For Valour (2 page)

He saw his reflection in the window, the new greatcoat, the gold lace bright on either shoulder. He wanted to unbutton it, take it off, but the same reserve held him back. He should accept it if he could not fight it. Like the cap beneath his arm with the oak leaves on its peak.
The step up.
It was no longer a possibility, something in the hazy future; it was tomorrow. They had given him a comfortable billet in a small commandeered hotel just outside Ipswich, not much more than twenty miles from Harwich.

His mouth was dry and he wanted to move about, but in this quiet, watchful place it would not help.

Martineau was thirty-three years old and had been in the navy since boyhood. Over twenty years in uniform. It did not seem possible, especially now. Today. As if nothing else had existed before the war or until that day only a few months ago. He tried to relax, muscle by muscle. A lifetime . . .

Most of his naval service had been in destroyers, in one capacity or another, showing the flag in the Far East, South Africa and in the Med. Naval reviews, fleet regattas, and then the Spanish Civil War and its grim aftermath.

If there had been any doubts or uncertainties they had remained dormant. He was doing what he wanted, what was expected of him; nothing else mattered. Must matter.

At the outbreak of war he had been serving in one of the navy's crack destroyer flotillas. Eight ships, ready for anything. When he had last heard, only one of them was still afloat.

Carefully he allowed his mind to explore the outline of his new command.
Hakka,
one of the famous Tribals. No officer could ask for a better ship, a finer recognition, if that was what it was.

Newer destroyers were coming off the stocks every week, but the Tribals were still part of the legend. He swung away from the misty window, angry with himself. Who was he trying to convince?

The nurse put down a telephone. Even they seemed soundless in this place.

“The P.M.O. says he will not be long, sir.”

He nodded. The P.M.O. It must be bad.

He recalled the soldiers he had seen unloading something from their Bedford truck outside. In response to a question, one of them had jerked his head in the direction of the door.

“Where most of 'em step off, poor sods!”

Crude? Brutal? Unfeeling? But true.

Tomorrow, then. They always said,
not to worry. They
would be more nervous about their new lord and master. It would be a piece of cake . . . Martineau had held two commands. It was simply not true.
For me anyway.

Somewhere in the building he heard the clang of metal doors, the sudden purr of a lift, the murmur of voices. A new arrival, maybe, or one less fortunate, who had just “stepped off.” Almost reluctantly he unbuttoned his greatcoat and laid it on the chair, the cap with the bright oak leaves on top. He wanted to yawn, the way men do when they are about to go into action. Not fear: there was never time for that.

He should not have come. Nobody would have blamed him. Not more than they already did.

Footsteps on that polished linoleum floor so beloved by hospitals, then the resonant tones of the P.M.O. and a woman's voice.

He turned towards the corridor and saw her, all in blue, a naval crown in diamonds glittering on one lapel. Alison always looked elegant and attractive no matter what she wore, and despite the war and the rationing. She had laughed at him when he had remarked on it, the laugh which could turn any man's head, and said, “
This
thing? I've had it for years! You never notice!”

He had first met her just as a complacent nation was at last realizing war was inevitable; it had been at Portsmouth, when he had just put up his second stripe. It seemed a hazy dream, like so many he had suffered in hospital after he had been brought back, after losing his ship. Trying to piece the fragments together. Alison's smile at the church, the avenue of drawn swords on their wedding day. Two years ago.

She was looking at him now, and her chin was lifted slightly, her eyes very bright as if she had been crying. She did not smile or offer her hand. In his mind he could see her throwing her arms around him or one of her friends, kicking up one heel as if to seal it. She was twenty-seven years old, and she was a stranger.

The P.M.O., a bluff surgeon commander, shook hands and said, “Sorry to have kept you hanging about, Graham. Short-staffed.” He peered at his watch, frowning. “We shall have to operate, I'm afraid. Sooner rather than later.”

He leaned over the desk to speak with the nurse on duty, and Alison said, “It was good of you to come. I hear you're joining your new ship.”

“Tomorrow.” He glanced at her hand. No ring. “How is he?”

He.
Another stranger. Lieutenant Mike Loring had been first lieutenant in his last ship, the F Class destroyer
Firebrand.
A good officer, and a firm friend, he came from a well-established naval family; one of his ancestors had been at Trafalgar, and his father was an admiral. After that last tour of duty he was to have left
Firebrand
for a command of his own. It had been a straightforward convoy, no better or worse than others they had done together.

Alison had told him when he had left their borrowed flat to return to sea. It could not have come at a worse time, although there was never a suitable time, especially in war. Separation, and eventually divorce.

And now Mike Loring was to have another operation. How many was that?
Firebrand
had already been hit several times, and then one of the enemy's shells had killed or wounded the damage control party he had been leading.

Alison said, “More splinters. In the spine. He is heavily drugged most of the time.” She sounded as if she was repeating it for her own benefit, as if she could not come to terms with it. She was strong-willed, determined, but this was something she could not control.

Martineau said, “Are you managing?” He stared at the window again. He could not even call her by name.
What is the matter with me?

“I shall stay here until I hear something.”

When he was able to face her again he saw her eyes move away from the small crimson ribbon with its miniature cross. It had taken only a split second, but her expression was quite clear. Resentment, anger, because he was alive and the man for whom she had left him, her lover, was fighting for his life. At best Mike would be a survivor, and she would have nothing.

“If there is anything I can do . . .”

The P.M.O. put down a telephone and said abruptly, “I can give you a few minutes, Graham.”

Martineau turned to follow him but stopped as he heard her say softly, “Haven't you done enough?”

The room was in semi-darkness, blackout curtains drawn almost to their night position, so that bars of hard sunshine played across the white-painted bed and glittering instruments like searchlights.

Mike Loring was connected by tubes and wires to a side-table, one bare arm lying motionless on a pillow, the skin pockmarked by probes and needles. He still wore a bandage across one eye, but the other moved slowly as if independent from the rest of the body, as if that was already dead.

Martineau made to reach out, but saw the P.M.O. shake his head.

Instead he said, “Rough, is it?”

“I—I did walk, you know.” Loring closed his eye as if the effort was too much. Then he added, “Back in that other bloody place.
I did walk.
”

Martineau said, “I shall keep in touch . . .”

Loring moved his head from side to side. “You'll be too busy.”

So he knew about
Hakka,
even here. Like this. The family.

Loring persisted, “Your new Number One, what's he like?”

“Not met him yet.”

“Give him hell, eh?” He turned his head again as someone laughed, outside or in a corridor. Just a laugh. Something to take for granted.

When Martineau looked again he was shocked to see a tear running down his cheek. Reminded of some precious moment, or person? Of Alison, his friend's wife. His lover.

Sunlight flashed on the P.M.O.'s wristwatch. It was time.

Martineau said, “I have to go, Mike.”

The drug was taking charge again. His voice was dull, slurred.

But he said, “Sorry about the mess, Skipper.”

The surgeon commander opened the door; a nurse and two orderlies were waiting to enter.

“We'll do what we can, Graham.” His mind was already moving on. Martineau had seen him looking at the crimson ribbon also.
All right for some.
But he was one of those who had to pick up the human pieces and try to mend them. Afterwards.

The duty nurse was still at the desk. She said brightly, “One of our people will give you a lift, sir.” She could not sustain it. “Mrs Martineau left earlier.”

As soon as I was out of the way.
So she did blame him. Did the rest count for nothing?

“She left you this, sir.”

Martineau picked up his cap and took the small buff envelope. There was no letter, only the wedding ring. Alison's timing had always been impeccable.

So why could he not accept it? Every day somebody was going through it, on the wireless and the interminable news bulletins.
The Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce the loss of HMS so-and-so, next of kin have been informed.
All those telegrams,
father . . . husband . . . son.
Or that well-meaning letter from a “friend.”
I thought it only right that you should know about your wife carrying on while you're away . . .
And so on.

The nurse studied him. She knew what he had done, that he had rammed an enemy cruiser with his own ship, even how old he was; it had been in all the papers. And she had seen the medal ribbon for herself. This was a real hero. A lively, alert face, she thought, not silly and boasting like some they got in here. Very dark hair, and she had seen the flecks of grey at the temples when he had tugged on his cap. And there was sadness, and she sensed it had nothing to do with the scene she had witnessed earlier. A lot of men, his men, had died that day.

She had said as much to one of the sick berth petty officers. He had retorted, “Well, he had a choice, Sister, those poor buggers didn't!”

Outside in the biting air Martineau saw the car which was to take him to Ipswich. Tomorrow there would be no comparisons, no contests. It was a new beginning. It had to be.

He glanced back at the lines of faceless windows and thought of the man he had wanted to hate.

Sorry about the mess, Skipper.

It had saved him.

The train was so overloaded that it sounded as if it could barely drag itself along the track. And it was packed with humanity, a few patches of khaki or air force blue, but overwhelmingly navy.

Extra carriages had been added along the way, most without corridors, so that in each compartment there were men who were wishing they had not drunk an extra pint of beer before climbing aboard, or praying for the next stop, when there would be a concerted rush to the station's meagre facilities. The truly desperate were not so particular.

The initial disturbance, good-natured or otherwise, had given way to the usual dull acceptance of men returning from leave. Leave at the end of a training course or following promotion, local leave for the lucky ones, compassionate leave for others who now had little to say and sat mostly in silence, even looking forward to going back to routine and the disciplined life they had always been ready to curse. Men whose families had been killed or injured in air raids, men who, in many cases, had only been able to visit an empty space, or the charred wreckage where they had once lived, loved, and hoped.

And there were still a few for whom it was all part of a continuing adventure. Ordinary Seaman Ian Wishart sat jammed between two other sailors, one in the corner seat asleep with his head lolling against the window, on his other side a fat three-badged stoker jerking back and forth, playing cards with some friends sitting opposite. It was a non-smoking compartment and the air was solid with fumes, both pipe and cigarette, and there was a strong smell of rum; Wishart had seen a large bottle being passed around the card players, growing emptier by the mile. Wishart had been in the Royal Navy for only a few months, and until yesterday he had been under training at the shore establishment HMS
St Vincent
on the Gosport side of Portsmouth Harbour. Everything at the double, everything strictly pusser. He had noticed the uniforms of the men in the compartment: real sailors, some of them going to the same destination, maybe the same ship. Real sailors, in their skin-tight tailored jumpers with low fronts and collars scrubbed so hard that the cloth had faded as pale as Cambridge blue. Bell-bottomed trousers, far wider than those issued at stores, and caps worn flat-a-back. Wishart thought of his own cap, the bow tied correctly above his left ear. These sailors, “Jolly Jacks,” one of his old instructors had scornfully described them, had hand-made bows flapping rakishly above one eye. At
St Vincent
you would be crucified for that.