The White Guns (1989) (15 page)

Fairfax shifted under his grey eyes. 'He was always writing to his mother.' He hated it. Like a betrayal. 'You remember, sir?'

Marriott nodded. Short-handed was right. Only back in Kiel for a day and they were off again. But with Beri-Beri aboard it might be different. Someone to confide in, to share their feelings.

'Yes, I remember.' He had seen Lowes dragging about his duties. He had expected Fairfax, as his first lieutenant, to snap him out of it, and not leave Evans and the leading rates to carry him. The fact that he had not –

Fairfax said, 'Well, sir, when we came alongside yesterday, the mail was brought aboard. There were two letters or more for him. I think I recognised her handwriting. She wrote to him all the time.'

Marriott thought suddenly of the evening meal with his parents and the ingratiating Chris. His mother's expression when Penny had told them about her Canadian, and produced her ring.

She had exclaimed, 'You're not,
not
–

Penny had faced her, hurt and ashamed. 'No, I'm not pregnant, if you must bring it up in front of strangers!'

It had been awful. Afterwards he had heard Penny sobbing quietly in her old room.

Fairfax took his silence for impatience and said, 'He didn't even open them. I found them torn up in the gash-bucket.'

'I'm glad you told me.' It must be bad. What Commodore Paget-Orme would write off as an aftermath of war.

He stood up, needing to be alone before they got under way.

'Make Beri-Beri comfortable when he gets back, Number One. I'm going across the dock to visit Cuff.'

Fairfax followed him to the door and up to the deck where several of the hands were crawling about on their knees searching for open seams. It was warm and sunny, the misty blue sky making a blunt contrast with the shattered buildings and partly destroyed hulks. Men working everywhere, dust and smoke, parties of tired-looking Germans marching or shovelling, or patiently queuing at the army food-trucks for sandwiches and great mugs of sweet tea.

It would be good to get out of this place. Marriott turned as Fairfax walked to the break in the gangway.

'I forgot. You wanted to ask me something?'

Fairfax flushed and was surprised that he still could.

'It can keep, sir.'

'You want to stay in the Andrew when this lot's finally over, right?' He saw it go home like a bullet. 'All for it, are you?'

Fairfax shifted his feet. 'Something like that. I – I wanted to ask you what you thought about it, my chances, if there are any.'

'What
I
think about it?' He touched his sleeve. 'I'm the last one you ought to ask. Think about it anyway, then we can talk.'

Fairfax saluted as he strode over the brow to the rubble-strewn jetty.

To himself he said, 'You are the only one I would ask. Don't you,
can't
you understand you're the sole person I want to talk to?'

Ginger Jackson interrupted his thoughts.

'Congratulations, Mister Fairfax. Not before time neither.'

Fairfax noticed he was carrying Townsend's best jumpers over one arm.

He replied, 'News travels fast, Ginger. Where are you off to?'

Ginger did not reply directly. 'If you'd like to let me 'ave one of yer uniforms I can get yer new ring stitched on, sir. Real nice job. I'm gettin' Arthur Townsend's PO badges done.'

'How can you know a tailor, Ginger? You've not even been ashore yet!'

Ginger tapped his nose and winked. 'Little Jerry bloke right 'ere in the dockyard. No bother, sir.'

Fairfax smiled doubtfully. 'Right then.'

'I got the O.O.D.'s permission to step ashore, but I'll go an' get yer best reefer afore I leave.'

He strolled away whistling to himself.

Fairfax smiled. Not a care in the world. He saw Lowes standing near the working party, his face paler than ever.

I'll bet Ginger even knows what's up with him!

He called, 'Have you checked the chart, Pilot?'

'Chart?' Lowes stared at him dazedly. 'Which one?'

Fairfax pulled him out of earshot of the others.

'We're sailing this afternoon at 1600, for God's sake! What the
hell's
got into you?' He relented slightly as he saw Lowes's lip tremble.
At any second he's going to burst into tears in front of the hands.
He recalled the Skipper's words.
We still have to depend on each other.
'Just snap out of it, will you, John? Look around you at all this bloody mess! Then tell me
you've
got troubles!'

Lowes stiffened and retorted resentfully, 'It's all right for you–'

Fairfax said quietly, 'I didn't hear that. Now fetch the right chart for the Bay of Lübeck and I'll lend you a hand, okay?'

Lowes nodded slowly, the fight going out of him as quickly as it had risen.

'Yes, of course, Number One. I shan't let you down. And I was glad to hear about your promotion.'

Fairfax smiled. 'Chin up then. You look like a wet Sunday in Cardiff!'

Ginger reappeared with the reefer folded over Townsend's jumpers.

Townsend asked, 'Wot's up with Snow White, Ginger?'

Ginger frowned; he was planning what he would offer the German worker who was going to sew on the badges and Number One's extra ring.

'
'Im?
Found someone 'avin' it off with 'is old lady, you mark my words!'

Townsend sighed. 'Wish someone would take mine off my hands!'

They both laughed so that Petty Officer Evans who was standing on the empty bridge turned to look down at them.

He had seen some of the terrible photographs in the newspapers. All those pitiful, broken faces.

He felt himself sway as if the boat had rolled against the piles, but she was unmoving.

Any one of them could have been his young sister.

At 1600 exactly MGB 801 cast off her lines and headed down the harbour. Fairfax stood with the line of forecastle hands, listening to the shrill calls as they ploughed past a destroyer with the thick black band of Captain (D) on her wide funnel.

All of this must count, he thought, carry weight when he was accepted for an interview.

'Fall out the hands!'

Fairfax turned and touched his cap to the bridge. It would be strange to look up and not see Evans, he thought. After this trip anyway. He saw two faces where Marriott usually stood; the other one was Kidd. Fairfax smiled. Beri-Beri. Perhaps he might tell him more about the Skipper.

He watched them laugh together.

He had never seen Marriott so much at ease. What must have happened to make him the way he was?

Fairfax watched the seamen stowing the lines and fenders, chatting together, like Ginger, outwardly unimpressed by everything.

He could almost hear his father dismissing his feelings as nothing more than
hero-worship.
One of his many clinical conclusions.

Fairfax shook his head and remembered the nights off the Hook of Holland and amongst the Belgian sandbars.

For once, his father was near the truth.

Marriott and Kidd leaned side-by-side on the chart-table while the hull swayed and shuddered around them.

Marriott traced their pencilled course and the various fixes already marked on it with his brass dividers and said, 'We should be up to Fehmarn Island and into the Belt during the First Watch.' He looked up at the chartroom's deckhead as something clattered across it and brought an angry bellow from the helmsman. 'It's this reduced speed, I'm afraid, Beri-Beri.' He smiled as the hull rolled again. 'But I want to stand well clear when we turn into Mecklenburger Bay and then reach Neustadt around dawn. The minesweeping boys are out in force. I don't want to run afoul of them in the night!'

'How was Cuff, by the way?'

Marriott considered it. He had found Cuff Glazebrook slumped in his wardroom, an almost empty gin bottle his only company. He had made something of a show about his confrontation with the N.O.I.C., but it had lacked the old bluster one had come to expect of him.

'Kept on and on about those bloody depth charges! I still say I did the right thing. The bastards had no intention of stopping. Anyway,' he had slopped the remaining gin into his glass, 'I don't change that easy. I won't start licking the arses of those I've been ordered to kill just days earlier!'

'But he's taking no action in the matter?'

'How could he?'

He had leaned forward as if to hold him in focus.

'The bloody war's moving so fast we'll
never
get to the Far East at this rate. Rangoon's been retaken from the Nips, and our Pacific Fleet battleships were in some big action last week according to the newspapers. I tell you, old son, the carve-up will leave us high-and-dry. Even the Yank Ninth Army have had to pull back across the Elbe because they might offend the bloody Russians if they hold on to what they captured!' He had tried to cheer up and had said, 'Heard about old Beri-Beri. We'll see some fun now. He'll shake up these po-faced gits who are trying to run things here.'

Marriott had felt almost sorry for him. 'What will you do when peace arrives, Cuff?'

'Not be like my father,
that's
for sure! His idea of enjoyment is a weekend at Blackpool and a plate of whelks with his cronies!'

Anyone who did not know would imagine that Cuff's father was some kind of layabout. Marriott had known for a long time that the truth was a direct opposite. Cuff's old man was a millionaire and dealt in commercial vehicles. The war had made him rich, and there were few army units which did not use either some of his vehicles or at least their components. He had started life on the shop-floor of a factory which had been on the decline until the war had broken out. Where Cuff's father had found the money to buy the place and finance several others was a mystery and would probably remain so.

But Cuff did not see it quite like that. 'If the silly old sod thinks
I'm
going to learn the business right from the bottom as he did, he can think again. Jesus, after what I've been through –' His red-rimmed eyes had flashed in the dusty sunlight. 'I intend to begin at the top, with his bloody help or otherwise!'

Marriott looked at his friend. 'You know Cuff. All blood and guts. I don't see peacetime suiting him at all!'

They were laughing as Fairfax ducked down into the chart-house.

'We've just sighted some of the sweepers, sir. Three miles. Just exchanged recognition signals.'

Marriott peered at the chart again. 'Alter course. Steer Nor'-East until we're well clear. Then call me, and I'll order an increase of revs to compensate for it.'

Fairfax's eyes moved quickly between them. 'Ginger is making some fresh coffee, sir.'

'Right. We'll be there when you've altered course.'

Kidd yawned. 'Nice enough chap.'

'Between us, he wants to sign on as a regular.'