As the Crow Flies

On the evening before he was due to sail, Daniel bought twenty more postcards and sat up until one in the morning filling them in. By the twentieth his imagination had been stretched to its limit. The following morning, after he had settled his bill, he asked the head porter to mail one of the postcards every three days until he returned. He handed over ten dollars and promised the porter that there would be a further ten when he came back to San Francisco, but only if the correct number of cards remained, as precisely when he would be back remained uncertain.

The senior porter was puzzled but pocketed the ten dollars, commenting in an aside to his young colleague on the desk that he had been asked to do far stranger things in the past, for far less.

By the time Daniel boarded the SS Aorangi his beard was no longer a rough stubble and his plan was as well prepared as it could be, given that his information had been gathered from the wrong side of the globe. During the voyage Daniel found himself seated at a large circular table with an Australian family who were on their way home from a holiday in the States. Over the next three weeks they added greatly to his store of knowledge, unaware that he was listening to every word they had to say with uncommon interest.

Daniel sailed into Sydney on the first Monday of August 1947. He stood out on the deck and watched the sun set behind Sydney Harbour Bridge as a pilot boat guided the liner slowly into the harbor. He suddenly felt very homesick and, not for the first time, wished he had never embarked on the trip. An hour later he had left the ship and booked himself into a guest house which had been recommended to him by his traveling companions.

The owner of the guest house, who introduced herself as Mrs. Snell, turned out to be a big woman, with a big smile and a big laugh, who installed him into what she described as her deluxe room. Daniel was somewhat relieved that he hadn’t ended up in one of her ordinary rooms, because when he lay down the double bed sagged in the center, and when he turned over the springs followed him, clinging to the small of his back. Both taps in the washbasin produced cold water in different shades of brown, and the one naked light that hung from the middle of the room was impossible to read by, unless he stood on a chair directly beneath it. Mrs. Snell hadn’t supplied a chair.

When Daniel was asked the next morning, after a breakfast of eggs, bacon, potatoes and fried bread, whether he would be eating in or out, he said firmly, “Out,” to the landlady’s evident disappointment.

The first—and critical—call was to be made at the Immigration Office. If they had no information to assist him, he knew he might as well climb back on board the SS Aorangi that same evening. Daniel was beginning to feel that if that happened he wouldn’t be too disappointed.

The massive brown building on Market Street, which housed the official records of every person who had arrived in the colony since 1823, opened at ten o’clock. Although he arrived half an hour early Daniel still had to join one of the eight queues of people attempting to establish some fact about registered immigrants, which ensured that he didn’t reach the counter for a further forty minutes.

When he eventually did get to the front of the queue he found himself looking at a ruddy-faced man in an open-necked blue shirt who was slumped behind the counter.

“I’m trying to trace an Englishman who came to Australia at some time between 1922 and 1925.”

“Can’t we do better than that, mate?”

“I fear not,” said Daniel.

“You fear not, do you?” said the assistant. “Got a name, have you?”

“Oh, yes,” said Daniel. “Guy Trentham.”

“Trentham. How do you spell that?”

Daniel spelled the name out slowly for him.

“Right, mate. That’ll be two pounds.” Daniel extracted his wallet from inside his sports jacket and handed over the cash. “Sign here,” the assistant said, swiveling a form round and placing his forefinger on the bottom line. “And come back Thursday.”

“Thursday? But that’s not for another three days.”

“Glad they still teach you to count in England,” said the assistant. “Next.”

Daniel left the building with no information, merely a receipt for his two pounds. Once back out on the pavement, he picked up a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald and began to look for a cafe near the harbor at which to have lunch. He selected a small restaurant that was packed with young people. A waiter led him across a noisy, crowded room and seated him at a little table in the corner. He had nearly finished reading the paper by the time a waitress arrived with the salad he had ordered. He pushed the paper on one side, surprised that there hadn’t been one piece of news about what was taking place back in England.

As he munched away at a lettuce leaf and wondered how he could best use the unscheduled holdup constructively, a girl at the next table leaned across and asked if she could borrow the sugar.

“Of course, allow me,” said Daniel, handing over the shaker. He wouldn’t have given the girl a second glance had he not noticed that she was reading Principia Mathematica, by A. N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell.

“Are you a mathematics student, by any chance?” he asked once he had passed the sugar across.

“Yes,” she said, not looking back in his direction.

“I only asked,” said Daniel, feeling the question might have been construed as impolite, “because I teach the subject.”

“Of course you do,” she said, not bothering to turn round. “Oxford, I’m sure.”

“Cambridge, actually.”

This piece of information did make the girl glance across and study Daniel more carefully. “Then can you explain Simpson’s Rule to me?” she asked abruptly.

Daniel unfolded his paper napkin, took out a fountain pen and drew some diagrams to illustrate the rule, stage by stage, something he hadn’t done since he’d left St. Paul’s.

She checked what he had produced against the diagram in her book, smiled and said, “Fair dinkum, you really do teach maths,” which took Daniel a little by surprise as he wasn’t sure what “fair dinkum” meant, but as it was accompanied by a smile he assumed it was some form of approval. He was taken even more by surprise when the girl picked up her plate of egg and beans, moved across and sat down next to him.