An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (41 page)

O'Reilly shook his head. If there was a Nobel Prize for con artistry Donal and Dapper would both be going to Stockholm very soon.

“Do you know, Mister Bishop, Mister Ramsey, I'm your man on this.” He leant over and shook hands with each in turn.

“I'll bet,” said Bertie, “they'll all be sold in no time flat.”

“And speaking of bets…” O'Reilly said, and he looked at Barry, who, with a wry grin on his face, was shaking his head in early admission of almost certain defeat.

 

32

Engage Himself Openly and Publicly

It was Sunday noon, when an Englishman's place, after morning service in Fareham's 105-year-old Holy Trinity Anglican Church, was in the pub for a predinner pint. With Tony leading the way, Fingal stepped into the inviting semidarkness of the Whitehorse Inn, a pleasant country hostelry on the banks of the Wallington River that had long served as Tony's local when he was home on leave. The war had not curtailed the Sunday ritual and the place was buzzing. The womenfolk, Marge, Deirdre, and Pip, had gone home to prepare the midday Sunday meal. Marge had collected up everyone's meat coupons and had miraculously, Fingal suspected with the connivance of the local butcher, managed to secure a beef roast, which she planned to serve with Yorkshire puddings and parsnips, brussels sprouts and potatoes from her Victory garden.

But before lunch, a pint, and Fingal savoured the thought of both on this precious weekend away from Haslar.

Conversation rose and fell in the public bar and the air was blue with tobacco smoke. Two men were throwing darts with a single-mindedness of purpose, oblivious to the din around them. Fingal could imagine King Henry VIII decreeing that all his archers should play the game every Sunday after mass to hone their aiming skills. At a table nearby, two farm labourers in traditional smocks were playing cribbage.

“What'll you have, Fingal?”

“Pint of bitter, please.”

“Coming right up.” Tony went to the bar and stood beside a bald-headed, florid-faced gentleman of about sixty in hacking jacket, tweed plus-fours, woollen stockings, and heavy brogues. He sported a drooping moustache and could have served as a model for David Low's Colonel Blimp.

Fingal smiled at the mental picture, imagined the man prefacing his every utterance with “Gad, sir,” just like the cartoon character. He fished out his pipe and lit up while he waited for Tony, now engaged in conversation by another regular.

As he let himself sink into the comforting atmosphere of the pub, it was almost possible to imagine himself back in Ireland, that this rare weekend off duty was routine and that he was just a country doctor mulling over his week: the satisfaction of knowing his anaesthetic skills were ever improving; his gratitude to Angus Mahaddie, who'd been a brick, happily coconspiring to get Henson back on his gunnery course. The sulpha had worked, the stumps had healed, and Angus's recommendation that Henson be passed fit for duty had been accepted, with Fraser none the wiser. Alf Henson was now back on Whale Island and expected to be finished with his course by mid-December.

But he was not in Ireland and he was not a country doctor but a lieutenant-commander, due to return to
Warspite
in little more than a month from today, December the first.

“Here you are.” Tony set a dimpled pint glass on the tabletop, plopped down beside Fingal, and raised his glass. “Absent friends.” The navy's Sunday toast.

“Absent friends,” he replied.

“So,” said Tony jovially, “good news from the Med the past few weeks. The planes of HMS
Illustrious
sinking that ruddy great Italian battleship
Dulio
and damaging two more of their battlewagons. Still, I don't know how long people here at home can hang on…”

They were both silent, sipping their beer. Fingal knew they were probably both thinking of how Southampton had been bombed a week ago and there were rumours that the flashes and sweeping searchlight beams he'd been able to see in last night's northern sky had been the town being raided again—and at only twenty miles away it had been too bloody close to Alverstoke.

In mid-November, the German Luftwaffe had hit Coventry and destroyed much of that city and its fourteenth-century Gothic cathedral. Britain was still taking it, but the price was getting higher. Rumour had it that the Germans had been guided by some secret radio blind-aiming device.

Tony took a long pull on his beer and shook his head. “Sorry, Fingal, I didn't mean to bring up the war.” Then he laughed. “As if it's not on everyone's mind. Even here in this little country pub. It's just that I'm thinking of someone,” he said quietly. “An absent friend. His parents are Irish like you.”

“Any chance I might know them?”

“No, they came from Tipperary, but he was born here, in Fareham. I've known him all my life. Captain Edward Fegen, RN.”

Fingal shook his head, sipped his warm, weak beer, and waited for Tony to continue.

“He was captain of an armed merchant cruiser, HMS
Jervis Bay
. She was the sole escort of convoy HX 84 from Halifax to Liverpool.” He looked at the tabletop.

“That's your usual run, isn't it?”

“There but for the grace of God,” Tony said, and looked up. “Poor old Teddy ran into the German pocket battleship
Admiral Scheer
on the fifth of November.”

When Fingal and Deirdre had been enjoying the quiet of the New Forest, Fingal thought, British sailors had been dying in the icy North Atlantic. He shuddered.

“By all accounts he charged the Nazis head on. His six-inch pop guns against the Germans' eleven-inchers. Fought them for three hours and gave the convoy the chance to scatter.
Jervis Bay
was sunk and Teddy was killed.” He stopped abruptly and took a swallow of his pint. “But all but five of the thirty-seven ships in the convoy survived.”

“Brave men,” Fingal said.

“Very brave,” Tony said. “And I'm telling you this for a reason, Fingal.”

“Go on.”

Tony set his glass on the table. He reddened. “Um, you'll keep this in strictest confidence, of course?”

“Naturally.”

Tony leant closer to Fingal before saying, “I've been in love with Pip for donkey's years…”

Fingal waited. Irishmen could be reticent about discussing personal matters, but Englishmen? Stiff upper lip and all that? The silence between them widened. “Tony,” he was eventually forced to say, “I'm your friend, a fellow officer, and I'm also a physician. What are you trying to tell me?”

“I-I can see how happy you and Deirdre are.”

“We are that,” Fingal said with a grin, and took a pull on his pint.

Tony held his hands up, palms out, shrugged, and said, “I can't bring myself to ask Pip to marry me. Simply can't do it.” His gaze fixed on Fingal's eyes. “It could be my turn on any of the convoys to have to do what Teddy—Captain Fegen—did. See what I mean? It wouldn't be fair to her, leaving her a widow.” He sighed. “But it's bloody awful knowing we'll have to wait until the war's over.”

Fingal took a deep breath. He hadn't the slightest doubt that if faced with overwhelming odds, Lieutenant Commander Tony Wilcoxson would indeed do his duty, regardless of the cost, and that it was his love for Pip, rather than a lack of it, that was holding him back from proposing. “At one time it looked as if Deirdre and I couldn't get married. When I told her, she said something very sensible. She said, ‘We don't need a ceremony.'” He could smell the freshly cut hay lying in the field where she had been working with the Land Army when he had gone to break the seemingly bad news. “‘In our hearts we're as married as any man and woman can be.'” He cocked his head to one side, waiting for a response. When none was forthcoming, he said, “Is that how you and Pip feel about each other?”

Tony smiled and nodded. “Gosh,” he said, “I hadn't thought about it quite like that. I thought I was doing the honourable thing. For Pip's sake. But do you think she probably already feels married to me? I realize now that's just how I feel about her.”

“Yes, I think she probably does. And if you are killed, if I'm killed—I'm back on active service in January—both Pip and Deirdre will grieve and mourn, and not having had a ceremony in your case won't make the pain any easier for Pip to bear. And you'll have missed a very great deal, believe me.”

“So you think—do you think I should pop the question?”

Fingal shook his head. “It's not what I think. It's what you think that matters.”

Tony's grin was vast. He finished his pint, stood, and went to the bar, where he had a few words with the publican.

To Fingal's immense delight, the Colonel Blimp type's voice could be heard over the general hubbub. “Gad, sir, if it was up to me I'd—” Whatever he'd do was drowned out, but Fingal was still chuckling when Tony returned and set a small glass of Scotch whisky in front of Fingal before seating himself. Fingal took the last swallow of his pint.

“Just a little something to seal the deal, so to speak, and say thank you. We'll finish these up,” Tony said, “head home for dinner. Then if after the meal I might borrow your Austin for a short while? I'll take Pip for a drive. I really ought to speak to her father. Tell him I can support his daughter and all that kind of thing. I already know I have no trouble getting permission from the navy. In fact, the whole thing's been a standing joke between me and my CO ever since he met Pip. He's a good egg.”

“Good man-ma-da,” said Fingal, laughed, and raised his glass. “Shall we drink to the future Mrs. Wilcoxson Junior?”

“I believe,” said Tony, “that would be a splendid idea. Positively splendid.”

*   *   *

“Whisky? At noon? I can smell it on your breath.” Marge sniffed and stepped back from her son's embrace. “It's not like you, Tony.”

“No, it's not,” Tony said, “but Fingal and I were celebrating a recent important decision.”

Pip and Deirdre, each holding a schooner of sherry, had both half turned and were looking up at the men and Marge. Their chairs were, as usual, separated from the hearth and log fire by a somnolent Admiral Benbow.

“Oh?” said Marge.

“Mmm,” said Tony. “Now, I was going to wait until later when we'd be alone, and I know I'm meant to have a ring, get down on one knee, but damn it all—” His words tumbled out, one chasing the other at high speed. “Pip, you know I love you.”

Fingal saw her eyes widen, a grin begin. The English might be a reserved lot, he thought, but once the floodgates opened—

“Always have, and in the pub, Fingal helped me to see the light. I've been an idiot letting the war put me off. Philippa, Philippa, will you marry me?”

Pip squealed, spilling her sherry as she leaped to her feet. Nodding, smiling, tears starting, she shouted, “Yes, yes, yes,” and threw herself at Tony.

Admiral Benbow let go a basso profundo “Woof.”

“God bless my soul,” Marge said. “
Mirabile dictu,
wondrous things are spoken.”

Deirdre clapped her hands, stood, and kissed Fingal. “I'm so happy for them,” she said. “Aren't you?”

“As they'd say in Ulster, it's sticking out a mile, so it is,” he said, marvelling at Deirdre's limitless ability to take great pleasure from the happiness of others.

“You Irish,” said Marge. “Sticking out a mile, indeed.” She laughed. “I like it, and as the news clearly is, it calls for something bubbly. Come with me, Fingal, Deirdre. I want to check on our lunch. And let those two have a bit of time alone.”

They followed as she headed for the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, “And don't worry about the spilled sherry. I'll bring a damp cloth when I come back.” In the kitchen, pots bubbled on the top of a coal-fired Aga range and roasting smells filled the air. Burnished copper saucepans hung by their handles from hooks in the black rafters above a big pine table on a slate floor. She inspected each pot in turn, then sighed.

“I am so pleased for Tony and Pip,” she said. “Now, Deirdre dear, tell me about your lovely day off yesterday.”

“It was perfect, Marge. We explored about a mile of the shoreline of the Solent looking out to the Isle of Wight. Then lunch in the Fighting Cocks on Clayhall Road, you know the one where all the staff go, about half a mile from the hospital. They all call it the Pugilistic Pe—Well, never mind. Then we took the Gosport Ferry to Portsmouth and saw
Gone With the Wind.
I cried when Rhett and Scarlet's daughter, Bonnie, was killed.”

“Of course you did, dear.” The words sounded dismissive, but Fingal could hear the fondness in Marge's voice and the way she looked at her young friend.

“Now, champagne.” She went to the Kelvinator refrigerator and opened its left-hand door. “Here,” she said, handing Fingal a bottle of Dom Pérignon. He looked at the label and whistled. 1921. “I chilled this so we could celebrate your and Deirdre's first-month anniversary.”

“Marge,” said Deirdre, looking at the label, “that's far too kind.”

Vintage champagne? Fingal thought. Must have cost a bundle.

“Fiddlesticks,” Marge said and, as if reading his mind, explained, “Richard always laid down a few bottles in the year they were produced. Relatively cheap back then, and your first month would have been an occasion worth celebrating. And so now this one is too. We can toast all four of you. Wasn't that lucky I had a bottle ready?”

Lucky, was it? Despite her protestations of cheapness, twenty-year-old champagne for a one-month anniversary? Or, thought Fingal, was Marge like old Doctor Flanagan's housekeeper back in Ballybucklebo, Mrs. Kincaid, a wee bit fey?

“Now, pop it on a tray. There are glasses in that cupboard.” She pointed, then busied herself soaking and wringing out a cloth.