, rocking the boat from front to back in a soft soothing movement. She stepped to the front edge of the promenade deck to the step ladder which led down to the cargo deck; it was closed off with a white painted chain which swayed to the movement of the vessel. Holding onto the rail at the top of the stairs she looked across to the right hand horizon. Banks of dark cloud still spread from over her head as far as she could see onto the eastern horizon where it met a thin line of dark blue sky extending along the entire horizon. A small patch of lighter coloured sky showed Florence where the sun would rise in a short time. She turned to her left again to examine the land on that side. This is Sydney, she thought. This must be Sydney. She peered ahead of the ship where she was able to make out the dim light on a lighthouse, lazily swinging its lamp across the sea. She watched the light for several minutes as its light moved across the land and then across the sea, casting a shaft of dancing silver onto the waves. As she watched, she became aware of another vessel in front of them, and apparently going in the same direction as the Persic. The two stern lights on the boat and on its two masts shone dimly in the darkness. They blinked as the ship rode the slight waves. By the looks of it, thought Florence, it was as big as the Persic. She glanced to her right and saw that the sun was rising over the horizon. Almost as soon as it had appeared, it disappeared again into the cloud shrouding the sky close to the horizon. Even so, it still dimly lit the whole of the sky, so that the sea, and the ship she saw ahead of her, and the dark land to her left, became more visibly bluey grey.
Florence turned to face the land, trying to find any trace of a large city in the darkness of the headlands she could see, but without success. Perhaps they were still a long way off, she mused. It might take us the rest of the day to get there, though Mr Cookson had yesterday promised her that she would be in Sydney before noon on Saturday, and today was Saturday, Saturday the twenty second of September 1906. She kept scanning the land ahead of the course the Persic was taking, and gradually, as the sun rose higher in the sky, some detail of the land became a little clearer. Suddenly to her shock, the ship ahead of them appeared to turn left, directly into the land. She gasped and watched in silent horror, expecting the vessel to hit the land and sink. To her great relief the ship sailed on beyond the lighthouse which she could now see more clearly in the early light. It appeared to be entering a gap in the land. This had to be Sydney! She thought. A sound behind her made her look around, it was young Alfie who had knocked on her door that morning. He touched his cap with his right hand.
'Morning Ma’am' he said. 'See you managed to get up then,' he grinned at her. He was a nice boy, small and with a thin build and light brown hair on top of a narrow face. Florence turned to him and replied,
'Yes thanks Alfie. You did a good job this morning, I don’t think I would have managed it without you. Not at this time of the morning.' He smiled in bashful silence. Florence pointed to the ship ahead of them, now only half visible behind the headland and lighthouse. 'Can you tell me where that ship is going Alfie, is that the entrance to Sydney harbour?' He nodded his head vigorously, his mop of hair falling forward over his eyes. His hand came up to brush it back into place.
'That’s right Ma’am. Sydney it is. Should be about an hour before we get to the birth near Circular Quay. Dalgety’s have their own quay and we normally tie up there when we only have a few passengers, otherwise we discharge the passengers at Circular Quay before we go on to Dalgety’s.' He nodded his head to emphasise the importance of what he had told her. Here was a youth in love with the sea, the ship and everything about it, she thought. I bet if I were to ask him he would know who put the last rivet in the Persic when it was built. She smiled at him.
'Thank you Alfie. Does this mean that I have time for breakfast before we get ashore?' she asked.
'Oh yes Ma’am,' he said, 'Breakfast's at the normal time. We should be tied up alongside then unloading whilst you are tucking into your porridge. It could be that the cargo will be offloaded at Circular Quay and then trucked off to Dalgety’s. You won’t be able to get off until the immigration people have been onboard, so you’ll probably not be off until about ten o’clock.' Florence nodded her head thoughtfully and turned to the far horizon. The sky was now a thickening line of pale blue along the far line of the sea, clouds were tinged with multiple shades of pink, grey and blue. It could be a nice day, she thought.
As the light increased, the detail of the approaching headland and the hills she had seen became clearer in the morning light. She made out trees and beaches and headlands, houses close to the lighthouse, and the top mast and funnel of the ship which had gone before them. In the distance she made out buildings set back from the shore in what she assumed was Sydney. What a big city it was, she thought, hope Tommy can find me on the quayside if we’re not going to be landing at this Circular Quay place. Alfie coughed gently,
'Better be off now Ma’am, need to be getting about my duties or the Mate will have my guts for garters.' She nodded to him.
'Bye Alfie,' she said, 'And thanks again for your help this morning.' Alfie smiled shyly and moved off the deck as Martha approached. The two women stood chatting by the deck rail as the ship made its own left turn into the harbour entrance by the Hornby Lighthouse, set on a high rocky point. They watched in silence at the massive harbour opening up before them. Somewhere Florence had read that Sydney was the worlds' largest natural harbour, well now she was going to see it for herself. The ship moved slowly in towards the main docking area for passenger vessels at Circular Quay.
Though it was still early by their standards, both the young women were surprised at the number of ships of every size and type which were about in the harbour so early in the morning. Without any knowledge of shipping or harbours, Florence had tried to improve that knowledge by reading a book she had found in the ships library. One of the early ships coming into the harbour had had it described by the captain as ‘probably the finest harbour in the world.’ To the young woman from England, it just looked beautiful, and more so as the sun rose and continued to pour its light across the water.
When the Persic sailed around the point at Hornby Lighthouse, and the full extent of the water in front of the ship became more evident, she would have happily agreed with the statement about it being the finest in the world. The water was deep and wide. There seemed to be lots of inlets and rivers feeding into the harbour, hidden by headlands until revealed when the Persic drew closer. The hills came to the edges of the harbour covered with trees and low bushes. Every few minutes a new spectacle revealed itself. More buildings rose out of the lightening sky as their shapes were defined by the light. The sun slowly rose over the horizon and clouds were blown off the land and out to sea, creating golden tips along the headlands. Sheltered coves revealed small boats skulled by men pulling against long oars, and small fishing boats sailed in and out between the larger vessels. Tugs hurried up and down the long water in self important scurries, whilst the Pilot’s boats gently nudged against the larger ships coming into the port. Soon, after the Persic had turned into the main part of the harbour, she saw one of the Pilot boats approach the side of Persic, which by now had reduced its speed to dead slow. She watched in nervous admiration as a rope ladder was lowered over the side of the ship, clanging wooden steps hard against the hull. A harbour pilot jumped skilfully from his boat to the ladder and then clambered aboard the ship where he was greeted on the lower cargo deck by Mr Cookson. He shook hands with the middle aged man in the pilots’ uniform who had boarded, and swiftly escorted him up the staircase to the navigation bridge to take over the final movement of the ship into Circular Quay. As the sun rose and shed more light over the harbour and city, she was struck by the light brown haze which hung over the city as the ship edged closer to its final destination.
Soon, the ship came to a rest alongside the quay on the western edge of the docks, and lines were thrown from ship to shore to secure it. Florence looked at her watch, it was a little after six thirty, just over an hour since the sun had risen over the distant horizon. For Florence this was not only the start of a new day, but the exciting start of her new life. She hung to the deck rail watching all that was going on around her as preparations were made for the cargo and passengers to be disembarked and unloaded. Florence paced impatiently from front to back of the ship watching as an army of men from beneath the decks came out into the sunlight, unfastening cargo holds, swinging out the derricks fore and aft of the ship, securing bumpers along the length of the ship to protect it from damage on the dock. She cast a proprietorial eye over the entire proceedings, just to ensure they got things right, she said to herself smiling, hopping from one impatient foot to the other.
Soon, breakfast was served in the Dining Room, and when she went down to find Martha, discovered that the dining room was crowded. The passengers were eager now to get off the boat which had been their home for seven weeks, a home they had grown to accept, if not love. Florence wound her way through the tables and chairs to find a vacant seat at the side of her friend and ate her last breakfast onboard. Neither of them felt an inclination to dawdle over their meal, more pressing things and a new life lay ahead.
Later, in their cabin for the final time, they crammed the last few items of clothing and personal effects into their bags. Martha turned to Florence as they bumped each other in their eagerness to complete their packing.
'You know Flo,' she said, 'This is the last time we will see each other, and it’s a bit sad isn’t it?'
'It is, but I suppose we can keep in touch one way or another, if you want.'
'I do want, but how will I get in touch with you? You don’t even know where you are going to be living do you?'
'Well, give me your address and when I have somewhere settled I can write to you. Don't forget you said to keep in touch if I had trouble finding a job.'
'That’s right, only you’ll have to make sure that you keep my address safe or else we’ll lose touch with each other.'
Martha had already scribbled her name and address in Sydney down on a piece of paper which she now pulled from her handbag and pressed into Florence’s hand. Florence glanced at the address and carefully folded it and patted it into her own small bag. She smiled at Martha,
'There, safe and sound. Come on, let’s go up on deck and see how long it’s going to be before we get off.'
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