All I knew at the time was that the ship was taking me away, somewhere far away over the ocean. The ship’s siren sounded again, deafening me even though I had my hands over my ears. When it was over I clutched the key around my neck, the key Kitty had given me, and I promised myself and promised her I’d come back home one day. I felt in me at that moment a sadness so deep that it has never left me since. But I felt too that just so long as I had Kitty’s key, it would be lucky for me, and I would be all right. I suppose we must have gone by way of the Suez Canal*. I know that most of the great liners bound for Australia did in those days. But I can’t say I remember it.

There’s a lot I do remember though: the three pillar-box-red funnels, the sound of the orchestra playing from first class where we weren’t allowed to go – once they even played London Bridge is Falling Down and I loved that because it always made me happy when I heard it. I remember mountainous waves, higher than the deck of the ship, green or grey, or deepest blue some days, schools of silver dancing dolphins, and always, even in the stormiest weather, seabirds skimming the waves, or floating high above the funnels. And there was the wide, wide sea all around us, going on it seemed to me for ever and ever, as wide as the sky itself. It was the wideness of it all I remember, and the stars at night, the millions of stars. But best of all I saw my first albatross. He flew out of a shining wave one day, came right over my head and looked down deep into my eyes. I’ve never forgotten that. The ship was, in a way, my first home, because it was the first home I can remember.

We slept two to a bunk, a dozen or more of us packed into each cabin, deep down in the bowels of the ship, close to the pounding rhythm of the engines. It was cramped and hot down there and reeked of diesel and damp clothes, and there was often the stench of vomit too, a lot like mine. I was in with a lot of other lads all of whom were older than me, some a lot older. I was in trouble almost from the start. They called me a “softie” because I’d rock myself to sleep at night, humming London Bridge is Falling Down, and because I cried sometimes. They gave me a hard time, a lot of grief. They’d thump me with pillows, hide my clothes, hide my shoes. But sending me to Coventry was the worst, just refusing to speak to me, not even acknowledging my existence.

I really hated them for that. They reserved this particular punishment for when I was at my most miserable, when I’d been sick in the cabin. During that whole long voyage into an uncertain future, Marty cheered my spirits. He became like a big brother to me, which was why I confided in him about Kitty, about how she’d been left behind and how much I missed her. You need people like Marty just to keep you going. Even if things don’t seem to be working out quite as you’d like them to, you need to feel they’re going to, that all will be well in the end. If you don’t believe that, and sometimes in my life I haven’t, then there’s a deep black hole waiting for you, a black hole I came to know only too well later on. *Suez Canal = a waterway connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea