JOURNEY'S END
~ T the wharf gates an eager crowd is waiting. The Dundalk Bay with her 942 emigrants has just berthed at Aotea Quay, but there’s no chance of getting near her yet, even though, like one woman, you’ve come 400 miles to meet a friend. At the- foot of the gangway film cameras are being set up, there are a/fcouple of policemen and several ribboned officials from the Immigration Department. It is a shock to realise that the Dundalk Bay, which has been a home for nearly a thousand people for five and. a-half weeks, is only a little bigger than the Rangitira. The rail is lined with people (not agog for their first glimpse of Wellington, for have they not been in midstream since the previous |‘ afternoon?) idly watching the scene on the wharf. -. thin trickle of emigrants comes down ° © gangway, but all these are ones who made their own arrangements about accommodation. The others, who have been waiting in one place or another ever since war’s end, are resigned to waiting a little longer. Even the faces of those at the rails have a wary, waiting look, not the eager waiting look of those at the gates, who have the advantage of knowing what their compatriots are coming to, It can’t be worse than what we’ve been used to, the new arrivals are probably thinking,
but we'll see for ourselves. It isn’t wise to expect too much of anything. Between decks breakfast is still going on. The lagg, scrubbed wooden tables are close tog@ther, just room for a couple of forms between, Only mothers and small children are there now, nibbjing at bread rolls with solid chunks of beef and good New Zealand butter in the middle, and drinking hot soup from jamtins. But nobody, not even the children, seems very interested in breakfast, if the left-overs are any indication. There is probably a sick feeling in the pit of most stomachs. Everywhere these people have been before there has been a possibility of moving on somewhere else. But now . they must face the fact that this is ultima thule, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer. HE children for the most part have absorbed some of their parents’ apprehension. Perhaps their lives to date have already taught them that existence is scarcely a matter for exuberance. They sit quietly on the benches beside their parents, uncoggplaining and undemanding. Very few of them are hugging toys, although one little girl has a doll much more pretentiously dressed (green georgette with frills) than her mistress. Three little boys less responsive to.the prevailing atmosphere are playing a
quiet form of chase up and down the corridor. These, we learn, are some of, the orphans and possibly already immunised agairist despondency. "The men and women who have their children with them are lucky, since there are many among the company whose children and kinsfolk are lost for ever. And you can see their awareness of their good fortune in the caré that has been lavished on the children’s clothes. One baby: girl is dressed top to toe in a handknitted pink outfit. Her companion’s well-worn woollen jacket is embroidered, Hungarian fashion, with tiny coloured flowers. It would be hard to find a child on the ship who was not wearing some hand-made woollen garment. Caps, from balaclavas to a kind of crocheted square fez, are de rigueur, and all the children seem to have gaiters or knitted long stockings. Many wear khaki or olive-drab overcoats, usually hooded. They are well prepared for the rigours of a Wellington mid-winter, and it is probably disconcerting to the parents to find that they have arrived on a day that might be a stand-in for summer. Jauntiest of the ship’s company are the men in black-dyed American army uniforms. These have seen service in American labour ‘corps, and have ‘absorbed .some of the doughboy’s approach to life. They bustle around organising luggage, or stand in groups at the rail swapping fags. They’ll manage, they feel. Breakfast is over now, and the tables have been cleared. Each family unit is now assembled with its luggage, waiting in the semi-gloom of the dining-room for its name to be called. Outside, the sun shines invitingly on the deck, the morning sea dimples, the clouds far on the horizon are faintly rosy through the haze. But almost everybody is inside, waiting. And watching the luggage that has come so far and which represents all that is left of home-the canvas-covered bags with the difficult Continental names painted on, and New Sealand in large letters, the loosely-tied outsize Dick Whittington bundles, the carpet bags, the corded, fraying suitcases. There are fewer people now in the dining-room and in the passage-ways. The long file moves slowly towards the deck entrance ready to move down the gangway, mothers with babies and ’
shouldered haversacks, fathers coping with toddlers and suitcases. But in many cases there is no father to help, and mothers and children manage as best they can. The women have remembered the importance of lipstick when making one’s first entrance to a new life. One emigrant wears a fur coat and a rakish beret, both cherished perhaps for years to act as morale-builders in time of crisis. But most are content with the traditional headgear of the European woman, from princess to peasant, the triangular scarf. And as they emerge into the light and freshness of the deck there is a perceptible straightening of shoulders on the part of the laden men. They turn back with instructions to their following families, and for the first time there seems something of excited urgency, the re-awakening of responsibility, in their voices. The men stride with a fair degree of confidence down the gangway. The women and children more dubiously follow.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 6
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969JOURNEY'S END New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 524, 8 July 1949, Page 6
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Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
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