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day Jean was running a temperature and Shirley didn’t like to leave her. But each time she was with him seemed to mark some unstated confirmation of what was between them. When she had left him, she would catch the now familiar smell of him on her own skin—that male smell of sweat and cigarettes. It was intimate and disturbing.
    He was by way of talking a lot to the sailors and so knew about the ship’s course. He told her that they had now entered the Mozambique Channel; there was land on either side, but miles and miles away so you’d never know it, with nothing but sea to be seen, as always. And it was not that long now till they would reach Cape Town. Once there, he had to get the soldiers to their hospitals and convalescent homes, and then he could start his leave: “Where will you be? How will I find you?”
    She wasn’t sure. Mrs. Leech had talked about this pension she had heard of that sounded perfect—“Marvelous food, and run by an English couple.” Shirley would try to get the name of it tomorrow.
    â€œThat’s good.” His arm was round her. There were people not far away along the deck, but it was so dark you couldn’t tell who anyone was until you were close up. And anyway, even if Mrs. Leech appeared—so what? I’m doing nothing wrong, she thought, I’ve a perfect right. It surprised her that she could think like this.
    The feel of him was all over her, later on, when she got into her bunk. His voice was still in her head, so that she hardly heard Nanny Clavering nattering away about the state the toilets were in. He said, “Good night,” again and again, as she lay there on the brink of sleep. “Good night. Take care. Tomorrow—yes?”
    She dreamed. She dreamed of porpoises, slicing through the dark water, and of a mermaid on a rock, like in Jean’s book, and of Alan Baker. And then something invaded the dreams—a crash, a great distant rumbling noise, she was being shaken around, her body was juddering.
    The alarm bell pitched her wide awake. She seemed to have slept for no time at all, but her watch said half past three. The bell was loud, penetrating; Nanny Clavering was sitting up in her bunk saying it was perfectly disgraceful having a lifeboat drill in the middle of the night.
    As soon as Shirley was standing she felt that there was something not right; the throb of the ship’s engine felt urgent, erratic, and the slant of the floor was odd.
    She said, “It’s not a drill. Get dressed. Get Jamie dressed.”
    They had had lifeboat drills several times. You knew what to do. You knew where your lifeboat station was; you knew that you had to dress in warm clothing, put on life jackets, take only essentials with you. You knew that you had to move quickly and calmly to the correct station. She dressed Jean first, then herself, putting on their thick jerseys. Then she got their life jackets on, properly tied. She had to help Nanny Clavering, who was getting in a state. She took Jean’s little seed-pearl necklace, which she wore to parties, and her own charm bracelet and her silver filigree brooch from the Mouski, and her passport, and put them in her bag along with the Nivea cream and the bottle of Milk of Magnesia and the iodine and the mercurochrome and some handkerchiefs and a box of plasters. When the others were ready she opened the cabin door and got them all out into the corridor.
    It was filling up with people, everyone trying to get to the stairways. Some people had suitcases. Mrs. Leech’s cabin was back toward the end, and to get to it they would have to push against the crowd, so Shirley decided they must go straight to the boat station on the promenade deck and meet up with Mrs. Leech and Mrs. Clavering there.
    They were on the stairs when there was a tremendous thump. The ship lurched and all the lights went out. There was a series of muffled bangs, and now this pungent, acrid smell.