by Janet Tanner
‘Oh, shut up, Grimly!’ An older officer sitting on the far side of the table leaned across. ‘ Take no notice of him, Mrs Sanderson. We’ve had time to get used to Kim – and his high ideals. You would have made a good crusader, Grimly!’
Embarrassed, Elise glanced at the young officer. But he was still beaming, apparently quite used to the other men’s chaff.
‘Hmm … yes, I would have enjoyed that. Still, never mind, there are still good fights to be fought if you look for them.’
The men continued chatting, including Elise now in the conversation where before their remarks to her had been merely over-polite and stilted. But the talk was still of the war and Elise wondered how she had managed to look upon it as a distant happening for so long.
Because it had not concerned her, she supposed. But all that was changing now – changing with disconcerting speed – and there was no way she could avoid the storm clouds that seemed to be gathering over the whole world.
And perhaps I shouldn’t try to avoid them, she thought as she stood on deck in the falling dusk watching the coast along the Gulf of Suez slip past. Perhaps I should find out exactly what is going on. No man is an island. If he tries to isolate himself, sooner or later fate will have its revenge …
‘I thought I might find you here.’
Elise, startled by the almost friendly voice, turned to see Gerald Brittain approaching her. The moonlight catching his face made it different too – a tantalising mix of planes and shadows – but less hostile it seemed to her. Nevertheless her defences went up.
‘Am I not allowed to be?’
She saw that eyebrow lift a fraction and it seemed to alter the whole of his expression.
‘I just wondered if you had settled in,’ he said coolly. ‘It’s somewhat different from what you’re used to, I expect.’
The implication rankled. ‘I really don’t mind that. I would have travelled sitting in a lifeboat if it was the only way to get home.’
His mouth quirked. It made an amusing picture – the elegant Mrs Sanderson, in all her finery, surrounded by her trunks and that damned carved oak chest, sitting up in one of the lifeboats.
‘Your cabin’s all right?’ he asked.
‘Yes. I’m sharing with three Wrens.’ She didn’t confide her misgivings. The girls had eyed her with unconcealed resentment, barely answering when she spoke to them and exchanging the kind of closed-circle glances she associated with unfriendly cliques from her boarding-school days.
‘What about dinner? How was that?’ In spite of his smile, the edge was still there in his voice.
‘Fine.’ She had no intention either of giving him any excuse to accuse her of complaining. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘No. I had work to do.’
Work? the word struck her as odd. What work did an RAF officer have to do on board a ship – particularly if he was on his way home to be invalided out, as the Comtesse had suggested.
‘You were all right though, were you?’ he asked.
‘Yes, of course. It gave me the opportunity to get to know some of my fellow passengers.’
‘Good.’ They stood in silence for a moment as the breeze wafted the pungent smell of the East towards them across the calm water. Then he went on, ‘I’m sorry if I frightened you. talking about the dangers of this voyage. I thought you ought to know, that’s all.’
She nodded.
Against the fast purpling sky a darker silhouette approached, determinedly erect, walking towards them. ‘Ah, Elise, there you are! How very pleasant!’ The silhouette took on features and she recognised the young Army captain she had met at dinner.
His smile broadened to include Gerald Brittain and a hand shot out with military precision.
‘My dear fellow, I don’t believe we have had the pleasure. Grimly. John Grimly. Captain.’ He laughed, selfconsciously. ‘I was lucky enough to meet this charming young lady at dinner, wasn’t I, Elise? She brightened a very dull meal, if I may say so.’
Gerald Brittain ignored the proffered hand.
‘Mrs Sanderson did tell me she had taken the opportunity to get to know some of her fellow passengers,’ he said coolly. ‘I see now what she meant.’
Elise felt the colour rise in her cheeks, part anger, part embarrassment. ‘Captain Grimly and I are on the same table,’ she said defensively. ‘It would be a most odd thing if we didn’t have anything to say to one another.’
‘Especially when the food is so damned rotten,’ Grimly joked. ‘Converse a little and it slips down better. Vile, though, wasn’t it, Elise? Only the fact that I was sitting beside you made it bearable.’
‘In that case I will leave you to continue your discussion on the meal,’ Gerald Brittain said curtly. ‘I’ll wish you both a very good night.’
He walked off along the deck and John Grimly stared after him, a ridiculously hurt expression giving him the look of a small boy rebuffed by adults. So much teasing he had taken at dinner and not turned an eyelash; now suddenly it was as if the protective shell had fallen away.
‘Well! There’s was no need to be like that!’ he said indignantly.
‘I expect he’s tired,’ she said. ‘ He’s still recovering from wounds, you know. He was a fighter pilot, shot down in the Battle of Britain, and is being invalided out of the RAF.’
‘Really?’ Grimly looked surprised. ‘Doesn’t look as if there’s much wrong with him to me. And they say they’re so short of men, too! He wouldn’t get out of the Army so easily, I can tell you.’
‘Maybe not.’ Elise realised suddenly how little she felt like arguing – or soothing ruffled feathers. It had been a very long day.
‘If you will excuse me, I think I’m going to turn in too. Captain Grimly,’ she said.
It was only as she went down the companion way that his comment about Gerald Brittain came back to her. It was true – he did seem to have recovered from his wounds very well – if the RAF were as short-handed as was said, it seemed odd that he was being released and not given a non-flying post of some kind.
Obviously he must have some other disability which was not evident at first sight, she decided. And tucked the small haunting doubt to the back of her mind.
In the cabin to which she had been allocated, the three Wrens were curled up on the top bunk playing pontoon. They looked up as she came in and she heard one of them mutter, ‘Oh, here comes Lady Muck.’
Her heart sank. She had forgotten she no longer had a room of her own where she could be alone when she was tired and sleep when she wished. And these three obviously felt she was intruding on their privacy in turn.
‘I thought I would get an early night, but don’t let me interrupt you,’ she said awkwardly.
‘Don’t worry, we won’t.’ The retort was heavy with sarcasm. Elise was not sure which of the girls had spoken. She looked from one to the other and they looked back at her – two glowering; one, an attractive girl with reddish-brown hair and sharp green eyes, smiling rather smugly. It was she who had made the spiteful retort, Elise decided.
‘Who does she think she’s looking at? She’s never seen anything as common as the likes of us, I suppose.’ That was one of the glaring Wrens, a pug-nosed, crop-haired girl – barely out of her teens, Elise judged. ‘Go on – stare if you like and get it over with.’
‘I’m sorry, I had no intention of staring.’ Elise turned away, shaken by their naked aggression and suddenly painfully awkward. Now that she had stated her intention of going to bed she had no option but to undress, but she was very aware of their hostile and envious glances as her silk underclothes were revealed, and when she slipped into a nightgown of midnight blue cr’pe de Chine she heard the same disgruntled voice comment:‘It’s all right for some, isn’t it?’
She deliberately ignored the remarks, getting out a copy of Gone With The Wind which she had brought to read on the voyage, but her face burned dully all the same and she was unable to concentrate for more than a line at a time.
‘
I’ve battled with diplomats and dined with French nobility,’ she thought, ‘but three unpleasant girls can make me so uncomfortable I wish I could curl up and hide.’
Unless things changed a great deal, it was not going to be a very pleasant voyage.
Elise awoke with a start from her recurrent nightmare and lay rigid with horror in her bunk.
Alex was dead. Forty endless-days of voyaging to get home to him and she was too late. She was in Hong Kong and Gordon had met her and she kept looking around in vain for Alex. But somehow she was afraid to ask where he was because she already knew. And the knowledge was a weight in her, and she could hear her own voice sobbing over and over again:’ Oh Alex – Alex! I was coming home! You should have waited!’ And Gordon was saying: ‘ It was very peaceful, Elise. Su Ming was with him.’
As the power of her grief awoke her she opened her eyes. In the dawn light that was creeping through the porthole she could see the shapes of the bunks and the mounds formed by the bodies of the sleeping Wrens, yet the nightmare was still more real to her than reality. The weight of it made her feel sick and when she put her hand to her face she found it was wet with tears.
It was a dream – just a dream, she told herself, but the images refused to go and the sick fear would not be dispelled.
‘Oh my God, what would I do?’ she wondered, going cold. ‘ If anything happened to him and I wasn’t there, I should never forgive myself …’
Sleep was a million miles away now and reluctant to stay here feeding her fears, she got up and dressed in linen slacks and a plain silk blouse.
The Wrens did not stir and she was glad. After four days of sailing down the Red Sea, they were still as unfriendly as ever, talking as if she were not there and making hurtful comments in her hearing. At first she had tried to overcome their resentment of her, attempting to be one of them and even putting to the bottom of her trunk the clothes which she thought were most likely to arouse their envy. But her dresses were all designed by the most famous names in the fashion world and silks and finest lawns made up all the underclothes she owned. Gordon always insisted on the best for her, and although she never chose ostentatious adornments she knew that the very simplicity of her clothes gave away the size of the cheque he had signed to buy them for her.
This morning however, the unfriendliness of the Wrens was the farthest thing from her mind. As she climbed the companion way it was the dream that remained with her, too real to be ignored.
She had expected the deck to be deserted at this hour; to her surprise she found it was not. The crew of the Stranraer at least was already immersed in activity and the reason was obvious. During the hours of darkness they had reached Aden, the gateway to the Red Sea, and now they were docking.
The activity on deck was mirrored ashore, and suddenly Elise was trembling with a mixture of eagerness and tense anticipation. Aden was a British base; there would be telephones there from which she could call Hong Kong and find out how Alex was.
She picked her way around the bulkhead to get a better view, then stopped in surprise. A tall, lean figure was standing at the rail, smoking: Gerald Brittain.
In the four days since they had sailed from Cairo she had seen little of him. He ate in the officers’ dining room as she did, but he did not sit on her table and often left before the brandy was passed round or sometimes even earlier. And he was rarely to be seen in the mess or on deck, unlike Captain John Grimly whom she seemed unable to shake off. But unapproachable as he appeared, Gerald Brittain was her link with the authorities and now, anxious to get to a telephone, she was more than glad to see him.
‘Good morning, Mr Brittain.’
He swung round. ‘ Good morning! You’re up early.’
‘So are you.’
He grinned. ‘True. But I had work to do. What’s your excuse?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She hesitated, ‘I see we’re docking. This must be Aden.’
‘Right.’
‘Mr Brittain …’
‘Do you have to keep calling me that? It makes me feel very old. My friends call me Brit.’
She tried to use the name but could not.
‘I want to telephone while we’re here. I’m very anxious to find out how Alex is.’
He drew in smoke, looking at her with narrowed eyes.
‘I don’t think you will be allowed to go ashore.’
‘But …’
‘This is a short stop for loading only. You will be confined to the ship.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! I only want to make a phone call. Surely I can do that?’
‘If it’s been decided that no one goes ashore, I don’t think you should ask.’
‘But I want to find out how Alex is!’ The atmosphere of the dream had returned, bringing her close to panic. ‘Anything could have happened. I must get to a phone!’
‘Look, you’ve got to realise that this is a troop-ship in time of war.’
‘I do realise that.’
‘I don’t think you do. You’re a civilian, I know; but you’re occupying officers’ accommodation and I think it has to be said that you should respect a few basic rules – the same rules that apply to the lower ranks of the armed forces.’
Something in his tone had set her teeth on edge.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.’
‘For most of the men and women on this boat, the law of segregation applies. I realise that as the only woman in the officers’ dining room you’re bound to conduct conversations with the men. But I think you should bear in mind that …’
‘Just a minute!’ she interrupted him, ‘Are you accusing me of something?’
He tossed his cigarette butt towards the water. ‘These men are serving officers in His Majesty’s Forces, going to war. Don’t make the mistake of confusing this voyage with a social occasion.’
For a moment she couldn’t believe her ears. She had been the centre of attention in the officers’ dining room, it was true, but preoccupied as she was with her anxiety about Alex it had meant little to her. Certainly she had done nothing to encourage familiarity and had noticed none. Only John Grimly had come close to making a nuisance of himself hovering a little, fussing and turning up wherever she went, but with his almost unreal old-world chivalry any impropriety was out of the question.
‘Are you saying that I encourage the men?’ she flared.
His face was stern. ‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that.’
‘I should hope not!’
‘Look!’ He pulled out his silver cigarette case and lit another cigarette, shielding the lighter flame from the breeze. ‘Before you had been on board twelve hours, there was that young ass of a captain on Christian-name terms and following you round like a puppy-dog. And whenever I’ve seen you since, there he is too. That sort of thing is bad for discipline, it’s bound to cause comment.’
‘From petty minds, yes, I suppose it would.’ She was furious now and fury always lent her tongue a venomous edge. ‘As it happens, you’re the only one as far as I know to think of such a thing.’
‘Let’s hope it stays that way, then.’ His voice was even, totally controlled. ‘There is one other point. So far, we’ve been in the Red Sea and everything’s been very quiet. From Aden on it could be less pleasant. I told you before the kind of thing we could possibly encounter, but I didn’t tell you that you should be prepared. Keep your important documents close by you at all times and have something at hand when you go to bed at night that would be suitable for wearing if we had to abandon ship.’
At any other time the warning would have made her go cold – just now she was too angry to be much affected by it.
‘Something unlikely to inflame the passions of my fellow survivors, no doubt?’ she snapped.
He turned on the rail. ‘I’m sorry if you don’t like it, but it had to be said. I got you this passage and I feel responsible for you.’
‘There’s no need for that.’
‘There’s every
need. I don’t honestly think you had any idea what you were letting yourself in for. Even if we don’t run into trouble – and we shall run a zig-zag course in order to do our best to avoid it – things are going to be a good deal less comfortable. There will be boat drills at all hours of the day and night and you will be expected to join in like everyone else. There will be a blackout in force. And if this troop-ship is typical of others, the tenser people get the more noise they will make. There will be sing-songs and impromptu concerts, quarrels and arguments.’
‘So in the middle of all that, who is going to notice me and my wildly decadent ways?’
He turned away, his face snapping totally shut.
‘Have it your way. But don’t say you haven’t been warned.’
The second cigarette butt followed the first into the sea and he marched off, his limp very evident in the halting rhythm of his steps. She stood fuming with impotent anger. Arrogant swine! So his friends called him Brit, did they? He had precious few friends, she would have thought.
It was only as the anger cooled that the full import of the exchange filtered through to her. She would not be able to go ashore, he had said. Which would mean several more days without news of Alex.
All other dangers and aggravations forgotten, Elise leaned against the rail with head bowed. She had thought that once she was on her way Alex would seem nearer. But he did not. The desolation left by the dream had overtaken her now, her whole body ached with it. And with the longing for him. Oh, to feel his arms around her neck, to smell his hair and his skin, fresh from the bath!
But if her dream was prophetic, as she feared, she might never do any of these things again. To think about it was not morbid – it was sensible. Face it now, so that if the worst happened she would be prepared.
If only I knew something it wouldn’t be so bad … she thought. But to be cut off for days and weeks, wondering if the next port of call would bring bad news, trying to keep back the hysterical feeling that something terrible might have happened already, was a prospect almost too hard to bear.
Elise stayed at the tail until she judged the Wrens would have gone to breakfast. The thought of their stony unfriendliness was more than she could face just now.
