For Valour (16 page)

It was strange that Forward never wrote to his girlfriend, although he had seen him looking at her photograph a couple of times. But he could not ask him. It might spoil things. Maybe later on . . .

The tannoy crackled. “All the Port Watch. Port Watch to defence stations!”

Some men reached for their oilskins, or paused to fold a letter or hang a pair of dhobied seaboot stockings on a warm pipe to dry out.

Wishart climbed up to the outer darkness, his feet no longer missing a rung, and without the first panic when he had thought he had lost his way. He would finish it when the watch stood down.
Dear Mother and Father, This is a fast escort job.
He shook his head. The censor would have something to say about that.

In the wheelhouse, it was as if they had never left the place. Leading Seaman Bob Forward took over the helm and repeated the course and revolutions to the chief quartermaster who was stepping down. He then called the forebridge and reported his presence to the O.O.W. Snotty Driscoll again, with his affected drawl and constant moaning about something or other.

Forward nodded to the two telegraphsmen and a boatswain's mate and smiled at Wishart, who was collecting some papers for the navigating officer. He had seen him writing his letter; he seemed to write one every day.

He thought of the one his own mother had sent him, because someone at the railway's head office had at last decided to write an obituary for his father.

He watched the gyro repeater, the tape ticking this way and that. He would have to be bloody careful. A few degrees off course and that bloody great liner pounding along just abeam of them would be joining them in the messdeck.

But he should have known. Guessed. Something . . . Like that time in the pub, when he had taken the pongo's newspaper. It was right there in the paper his mother had sent him.

Yesterday, police reported that they had released the man suspected of being connected with the murder of Grace Marlow at her address in Chelsea.

He gripped the spokes more tightly. At least they had not openly called her a tom in that report. It would die down after this. And anyway, there was nothing to connect him with it.

The voicepipe snapped, “Quartermaster! Watch your steering.” “Aye, sir.” Bloody little prat.

He wondered who the man was, if he had been one of her regulars.

Why should he care? Anybody else, and . . .

Lieutenant Kidd strode through the wheelhouse and paused at the plot table.

“Got 'em?”

Wishart nodded. “All but the last one, sir.”

He stood aside as Kidd hurried on. Curt. Angry about something. It was not like him.

Kidd slammed into the chart room and laid out the papers. The motion seemed worse in here, with all the usual smells, oil, damp, sweat.

Another full day and then the cavalry should be with them for the final approach. It would be a miracle if they saw another ship, let alone the Brylcreem Boys of the R.A.F.

He pressed both hands on the table and stared at them. Something would happen soon, or not at all. There had been only one U-boat report from the Admiralty. Probably one had surfaced to send a signal to its own high command. No submarine could hope to keep pace with this group, not even surfaced. The final approach to the north-west coast of Ireland would be the most likely place.

He clenched his fists. It was no good. He kept thinking of it, or her, the way she had looked at him when he had kissed her hand in that quiet room. She had asked almost abruptly, “How long do you have?”

He had tried to brush it aside. It was bad luck to talk about sailing times. Like walking to the end of a pier.

But she had insisted, “You might never have come here. I might never have seen you again.” She had gripped his hand between hers and pressed it to her breast. “You know that, Roger. It was meant.”

He had stood up slowly, holding her gently at first as if he had been afraid of breaking something. That he had misunderstood.

“You want me, don't you?” She had been unable to sustain it and had pressed her face into his chest. He had forgotten how slight she was. Until then. “Then let's not waste it. Do it!”

The rest had been like a wild dream. He did not even recall how they had reached the other room, or what it had looked like.

It had been with him ever since, like guilt, like ecstasy. That final moment when she had lain there, looking up at him, her body twisting from side to side.

“It's been so long. Don't stop. No matter what I say, what I do!”

She had cried out when he had entered her, but afterwards there had been only peace. Like nothing he had ever known.

She had called for a car from somewhere while he had struggled into his uniform again. She had even wrapped a bottle of wine in a towel for him, the one which had been waiting in the cooler with the company crest. Like the meal, untouched.

It was all he could think of. The future, something they had sworn never to do. In this regiment, the future was the length of the next watch, maybe less. It had been so easily said, then. Not any more.

And he still didn't know the name of the little hotel, the one old Chris the purser had bought for her before he had gone back to sea for the last voyage; and it had been the last for many on that terrible Malta convoy.

He sighed and opened his much-thumbed notebook.
Don't make a bigger fool of yourself. This is your world.

He half listened to the muted ping of the Asdic, the occasional stammer of static from the W/T office beneath his feet.
My world.
And if he survived, what would there be when it was all over?

He picked up a pencil and looked at its point. He would have to apologize to Wishart for biting his head off just now.

And would she still feel the same when she had had time to think about it?

He thought of her hand at the hotel window when the hired car had pulled away. Just the hand, small and pale; she had not even had time to get dressed. She might regret the sudden impulse, the need which they had both recognized.

He leaned over the chart once more.
It's up to me then, isn't it?

The stark clamour of alarm bells shattered the stillness, froze the mind like a seizure.

“Action stations! Action stations!”

Like most of them, Kidd had heard it a thousand times. But as he snatched up his binoculars and took a quick look around the compartment, he was conscious of something new. It was fear.

“Ship at action stations, sir.” Fairfax peered around the open bridge, identifying each figure more by stance and position than visual recognition.

Martineau was standing on the starboard side gratings, his glasses trained on the massive grey outline on the quarter.

He said, “
Jester
got a radar contact. About eleven miles, up to the nor'-east. Pretty good in this weather.”

Fairfax joined him, and heard Kidd dragging the hood over the bridge chart table. Martineau sounded calm, he thought, almost unconcerned.

“Sub on the surface. Big one, I'd say. Trying to work round our line of advance.”

A boatswain's mate looked up from a voicepipe. “Lost contact, sir.”

“Dived.”

Fairfax glanced at the luminous gyro. The course had hardly changed.

The first definite contact. Maybe the U-boat commander had surfaced to take advantage of the extra speed, or to send off a signal to his base. Or perhaps it was mere coincidence.

Martineau moved his glasses slowly. “Tell the yeoman to make sure his men keep their eyes open for
all
signals. Anything.”

“
Jester
requests permission to intercept, sir!”

Martineau shook his head. “
Denied.
At that range they'd lose it anyway, and
Ocean Monarch
's starboard bow would be wide open.”

“Alter course, sir! Steer zero-one-zero.”

“Port ten.” Martineau saw the pale grey shape start to turn, only the height of her bow wave betraying her power and speed.

“Midships. Steady. Steer zero-one-zero.” He scarcely heard the coxswain's replies. Spicer was on the wheel. He needed no second order.

Jester
's Skipper was probably cursing him, but it was too great a risk. Unless the U-boat had surfaced again, the chance of getting an Asdic contact was minimal at that range.

He heard the click of metal from B Gun mounting forward of the bridge. He could imagine the language down there. Probably itching to loose off a few shells, if only to break the discomfort and boredom of playing at sheepdog.

He thought of the soldiers over that black strip of water, half a cable away. How did they feel now, he wondered. Days of altering course, eating and sleeping as best they could, not even understanding what was happening. Knowing only that they were the prime target, and had been all the way from Newfoundland.

Martineau could remember a convoy on that same route, U-boats surfacing at night to overtake the slow-moving merchantmen, creating havoc as they chose. Only a handful of ships had reached England.

He took a quick bearing on the
Ocean Monarch.
As before. And she was making a good twenty knots without even trying.

He had snatched a few minutes to go down to his sea cabin, his ears pricked the whole time for a call or some unforeseen emergency.

Even so, he had paused long enough to pull open a drawer and remove the book, and had seen her face looking up at him. As she had done at the officers' club and at Derby House when they had almost collided in the bomb-proof corridor.

He used to have a picture of Alison in a silver frame. He could remember when she had visited the ship, and had laughed about it.
Still got that old thing?

He tensed; that must have been when she had first met Mike Loring.

They had got on well from the beginning. Loring was always good company, interesting, witty . . . Strange that when he recalled the last time he had seen him in hospital, a man already dead but refusing to accept it, he could feel no anger or bitterness.

He moved to the opposite side, past duffle coats and figures in oilskins, people he had come to know by sight and by name. Something he had wanted to avoid, although he had known from the start that it would be impossible. Like the Wren who had driven him to Parkestone Quay to join the ship. This ship.
He was my brother. He was killed that day.

Jester
's U-boat . . . there might be others. One would be enough.
And if a torpedo heads for
Ocean Monarch
we must stop it.

He was killed that day.

Kidd said, “My God, there's a star!”

Martineau gripped his steel chair and swung round to search the full-bellied clouds, just in time to see it. One tiny star. Like those you saw when you were watchkeeping on some far-off sea. In peacetime . . .

Kidd had gone back to his chart again. He would know better than most. The forecasts were never very reliable. In mid-Atlantic it did not matter so much. But by dawn, the sky could be clear. And the planes would be ready. Theirs, ours, it was still a gamble.

He caught the scent of peppermint and guessed it was the young, baby-faced signalman named Slade. He had seen Onslow the chief yeoman watching him on occasion, perhaps seeing the son who had died at
Ganges.

He ran his hand along the steel plating, feeling the cold through his glove. No better, no worse than any ship's company. Not here from choice, or even out of ambition, but held together by something stronger than any of them would admit.

He felt the steel shudder as
Hakka
's raked stem ploughed into another trough, heard the rattle of bridge fittings as she rose above it.
Our ship.

He gazed at the sky once more, but the star had gone, and nodded, as if someone had spoken.

And we are ready.

She awoke in an instant, aware of the hand cold and hard on her shoulder, gripping it, touching the skin, as if to restrain her.

She twisted round, the blanket caught in her legs, ready to scream, to . . .

“Easy, girl. You must have been having a bad dream.”

Anna was suddenly conscious of the shaded flashlight, the glint of buttons, the slow release of the hand.

She had been in a deep sleep, the first since she had heard about her brother. She reached out, fumbling for the bedside lamp, aware of her heart pounding in her breast against the pillow.

It was First Officer Crawford, whose hand had frozen a scream as the memory had flooded back.

“There's a flap on.” Crawford raised one hand. “Easy does it. You are excused duties. But I thought I should come myself.”

Anna was fully awake now, and her throat felt raw. Some of that malt whisky the Commodore had prescribed, and she was not used to it. She winced. Or ever would be.