Oriental Hotel (16 page)

‘It's such a relief to know that Alex is all right, I could kiss everyone in sight,' Elise said, and Lt. Hickson smiled at her obvious happiness.

‘For something so totally out of line with regulations, I should keep quiet about it if I were you,' he warned.

Back aboard the
Stranraer
, Elise soon learned the sense behind his warning.

As she went into her cabin conversation stopped and the sharp voice of the red-haired Wren reached her.

‘It must be nice to be rich, mustn't it, girls? Swan around whenever you want, escorted by officers, instead of having to stay on board a steamy troop carrier all day.'

‘Funny, isn't it? You start to wonder if she's human.' That was the pug-nosed girl – Ruth Marshall. Although Joyce Lindsell, the red-haired Wren, appeared to be the unofficial leader of the hate campaign, it was usually Ruth who could be relied upon to come out with the most tasteless remarks.

‘I should have liked to have gone ashore myself,' put in Linda Preece, the third girl. ‘Join the Navy and see the world, they say. All I've seen so far is the inside of this damned cabin!'

Sometimes Elise simply let them go on until their jibes burnt themselves out. Today, emboldened by knowing Alex was all right, she tried to explain.

‘I wasn't sightseeing. I was very worried about my little boy – I went to make a phone call to see how he was.'

There was a moment's stunned silence, then Joyce said harshly, ‘See what I mean, girls, one law for the rich and another for the poor?'

The venom in her voice took Elise's breath away. She looked up, puzzled, as Ruth Marshall snorted, ‘You don't know what she's talking about, do you? In your cosy world, it wouldn't occur to you that we can have our problems too. You think you're the only one with the right to be worried, I suppose. Well – Joyce's boy friend has got polio as a result of being torpedoed in the Atlantic – he was in the water for forty-eight hours before they found him. She's waiting to find out if he's going to live or die – and if he lives, whether he's ever going to be any good for anything again.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know …' Elise's awkwardness returned with a rush.

‘That's right, you didn't know – and little would you care. They were going to get married next leave – now, even if he lives, he might be paralysed from the waist down. And that wouldn't only mean he couldn't walk. It would mean he couldn't do any of the other things a normal bloke does, like making love and having kids, for instance. Not, I suppose, that that would worry someone like you!'

‘I'm sorry – I'm really sorry …' Elise said again, but the girls only snorted, glared and continued talking amongst themselves.

Their resentment was oppressive – something she could feel in the air – and as soon as she could Elise left the cabin and went back on deck.

Her own anxiety relieved, she wished she could do the same for Joyce, but she knew this was impossible. The ship was making ready to sail again and in any case she imagined Joyce was firmly bound by naval regulations; if she were to be allowed ashore, request upon request would obviously follow. With the war encompassing so much of the globe, it was possible that most of the ship's company had some loved one to worry about.

‘No wonder they don't like me,' Elise thought, understanding their resentment for the first time. She had thought she wanted to be one of them, accepted into their circle as just another young woman. But the moment she was subjected to the same regulations, she had kicked and something had been done about it.

‘One law for the rich, another for the poor,' Joyce had said and the words had been hurtful. But Elise had to admit, if she was strictly honest, that it was probably true.

The thought was chastening and as the
Stranraer
moved slowly away from the sandy isthmus that was Aden, Elise felt that it was a lesson she would not forget in a hurry.

As Gerald Brittain had predicted, life aboard the
Stranraer
changed the moment they left the safety of the Red Sea for the open waters of the Indian Ocean.

Each night when darkness fell the portholes were battened down and although Elise appreciated that this was to ensure that no light was shown to an enemy ship, she hated the claustrophobic feeling it gave her.

In addition to keeping in the light, the blackout also kept in the noise – it reverberated every evening from the mess rooms; raucous voices were raised in the popular tunes of the day, to the accompaniment of a honky-tonk piano and a saxophone that one of the soldiers had brought aboard, and hearty laughter followed the recitation of lewd jokes. The cabin she shared with the Wrens was right above one of the mess rooms and to escape the racket she spent most of the first two evenings on deck.

There was someone it seemed impossible to escape, however: Captain John Grimly.

It would have been easier, Elise thought, if she had not felt indebted to him for his friendliness on the night they sailed. She had been glad enough of his company then; it seemed unkind to shun him now. But after a while his boyish enthusiasm and rather fatuous conversation tended to become so tiresome that her patience was stretched to its limits; on the second night out of Aden, she managed to slip away from the dinner table while he was engaged in a tactical discussion with one of the other officers, and tuck herself away in one of the darkest corners of the deck, hidden from the companion way by the poop.

Surely anyone with a grain of sensitivity would realise she wanted to be on her own, she thought. But John Grimly seemed to lack even that. After just a few minutes' peace, or so it seemed to her, she heard his voice – hearty and playful – and her heart sank.

‘Ah, so this is where you're hiding, Madam! You will keep running away from me, won't you?'

‘It's impossible to hide from you for long, John,' she said, secure in the knowledge that it was also virtually impossible to snub him.

‘Yes, that's me – should have been a bloodhound!' he agreed amiably. ‘Fearful racket going on below, isn't there? Singing ‘‘Yes, we have no bananas,'' if you ever heard such rubbish. And ‘‘Run rabbit run'' – just as if we would!'

Elise said nothing; from experience she was learning he needed no reply. After a moment he lifted his chin, sniffing appreciatively at the night air.

‘Bloody beautiful out here though, isn't it? Makes one realise what we're fighting for.'

She nodded agreement; it was beautiful. Above the calm dark sea the sky stretched from horizon to horizon, an ebony velvet dome studded by a million stars. Beneath the bows of the
Stranraer
a porpoise darted and the movement seemed to bring the water around it to shimmering phosphorescent life. The sight of it made her catch her breath. It was plankton, she knew, that caused the irradiation, but for all that in the blackness it seemed like a magical illusion.

‘Have you ever been in this part of the world before?' she asked.

‘No, I've never been out here before and I must confess that I didn't want to come. If I'd joined the Army in peacetime it would have been a different thing, I suppose; then I would have expected to do my stint in one of the outposts of the good old British Empire. But with this war on I must say I was hoping to do my bit towards kicking Hitler out of France and Belgium. My father was in France, you know. Led his men on the Somme in the last show. Lost a hand, shrapnel in his head, still a marvellous soldier. Adored by all his men. Well, I had rather hoped to follow in his footsteps. A bit conceited that, I suppose. But there it is – that's what I had hoped.'

‘And what does he think about it?' Elise asked.

‘Oh, he's not with us any longer.' He drew in breath sharply. ‘No – dead and gone these last five years – rest his soul. Poor old father – never quite recovered. But he used to talk about it till the end: tell us about his men and the times they had. Made one bloody proud, you know! I should like to think I could make him proud of me.'

‘Much as I should like to think otherwise, I'm afraid you have every chance of seeing active service out here,' Elise said.

‘Maybe.' He sounded doubtful, disappointed even. ‘But if the Japs are rash enough to try anything, it would be too bloody onesided to make it worthwhile. They're just not up to it, are they?'

‘I don't think you should dismiss them so lightly.' Against her better judgement Elise allowed herself to be drawn into the argument. She had heard the view expressed before that the Japs were a race of short-sighted, pot-bellied dwarfs who need not be taken seriously and she disagreed with it absolutely. ‘I've met a good few Japs in Hong Kong – barbers, shop-keepers, photographers – they're everywhere. And they're not fools, I assure you. They're shrewd and they're crafty and I personally don't trust them an inch.'

‘You're letting them worry you, Elise! You mustn't let them worry you!'

His hand reached out to cover hers; she tried to move away, but too late. His palm was warm, smooth, like his face; his fingers stroked the back of her hand gently. For some reason the intimacy of the gesture made her shiver, but gaining courage he slipped an arm around her waist and pulled her towards him.

‘Cold?' he asked.

‘No.' She tried to pull away but his grasp was deceptively tight. There was no way she could pretend it was accidental, no opportunity to laugh it off. ‘John … Captain Grimly …'

‘The Japs will be no match for our men. Just leave it to us …'

She saw someone moving along the deck and – realising how it would appear to anyone coming upon them – she twisted sharply against his arm.

‘Let go of me, please!'

He jumped as though he had been shot and although it was dark his face and neck flamed scarlet. ‘I'm sorry … I didn't mean to …'

‘Look, Captain Grimly, I don't want to be unkind, but I do think you ought to stop following me about. It's causing me quite a lot of embarrassment.'

‘I'm sorry.' His voice was tight, hurt and oddly indignant. ‘ I was only trying to make a difficult voyage more bearable for you. I know how nervous you must be and as a soldier and a man of the world I wanted to reassure you …'

‘The trouble is that you haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' she said shortly. ‘ You have never seen active service, you have never been in this part of the world before and you think life comes out of storybooks. It does not! I dare say you mean well, but I would really rather you found someone else to reassure and left me alone.'

In the moment's stunned silence that followed, she saw his face change and wished she had been a little more tactful.

‘I see! Well, in that case I'll bid you goodnight, Ma'am!' He turned, his head high, his back ramrod straight and took a few steps away from her. Then suddenly he faltered. One hand went out to grip the rail, the other covered his face; the straight back bowed and the shoulders hunched. Elise heard him swear and then the oath was choked off by a sob.

Oh, Lord, what have I done now? she wondered.

For endless seconds he remained motionless, frozen into that hunched attitude, and she knew he was struggling to control himself.

‘I'm sorry, I didn't mean …' She broke off. She couldn't say she hadn't meant what she had said – she had. But there should have been a kinder and more tactful way of putting it.

‘I just think you ought to realise that I'm not the damsel in distress I may appear to you to be,' she said gently. ‘I'm not sitting up in my ivory tower waiting to be rescued by a knight on a dashing white charger. I'm a married woman, several years older than you, on my way home to see my husband. I've even got a little boy, five years old …'

The control broke and his whole body began to shake violently.

What do I do now? she wondered. ‘Captain Grimly … John …' she said tentatively.

Without turning he raised a hand, shaking it in a dismissive movement, then his head came up and he swallowed convulsively at the tears.

‘Sorry! Foolish of me! Seem to make an idiot of myself on all sides.'

‘Don't be silly, you don't make an idiot of yourself at all.'

‘Hah!' It was half sob, half bitter laugh. ‘You don't have to be kind. I know what they all think of me. Young ass! But I thought that you …'

‘You're wrong. No one thinks that of you.'

‘Oh, they do, they do! And the damnable part about it is that they're right. What do I do? What have I ever done? Led an Army Cadets unit and pretended to be a soldier. But what will happen when I have to face the real thing, eh? Will I be able to do what my father did – lead men – keep my head – be a fine example? Or will I bloody funk it?'

His distress was enormous. It communicated itself to Elise so that she felt the same helplessness, the same panicking uncertainty.

‘You'll be all right, I'm sure you will,' she said. ‘Everyone must have doubts. Even your father did, I expect.'

‘But he was all right. When the test came, he was up to it. I might not be. And it scares me, lean tell you – it scares me to bloody death.'

She touched his arm. ‘ Please don't! You'll be fine, I know you will.'

He jerked his head. ‘Just leave me, eh? Better on my own. You don't want people seeing us together. Don't blame you – sorry if I've caused you some embarrassment.'

‘But …' She didn't want to leave him like this, especially feeling responsible as she did.

‘It's OK. Off you go.' He was not looking at her and she realised this was deliberate.

‘I'm sorry,' she said softly. ‘And I know you will be a fine soldier.' She walked off along the deck but at the bulkhead she turned. He was still standing with head bowed, and the sight of him seemed to imprint itself indelibly on her mind, a negative in sharp relief.