‘Don’t go falling in now,’ Brynn said with a laugh, holding me by the belt.

There were streamers stretched between the boat and the dock, and on the pier a band played ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘Now is the Hour’. All around us other girls were waving too, many of them in tears. I held out one arm to Dot and with the other blew her a kiss. The sun was beginning to set over the city when, after three deep blasts of the ship’s horn, two sturdy small tugs began to pull us out to sea. Dockworkers in boats around us untied the mooring lines and I heard a few of them calling out, ‘You’ll be sorry!’ Brynn leaned over the railing and shouted, ‘No I won’t!’ to the applause of the other brides and hoots from American sailors. The last I saw of Dot was her skinny arm waving, her silhouette merging with thousands of others, a black mass of everything we were leaving behind.

•

We managed to find our way back to our cabin, where we met the others. There was Min from Perth, Barbara from Sydney and Jane who had come down from Brisbane. Barbara was pregnant, and she already looked a little green. They all seemed friendly enough, though I noticed Min liked to mention that she was an officer’s wife several times in every conversation. We had one empty bunk in the cabin on which we piled our cases.

As the boat sailed out of Sydney and through the heads, the churning made us fall silent. I lay in my bunk, holding my stomach, the porthole opened as wide as it would go. Beneath me Barbara lowed like a cow calling her calf. To move without throwing up felt impossible.

‘It will be calm once we’re through the heads,’ Min said. ‘Have a light dinner tonight, or nothing at all.’

At eight o’clock an announcement came saying it was time for dinner in the main dining room. The voice seemed to come from the sky itself, and when I jerked up in shock, nearly banging my head, Min pointed to the circle with tiny holes in the centre of the ceiling.

‘There are loudspeakers in every room that connect to the radio room, so they can make announcements and such.’

It seemed Min knew everything we didn’t. Just then there was a knock at our door and a young redheaded sailor entered. He introduced himself as Clarence, and told us he was going to be our steward and he wanted to make sure we knew where the dining room was.

I groaned. ‘I’ll stay in bed.’

‘Go on, get up,’ Clarence urged. ‘You’ll feel better with some fresh air. You don’t have to eat.’