For Valour

by Douglas Reeman

  He heard Kidd’s voice, telling Wishart to fetch something from the shed he used as a store at the side of the jetty.

  He strode in, and paused to inhale the paint-filled air.

  “God, it’s like a Maltese brothel in here!” He signalled to the steward. “Same as the first lieutenant, please.” He sat down heavily and stared at his scuffed seaboots.

  “Be glad to get out of this dump, and that’s the truth.” He seemed tense, and waited until the steward had put down the glass and returned to his hiding place. “Back to Liverpool, d’you think?”

  “Bound to. Regroup the rest of the troops, and then we’ll be off again.”

  Kidd did not seem to hear him. “You see, I was wondering.” He stared at his glass; it was empty. Then he grinned through his beard, more shy than embarrassed, Fairfax thought afterwards. “The fact is, Jamie, I’d like you to be my best man.”

  Fairfax stared at him. “You wily old bugger! I knew you were up to something!” He leaned over and seized his big hand. “Well done, Roger! Sorry for her, though, whoever she is!”

  Young Wishart heard their laughter as he straightened his cap and headed for the brow.

  Lieutenant Cavaye snapped, “And where do you think you’re going, Wishart? Leaving the ship without permission is akin to desertion, didn’t you know that?”

  Wishart swung round.

  “The navigating officer has sent me to collect a box from the store, sir.”

  He was hurt and annoyed by Cavaye’s unnecessary outburst, although others had told him it was the nearest he ever got to making a joke.

  But all he could think of was his friend, Bob Forward. He had met him coming offshore, earlier than he would have expected in a place like Devonport. Guz, they all called it.

  He had intended to ask him something about watch bills for his notebook. They had told him it would be useful to keep details of daily routine, for the time when he would be sent to King Alfred to train as an officer.

  Forward had almost ignored him. “I’m not your nurse, Ian. Stand on your own for a bit.”

  Like Lieutenant Kidd, who had also been very distant since their fight with the German destroyer. And yet just now he had heard him laughing his head off with Jimmy-the-One.

  He hurried on. It would be dark again soon. Too late to fall in with libertymen. He was almost out of money, anyway.

  He found the door, but the padlock was already unfastened. He would probably get the blame for that too.

  The windows were filthy but he saw the big packing case, the smaller one resting on the top, just as Kidd had described it.

  He peered at it closely to be certain and then tensed, instinct telling him that he was not alone.

  He turned and saw someone in the far corner. The battle must have got to him badly; he was as jumpy as a frightened cat.

  It was Midshipman Seton, probably sent on the same mission. It would explain the padlock.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t realize . . .”

  Seton turned slightly, the white patches on his jacket catching the last of the light.

  Wishart wanted to move, to cry out, anything. But he could only stare. Midshipman Seton was still turning slowly, but even in this gloom he could see that his feet were off the ground.

  Leading Seaman Bob Forward walked quickly along the jetty, breathing hard, still angry with himself, for being unprepared and for taking it out of Ian Wishart.

  He had gone ashore with the other libertymen to find a telephone. In their house in Battersea they had never run to a phone of their own; not many did down that street. He usually telephoned the local dairy which was open all hours; his mother did part-time work there now since his dad had died. He wanted to pass on a message for her. It was her birthday tomorrow. It seemed too good a chance to miss.

  He knew the milkman who had answered the phone. He explained that she had not been into work for a couple of days, then had covered the mouthpiece while a train had thundered past in the background. Clapham Junction, where the cups and saucers rattled every time an express went through. Locals never even noticed it after a while.

  His friend had said, “I don’t know what’s up, Bob, but the cops have been round to your house a few times.” He had lowered his voice. “Not the Old Bill, neither, but the plainclothes mob this time, right?”

  Forward had made some excuse and had hung up.

  It was impossible. Or was it? They had released the one they thought had done it. Innocent, they said. He had felt strangely uneasy that he had not cared, one way or the other.

  Probably blow over. He had covered his tracks. The railway warrant would prove that. Compassionate leave . . .

  He tilted his cap; his forehead was wet with sweat despite the cold.

  He saw Wishart standing in the doorway of a hut. There had been no need to give him a mouthful.

  He stopped and said, “What is it?” then he walked slowly towards him. “Sorry I blew my top back there.” Wishart was staring at him, his face quite white. Forward tried again. “’Course I’ll give you a hand with your notes. Don’t want you to end up as another bloody Mister Cavaye, do we?”

  Then he saw the figure in the corner of the hut, and managed to catch and hold Wishart as he fainted. Like that day in the sea together, when they had both nearly died.

  “Bloody Christ!” He called to a passing sailor, “Call Hakka ’s quartermaster, will you, mate?”

  The man nodded and ran off.

  Forward lowered the youth to the ground and held him in his arms, the doorway shielded from his eyes.

  I knew there was something wrong. He heard hurrying feet. It was Jimmy-the-One, thank God. Cavaye would have been too much.

  “What is it?” Fairfax beckoned to the sentry at Hakka’s brow.

  “He found Mister Seton, sir. He’s done himself in. Poor sod.”

  Fairfax glanced at him. Something should have rung a warning. Kidd had been complaining about Seton’s manner, his failure to return when he had sent him for something from the hut.

  Wishart opened his eyes, and for an instant they saw the terror returning.

  Then he said, “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Fairfax patted his arm. “How could you?” He looked up as Kidd loomed above them. “The Skipper will have to be told. See if you can raise the doctor. He’s probably still in the hospital.”

  They were all here, the Buffer, and two A.B.s with a stretcher, Pryor the P.O. sickberth attendant, and Cavaye.

  Fairfax looked up at the bearded navigator and said, “And yes, Roger, I’d like to be your best man. It’s the best bloody thing I’ve heard this year!”

  Pryor said, “Better cut him down, sir.”

  The Buffer strode into the hut. “I’ll do it. Lend a hand, Thomas.”

  He had done it with a length of wire, and must have died slowly, his feet almost touching the floor. What must he have been thinking in those last agonizing moments? He might even have been able to save himself if he had so wanted.

  One seaman picked up Seton’s cap and laid it on the stretcher beneath his head. Covered with a blanket, it was carried out of the hut.

  Fairfax followed, his own cap in his hand. There would be an inquiry. Maybe Seton had left a note, or some message for his father, the Admiral.

  “Take him to the sickbay. I’ll inform the Captain of the dockyard.”

  Pryor followed the stretcher along the deck, where men stood aside to let it pass.

  He knew, or thought he knew, what had brought it about. Officers were not immune. It was a shame all the same; he had seemed a nice chap. He grimaced. For an officer . . .

  Fairfax walked back into the wardroom. His drink was standing where he had left it, and Seton had died in that time. Still a stranger.

  He thought of Martineau. He would be there by now. It could wait. He needed a break. And we are going to need him.

  Kidd slumped down opposite him and said, “Rotten thing to happen.”

  Fairfax shoo
k himself out of it. “Tell me about this lady you’re going to marry. And we’ll have another drink to celebrate, on my chit.”

  It was the only way.

  And at the other end of the ship, on the lower messdeck, Forward opened his locker and took out a bottle half-filled with hoarded rum.

  Opposite him on a bench seat Wishart sat gazing at him, his hands clasped together on the scrubbed table.

  Forward poured two glasses, feeling the youth’s eyes following every move. They might all be dead soon, or the war might go on for years and years. Nobody knew anything for certain any more.

  He pushed a glass across the table and waited for Wishart to pick it up. Then he touched the glass with his own.

  “Mates?” It was all he said.

  And Wishart nodded, his eyes bright with shock or emotion, it was impossible to say.

  “Mates!”

  15 | “Ours Not to Reason Why”

  The camouflaged army lorry, a three-ton Bedford, shuddered to a halt, steam rising from its flat bonnet from the rain which had finally stopped shortly after leaving Southampton.

  Graham Martineau turned to the driver, a corporal in the Royal Army Service Corps, and said, “Thanks a lot. I’d still be waiting back in Southampton but for you.”

  “You live round here, sir?”

  He eased his shoulders away from the hard seat. He could imagine what Morrison’s friend would say about it. The road was a minor one, used it seemed by a local tank detachment, and very much the worse for wear.

  “Just down that road.”

  “I’d take you to the door, sir, but my C.O.’s following somewhere in his jeep. You know how it is.”

  “Same in the navy.” He climbed down and gestured to the tin of duty-free cigarettes he had left on the seat. “Thanks again.”

  The soldier grinned broadly and let in the clutch. There were three men sitting in the back. They were, the corporal had explained, Italian prisoners of war. Working on the land, helping the farmers who were always short of hands. They looked cheerful enough; no guards either. It was a different war.

  He turned away and stared along the narrow lane. The village of Lyndhurst was on the main road, as they jokingly called it, and it was also busy with military vehicles. The house stood apart from the village, on its own piece of land. Now, looking around, he could barely believe it was the same place. All the signposts had been removed; even the old milestone which had stated 9 miles to Southampton had been cemented over. Surely if the Germans had got this far they would know exactly where they were going, but, like the concrete pill-boxes disguised as newsstands and the tall poles erected in every field to prevent enemy gliders from landing, they were marks of defiance, a small nation standing on its own. Churchill’s famous speech, We will fight them on the beaches . . . We will never surrender, had been about all they had had in those first months to sustain them. Now the threat of enemy landings had receded, and the high command was talking openly of invading Europe. To most it was still a dream, a hope. The starker aspects of everyday life took precedence: food and clothing rationing, fuel shortages, and the constant risk of death and destruction from the air.

  He had telephoned his mother to tell her of his impending arrival, but the transport officer had been unable to wangle him a driver for the last part of the journey. The cheerful soldier had provided the solution, glad of somebody to talk to, officer or not, and to discuss the other war beyond his own camp and his duties in the battalion.

  It would be something to tell his friends while he was passing the duty-frees around at the local inn.

  It was good to walk, to take time to think, to see and smell the countryside again, so near the sea, and yet to any stranger you could be buried in the New Forest.

  He was aware of his own sense of guilt at being away from the ship, no matter how justified the reason. Fairfax could cope; he did before I stepped aboard. And it would only be for three days.

  His mind returned to Morrison’s friend at Haslar Hospital, on the Gosport side of Portsmouth Harbour. Another surgeon commander, but so different from the one he had encountered before. Like Roderick Morrison in some ways, he had looked vaguely out of place in uniform, even though he was a regular officer.

  The examination had been thorough but informal, if that were possible in a naval hospital. But the sights and the sounds were the same, and the smells, and the fear.

  There was, he explained, a weakness caused by the depth of the injury, and above all the lack of time given for recuperation.

  Martineau had heard himself say, “Then there’s nothing more I can do.”

  The surgeon had shrugged. “Your command comes first. As a doctor I should dispute that, but I’ve seen enough in the last few years to make me hold my tongue.”

  Martineau stepped around a huge puddle, and saw some cows peering at him over a farm gate. Despite the lack of exercise in all shipboard life, he was not breathless. Not yet.

  He thought of a man he had come to know in hospital, a submariner who had been injured in an air attack. Of his surgeon he had said, “The chap told me I was fit for duty, but that I would always have a limp. Said it was just one of those things. But I’ve always been a bit of a fighter, so I said sod that, I’m not going to limp!” And he didn’t. He was, outwardly, perfectly normal again the last time they had met, a few days before his submarine was reported missing, presumed lost.

  He squared his shoulders and quickened his pace, heedless of the mud that sucked at his shoes.

  It was almost noon. Had it really taken that long to get from Portsmouth? A postgirl was riding towards him on her bicycle, and slowed down when she saw him.

  “Welcome home, sir! Good to see you looking so well!” She rode on, the bike wobbling dangerously under its weight of mail. She probably delivered his letters to the house, and to all the others around here whose sons were away, in one uniform or another.

  His mother had been upset on the telephone because her friend, a local vicar, was away at a funeral, otherwise he would have picked him up in his car. He did get a petrol ration, and to all accounts worked hard for it. His mother always spoke warmly of him, and Martineau had sometimes wondered if they had discussed marriage. They were both free; it might be the best thing for them. She had joked about it when he had last been here, but that was like her. She had said very little about Alison, for his sake rather than for hers, but he knew she had never felt there had been much between them.

  He saw a plume of smoke rising over trees: that would be the little pub where his father had often dropped in for a drink. There and back, it had been about as far as he could manage towards the end.

  How different this would be in the summer, the greens of every shade and texture, the deer, and the would-be artists trying to paint them. But he was thinking back again. There had been no uniforms then, filling the trains and the stations, the pubs and the streets. Just ordinary people.

  He paused and looked to the south, towards Beaulieu and the sea. Where he had been taken out in a boat as a small boy. He smiled reminiscently. A few years later he had been at Dartmouth, no longer one of the ordinary people.

  He eased his shoulders again. Nothing. He looked around. There was a stile just about here, or had been. He parted some overgrown bushes and saw it. With a bad list, as the Buffer would describe it.

  But the same one. The rest of the path had gone, ploughed into an extended field. Digging for Victory.

  He gripped the wet, slippery bar of the stile and stared hard at his hand. Suppose Hakka goes north again? He shook his head. When she goes north again. Can I take it? With people trusting and relying on me, can I be sure?

  He looked up, more shocked than if he had spoken out loud.

  On the other side of the hedge was a dog, a big black labrador, tongue lolling, the tail slowly and then more confidently beginning to wag in welcome.

  “Ahab!” He held out his hand and saw the brief hesitation, the caution; the dog had been younger and much sma
ller when he had last seen him. “Here, Ahab!”

  The dog leaned against him and sniffed his shoes and legs. He was accepted.

  “If only I had a camera! What a lovely picture you both make!”

  He looked up and saw her in the lane; at first he thought he was imagining it. Out of the familiar uniform, dressed in a long tweed coat and heavy boots, her chestnut hair covered with a scarf, she was like somebody else.

  She watched his face and then ran towards him, her eyes not leaving his until she was pressed against him, her arms around his shoulders. As if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  He said, “I couldn’t believe it!”

  She leaned back while he held her, searching his face for something.

  “I phoned your mother . . . you said I should. I had no idea you’d be here.” She seemed to shake herself, controlling the tears, but only just. “Then you called from somewhere, and she said you’d take this path.”

  He nodded, watching her, wanting the words, the right words. But all that came was, “I always do.”

  They turned and walked along the lane, her arm through his, her hair pressed against her face as more rain pattered down from the leafless trees.

  She said, “This is perfect.”

  He glanced at her profile, the raindrops which looked like tears on her skin.

  “You are very lovely.”

  She laughed, like that other time, and held his arm more tightly, two fingers inside his glove.

  “I’m just a nice, well brought-up Canadian girl.” Then she faced him. “And I love you. And there’s nothing either of us can do about that!”

  He turned towards her and held her again. Then he removed his cap and kissed her very gently on the cheek, but she turned her mouth to greet his. It was a perfect moment, something stolen, and yet alive with an awareness which they had both known but tried to contain.

  They walked on, the dog bounding ahead of them, barking excitedly.

  She said quietly, “You need me. I need you. Let’s not fight it, shall we?”

  And here was the house, exactly as he had always remembered it. He smiled at her. And now, so different.