Pride and the Anguish (15 page)

Corbett saw his glance and said, “Petty Officer Dancy made it for him last year.” Then in something like his usual tone he asked crisply, “Well, what do you think of him, eh?”

Trewin replied, “A fine boy. You must be very proud of him.” He did not know how to react to this Corbett.

“Means everything to me, Trewin.” Corbett sounded distant. “Him and the ship. Everything.” He patted the sheet into place and touched the ragged teddy bear on the pillow. “A man needs an anchor. Must have one, you know!” He seemed to pull himself together with an effort. “Well, must get back to my guests.” He closed the door quietly behind them. “I've got his name down for Dartmouth, did I tell you?”

“Yes, sir.” Trewin felt uneasy. “That'll be a few years yet.”

Corbett rubbed his hands. “Ah well, we
must
plan. Can't just let life run all over you.” He added vaguely, “After the war I suppose you'll settle down and be a journalist again, eh?” He smiled briefly. “Write a great novel perhaps?” It seemed to amuse him. “Well, God knows there's enough material in this island to fill a damn library!”

The big room was as noisy as before and the air was heavy with smoke and perfume. Tweedie was sitting on a chair, his head lolling in sleep, some paper streamers wrapped around his neck. There was no sign of Mallory.

A hand caught Trewin's sleeve and he turned guardedly, half expecting it might be Corbett's wife. But it was Hammond. He looked very bright-eyed, and there was little trace of the fatigue and strain of the past few weeks. He said quickly, “I've been looking all over the place for you, Number One.”

Then Trewin saw the girl whose hand he was holding. She was tall and statuesque, and several years older than Hammond, he thought. She was a very striking girl, handsome rather than pretty, and her dark colouring and wide slanting eyes betrayed the mixture of blood and race which made her stand out from the women around her.

Hammond said, “This is Jacqui, Number One.” He looked from one to the other, both pleased and nervous. “Jacqui Laniel.”

They shook hands and the girl said quietly, “It is very noisy, yes?”

Hammond said, “Jacqui is an interpreter at Government House. We met when I was doing my course.” He grinned awkwardly. “We've become very good friends!” He looked at the girl and they shared the same smile.

At that moment someone started to ring a bell, and everyone crowded together singing and cheering. Hammond seized the girl's shoulders and kissed her, forgetting Trewin and everyone else in the room.

“Happy New Year, darling!”

Trewin turned away, suddenly feeling very alone. All around him people were embracing each other, laughing and shouting, or staring at familiar faces as if for the first time.

Corbett's voice cut through the din, and he turned to see him standing beside the table. He was holding a glass in one hand and offering him another. Corbett said, “Happy New Year, Trewin.” He was watching him strangely.

It was then that Trewin realised something else about Corbett. He was drinking. It was almost a shock to realise that he had never seen him take a drink before.

There were beads of sweat on his brow, and in the bright lights his hair looked very grey. He said, “Didn't want you as my first lieutenant, y'know! Thought it was a damned dirty trick when they posted you to me. Never had much time for amateurs. All right in the Army, of course, but the Service is different. Quite different!”

Trewin did not know whether to show resentment or amusement. He replied evenly, “We do our best, sir.”

Corbett did not seem to hear. “No, I'm very pleased with you.” He nodded. “Very pleased, Trewin!” He lifted his glass and said suddenly, “And I hope you have better luck all round.” He looked across at Hammond and all the others. He might have
been looking for his wife. “But you've got the ship, Trewin. It's not every man who can say that!”

Trewin felt the drink burning away his reason. The overwhelming press of noise and heat seemed to force the words from his mouth. “I meant to ask you, sir. What is it between you and the admiral?”

For an instant he thought he had gone too far. But he no longer cared. In the middle of all this frenzy and excitement, seeing Hammond's obvious happiness and Corbett's faith in his son, he could no longer care about anything.

Corbett eyed him emptily. “He was my first lieutenant, too, Trewin. Away back when I commanded the destroyer
Ariel.
We were on manoeuvres in the Med and I rammed the Captain (D)'s ship. It was actually his fault, and everyone knew it at the time.” He shrugged wearily. “But in the cold light of a court of inquiry things appeared differently.”

Trewin frowned. He must have missed something. He tried again, raising his voice above the noise. “But I still don't see…”

Corbett said sharply, “Fairfax-Loring gave evidence against me, Trewin. That tipped the scales and I took the blame!”

Trewin felt the anger rising like a tide. “That was a bloody terrible thing to do!”

“You think so?” Corbett's tone was calm. “Well, I went on the beach after that. And Fairfax-Loring is a rear-admiral.” He stared at his empty glass with distaste. “So it wasn't too terrible for
him,
was it?” He placed the glass on the table and then said, “I do not wish to discuss it further.”

Trewin saw him stagger slightly and was strangely moved.

Corbett walked towards the door adding curtly, “And don't put it in that damned book when you write it either!”

Trewin watched the curtains sway back across the door and then heard the admiral's booming laugh from across the room. With sudden determination he walked to the entrance and picked up his cap from the great pile beside the low porch. Outside it was very dark and cool without a trace of wind. Yet
Trewin could smell the salt from the sea, and imagined the gunboat sleeping at her moorings, like the little model beside the boy's bed. Well, it was a new year, he thought vaguely. And one thing was sure. It could not be worse than the last one.

Swinging his cap in one hand, Trewin started to walk back towards the town, and the sea.

A
PART FROM THREE DAYS
in harbour the New Year brought little change or respite to the
Porcupine.
The coastal patrols continued, but whereas the proximity of danger left no time for relaxation, there were no direct attacks on the ship, and the news from the inland war remained vague and uncertain, so that officers and men came to accept their isolated role with patient forbearance. Then after a week at sea, broken only by a hasty dash to replenish the fuel tanks,
Porcupine
was ordered to take on a full cargo of ammunition and deliver it to the Army via the Talang Inlet.

At Mersing they had laid in the sandy shallows beneath a blazing sun, immobile and vulnerable to any hostile aircraft, while long lines of sweating soldiers had trundled crates of grenades and ammunition down the beach where they stood in great, inviting piles of destruction, while the hard-worked sailors heaved them aboard and stowed them on and around every available piece of deck space.

Now in pitch darkness, rolling uneasily in a choppy offshore swell, the
Porcupine
pushed her way northwards once more, her bows throwing back arrows of spray as she maintained an unwilling ten knots. It was just past midnight, and some fast-moving clouds obscured the stars and left the sea's face like black glass, unbroken but for the ship's slow passage.

Trewin worked his teeth around the stem of his unlit pipe and tried to focus his glasses on the distant shoreline. Only an occasional garland of surf betrayed the line of crumbled cliffs, and in his mind's eye he tried to remember that first visit to Talang. Then there had been no actual war. Just uncertainty and apprehension. He recalled the half-hidden entrance to the
Inlet and the hump-sided hill which guarded the northern side of it. Now in the darkness there was very little to go on, and the gunboat's top-heavy pitch and roll was made more obvious by the great weight of ammunition, and even Unwin, the coxswain, was having difficulty keeping her on course.

Within hours of backing away from the beach at Mersing they had received a signal. It had been brief but definite. “Do not, repeat not, approach Talang Inlet during daylight. Approaches are under fire from artillery.”

Corbett had listened to the signal in silence. Then he had jumped from his chair and paced the bridge in quick, angry strides, as if to work off his irritation. “Damn them! Why the hell can't they knock out a few guns?” He had glared at Trewin. “We're holding them on the Pahang River, so that means these guns must be firing about ten miles or so.” As Trewin had kept silent he had snapped, “So they must be big enough to
see,
eh?”

Trewin glanced sideways at Corbett's hunched figure on the forepart of the bridge. His body was swaying in the chair in time with the unsteady motion but he could have been asleep.

It was hard, no impossible, to picture Corbett as he had been for just a few moments at the New Year's party. Once back aboard he had resumed his old isolated position of command. He showed no sign of having remembered any display of confidence with Trewin, nor did he ever mention his family.

Mallory stepped across the gratings and said quietly, “We alter course in ten minutes. Course to steer is two eight zero.” He rubbed his eyes. “God, it's as black as a boot!”

Trewin turned quickly, just in time to see a far-off flare drifting down across the mainland. For a brief instant he saw a ridge of hilltop and heard the vague crump, crump of gunfire. Just a murmur. A mere hint of what lay beneath. Probably even now men were stalking each other through the dense jungle. Straining their ears, deafened by their own frantic heartbeats, fingers on triggers or groping for grenades.

Corbett's voice broke the train of thought. “This will have to
be a slow approach, Trewin. Remember the sandbars. If we run aground it will be daylight before the tide lifts us off. By then it might be too late.”

Trewin nodded. The
Porcupine
was already a floating bomb. Beached on a mudbank, it would not be a difficult target to find.

The seconds ticked by. Then Mallory said flatly, “Ready, sir!”

Corbett snapped, “Port fifteen!” He waited, his hands outspread across the screen as if to feel the ship's sluggish response. “Midships. Steady.” He half turned, his face pale against the backcloth of land. “Well. Pilot?”

Mallory repeated. “Course two eight zero, sir!”

Trewin passed the course to the wheelhouse, and as he straightened his back he heard Corbett say sharply, “Well, tell
me
in future, Pilot! I'm not a damn mind-reader!”

Trewin said quietly, “That was my fault, sir. He did tell me the change of course when…”

Corbett interrupted angrily, “Oh, for
God's
sake!” He swung back to peer at the darkening line of land. “You can save your defences of the navigating officer's slackness for later!”

It was unfair, and Trewin was tempted to say so. He looked at Mallory's outline across the chart table and saw him shrug.

It was very odd. Corbett was acting as if he had never made this approach before. As if he was troubled by the mass of explosives around him. Yet how could this be? Trewin tried to see his face in the gloom, but could only make out the outline of his chin and the insistent tapping fingers of one hand on the screen.

While they had loaded the ammunition, each man expecting an air attack in every dragging minute, Corbett had stayed on the bridge, apparently indifferent, and more concerned it seemed with the damage done to decks and paintwork, by clumsily handled crates.

Corbett rapped, “Slow ahead together!”

The engines sighed and the motion increased as the ship wallowed heavily in her own bow-wave.

Trewin heard the scrape of steel from aft and pictured the
gunners crouching by their breeches, ears and nerves strained to breaking point as they waited for a sudden attack. Not that it was likely, Trewin thought. The Japs were apparently prepared to depend on daylight, and with good reason. Air superiority was the main weapon for attacks on surface craft.

Corbett snapped his fingers. “Depth?”

“Four fathoms, sir.” The seaman's voice was hushed.

Corbett nodded. “Port ten. Midships.” He was moving his head from side to side, like a terrier sniffing out its adversary.

Mallory said suddenly, “We'll run too close to the sandbars, sir! I suggest you stay on this course until…”

“When I require your opinion I'll ask for it!” Corbett slid from his chair and stooped over the compass repeater. He held his face so close that Trewin could see the luminous dial reflected in his eyes. He said, “Steer two seven eight!”

Mallory sucked his lip. “Christ!” he said under his breath.

Trewin thrust his head under the oilskin hood and peered at the chart. It was a very bad entrance. In some places the sandbars were above water at high tide.

A voice said, “Three fathoms, sir!”

Trewin studied the neat pencilled lines and the countless alterations which Mallory had entered on the chart. There had once been light buoys and a beacon on the headland. Now there was nothing.

He stood up and walked to the front of the bridge.

Corbett shot him a glance. “Won't be long now.”

A darker blotch of land moved leisurely across the starboard beam. It was the crouching hill. Trewin breathed out slowly. He could feel the deck jerking steeply in response to the fierce current from the Inlet and heard the wheel creaking below his feet as Unwin fought his personal battle with sea and rudder. He tried not to stare at the hardening line of land across the bows. It made his head ache, like that of a blind man walking towards a solid barrier in his path. Seeing nothing, yet knowing that it was there.