LADY FOR SHANGHAI

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 July 1939, Page 10

LADY FOR SHANGHAI

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

KAYE FOX

CHAPTER II (Continued).

It was very quiet on board. The stewardesses' cabin was on the lower of the two passenger decks, so remote from the men’s quarters on the deck below that the>' could not hear the noise and bustle of the crowd of stewards and cooks unpacking and settling in. Until the engines started at midnight, there was no sound in the cabin except Mrs Parr’s heavy breathing, and an occasional smothered snort from Miss Crane.

Christine hated sailing day, which was one long series of small tasks, with everyone on board in a bad temper. “Have you a copy of. the passenger list?’’ she asked pleasantly, when Mrs Parr woke with a dreary yawn and sat up in her bunk. Without a word, Mrs Parr pulled a typed list from under her pillow and handed it to Christine. It was the list which told them for which state-rooms they were responsible, and how many women and children there were in each, and it had to oe studied carefully. Christine, 'glancing down the list, saw that Fay was in Miss Crane's section, on the starboard side of the lower passenger deck. She herself, aS junior would have the top deck, for the rooms there were more expensive, so that sometimes several were empty, and there were fewer three-berth rooms: on the lower and more crowded deck, one stewardess had the port side and the other the starboard side. On this trip, they were all going to be kept busy, for the women passengers were fairly equally divided between their sections. Since the stewardess was only responsible for those rooms occupied solely by women and children, and kept strictly to her own section,' it sometimes happened that one stewardess had very little to do, while another was run off her feet. “Your bedroom stewards are Grant and Cator,” Mrs Parr said, sourly enough, but as if she was remembering that she couldn’t very well refuse to speak to Christine for the whole of the voyage. “Cator has been on bedrooms for a long time, but Grant only came up from the saloon last trip. And Edwards is your bath steward.” “Are they easy to work with?” Christine asked, welcoming even this small feign of friendliness. “You’ll find Grant easy enough. I expect,” Mrs Parr said, and pursed up her lips—so Grant must be young and suspect, ChrijftUne guessed, and the other two were older man.

She would not see any of them until close on sailing time, for the rooms were put into order by the staff which had been working on the ship, and there was nothing for Christine to do in her own section until passengers came aboard in the' afternoon. The morning passed quickly, for there were the flowers to be done in the saloon as soon as they had finished breakfast, trays and china to be obtained from the store-keeper, and dusters and glass-cloths from the linen keeper. These things had to be stowed away somehow in their own cabin, but Christine hoped that she would be able to get permission from the dock steward to use one of the cupboards on the upper deck for her junk.

Soon came the time to dash away and to change into afternoon uniform, dark blue dresses and snowy aprons and caps and cuffs. It was by no means easy for the three of them to dress in that tiny cabin at the same time, and Christine, with never a chance to glance into the mirror, sped up the companion to her station, with the uneasy feeling that an elusive little curl was bobbing out'from under her starched cap. Thank goodness Perrin would be in his office and would not see her.

Passengers were not coming aboard yet. and she had nothing to do but stand in the alley-way and wait until they did come. There was no one there when she arrived, but after a few moments a young steward, with red hair which would have been unruly if it had not been so violently brushed, came leaping up the companion three steps at a time. He came up to her. buttoning the high collar of his white jacket.

•■Hallo. Miss Jordan." he said cheerfully. "I'm Grant—-BR on the port side. You're going to be pretty busy this trip, and you can count on me to back you up. You've come Iroin the Brent, haven't you? I've heard about you from a friend of mine, Tony fellows."

"He was one of my bedroom stewards," Christine said, with a smile, knowing at once that she was going to like Grant.

"You'll find it a bit of a change after the Brent." he told her. "1 tried to wangle a transfer myself, to be with old Tony—and away from Perrin --but it couldn't be done." He added swiftly. "I didn't say that about Perrin to try to draw you. Miss Jordan. "As if I should think such a thing.” she said.

"You'd better think such things—not with me. but with other people, he advised her. suddenly looking grave. "Believe me. Miss Jordan, you'll find lots of 'em simply aching to know your opinion of Perrin —and it you say hall a word, they'll be off to him with il." "It certainly is going to be a change after the Brent." she sighed. "Well, you can say what you like to me. for I'm not one of Perrin s pots, he said, grinning at her in a friendly fashion. "He can t find much the matter with my work, but if I’d got a chance of that transfer, he wouldn’t have done anything to keep me here." Another steward, an older man than Grant, with sleek dark hair and sly eyes, came swinging round the corner from the cross alley-way, a couple of towels over his arm. He glanced curiously at Grant and Christine as he

pushed open Hie door of one of the bathrooms and put the towels on the rack - .

"Good afternoon. Miss Jordan. he said, coming out again. "All ready for your passengers?"

"You’re going to have a rotten time this trip, Edwards," Grant laughed. “Fve got Royde in 7 the cabin de luxe, and that means late nights and late mornings for a good many of them, as you know."

"Royde? Is that blighter back again?" "His name's on the passenger list—whether he'll manage to catch the boat train ”

"Well, there's one fellow who'll be singing songs of joy when he hears that news —George, in the bar. Royde s chits for drinks mounted up to as much as thirty quid a week last time he was on board."

"Did you ever have Royde on the Brent Tor, Miss Jordan?" Grant asked, turning to Christine. "Never in my time," she said.

“He comes back from Shanghai about every two years," Grant explained. “so he’s pretty well known on the line. He must be rolling in money always has the cabin de luxe, and gives parties almost every night, and generally makes things hum."

"Cator will be wild because you've got him, Grant," Edwards said. “He’s got' some official or other in the starboard cabin de luxe —and Royde is always good for a tenner at the end of the voyage, beside a lot of stray drinks and boxes of fags on the way,”

“And his bedroom steward earns every penny of it," Grant declared. “Royde may be popular among the passengers—though the decent ones aren't too keen on him—but I never knew a steward who had a good word for him.”

A third steward, a small man with a

sallow face and a peevish expression, came to the end of the alley-way and shouted: “Passengers coming on board now. Grant.”

“All right, Cator, we're all set,” Grant shouted back, and he and Edwards left Christine, and hurried off to see to the baggage. In a few minutes the rush began. Passengers, most of them accompanied by groups of friends, came up the main companion, talking and laughing,-and wandered down the alley-way in search of their state-rooms, stewards hurried along with trunks and parcels, and every now and then a small bell boy pushed his way through the throng almost hidden behind his burden of bunches of flowers and baskets of fruit.

Grant, carrying a huge cabin-trunk, and followed by an agitated old lady who kept warning him not to drop it, gave Christine a swift wink as he passed. but no one else look any notice of her as she stood waiting in her appointed place, and she slopped back into a bathroom doorway to be out of the way.

Opposite her was the state-room assigned, as she knew, to Mrs Smythe and Mrs Collins, botn for Shanghai. She' watched for them with some interest, since they would be her passengers, wondering whether they were friends or strangers to one another: strangers so often bitterly resented having to share a room, and friends were so often at daggers drawn after a long voyage at very close quarters. When they came at last, she saw that they were both women in the early thirties, over-dressed and hard-eyOd. of the type with which she had grown familiar enough during her time at sea. She sighed to herself, foreseeing a stateroom which would always be cluttered up with odds and ends, a dressing table always sticky and messed with make-up and a very small tip at the end of the voyage. They were alone, and it was clear that they were friends, for they were talking eagerly together as they came along tlie alley-way. One of them went at once into the state-room, but the other lingered at the door, still talking to her friend, but evidently watching for someone.

"Hallo, Martin,” she called out suddenly, "so we haven't left you behind —you must have run it pretty fine."

A tall man. with a handsome, dissipated face, who was crossing the end of the alley-way, turned and strolled towards her. He had run it pretty tine, for already they could hear the shrill voide of a bell-boy. calling: "All visitors ashore, please —all visitors ashore!"

"So this is where they’ve put you, is it, Doria?" he said. "If I had missed the boat it would have been your fault. For I couldn’t decide between orchids and roses —so I ended by getting both. He said curtly to Grant, who was passing: "Steward, fetch me the florists' box which came on board with my things- the cabin de luxe."

This must be the notorious Royde. Christine realised, but he followed the woman called Doria into tier stateroom. and Christine saw no more of them. Since no one seemed to want her just then, she went down to her own cabin, meeting Grant laden with an enormous box.

"A spot of work for you," Grant grinned. "You'll have a lovely job sweeping rose loaves of! the carpet." "It's your job to sweep the carpet." she reminded him. "But you have a tidy mind. Miss Jordan—l see it in your eye. These roses will be trickling all over the carpet at all hours, and you'll feel bi.und to tidy up every time you go into the room—there’s only one good thing about flowers in the rooms, we only have to cope with them for the iirso few days." "There'll be plenty to cope with in number eighteen, all through the voyage." she sighed. "Lip-stick on the pillow cases, drifts of powder all over the dressing table—-" (To be continued.)