SERVICE WIVES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23707, 14 January 1939, Page 7

SERVICE WIVES

By C: R. Allen

Fresh from? a perusal- of Mr Charles Morgan’s remarkable play, “The Flashing Stream,” wherein the relations between a naval mathematician' and his beloved are subtly treated, one muses upon the infinite variety of variants upon the Judy O’Grady theme.

The colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady. Are sisters under their skin/ wrote;-Kipling in times .past, and 1 imesi„,dd • not - change in the matter of thei v ’S|e*vi6cs land its wives. Although x *iThe Flashing Stream ” does not end With wedding hells, one, can hardly doubt that Ferrars, the sailor at work upon aerial torpedoes, and Karen Selby, the sister of his dead collaborator, are in for it till death do-them part. Mr Morgan,, like Mr. Shaw, proffers a long preface to his play, which is published by Messrs-Macmillan. He claims that Karen . Selby, a mathematician, like her lover Ferrary presents a point of view that has hot been projected upon the stage for a hundred years. As played by Margaret Rawlings to the Ferrars of .Mr Godfry Tearle, Karen‘S i appeal* must surely,/, belabelled otherwise than “ sex.” *Th an almost unique sense 4 she was an helpmeet for this man of imagination and mathematical genius. She would take her place in that class which presents subtly a common disparities great as those'Which existed between, the colonel’s, lady and Judy O’Grady. Remain in a coastal town of any size in any part of his Majesty’s'dominions, and but be aware of the repurrehb phenomenon of the captains' lady* the commander’s lady,, the gunnery; lieutenant’s lady, the “ torps ” lady; and so on down the vistas of rank till one comes to the ratings. These are the women who display the same resource which Stevens, the war correspondent, noted in the retachment of naval gunners who helped |o defend Ladysmith.; ; It is, something’ akin ‘ to' the . i;e?ou,r lcefiilness .... of the “Swiss'v’Family ; Robinson” They are wanderers.on. the face of the narth, -thesc.-iervice ’ wives,?, but wherever they;; go they seem to bring a breath of Pny° n with ’them. At, least it sd seems to the conventionally miiided Whose. ideas Vj6f. the Navy-, are coloured by; the works- of Bartimaeus and; that popular musical comedy from’ Daly’s,; in which,, the ■, late t mydri I Coffin) sang of a sailor’s life, and/Miss Evie Green displaced the sailor's heart with praise qf Devon,. 4 ■'; > V In •’Devon', according;' .to the coloured almanac,' the r sailor’s ; . wife remain* while her : man sails the Seven Seas/ Bartimaeus has given us the history bt''tWo ; letters postedfrom a little'office beside a red road in the - county of Uncle Tom Cobbley.; The consignor of the first letter), wore a smart tailor-made costume. The consignee read his letter on the quarter deck, if one may read one’s private correspondence in such a place. The second letter was posted by a girl with’ a shawl oven her head, and Was read by an . able seaman in whatever part of a ship able seamen are permitted to read letters. It is improbable, however, that the lady in the tailor-made would remain in Devon Were her man to be transferred to the Australian station. One feels a little .vague about the New Zealand, fleet unit, of which so much was spokenjahd?.written in, pre-war days. Should her husband ultimately find himself in command of /a sloop or a cruiser operating an jNew Zealand waters, she would fblfpw him in his wake and establish one of those homes .which are never quite homes, because over the lintel there seems to. hover that angel of unrest with- whom no /'sailor has dealt until he has taken his fourth •tripe and definitely retired. Such things the landlubber learns or j divines. With the professional soldier in the Antipodes •it is not, quite the same.: Colonel Woolcott, it is true, is a fictitious figure, but Ethel Turner might well have drawn him from the life. “ Misrule, ’’ where ithef seven little Australians grew sip 4 had all. the appurtenances of home. It was a Teal home from which Judy ran away, and the little harassed mother did not appear to have the wandering temperament. Onfe can recall a major in the Ghurkas lent .to the defence department playing with his ch ildren on a neighbouring lawn. He had won the; Victoria Cross somewhere, but his) only son seemed to have inherited a constitutional timidity. It

may have come from the mother’s side, which embraced, a minor poet. The mother was ‘ the daughter of a (Harley, street specialist who had been knigpted for hiS'Services to medicine or surgery; The m inor poet, who bore the same name, was not similarly recognised for his services to literature. What one does recall are the shouts of the father and children at play oh the lawn. One imagines the father was endeavouring to exorcise the constitutional lack of elan in 1 his son, but the little home was no abiding place. It was, one supposes, in the eyes'of that exemplary wife a transition' from an Indian bungalow to some final bourne at Cheltenham or Chelsea. We postulate for most people some kind of background. For the service wife that background ■is the ship or the : rejgiment. The ark of the convenant' moves from place to place. SO- it will be, one imagines, with, this latest pair of lovers to catch the imagination of the- London, playgoer. They have no abiding city, - but they seek one to come.