Battlecruiser (1997) (33 page)

When they were again alone, Emma said, ‘It seems everybody knows.’ Then the shadow left her face. ‘Your Commander Frazier certainly has his hands full there!’

The admiral and his guests were taking their leave. It would soon be over, and she would be going away with her chaperone. He could see Captain Thorne towering over two small Wren officers, his face creased with smiles as he launched into yet another dubious story.

Sherbrooke asked, ‘What’s he like? With you, I mean.’

‘No trouble, really.’ She touched his sleeve, and did not remove her hand. ‘He means well, I suppose. There’s nothing quite so damning, is there?’

She gazed past him, her eyes suddenly saddened. ‘They look right together, don’t they?’

Lieutenant Dick Rayner was standing with the nurse he had brought as his guest, as though completely alone with her. Sherbrooke had realized that what was between them was far deeper and stronger than mere friendship, seeing the way they looked at each other, the unspoken messages passing between them.

At one point in the evening, the admiral had made a short speech, something almost unknown for him.

He had spoken only briefly of Rayner’s Distinguished Service Cross, which he had, indeed, received from the King himself in London.

Sherbrooke had seen Emma turn to look at him, and at the blue and white ribbon on his left breast. It had been impossible to guess what she was thinking for those few seconds. But, for Rayner, he had felt only envy.

The admiral had been saying, ‘This was not some spectacular mission of the sort to which we have become accustomed recently. Perhaps for that very reason, it was all the more inspiring to the rest of us.’

Sherbrooke had watched the nurse with the short, fair hair grip Rayner’s arm; had noticed the new ring on her finger, felt her emotion as the admiral had summed it up in his old-fashioned manner. ‘For gallantry, skill and devotion to duty against a determined enemy, and although wounded himself, his concern for his crew remained paramount.’ He had given a smile. ‘Well done, sir!’

Sherbrooke looked now at the hand resting on his gold stripes. People would see, gossip, form conclusions.

He said, ‘I have to deal with the admiral. I’ll be as fast as I can.’

Frazier came back, without his wife. ‘All right, Mrs Meheux?’

‘Fine. It was good of you to arrange it.’ The admiral had gone, and there was an outbreak of raucous cheering and laughter. She could see Thorne peering round, his audience of Wrens departed.

Frazier said, ‘The Captain asked me to take you aft to his quarters.’ He smiled awkwardly. ‘My wife is there. Freshening up.’

‘I’d like that.’

Frazier watched her looking around the wardroom as if to remember every aspect of it, every moment. Evershed, gesturing and stabbing the air with his hands, explaining the intricacies of muzzle-velocity in feet per second to a civilian who appeared to be past understanding anything. The Chief, glaring at strangers using the Club, and
his
chair. Drake, the pink-faced ex-barrister, and another lieutenant he had not immediately recognized. It was Frost,
beardless and looking strangely furtive, enduring all the comments and the insults.

Frazier said, ‘I was sorry just now . . . about my wife’s comment on your husband. It was not intended.’

She looked at him, and thought what a nice man he was. Someone you could talk to, eventually.

Of course it was intended.
‘Will you lead the way?’

She glanced around her. How still the ship was, a few figures moving in the shadows, the incessant clatter of glasses and plates from the officers’ galley.

A sentry, leaning on a tiny desk, a revolver hanging from his belt, brought his heels together and said, ‘All quiet, sir.’ But his eyes were on her.

Frazier smiled. ‘Thank you, Mason. There’s a tot for you in the lobby.’

She sensed their familiarity, stronger than rank or status.

Frazier called back, ‘And hide that trashy magazine before the Captain sees it!’

The deserted, white-painted passageways; the ship’s crest; a photograph, certainly not a new one, of a football team, an unknown captain sitting in their midst.

‘You’ve been aboard for some time, Commander?’

‘Longer than most. I was with Captain Cavendish. You need to know,
really
know a ship this size.’

‘What does your wife think about it?’

He glanced at her curiously. ‘Alison? Well, she wants me to take promotion.’ He laughed, but there was no life in it. ‘A good shore job, with stewards running about after me like slaves!’

‘Not for you?’

He paused and she saw the polished plate.
Captain.
‘I’d loathe it.’

They found Frazier’s wife in the cabin, sitting, legs crossed, examining her make-up in a mirror. She did not
look at them, but said over her shoulder, ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten, John. The admiral asked us to join his party. Are you ready?’

Frazier said, ‘I’m waiting for the Captain.’

She gave a small shrug. ‘I’m sure I don’t know
what
they’d do without you!’

Emma saw Frazier’s discomfort, and said, ‘Are you staying long up here, Mrs Frazier?’

She smiled and made a little mouth into the mirror. ‘A few more days, then back to the south.’ She closed the compact with a snap. ‘Civilization.’

The door opened and Sherbrooke stepped over the coaming and tossed his cap onto a chair. It fell on the deck but he did not seem to notice.

Alison Frazier said, ‘We’re all going to the admiral’s house, Guy. Are you coming?’ Her glance shifted to Emma, only for a moment, but it said everything.

Sherbrooke seemed to drag himself back from somewhere.

‘No. I can’t.’ He looked at Frazier. ‘Make excuses. I’ve something to deal with.’

Emma stood up and walked to another chair to give herself time. Even the use of his name was offensive. But she would not show her resentment. She picked up the cap and held it, remembering the dust and smoke, the great cascade of broken glass in the off-licence, the dead eyes staring from the floor.

Frazier seemed at a loss. ‘I’m not all that keen, sir. I’ve sunk enough gin to float the
Queen Mary
as it is!’ He tried to grin. ‘All in the name of duty, of course!’

Sherbrooke said, ‘I’ll catch you up. Tell the O.O.D. for me.’

The door closed behind them, and he took her hands in his. ‘Your faithful escort will be here before you know it,
but I just wanted to see you alone. It’s been bloody difficult, hasn’t it?’

She waited, thinking of the closed door. The woman’s amused, backward glance, and Frazier’s discomfort. They could think what they liked. They would, anyway.

‘What is it?’

‘I want to hide, to be away from it with you. I think we’ve earned it.’ He tightened his grip, as if afraid they would be interrupted. ‘All evening I’ve been watching you, Emma. Imagined us together, as it might have been. Just now, when you turned your back, I thought of your hair, loose and across your shoulders, and with only me to see it.’ He hesitated. ‘More like a bumbling midshipman than the iron captain, eh?’

She leaned her head against his chest; he could feel her breathing, the pressure of her breast, the warmth of her.

‘If it was honour that held us apart, it is love which defies even that!’

She laid her fingers on his lips as though to stop him, but he added, ‘I’m not proud of the fact, but if I could take you from your husband, or anyone else, I would.’

There were voices outside, muffled by the door, the sound of someone singing.

She said, ‘I’ll have to leave when they do. Can’t you come? Just to see you, to know you’re there?’

Sherbrooke released her very gently. ‘No. I really do have something to deal with.’

The door opened and Thorne made a great show of peering around it.

‘Just being discreet, old boy!’ He glanced between them, but his eyes did not focus very well. ‘Don’t want to be a spoil-sport!’

Then he stared around, his jovial confidence deflated. ‘Point me towards the heads, will you? Won’t be a tick!’

Alone again, they faced one another beneath the ship’s crest.

She said, ‘Come to me again, Guy. Like we promised?’

‘And you take care of yourself.’

She lifted her face.

‘Kiss me. As you would. As you wanted to.’

It was impossible to know how long it lasted, but it seemed as if they had been lovers over and beyond time itself.

Then she stood back and wiped her lipstick from his mouth with gentle fingers. ‘That
would
make people talk!’

Sherbrooke heard Long’s voice from the other cabin. So he knew about it.
About us.

Long was saying, ‘Here we go, sir, nice an’ easy like!’ Then they heard Thorne’s slurred reply, and Long said, ‘The old ship’s rolling a bit tonight, sir, an’ no mistake!’

She looked up at Sherbrooke again, torn between laughter and tears.

Sherbrooke watched Long guiding the other captain through the door.

‘He’s quite incorrigible, that one.’

She was looking through the other door, at the neatly made bunk, the reading light, and his enemy, the telephone. His world, which she could never share.

He saw her eyes, and took her arm. ‘I know, Emma. I know.’

After he had seen them down the brow to the waiting cars, he returned to his cabin and removed his jacket, as if he hated it. Long came and went without any comment, but left a decanter by the blotter on the desk.

The party slowly faded to an end, and the last visitors left or were half-carried ashore. Thorne was not the only one who was upset by the ship’s ‘rolling’.

He thought about her, even as his eyes skimmed through
his notes, thinking of her here, right here, in the cabin. And in Chelsea: how it might have been.

He sighed and massaged his eyes, and then began reading once again. Perhaps he had missed something. No captain could afford carelessness.

He poured another drink and knew he had had too much.

He stood up and paced around the cabin and heard Long give a discreet cough in his pantry. He slid open the hatch and said, ‘Go and turn in. You must be dog-tired. God, it must be a mess in the wardroom!’

Long, framed in his little pantry hatch, regarded him gravely. ‘The last for a bit, probably, eh, sir?’

Sherbrooke glanced at the desk, the pile of papers. No, he had not missed anything.

Long disappeared, and the ship was in silence when Frazier came aft to the cabin.

Sherbrooke did not remember any knock, or how long Frazier had been sitting there.

Stupidly he said, ‘You’re back then?’

Frazier glanced at the decanter and the empty glass. ‘Thought I should, sir. If you don’t need me, I’d better go to the hotel.’

Sherbrooke nodded, then touched his mouth, where her lipstick had been. ‘What the hell is the time, anyway?’

Frazier smiled. ‘About three, sir.’

‘Christ!’

Frazier said quietly, ‘Is something wrong, sir?’

‘Wrong? Why should there be?’ He attempted to stand but it was too much for him. He was tired, strained to the limit, and quite drunk.

He said, ‘We shall be leaving the yard.’ He pushed the signal across the desk. ‘Here, read it for yourself. It came when the admiral was going ashore.’

Frazier made himself look at the signal. ‘I’ll not be sorry
to leave, sir. Get back to sea.’ Then he exclaimed, ‘It’s three weeks earlier than expected. I never thought those idle sods would get the new plating fitted in time!’

Sherbrooke stared at him, and remembered what she had said about Frazier’s pretty wife.
Got his hands full there.
He replied, ‘Because
they’re not going to do it!
Take too long. Can’t spare the time. You know the bloody excuses – you should do, by now!’

Frazier persisted, ‘I don’t understand, sir. They agreed to the report. It was all arranged.’

‘It was overruled apparently, John. At Rear-Admiral Stagg’s insistence.’

Frazier ran his fingers through his hair. It made him look about twenty.

‘I suppose he must know what he’s doing?’

Sherbrooke stood up very carefully. ‘Well, I don’t, and neither, I suspect, do you!’

Petty Officer Long appeared as if by magic, wide awake, and still in a spotless white jacket.

‘Time for a doss-down, sir?’

Frazier took one arm and Long the other. If Long had not still been around, he would have had to manage somehow.

They must have looked like three tipsy libertymen returning from a very wet run ashore.

Frazier said, ‘I must make a shore call, Long. I’ll be staying aboard tonight.’ He grinned. ‘What’s left of it!’

He paused at the door and saw Long swing Sherbrooke’s legs up on to the bunk. He did not switch off the light. He had heard about that custom from somebody.

He had never seen the captain the worse for drink before, and was surprised that he was moved by it in some way.

Long let out a deep breath. ‘You’ll have a head on you
in the morning, Captain!’ He smiled. He was human, anyway. The nice little party who’d been with him would see him all right.

He glanced around the cabin and said quietly, ‘Off again, old girl. No peace for the wicked, is there?’

There was a little brandy left in the decanter and he carried it with him to the pantry.

It went with the job.

Rear-Admiral Vincent Stagg sipped some coffee and grimaced. ‘Muck! Don’t they teach people anything these days?’

Sherbrooke glanced around the big cabin. It looked as if it had been hit by a whirlwind: uniforms on hangers waiting to be stowed away, golf clubs and a case of wine, and almost every chair was covered with files and signal folders. He had seen the admiral’s secretary hurrying back to his office, his arms filled with other material relating to the ship’s readiness, or lack of it.

Stagg looked at him curiously. ‘You’ve done well while I’ve been away, Guy. Knew you would.’ He wrinkled his broken nose. ‘Whole ship stinks of paint, most of it still wet, by the look of it. You’ll have to have a quiet word with Frazier. Too much harbour time, that’s their problem. Practically gone native!’

‘It’s been a rush, sir. I’m still not happy about . . .’ He stopped as Stagg’s chief steward appeared in response to the bell on the desk.