‘Train to Winchester! Platform seven.’ A guard in a trim suit waved a small red flag. Steam billowed from beneath the engine, accompanied by the shush of the pistons.
‘Quick, let’s get on here.’ Edward tugged at Marina’s sleeve as he jumped up on to the steps of the nearest carriage. ‘We can find our seats when we’re on.’
‘Train to Portsmouth! Platform six!’ A shrill whistle blew.
Marina’s head snapped round to see the train on the next platform. The guard had started to wave his flag. Another guard was walking up the platform shutting the doors. A group of sailors suddenly started running towards an open one.
‘You go!’ Marina shook her arm from Edward’s hand. ‘I . . . I . . .’ She started to run across the platform.
‘Marina! You fathead! That’s the wrong train!’
‘For you,’ Marina shouted back. ‘But not for me!’
A guard had seen her and was waving his arm to get her to hurry up. He held the door open and pushed her up the steps, slamming the door behind her. Another whistle. The train shook, there was an enormous blast of steam and the hiss of the pistons filled her ears. They were off!
She pulled the window of the door down and waved enthusiastically to Edward, who was still standing, as if paralysed, on the steps of the Winchester train.
She laughed at his expression as a guard bundled him inside the carriage and slammed the door. ‘Have a good term, Edward,’ she called. ‘Don’t worry about me! I’m going to see my father!’
She pulled her head in: the steam was too intense. She leant against the panelling to catch her breath. She realized something extraordinary. For the first time in weeks – no, much longer than that – she felt a strange fizzing in her blood. She wouldn’t go to that wretched school just yet. How she hated having to do as grownups told her because they ‘knew best’, when it was clear that they didn’t and were just saying so to force her to go away, or not bother them, or fit in with their dull and boring plans. No more of that! She could make decisions – and very good ones they were, too – for herself.
‘So this is what it’s like,’ she said to herself, shrugging off the feeling of being told what to do like shrugging off a coat on a warm spring day, ‘to feel . . . free.’
5
As the train rocked from side to side, Marina slid open the door to the corridor and walked past the compartments. Where should she sit? The train was full of sailors, heaving their kitbags on to the luggage racks above the seats. They must be going to Portsmouth to join their ships. The men’s noisy good nature was infectious. They were behaving more as if they were going on a village outing than to board battleships.
Marina finally found an empty compartment after walking through six packed carriages. She slid open the door. It smelled of stale tobacco and plush seats heated by the sun. She wrinkled her nose as she pulled open the top of the window and sat down next to it. She took off her ridiculous boater and threw it on a seat near the door. The breeze ruffled her hair and she set herself to watching London slip away. She had done something very foolish, but she didn’t care! In a matter of hours, she would be with her father again. The thought of what might occur once she had seen him nibbled at the edges of her mind. But she pushed it away. She put her feet up on the seat opposite and leant her chin on her hand in a thoroughly grown-up pose. There was no need to worry, Marina told herself. She was thirteen next birthday! She pulled the hated ribbons out of her plaits and threw them out of the window. She shook her hair loose. She was quite the young woman now, and as such, what she thought and said was different to the babbling of a mere child. When her father saw her, he would have to listen to her. And she would have the whole train journey to perfect her plea to stay with him on board his ship. Yes. That was her plan. She would promise to work so hard that he would not be cruel enough to send her away. Her father had said that a mere girl could never join the navy. A mere girl would not be welcome on a ship. But she was no ordinary girl, after all. She was a Denham, the last in a long line of sailors and seafarers. Why couldn’t she go to sea?
The train steamed defiantly through soft green fields. This was only the second time Marina had left London in her life, and the other time she could hardly remember. Where was Edward? Her stomach gurgled and she realized that she would have enjoyed sharing his sandwiches; Ivy had not packed any for her.
‘Tickets!’
She heard the guard’s cry with alarm. She’d had no time to buy one! She only had her ticket to Winchester. She hastily took her feet off the seat opposite – what had she been thinking? – and sat up straight.
The compartment door slid open and a small, ratty-looking man peered in at her. ‘Ticket, young lady.’ He smiled, showing two large yellow teeth that would have been very useful for chewing through ropes or sacks on board a ship.
‘I’m afraid I’ve only got this one.’ Marina fished out her ticket from the waistband of her skirt and handed it to him. ‘I didn’t have time to buy a new one. I was going to school, you see. But then I saw this train and thought I could go and see my father. He’s in Portsmouth. About to leave. For Cadiz.’
The ticket collector had taken her ticket, given it a cursory glance and held it out for her to take. ‘No good for
