Goodnight from London Read online

  When she’d stepped on board the Sinbad in Halifax harbor, Ruby had been brimming with excitement at the adventures that awaited her: an ocean crossing, life in a new country, and demanding work at an exciting job. Within hours of leaving port, however, she had succumbed to seasickness, and it hadn’t been the sort of vaguely unwell, delicately nauseous feeling that she’d always imagined when thinking of such a malady. It was a stomach-emptying, life-draining thing, her entire body trying to turn itself inside out, her world reduced to the bunk on which she was marooned and the bucket sitting next to it.

  Today, however, she felt like she might just survive. Her head wouldn’t stop pounding, likely because she hadn’t been able to sit up for days and days, but it was worth it, if only because from this new perspective she could see out of her window. The view was nothing more than clear gray skies, and here and there a wisp of cloud far above, but it was a pleasant sight all the same.

  The knock sounded again. “Come in, Davey,” she called out.

  Davey Eccles was the Sinbad’s youngest and hardest-working steward’s boy. Only sixteen, he’d joined the merchant marine after leaving school two years before, and had served on three different ships already. His previous ship had been better, he’d explained, but it was laid up for repairs and he’d been restless after a week in a seaman’s hostel in Liverpool. When a position had come up on the Sinbad, Davey had signed on for the dangerous North Atlantic route without thinking twice.

  “I thought about joining the navy, but my dad wants me to stay in the merchant marine, just like him and Granddad, so I’ll do my bit here.”

  “Aren’t you afraid?” she’d asked.

  “Aren’t we all? Not as if Liverpool is safe, nor anywhere else in England, I expect. Besides, it’s hard to be scared when you’re busy with work.”

  And it was dangerous work. German U-boats were making a feast of ships in the Atlantic that summer, for the convoys stretched many miles from end to end, and it was impossible for the naval warships guarding them to be everywhere at once.

  Yet there was no question of halting the convoys, for they were the lifeline keeping Britain afloat and undefeated. Passengers like Ruby were incidental to the convoys’ true cargo: food, fuel, and war matériel from the Empire, and the enemy regarded every ship as fair game. If there were a more dangerous place to work in the summer of 1940, Ruby couldn’t imagine where it would be.

  Davey alone had seen to her well-being when she’d become sick, and if it hadn’t been for his visits with weak tea, dry toast, and ample supplies of fresh sheets and towels, she was sure her lifeless body would have been slung overboard long ago.

  “Look at you, sitting up already! You must be feeling better today.”

  “I am, thanks. I slept well, too.”

  “That’ll put roses in your cheeks. Here’s some breakfast for you. I had a feeling you’d be better this morning, so I brought some porridge with your tea and toast.”

  Ruby tried not to look at the porridge, since even thinking about it made her stomach churn, and not because of the seasickness. She’d eaten porridge once a day at St. Mary’s, sometimes twice when there wasn’t anything else for supper, and when she’d left the orphanage for good, she’d vowed she would never eat it again. She would starve before touching the stuff, but there was no reason to hurt Davey’s feelings by saying so.

  “Thank you. This looks great. Any news this morning?”

  After learning that Ruby was a journalist, Davey had made it his mission to share with her every scrap of information that came in over the wires and the ship’s radio. When France had surrendered to Germany a little more than a week ago, he had woken her in the middle of the night, certain she would want to know.

  “Nothing more from France,” he said now. “Hitler’s been to visit Paris—but I told you that already, didn’t I?”

  “Mmph,” Ruby answered, her mouth full of toast.

  “Let’s see . . . they’ve started bombing England farther north. The Germans, that is. I think they’re trying to knock out the factories in the Midlands. At least, that’s what the admiral was saying when I brought him his morning tea.”

  “Where are the Midlands?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure how you’d describe them. North of London but not as far north as Manchester? With Birmingham in the middle? I grew up on the south coast, in Portsmouth, so I’ve never been there myself.”

  “Was anyone killed?”

  “Admiral Fountaine didn’t say. D’you need any fresh towels or linens?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine for now. Thank you again, Davey.”

  “It’s no trouble at all, miss. I’ll come again in an hour to collect your tray.”

  Ruby finished off her tea and toast at leisure, and when she still felt well a half hour later, she inched off her bunk and crossed to the window for a proper look outside. It was a very small window, and fogged with salt after nearly two weeks at sea, but she could see out of it well enough.

  It wasn’t quite as dull outside as she’d thought earlier, for the sea was darkly blue, glittering brightly as it swirled and broke into eddied waves, and the sky itself was growing ever more dazzling as the sun arched higher into the morning. Davey had warned her there would be no sign of land until they were practically on top of Liverpool, so she didn’t fret at the endless horizon now, nor did she allow herself to scan the restless ocean for evidence of U-boats.

  When she’d been seasick, the days had swirled together in a shapeless morass of misery, and it had come as a surprise, when she’d finally found the strength to sit up and keep down a few sips of broth, to discover they’d already been at sea for ten days. Usually, Davey informed her, the Atlantic crossing was far shorter, but their ship was part of a convoy, and could only travel as fast as the slowest ship in their group.

  Back in New York, she’d been surprised when Mr. Peterson’s secretary, who handled travel arrangements for the staff, had explained the indirect route she’d be taking for the journey to England. First Ruby would board an express train to Boston, then change to an overnight train to Halifax. From there, she’d make the crossing on a vessel that was part of the next convoy of troop ships and freighters leaving for England.

  Ruby had known better than to ask if the magazine would be flying her over, for a one-way airplane ticket to England cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. All the same, she had hoped there’d be room for her on a passenger liner sailing directly from New York.

  “Too expensive,” Miss Gavin had said flatly. “And none of them are going to England, anyway. Far too dangerous. Here are your tickets—do you have somewhere safe to put them?—and here’s your passport.”

  The day before her departure, her colleagues at The American had treated her to an impromptu farewell party, and even Mr. Mitchell had stopped by for a slice of cake and a paper cup of rye-laden punch. As a farewell gift, they’d given her a brand-new Kodak Baby Brownie camera, which one of the staff photographers had insisted on showing her how to use, and a dozen spools of film. The fuss had been embarrassing, but at least no one had tried to make a speech.

  Ruby knew only a few of her neighbors at the boardinghouse, since she was never home for meals and Mrs. Hirsch two doors down, the one person who had ever bothered to talk to her, had died of cancer a year ago. Ruby had never met the woman who’d moved into the vacant room.

  Although Ruby had lived there for nearly three years, it had only taken her an hour to pack. Everything she had fit into one good-sized suitcase, since she’d never been one for knickknacks and didn’t have any keepsakes beyond a few photographs. The one thing she owned that she really and truly cared about—the sole possession she’d risk her life to save in a fire—was her Underwood Universal typewriter, and only because it had taken her almost a year to pay off in weekly installments.

  On the advice of Betty and some of the other girls at work, she’d filled a second suitcase with stockings, soap, cold cream, bobby pins, chocolate bars, and thr
ee jars of peanut butter, all things they assured her were impossible to find in England.

  She’d left New York with as little fanfare as when she’d moved there almost six years earlier, taking the train up the coast and across the border into Canada, finally ending up in Halifax. She’d waited three days as the convoy’s ships were loaded and assembled, and she’d had a little taste of the war there, too, for the city had a blackout in place at night and some things, like fresh eggs and sugar, were getting scarce.

  At last she’d been summoned from the hotel, a grand place just crawling with Canadian naval officers, and taken out to the Sinbad on a tender boat, and she was glad, now, that she hadn’t known then how sick she would be in a few hours. Otherwise she never would have left dry land.

  THEY DOCKED IN Liverpool less than forty-eight hours later. There was time for one last, hurried breakfast, brought to her cabin before the sun was up, and Davey lingered awhile, reluctant to say goodbye.

  “You’re sure you know where to go?” he asked her for at least the third time that morning.

  “I think so. Down to the landing stage, then to customs, then to the railway station. Right?”

  “Right. Don’t forget to buy a through ticket for Euston, otherwise you’ll have to queue up all over again. Do you have enough for the fare?”

  “The woman who made my travel arrangements back home gave me five pounds. Will that be enough?”

  “Enough to get you there and back again twice over. You’ll go to Edge Hill first, then change for Lime Street, then to Euston. Can you remember all that or do you want to write it down?”

  She smiled to reassure him. “I’ll remember. Oh—I’m supposed to call the magazine where I’ll be working.”

  “Do you have any coins for the telephone?”

  “No, but they said I could reverse the charges.”

  “Then it’s easy,” he reassured her. “Tell the operator before you give her the number and she’ll sort it out. There’s a row of telephone kiosks in the main hall at Lime Street. And there’ll be porters to help with your things, so don’t try to carry everything yourself.”

  “I won’t.” She held out her hand for him to shake and then, since they were alone and she had become very fond of him, pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. “Thank you again, Davey, for everything.”

  “You’re very welcome. You should know, well, you’re a . . . a grand girl, Miss Sutton,” he said, his voice catching. “I wish you well.”

  Her heart had turned over at his words, for he was such a nice boy and she couldn’t stand the thought of him going back to sea again in a few days and playing cat-and-mouse with the Germans all the way back to Canada. He was so young, and he’d had to grow up far too quickly. So she said goodbye to him and turned away before she embarrassed them both by getting all weepy and sentimental.

  She was off the ship and through to the train station before she even had a chance to feel nervous. With thousands disembarking from the convoy that morning, the customs officers seemed intent on keeping the line moving, and apart from a cursory glance at her passport and a stamp recording her entrance to the United Kingdom, no one so much as asked for her name. Only then did she stop holding her breath.

  Davey had explained everything so clearly that she had no trouble navigating the route from one train station to the next. The telephone booths were just where he’d said they would be, and all she had to do was give the operator her name and the number at Picture Weekly and wait for someone to answer.

  A woman with a brisk, no-nonsense sort of voice came on the line after only a few seconds, and when Ruby introduced herself and told her which train she’d be arriving on, the woman promised someone would be there to meet her.

  Ruby was lucky enough to snag a window seat on the crowded train, and it provided a glorious view of England in high summer. It was the greenest countryside she had ever seen, and as soon as they’d left Liverpool behind, that’s what it really seemed to be—nothing but mile after mile of fields and low fieldstone walls and impossibly picturesque villages. Every so often, a town would appear out of nowhere, a stark island of brick and masonry amid verdant seas of green.

  The towering canyons of New York City’s grand avenues had been strange and unfamiliar, too, when she had left New Jersey for Manhattan six long years ago. She’d been nervous and unsure of herself then, just as she was now, but she had conquered her fears. Against all odds, she had made something of herself, and she would do so again. No matter what awaited her in London, she would prove Sister Benedicta wrong.

  “EUSTON! LONDON EUSTON! End of the line, ladies and gents—London Euston!”

  Ruby woke with a start. The other people in her compartment were on their feet, reaching to retrieve their bags and cases from the overhead racks, and the platform outside was bustling with departing passengers. With a suitcase in each hand, her typewriter case slung over one shoulder, and her handbag in the crook of her free arm, Ruby lurched onto the platform and, shuffling, made her way along to the barrier. A guard was waiting to take her ticket, and when she didn’t manage to retrieve it in time, she had to stand aside and dig through her pockets to find the silly thing.

  “Miss Sutton?”

  She looked up, astonished that the guard would know her name, and realized that another man, just on the other side of the barrier, had spoken to her. He wore the uniform of a British army officer and held a neatly printed sign that read MISS R. SUTTON.

  “I’m Ruby Sutton,” she volunteered.

  “I’m Captain Bennett. Walter Kaczmarek asked me to meet you.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  Captain Bennett was at least a head taller than her and looked to be in his early thirties, although Ruby was terrible at guessing people’s ages. He had a disconcertingly direct gaze and a handshake to rival that of a circus strongman.

  “Kaz and I are friends, and Tuesdays are his busiest day,” he explained. “I happened to be in town and at loose ends, so he asked me to fetch you from the station. Is that all your things? You don’t have a trunk to follow?”

  “No. This is it.”

  “Very well.” He turned to the guard, his brow creasing into a frown. “Let her through, will you?” Although it was posed as a question, his tone indicated otherwise.

  “Oh, yes, sir,” the guard replied, and obligingly waved Ruby past the barrier.

  “Give me your cases, then,” Captain Bennett said. “I’ve a car waiting for us outside.”

  He led them past the line for taxis at the station exit, instead approaching a car that was parked at the curb a few yards away. The driver got out, grumbling a little, and came around to take Ruby’s suitcases. “Took your time there. Said you’d only be five minutes.”

  “Sorry. Miss Sutton’s train was running late.”

  She got in the cab, still clutching her typewriter in its case, and the driver steered them away from the station.

  “How was the crossing?” Captain Bennett asked.

  “A blur. I was sick for most of it. But the convoy wasn’t attacked, so I can’t complain.”

  “I suppose not,” he agreed.

  “Where are we going?”

  “The Manchester Hotel. That’s where you’ll be lodging. They’ve plenty of other boarders, and it’s clean and safe. Not very grand, though.”

  “I don’t care how nice it is, just as long as my bed stays put when I lie down on it.”

  The corner of his mouth began to curl into a smile, but then, as if thinking better of it, he smoothed his features into an expression of sober neutrality. “I promise it will.”

  Turning her head to look out the window, Ruby couldn’t help but marvel at the passing streetscape. Unlike the ordered grid of upper Manhattan, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the arrangement of the roads they passed, and hardly any of the buildings she saw were more than three or four stories tall. It was quieter, too, with scarcely any traffic compared to New York. Most of the vehicles s
he saw were taxis or delivery trucks, though there was no shortage of horse-drawn wagons, and darting to and fro were any number of people on bicycles.

  She glanced back at Captain Bennett. He had closed his eyes, perhaps glad of a moment of peace in his day. She had to admit, now she could stare without fear of his noticing, that he was as handsome as a movie star, with short-cropped hair that would probably curl if he let it grow a bit, and a high-bridged nose that wouldn’t have been out of place on a Roman senator. The sweep of his long eyelashes couldn’t camouflage the shadows under his eyes, though, or the echo of fatigue that was written across his features. This was a man who was tired down to his bones, and if she’d known him any better—or had he been an interview subject— she’d have insisted on discovering why.

  He opened his eyes just then, as if he could feel the weight of her regard, and when he turned to meet her gaze, she realized they were a dark and quite mesmerizing shade of blue. “Is it very different here?” he asked softly.

  “From New York? I guess so. You don’t go in much for skyscrapers, do you?”

  “Not so much,” he agreed.

  “Have you ever been to New York?”

  “No. I’ve never been to America. Although I always wanted to go. After the war, perhaps.”

  Their car turned a corner and drew to a halt in front of a large, dark building. “Manchester Hotel,” announced the driver.

  “Right, then. Here we are,” said Captain Bennett. “Your new home awaits.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  While Captain Bennett paid the driver and gathered up her bags, Ruby assessed the exterior of her new home. The name of her lodgings had conjured up visions of a grand manor house, but the Manchester was a gloomy pile of soot-stained bricks that looked more like a prison than a hotel. Her spirits sinking, Ruby followed him inside.

  “Good evening,” he said to the woman at the front desk. “This is Miss Sutton. There should be a reservation for her—it may be under Picture Weekly. She’s just arrived from America.”