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Sunday 26th September 1940. My fourteenth birthday! This was celebrated with a birthday cake at teatime when I had to blow out the candles as the waiters surrounding me sang Happy Birthday. In the evening we were invited to a concert put on by the troops in their quarters. At first I was apprehensive about attending, because I didn’t like the thought of facing all those officers and possibly being whistled at again, but thankfully the soldiers behaved well and I very much enjoyed the programme which o am sure had been put together bearing in mind that young ladies would be present. The standard of those performing was remarkably high and there was a great deal of talent amongst them and also a lot of laughter coming from all the boys. We were invited to several more concerts after that, which we thoroughly enjoyed and which helped to break the monotony of the long weeks on board.

During those long hot days there was very little to do apart from trying to keep cool in the little swimming pool, so I spent much of my time lying on a lounger reading in a quiet corner of the deck reserved for civilian passengers. At the end of it was a barrier between our section and the area crowded with the soldiers. Sometimes when they saw me they would wave and whistle or call out to me, and I was too scared to respond, but one day, plucking up courage, I wandered over to have a chat with them. They were so closely packed on deck that I felt sorry for them and guilty that I was travelling in such luxury, especially when they told me that they were sleeping in hammocks below decks. On the occasions I talked with them, I found they were fascinated to learn that I had been born and brought up in India, and they wanted me to tell them all about it. As I talked to them and listened to their light-hearted joking amongst themselves, I was upset as I thought that this would possibly be a one way journey for so many of them. They had all been issued with tropical kit, wit included a topee (pith helmet), and I was surprised to discover that the seemed unaware of their exact destination apart from knowing that they were going to the Far East. This was probably due to the strict security and high alert conditions that were in force throughout the voyage.

It was not long after my talks with them, that little notes started to appear under my cabin door. One read: ‘Dear Miss, I enjoyed our chat today. Please meet me by lifeboat No.6 after supper tonight. I’ll be waiting there for you. Love from John.’ This puzzled me, as I had no idea who John was, there must have been many with that name, and being naïve I hadn’t any idea why anyone should want to meet me there. When I asked mother about this she was not forthcoming on the matter, and just told me to ignore them. During the following weeks more notes from different soldiers appeared and I became increasingly puzzled as to what I should do about it and wondered who could be delivering them seeing as our cabins were out of bounds to the troops. When one of them read, ‘Dear Duchess, please meet me at the rendezvous I arranged. I have waited there for you every night and still you don’t come, why? Love from Jim’. I was determined to find out what was going on.

Our cabin had been allotted a steward and a cabin boy, a rather saucy young man whose duty it was to care for our cabin and prepare our baths; a service I was not happy with because he was always hovering around me saying, ‘Can I prepare your bath now Miss?’ I t occurred to me that he might have had something to do with the notes I was receiving. When I questioned him about them, he admitted he was responsible for delivering them. I was so annoyed that I threatened to report him, but he apologised and promised not to do it again. All the same, I felt sorry for those men who had been sending them. Obviously I couldn’t do anything about their requests, but was curious to know why I had been nicknamed ‘The Duchess’. Eventually I discovered this was because I often ignored soldiers who called out to me when I passed their decks, which led them to think I was being aloof and unfriendly. Little did they know it was because I was scared stiff of all those strange men around me, and with five thousand of them on board, I felt totally overwhelmed.

Claire reminded me of a tragedy that happened to one of the passengers travelling with us. This poor mother had five children including a baby to look after on her own and always appeared to be having problems keeping track of them, especially her eldest boy who could always been seen climbing on everything. Claire was six years old at the time, and remembers joining them in the shipboard activities organised for the children. The distraught mother had evidently made an idle threat that if the children didn’t behave themselves in the cabin she would push them out through the porthole. One day she had left them in the cabin with the baby for a short while, and when it wouldn’t stop crying the children had pushed it out through the cabin porthole and it had fallen into the sea. One can imagine her horror when she returned to find her baby gone. Everyone felt desperately sorry for this grief stricken young mother, so some of the passengers rallied round to help her with the children.

Whilst sitting reading in my usual quiet spot on the deck, I often saw a fine looking young sailor smartly dressed in naval uniform, smiling at me whilst sanding the ships teakwood deck rails. He was about twenty years old, six foot tall and well built, with thick dark wavy hair and piercing blue eyes. I had always tried to avoid his gaze, but ion this occasion I couldn’t because he was working so close to me, so I said ‘Hello’. He returned my greeting, and said his name was Jock Devine and that he came from Lanarkshire. He was curious to know how I came t be travelling to India on a troopship, so I told him and we talked about India. Having never been there before he was interested to know more about it. Since joining the Orion, its usual route had been between England and Australia, so for him this voyage was something of an adventure. After this meeting, he often sought me out and we talked about his life at sea, and he enjoyed listening to my tales about India.

As we travelled on towards our next port of call, Cape Town, we were closely escorted by, what mother refereed to I her diary as ‘our Dutch cruiser’. Its constant presence over so many weeks had helped to give us a sense of security and comfort. Several says after leaving Freetown there was great consternation amongst all the passengers when a three funnelled ship appeared on the horizon, because no one knew whether it was friendly or not. As it drew closer we were puzzled as to why it steered such a circuitous route towards us. People were starting to fear that it might be an enemy ship after all. The tension mounted as the Dutch cruiser moved away and appeared to be steaming towards it. Could it be going to engage with it? We were still in a state of High Alert with blackout restrictions every night and knew we were still highly vulnerable form U-boat attacks at any time. As this huge ship came closer, I saw through my binoculars that it was a naval vessel with a seaplane on its decks. Everyone was relieved to discover it was a cruiser that had come to take over the escort duty of our Dutch one. We were sorry to see it sail away over the horizon after it had afforded us protection for so long.

Once the new escort had joined us, our speed increased tremendously and I wondered why, so asked the ship’s officer. He informed me our ship was running behind schedule and the Dutch cruiser had not been capable of increasing its speed to enable us to catch-up with the convoy that we had been travelling with at the start of our voyage, which was waiting for us in Cape Town. As I reflect on the enormity of the operation that was involved in getting that vast number of troops to the Far East in safety, I marvel that our voyage was completed with such efficiency and without a major incident. We discovered later that several of the other ships in our convoy had been sunk by the U boats that had been trailing us all the way, in spite of the formidable naval escort, so we were very lucky.

Two days later heavy seas hit us again and it grew much colder as we journeyed south. There was no one on deck, as the other passengers would be found sitting around the fires in the lounge. We had certainly experienced the extremes of the weather conditions on this trip, from steamy sweltering heat to freezing gale force winds, and I wondered what lay in store for us, as there were still several more weeks to go before we reached our destination. As we were nearing Cape Town and this would be the first time that we would be setting our feet on dry land after such a long time at sea, the troops celebrated the event with another concert to which we were invited. I sensed an air of joyful anticipation and relief amongst them, which was reflected in the various acts that were performed, some of which were hilarious and greeted with a roar of laughter form the boys. There was one skit that I still remember entitled ‘The Little Green-eyed Goddess from Kathmandu’, with one of the boys dressed like a Nepalese goddess and the other like a peasant, which must have been based on some poem. The dialogue was so amusing that it was almost drowned by the laughter that it produced. Following that we were treated to a beautiful rendering of Mendelssohn’s Moonlight Sonata played by a very talented pianist. To end the concert we all joined in the lusty singing of some of the wartime songs such as, ‘We’ll meet again’, and ‘Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye’.

After the concert, the Captain invited us to a special ‘Landfall Dinner’. I have kept that evening’s menu, signed by some of the ship’s officers and crew as a memento of that special occasion. After dinner most of the passengers danced to a live band but I preferred to walk on deck in the cool of the evening.

I was up very early the following morning and went up on deck to find there was great excitement on board as the distinctive shape of Table Mountain in Cape Town came into view. As we approached the port, I was amazed to see so many naval ships moored alongside great ocean liners packed tightly with troops. We steamed slowly passed them to our berth, to loud cheering and frantic waving as they welcomed us. Because of our delayed arrival, we were told to our great disappointment that we would only be allowed to spend half a day ashore. The ships that were in our first convoy and had steamed away leaving us alone to return to Scotland, had been in Cape Town for a week awaiting our arrival and enjoying the hospitality of the folk there who had held street parties for them and welcomed them into their homes, and a great time had been had by all. We were given the choice of either going up Table Mountain or taking a tour around the Garden Route and visiting an ostrich farm. Seeing that the mountain had its famous tablecloth of cloud on the top so there would be no panoramic view, we chose the tour.
This story was submitted to the People’s War site by Vijiha Bashir, at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland on behalf of Justine Dowley Wise and has been added to the site with her permission. The author fully understands the site’s terms and conditions.

It was a lovely sunny day, and good to be on dry land again after all those weeks at sea. As we were driven through the city, we were amazed by the way in which it was decorated to welcome the troops. Everywhere were flags, bunting and banners with welcoming slogans. We were quite disappointed to have missed all the celebrations that had been laid on by the local’s people who had turned out to greet them. The following day it was time to depart and once again we watched all those ships manoeuvring into their positions in our convoy in preparation for the last stretch of the voyage to Bombay.

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