GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love (20 page)

When the ship had been out at sea for about a week, the relatively calm waters they had so far enjoyed began to get choppier. The boat's tipsy movements unsettled the women, and when one bride spotted a dark, inky substance in the water, the others were quick to react.

‘It's oil,' said one girl. ‘We've sprung a leak!'

‘Oh my God,' said another. ‘Maybe we've hit an iceberg, like the
Titanic
.'

‘But we're too far out now – they'll never be able to rescue us!' the first cried.

By now, other brides had crowded round and their speculations were being passed around as facts. Several girls started to cry and wail.

‘What's going on?' asked Lyn.

‘Haven't you heard? The ship's sinking!' a girl screamed at her, clearly hysterical.

Two Red Cross girls heard the commotion and realised they needed to get the situation under control.

‘Everyone down to the dining room,' one of them called.

The women protested – they weren't going to be shut away to await their deaths.

‘We will investigate and bring you information as soon as possible. Now please – go to the dining room at once.'

Reluctantly, the brides allowed themselves to be shepherded into the room, where the Red Cross calmed their nerves with tea and biscuits.

A crew member soon arrived to reassure them. ‘We haven't hit anything, and there isn't a serious leak. We lost a bit of oil when the water got rough, but we're not sinking.'

The leak might have been harmless, but the ship was going to have to reduce speed, he told them. Their arrival in America would be delayed even further.

Lyn couldn't believe it. She had just about resigned herself to a ten-day voyage instead of the five the
Queen Mary
would have taken, but now she would be at sea for almost a fortnight.

That evening everyone was quieter than usual. Some were embarrassed at having been so easily whipped up into mass hysteria, while others found it difficult to let go of the fear that had gripped them. All felt it had been a reminder of how vulnerable they were out on the open sea.

On the final night of the voyage, some of the brides staged a variety show, which they called the Tyler Follies. This was a Red Cross innovation that had rapidly spread across the war-bride fleet, assuming different names on different vessels, such as the Gibbon Gaieties or the Argentina Antics. The girls sang, danced and performed short skits – one bride even dressed up as the Statue of Liberty – and the show ended with the final communal sing-song of the voyage before the brides went their separate ways in the morning. Many exchanged addresses and promised to write, fearful at losing their sense of community and starting afresh as individuals in a huge foreign country. But after nearly two weeks at sea, all Lyn wanted was to set foot on dry land and be with Ben again.

Early on the morning of 1 April, the women gathered up on deck to see the iconic landmark that every GI bride had been waiting for: the Statue of Liberty. ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,' ran the poem around her plinth. But the huddled masses onboard the
Tyler
were not fleeing poverty or tyranny – they were there for love.

Lyn gazed at the statue in wonder. She felt she had never seen anything so magnificent.

As non-quota immigrants, the brides had no need to stop at Ellis Island, so the
Tyler
made her way up the Hudson alongside Manhattan before pulling in to dock at one of the piers, where Lyn could hear a band playing a predictable medley of tunes: ‘Sentimental Journey', ‘America the Beautiful' and ‘Here Comes the Bride'.

Now the slow business of processing the brides could begin. On arrival, responsibility for the young women was handed over to the New York chapter of the Red Cross, which had set up an office nearby. Those brides whose husbands were coming to collect them would be allowed off, while others who required transport to their final destinations on official war-bride trains would stay onboard until the following day.

Lyn was relieved that Ben was to meet her in New York. All that remained was for her name to be called over a loudspeaker, so that he could come and sign for her. She waited as a Red Cross girl called out the brides' names, working her way through the alphabet. One by one their husbands stepped forward to claim them, and the women traipsed down the gangplank.

‘Gwendolyn Patrino,' the girl called out.

Lyn waited expectantly, but there was no response from the crowd below.

‘
Gwendolyn Patrino
,' the girl repeated.

A murmur went around the women still on deck. They think I'm one of those, Lyn realised – the infamous brides whose husbands never show up, destined to live off handouts.

Lyn wanted to scream that they were wrong, but all she could do was stand there, as the girl moved on to the next name.

After the other brides had gone, the Red Cross told Lyn to wait onboard while they attempted to get hold of Ben. They were used to husbands not showing up, and had dealt with stranger cases than hers. One woman had arrived to find that her husband had divorced her, but she announced that she had an offer of marriage from another former GI and would like to go and marry him instead. The Red Cross had wired its branch in Sacramento, who contacted the man and wired back to confirm that he was willing to accept the girl. Some war brides, though, seemed to be deliberately working the system – one woman's alleged husband turned out never to have heard of her.

Later that day, one of the Red Cross girls told Lyn she had Ben on the line. Lyn rushed with her to the office and clutched the receiver to her ear.

‘Lyn, are you there?' he said.

‘Ben! Where are you?'

‘I'm at home in San Jose. I hate to tell you this, but I won't be able to come and meet you.'

Lyn felt panicked. ‘What's happened?'

‘Well, my mom says we can't afford the fare.'

‘I see,' she said guardedly. ‘So what do I do now?'

‘The Red Cross are going to put you on a train to California, and I'll meet you in Oakland,' he said. ‘It won't be long now. I think the train should take about four or five days.'

Four or five days! How could Ben's mother put her through this, after the journey she'd already endured?

‘Will you promise me one thing?' she pleaded.

‘Anything.'

‘Come to the station in your army uniform, like I remember you.'

She recalled the jibes her colleagues had made about her Italian-American turning up in a zoot suit, and she wanted to know they were wrong.

Lyn spent the night on the ship, and the next morning one of the Red Cross girls told her they had been forced to put her on an army train, since all the special war-bride trains were full. It was leaving late that evening, and she advised Lyn to take the time to rest. Lyn, however, had no intention of doing that when the whole of New York was waiting outside. She disembarked from the boat and hopped in a yellow cab, asking the driver to take her to Saks on Fifth Avenue. She had seen the famous department store in the movies and couldn't wait to experience it for herself.

‘That's forty-five cents,' the cab driver told her when he pulled up outside the store. She opened her purse and looked at the jumble of foreign currency inside – even after two weeks on an American boat she still hadn't got her head around it. She scooped up a handful of coins and held them out to the driver, hoping he was honest.

Lyn stepped out of the cab and looked around her at the huge buildings forging upwards to the sky. Across the road she saw the soaring tower of the Rockefeller Center, while a little further down the street was the magnificent cathedral of Saint Patrick. New York was more vibrant even than London, but as she watched the brightly coloured cars and smartly dressed people whiz by, she couldn't help wondering why everyone seemed to be in such a hurry.

Inside Saks, Lyn made her way to the womenswear department, where she spotted a magnificent fur coat. She tried to take it off the hanger, but found it wouldn't budge.

‘Can I help you, ma'am?' came a sharp American voice. A smartly dressed sales assistant was walking over quickly.

‘I was just going to try this coat on,' Lyn explained.

‘You can't,' she said.

‘Why not?'

The woman glared at her. ‘It's chained up to stop you from stealing it.'

‘I didn't want to steal it!' Lyn protested. ‘I just wanted to try it on.'

Her cheeks burning in humiliation, Lyn shoved the coat back onto its hanger and left.

After walking several blocks, she felt desperate to sit down, and stopped at a café on Lexington Avenue.

‘Could I get a cup of tea, please?' she asked a waiter.

‘Coming right up,' the man replied. Before long a steaming cup was plonked down in front of her.

But to her surprise it just seemed to be hot water, with a strange brown thing floating in it. ‘Excuse me,' she said, calling the waiter over, ‘I think there's something in my cup.'

‘Yeah, that's a tea bag,' he replied.

Lyn had never heard the word before. ‘Well, would you take it out and give me a cup of tea?' she asked.

‘You're a real smart alec, aren't you?' he said, and walked off angrily.

Confused, Lyn left the café and hailed a cab back to the ship. She'd already had more than her fill of the Big Apple.

As the Red Cross bus pulled up to Grand Central station, it was met by a group of angry-looking women brandishing placards. Lyn peered out of the window and was greeted with the words ‘ENGLISH WHORES GO HOME'. Charming, she thought. It seemed the war brides were about as popular among American women as the GIs had been among British men.

The brides disembarked and were taken into the train station, where they were held in a kind of pen, with tags around their necks detailing their final destination. Passers-by stopped to stare, and a few asked them to speak so they could hear their strange accents.

The other brides were soon helped onto official war-bride trains, and Lyn was put on her army train. She found herself sharing a carriage with a group of officers, including a doctor. As the only woman, Lyn felt conspicuous, but the men were kind and the doctor took her under his wing. He told her he was transporting a soldier to a psychiatric hospital in Oakland, to be treated for schizophrenia. ‘Cracked up in France,' he explained.

The soldier was held in a small compartment for the entire journey with an armed guard at the door. As Lyn tried to get to sleep that night, she couldn't help shuddering at the thought of him locked up in there.

The next day, they arrived in Chicago, where they had to change trains. Then they were on their way again, heading west across the mighty Mississippi. ‘Excuse me,' Lyn asked the porter as he passed through the carriage. ‘Would you mind knocking me up in the morning? I don't want to miss anything.'

The man stared at her for a moment, and then a cheeky smile spread across his face. ‘Sure thing, ma'am,' he replied.

Throughout the journey Lyn remained glued to the window, watching the giant continent pass by, hypnotised by mile after mile of lonely, empty space and amazed by how big it was. She saw the landscape outside change, from the corn fields of Iowa to the wild barren prairies of Nebraska. Every night she asked the porter to knock her up in the morning, and every time he would say ‘Yes, ma'am' with the same cheeky smile.

When the train pulled into Cheyenne, Wyoming, Lyn was astonished to see an American Indian. He was a member of the Arapaho tribe, and had long dark hair and a traditional necklace. Many war brides viewed their first Indian with fear, having grown up on cowboy movies in which they were wild, scalping villains – one bride had crouched on the floor of her carriage in terror, convinced that a man dancing for some tourists was on the warpath. But Lyn had no such worries and, inquisitive as ever, she took her camera and ran straight up to the man. ‘Excuse me,' she said. ‘Are you an Indian, like in the movies?'

‘I am,' the man replied solemnly.

‘A real Indian?'

The man nodded.

‘Could I take your photograph?'

‘No,' he snapped, and walked off.

Lyn returned to the train disappointed. ‘That Indian wouldn't let me take his picture!' she complained to the officers in her carriage.

‘That's their custom,' one of them replied. ‘They don't allow photographs.'

‘Oh,' said Lyn. ‘I see.' But she couldn't help feeling a little annoyed.

The train passed through the deserts of Utah and Nevada, until finally Lyn was awoken one morning by the usual knock on her door and told they were now in California. ‘Thank you so much,' she told the porter. ‘I wanted to give you this.' She handed him a crisp dollar bill. ‘It's for knocking me up every morning.'

The man smiled more than ever. ‘Thank you, ma'am,' he replied. ‘Oh, and when you see your husband, I want you to tell him that the porter knocked you up every morning, and you gave him a tip for it.'

‘All right,' Lyn replied innocently. ‘I will.'

The lush California landscape was a welcome change of scene for Lyn after the stark, alien desert of Nevada, but her mind was not really on the scenery. She had travelled nearly 3,000 miles from coast to coast across America, almost as great a distance as she had crossing the Atlantic, and there was only one thing she wanted to see: Ben.

As the train pulled into Oakland station, she rushed to the door of her carriage, straining to catch a glimpse of her husband on the platform. There he was, clutching a huge bunch of flowers – and he was wearing his old army uniform, just as she had asked.

Lyn threw open the train door and ran into his arms.

‘Thank God you're finally here,' he said. Lyn was so overcome with emotion she couldn't reply.

‘Here,' he said, handing her the flowers. ‘These are to say sorry I wasn't able to meet you in New York. And I've got something else for you.' He took out a small box containing the engagement and wedding rings that had made their way back and forth across the Atlantic so many times. As he slipped them onto her finger, Lyn wished her old colleagues were there to see that, after all, Ben had proved as good as his word.