Chapter 11
Lucy’s accident was only the beginning. The following day, Thaddy, one of the little Irish boys, fell and split his lip. A week later, one of the single girls sprained her ankle. They had an outbreak of lice in steerage. No matter how often Alf swept, he couldn’t rid the deck of the pests. He spent his days explaining the benefits of a washing in a basin beneath the pump, the need to air bedding, to change linen regularly; his evenings listening to the restless timbre of people’s voices. For as the temperature rose, so did people’s tempers. They had raised fists among the single men, complaints about hygiene from the after part of the deck while mothers bewailed compulsory salt-water baths, laundry soap that didn’t lather, and the paucity of their water rations. Alf didn’t dare
