Someone Special (47 page)

‘Cancel it? Why on earth? Oh, you mean because I’m flying tomorrow night? But we can still meet tomorrow morning, have a walk around. In fact, if you’re going to Waddington I might come with you. I’ve several friends there. Or did you have something else in mind?’

Anna let her eyes rest on his face for a moment. He looked both understanding and amused, as though the possibility of Anna making the suggestion she had been making was laughable. But having said so much, she would have to go through with it.

‘No, that wasn’t why I thought you might want me to cancel it exactly,’ Anna muttered. She felt the hot colour rising up her neck, flooding her cheeks. She twisted in her seat to hide her embarrassment from Dan’s amused eyes. Ahead of them and above, a girl was leaning over the little grey stone bridge. She wore a bright blue blouse or dress, Anna couldn’t see which, and her hair hung down, a blue-black bell, on either side of a small, oval face.

‘Why did you think I might want you to cancel your boarding house?’ Dan asked. His voice was warm, but the amusement was still there. ‘Darling Anna, is there something I should know?’

‘Umm … my r-room’s only got a s-s-single bed in it,’ Anna stammered, scarlet, she was sure, from top to toe. She fixed her eyes on the bottom-boards of the boat and on her black uniform shoes. ‘I thought y-you might …’

Dan put an end to her misery. He brought his oars inboard, leaned forward and tilted her chin so that she had to look up at him, then he stroked her cheek. His eyes were very gentle, and the amusement had vanished.

‘A single bed is very comfortable for a single girl,’ he said. ‘Anna, what you’re suggesting … my
God
!’

He let go of her chin and stood up so abruptly that the little boat rocked and nearly capsized. One
oar, which had still been in the rowlock, clattered on to the bottom-board, the other would have gone overboard had Anna not grabbed for it.

‘What’s the matter? What happened?’ Anna asked wildly, trying to turn round in her seat to see why Dan had leapt to his feet like that. ‘Are we going to sink?’

Dan sat down again, slowly, and reached for the oars. ‘Sink? I doubt it. I thought I saw someone I knew, but she’s gone. My God, I hope she didn’t… look, Anna, we’ll have to go ashore. Our time’s nearly up anyway.’

‘Yes, all right,’ Anna muttered. She had really done it this time; her suggestion had been so unwelcome that Dan had invented a convenient friend to get them both out of the boat and to take her mind off her indecent proposal. Still, at least she hadn’t asked him outright to take her to bed, if that was any comfort.

She was very quiet while Dan tied up the boat, helped her on to the quayside and settled with the boat-hire man. She was very quiet when he ran up to the road ahead of her, looking right and left and quiet still when he came despondently back and said that his friend had gone. Would Anna mind very much if he walked her back to her boarding house now and left her? The friend, he explained, might ring Scampton and he would kick himself if he missed her.

‘Anyone I know?’ Anna asked listlessly. It was a sensible question, since they came from the same small village and had a large acquaintance in common, or so she thought.

‘No, you don’t know her. I met her long ago, in Wales, when I was ten, then I met her again in Suffolk when I was staying with cousins, oh, three or four years ago it must have been. She’d been evacuated to a house nearby … we’ve written a few times. I wonder if it really was her … anyway, I must get back, in case. She – she’s an old friend, you see.’

‘Is she a close friend?’ Anna asked as they walked along Silver Street. ‘But I suppose she can’t be, if you’ve not seen her for three or four years.’

‘She’s someone special,’ Dan admitted. ‘I don’t think I could forget her, even if I wanted to. I’d really like to see her again.’

‘Does she have black hair and a white face?’ Anna said, visited by inspiration. ‘I looked around when we were getting near the bridge and saw a girl in a blue blouse leaning over, looking down at us. Was that her?’

‘I think so,’ Dan said soberly. ‘Look, can you ring me at ten in the morning? We can talk then. For a start, I’ll know whether it was her, because if it was she’s bound to ring me, wouldn’t you say?’

Just for a moment, Anna hated Dan, hated the pleading note in his voice. How dared he ask for reassurance about another woman from her, who loved him so helplessly. But she remembered the aircrew on her own station, the sort of lives they led, and she didn’t voice the tart response which had been on the tip of her tongue.

‘Yes, if it was her she’s bound to ring,’ she said gently. ‘Look, you go off now, no need to take me any farther, I can see Lindum Hill from here.’

‘Well, if you’re sure …’

She gave him a little push and he was gone, loping rapidly down the hill, turning to give her a quick wave before he disappeared.

They stood in the garden: the small, straight-backed girl wearing a faded pink dress, the tall, yellow-haired young man in his naval uniform. They were talking earnestly, heads close, hands touching.

They make a lovely couple, Peggy thought sentimentally, standing in the nursery window shamelessly watching, for they would know they were observed, realise that their friendship was the source of a great
many rumours. I wonder if they’ll be allowed to follow their hearts, those two? With Elizabeth heir to the throne it could not simply be a matter of personal choice, and he was foreign, though he neither looked nor acted it.

‘Peggy, don’t look!’ Margaret Rose stood at the maid’s side, tugging her elbow. ‘It isn’t fair to stare. She’s asked Papa, you know, if they might exchange rings before he sails again, but Papa thinks it’s too soon, he says she knows so few young men. Well, unless you count a brigade of guards officers as a few, I suppose he’s right, only what about the evacuees, and the people who come down to the castle to talk to Papa and his ministers? We see them, me and Lilibet, and most of them are nice and fun to be with, so if she says she loves Philip and he loves her, why can’t they at least get engaged?’

‘Your sister is only eighteen, dear,’ Peggy said gently. ‘I know it seems old to you, but it’s awfully young for a big commitment like marriage.’

‘Queen Victoria was queen when she wasn’t much older than Lilibet,’ the Princess said promptly. ‘And no one said she was too young. A while ago, when … when it was necessary, Lilibet signed things for Papa. I don’t think she’s too young to say who she wants to marry.’

‘No, nor do I,’ Peggy said. ‘But I’m not the king of England.’

‘You aren’t even the queen,’ Margaret Rose said, giggling. ‘Ah, he’s leaving and Lilibet’s coming indoors. But mark my words, Peggy, no matter what Mummy and Daddy do or say, she’ll marry him. My sister’s a very good girl, but she does know what she wants. She always has.’

12

‘I WISH WE
were out there, oh how I wish we were just two ordinary girls, throwing fireworks, shouting, kissing and hugging, instead of having to wave and wave until your hand aches and then come indoors and listen to a lot of pompous old men telling one another how they won the war.’

Princess Margaret Rose flounced away from the long windows and addressed her sister in a piercing whisper. ‘I’m as glad as anyone that it’s over – gladder, probably – but don’t I just wish we were down there with them!’

Miss Huntley smiled her sympathy at her young charge and Elizabeth nodded and sighed wistfully.

‘Margaret’s right – if only we could go down! It’s so nice to feel that those horrible doodlebugs aren’t going to come over ever again, and it’s wonderful to see the streets lit up and the buses and cars using proper headlamps. Everyone down there is so
happy
, you can almost feel their happiness coming up to us over the balcony. I’m sure they wouldn’t notice us if we went down for half an hour.’

‘They most certainly would, Princess,’ Miss Huntley said in her most repressive tone. ‘You’d probably be mobbed and you wouldn’t like that one bit. Now settle down, both of you, and we’ll send Peggy down to the kitchen to get hot cocoa and biscuits.’

‘I’m hot already, hot with excitement,’ the younger princess said defiantly. ‘I’m going to find Mama and Papa, they can’t have gone far, I want to ask them …’

She was tugging the door when someone came through it. The King smiled at his younger child. ‘Feeling a little flat after all the excitement, darling? Well, Mummy and
I have arranged a small treat for you both. I’ve spoken to some of your friends in the Guards, and they’ve agreed to take very great care of you and take you down into the crowd. You’ll be good and stick close to the fellows won’t you, my dears?’

Elizabeth came over to where her father stood and touched his arm. ‘Oh, Papa,’ she said, her eyes shining. ‘That is exactly what Margaret Rose and I were most wanting to do. You are so good to us!’

The younger princess said nothing; she launched herself into her father’s arms and kissed him with a violence which said more than any words.

The convoys had to keep going, of course, particularly those heading for Russia.

When the frigate
Moonraker
was hit, they were in the Barents Sea with the ragged coastline of Sweden giving way to that of Russia; they could have been only a mile or two from their projected landfall at Murmansk. Lieutenant commander JJ Radwell was in his cabin, snatching a much needed nap, when the torpedo struck. He woke when the explosion rocked the bunk where he lay and staggered, half asleep, to the door, to find it apparently blocked. He threw himself at it two or three times before it gave and as he burst into the short corridor beyond he knew why it had proved so obdurate. Water, swirling knee-high, rushed at him, turning his legs numb with cold within seconds. Poor old
Moonraker
had been holed, or worse. He had to get up to the bridge without delay.

The water got worse, though, and at the foot of the companionway he changed his mind; no point in heading for the bridge, he would never make it, the ship was listing badly already and would be down in seconds rather than minutes by the look of it; anyway the water roaring down the stairs towards him did not augur well for escape.

He managed to make the deck. It was night, but summer nights were never truly dark up here. The coastline was in sight and JJ could see the men struggling to launch the boats, a few poor devils already in the water. They would not last long out there, not in water as cold as that of the Barents Sea.

They were getting the last men into the last boat when the next torpedo struck. The little boat was never launched, it simply tipped into the heaving sea, but by the grace of God it remained the right way up. Someone screamed an obscenity and JJ echoed it in his mind, though aloud he only said, ‘Steady, chaps, don’t move more than you have to … has someone got the oars?’

Next to him the coxswain said, ‘There ain’t no bloody oars, sir, someone must ’ave nicked ’em. Bloody ’ell, there’s some lunatic in that bloody U-boat what doesn’t know the war’s over! Unless it’s a bloody Jap, of course.’

The other boat had been launched ten minutes before theirs and JJ watched enviously as it drew steadily away. He could have gone in the first boat, but had chosen to stay with his men until everyone who could make the deck was aboard. It was no use repining; they simply sat in their cockleshell craft and watched as the poor old
Moonraker
, which had been a good little ship, took its final plunge beneath the waves.

JJ looked around. The convoy was nowhere in sight but the coastline was near; he had to cling to that thought and not envy the men in the first boat as they rowed steadily away. Someone shouted to them, another voice joined in, but it was impossible to get their attention with a big sea running and the distance between them steadily increasing.

JJ sighed and was about to see if there was a bailer or anything that could be used to propel them forward when something terrible and monolithic rose from the deep. It was huge and black, and it surfaced ahead of them and
right below the other boat. It actually carried the boat and its crew of rescued seamen several feet up in the air before their frail craft tipped. One moment the water was full of screaming men and oil and bits of their boat, the next the sea-monster had dived again, carrying the human flotsam and jetsam with it. Total silence reigned for the space of ten seconds. Then the men in the boat began cursing and shrieking, calling down the wrath of heaven on the submarine.

‘Was that … that
thing
a U-boat?’ JJ hissed to the man sitting next to him. The man nodded, face red with rage.

‘Aye, and them buggers did it on purpose, they wanted to do more than finish off poor old
Moonraker
and ’alf me mess-mates, they wanted to kill the rest of us. Eh, I’d like to get that feller, that capting, with ’is bleedin’ pants down for five minutes. He’d never mek another woman I’m tellin’ you, sir.’

‘They couldn’t ’ave done it on purpose,’ someone else said quietly. ‘I don’t reckon a sub knows what’s above it, not if it’s a small thing like a boat. Eh, but I reckon I’ll never forget that; never.’

‘Nor me,’ another man put in, his voice subdued. ‘Nor me.’

JJ knelt up and addressed them. ‘It was a terrible thing and we’ll none of us forget it, but right now, take a look around you; can anyone see any wreckage we might use as oars to get us ashore?’

‘Ye-es, but it’s too cold to go overboard … Hey, there, port bow – grab it, young Sandy, if you want to taste ’ot tea agin!’

Someone grabbed young Sandy and he leaned over the side, white-faced but determined. After minutes of hard effort the crew had a pair of oars and were beginning to make use of them. The oarsmen were probably, JJ mused as he got steadily colder, the only people on board whose
blood wasn’t almost frozen in their veins. They were farther from the shore than he had thought, or perhaps the tide was carrying them out to sea. Everyone would have to take a turn with the oars.

Time passed. Someone handed round some very hard ships’ biscuits and everyone had a mouthful of stale-tasting water. JJ took a turn at the oars and found it harder going than he expected because he could not grasp the wood with his numb fingers. He wished fervently he had managed to grab his duffel coat before he left the cabin. He wished he wasn’t wet to the waist. He wished he dared go to sleep.