by Peter Albano
“En grande toilette, tonight, ma maitresse,” Nicole said, helping Brenda into a spectacular embroidered velvet robe phenicienne overlaid with panels stitched in beads of blue, mauve, and rose, crossing at the neck and continuing down the sides, clinging to her full, sculpted hips as if glued to her flesh. The young Frenchwoman stepped back, admiring her mistress. “The capitaine is—” she pursed her lips, kissed her bunched fingers, and then popped her hand open as if she were flinging confetti—”ooh, la, la.”
Brenda laughed heartily as Nicole placed a fur around her neck. “Oh yes. I like him,” Brenda said.
“We all like him,” Nicole said, smiling and baring her perfect white teeth.
Brenda felt a pang. The French maid could make good use of the commander. Probably exhaust him so much he would not be capable of standing on the bridge of his ship in a calm sea.
They dined at the Savoy because the food was excellent and because Marie Lloyd and the Bing Boys were entertaining. Seated at a table in the enormous dining room, Brenda smiled as she remembered Reginald’s face when he first saw her in the entry that evening. He had been nearly speechless as his eyes moved over her body, perfectly delineated by the tight gown. Even the butler, old Wendell McHugh, stood in self-conscious silence until the commander murmured, “You look absolutely smashing.” And then he kissed her hand, lingering too long, and tracing her wrist with warm, moist fingers. Brenda had felt a thrilling warmth spread deep within her, capturing her heart and sending it pounding. Disturbed, she tried to ignore it. It was the first sweet response of a woman feeling arousal and there was nothing she could do to help herself.
Reginald ordered for both of them, a lavish meal for wartime London or peacetime, for that matter: hearts of artichoke with pâté de foie gras; salade de légumes; a marvelous poularde à la vapeur wrapped in muslin and cooked in a cognac marinade and lemon rind. Seasoned to perfection, it was served with a butter, cream, and mixed egg yolk sauce. Dessert was a delightful fruit macedoine. Fawning waiters kept their glasses filled with Louis Roederer. Despite the rich food, Brenda felt the effects of the champagne, which she consumed in unusually generous amounts. In fact, the room began to move as if it were part of a carousel. She pressed her foot to the floor and shook her head, but the unsteadiness remained. Then, after dinner, black coffee and Martell Cordon Bleu. She toyed with the pony, but drank her coffee. The carousel slowed.
The entertainment began; Marie Lloyd singing with the Bing Boys and the hotel orchestra, telling amusing stories spiced with bawdy asides. Bare-legged chorus girls in bright, brief uniforms drilling with sequin-encrusted toy Enfields, astonishing buttocks flouncing and twitching at the audience. Beads, spangles, silk tights, half-bared breasts, and brassy music. Everyone singing war songs; “Mademoiselle From Armentieres” and “Tipperary” were the two favorites. There were choruses of “The Bonny Earl of Murray” and “Barb’ra Ellen.” Finally, the dancing, the moment that Brenda had awaited eagerly. Reginald’s arms around her at last.
They made their way to the dance floor, crowded with dozens of couples, every man in uniform. He was a superb dancer, holding her close and commanding her with a strong lead in perfect three-quarter time as the orchestra avoided Strauss waltzes and broke into “Hearts and Flowers.” She felt his arm tightening, pulling her body against his. Still heady with champagne, she tried to hold back but slowly yielded, finally pressing her breasts and pelvis against the hard wool of his uniform, his flat stomach, his hard chest. It was indecent, but everyone was doing it. “Queen Victoria be damned,” he whispered in her ear. She laughed, a young girl’s high, delighted giggle. The effects of the liquor, the music, a strong man’s arms around her seemed to transport her somewhere else. For an instant she was no longer in England. Maybe she had defied time—had found a happier time in the past. That was it. The same thrill she had felt at her first college dance. But this was not Troy Richardson; she was in Reginald Hargreaves’s arms. A trade was unthinkable. The present was better.
More waltzes. Song after song blended one into the other. She was at home in his arms and it was very right. Maybe the music would never end. His hand was on the small of her back, pushing, and she felt his sun- and salt-roughened cheek against hers, his warm breath caressing her ear, smelled his cologne like fine rum. In spite of herself, she ran her hand over his back, feeling the hard, bunched muscles. Suddenly, contractions of her chest and lungs left her breathless and she felt a remarkable heat on her cheeks and the skin of her throat, tiny cold insects scurrying up the back of her neck, and the same warmth spreading lower in her body. Suddenly they were alone, totally alone with only the music to seep in from some distant place. She wanted to touch him closer, feel his flesh. She found the back of his neck, traced her fingers over the short, bristling hair. His arms tightened and they pressed against each other hungrily. She felt warm lips against her cheek and she allowed her body to go limp, mold itself to his. “I want you. I want you,” he said thickly.
She shook her head, broke the dream, pulled away. “Reggie,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Let’s sit down.”
Unmoving, he stared down at her. “What’s wrong?” The other dancers began to stare.
“Nothing. Please. Let’s sit down.” Slowly, he led her back to the table.
He recharged their glasses with Martell. “Come to my place, Brenda. We can be alone.”
Feeling the barrier come erect, she sighed. “I want to, Reginald.”
“But you won’t,” he said bitterly.
“No.”
“Then why that show?” He gesticulated at the dance floor. “Why lead me on?”
She said with anguish, “I’m not a tease.”
“I didn’t say you were. I just want to know why the passion?”
She palmed her hair back and sighed. “I couldn’t help myself.”
He tapped his forehead with white knuckles. “But you refuse—won’t come to my place.”
“I’m not ready—I’m sorry. I’ve told you before.”
“Quite. Quite. Shall I take you home?”
“Perhaps you’d better.”
“I won’t see you for a while, Brenda.”
“You’re angry. I wouldn’t blame you if you never saw me again.”
“No. I’m not angry and I want to see you. But the squadron’s taking another short training cruise. Be gone for a few days.”
Again, she felt the deep acid feeling of dread. “Dangerous, Reginald? Be careful.”
He smiled. “An easy slog—rather simple training exercises. We’ve been hard at it for months. A short run.” He smothered her hand in his. “I—I regard you with a lot of affection.”
“And I feel the same for you, Reggie. Please phone me when you return.”
“Yes. As soon as we dock.”
“You’re sure you’re not angry with me?”
“Impossible, Brenda.” He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “And don’t worry about me, Brenda. This is a safe one—safer than a stroll through the East End.”
She smiled up at him and then turned toward the exit.
VIII
Winter in the English Channel is never pleasant. The November morning Destroyer Squadron Four slipped its moorings, the sky was a low, sullen blanket congealing into a leaden shroud that spilled to every horizon, the sea the color of a halfpenny. Fortunately, there were breaks in the blanket and Commander Reginald Hargreaves standing at the wooden windscreen on the forebridge of destroyer Lancer could not only hear the bells of the channel buoys, but also he could see the red markers dropping off to port and the green buoys to starboard. Occasional bright flares of the morning sun broke through and his lookouts shouted sightings and the chief quartermaster was even able to take tangents on Haying Island as it dropped off to port and the Isle of Wight broad on the starboard beam. Astern, destroyers Unity, Victor, and Paragon followed in Lancer’s wake.
“Fair in the center of the Channel, sir,” the new navigation officer, Lieutenant Desmond Farrar, said, turning from the small chart table and pulling the canvas hood aside.
“Sea buoy bearing red zero-three-five, close aboard, sir,” the port lookout shouted in a high voice that was almost a falsetto.
“Very well,” Reginald acknowledged, nodding at the lookout, boy first class Basil Goodenough, whose teenage eyes were the sharpest on the ship. Raising his glasses, Reginald brought the tall red and yellow striped buoy into focus.
After a quick clattering movement of parallel rulers and dividers, the navigator said, “Suggest course one-three-zero, sir.”
“Very well, pilot.” Reginald turned to Lieutenant Pochhammer, who stood close to his side. “Make the hoist, Number One. Course one-three-zero, speed twelve.”
The tall first officer, who was hunched over as if he were trying to make himself a smaller target for the cold, repeated the order. Then he turned to the flag locker at the back of the bridge where yeoman of signals Leslie Henshaw, a grizzled twenty-year veteran of the pre-dreadnought navy, was standing with his assistant—young ordinary signalman Byron Heathstone, a sallow seventeen-year-old whose youth and clean fuzzy cheeks like a fresh peach contrasted sharply with the yeoman’s. Commands were shouted and pennants and flags raced upward on their halyards to the yardarm, whipping and snapping in the freshening northern breeze, which felt like it had been frozen on the polar cap. The first officer, both signalmen, and the navigator all trained their glasses astern. “All vessels have acknowledged, sir,” the yeoman of signals shouted, his breath white banners ripped from his lips by the wind.
“Very well.” Reginald turned to Pochhammer. “Let me know when the last vessel has cleared the sea buoy.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
For a long moment the first officer leaned into his glasses. “Last ship has cleared,” he finally shouted.
“Very well. Execute!” Reginald heard the hoists whipped down and back into the locker.
“All answer,” Henshaw shouted.
“Very well.” Reginald turned to the front, leaned against the teakwood rail, and wrapped his hands around a clutch of voice pipes that connected him to the engine room, gun stations, director, W-T, and pilot house directly beneath his feet. Steel chilled like ice, the cold penetrated the leather of his gloves, stinging the flesh of his palms. “Pilot house.”
“Pilot house, aye,” came back through a pipe.
“Port ten.”
“Port ten, sir,” the voice answered. “Ten of port wheel on, sir.”
“Midships.”
“Wheel amidships.” A pause. “She’s steady, sir.”
“Very well. Course one-three-zero and watch your head, quartermaster.”
Another pause. Finally, the tinny voice came back. “Steady on one-three-zero, Captain.”
“Very well. One-half ahead together.”
“One-half ahead together,” came from another voice tube. Reginald could hear the jangle of engine room telegraphs and the vibrations beneath his boots quickened. “Speed twelve, one hundred ten revolutions, Captain.”
“Very well.” Hargreaves tightened his knotted silk scarf, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his duffel coat, and stamped his heavy sea boots on the grating. The cold was penetrating—an insidious cold that grated the marrow of a man’s bones and froze his soul. Glancing astern through the rapidly thinning mist, he nodded to himself; Unity, Victor, and Paragon were in his spreading wake precisely where they should have been.
There were the sounds of a new presence on the forebridge. Senior steward Smith spoke. “Cocoa, sir.” He was carrying a tray filled with seven white porcelain mugs.
“Jolly good idea,” Hargreaves said, reaching for a cup with Lancer’s shield and Captain stenciled in gold paint. It was the only one laced with rum. Gratefully, the other members of the bridge crew accepted their cups and began to gulp the steaming hot liquid. Reginald drank his slowly, savoring the rich flavor of the cocoa and liquor and the warmth creeping from his stomach.
Raising his glasses, he scanned the horizon to the southeast where the rising sun had burned off the early mists, inflaming the sky with virulent reds, oranges, and purples. To the north, the improving visibility showed the entire horizon cluttered with high thunderheads and low-line squalls that obscured the sea with solid blocks of rain like pearl dust. The morning sun played games with the clouds, capriciously painting some with gold and silver; others showed pink, rose, and misty mauve while the undersides were all dark bruises of purple and gray and here and there black showed through. Reginald knew there was a storm to the north, its harbingers endless rows of swells arranged in neat ranks and advancing diagonally like infantry on the Western Front. The first skirmishers began the assault, comber after comber quartering Lancer on the port side, the narrow ship reacting with deep rolls that sent every man’s hands to rails and stanchions.
Reginald turned to Pochhammer. “You can fall out the special sea duty men, starboard watch to defense stations, if you please, Number One.”
The lieutenant shouted down the voice tubes, there was a trill of pipes, and Reginald heard boots on ladders, the slam of doors as off-duty men scurried below to the warmth of the mess decks. Pochhammer disappeared down the ladder. Stiffly, Hargreaves lowered himself into the captain’s padded chair that was high and on the right side of the forebridge, affording an unobstructed view of all four quadrants. The new pilot, Desmond Farrar, eased himself alongside, taking the position of the OD and raising his glasses.
Reginald was not enthused about his new navigator. A thirtyish career officer, Desmond Farrar had sharp, aristocratic features and narrow gray eyes that were as unreadable as gunmetal. Years at sea had sun-darkened and tanned his skin like leather with deep creases at the corners of his mouth and outlining those strange eyes. He seldom smiled or showed any emotion, for that matter, except pride and arrogance. He was immensely proud of his rich, fox-hunting family and when drinking he would quickly bore anyone within earshot with tales of the good life on his father’s estates on the moors of South Devon. His record was suspect. At sea by the age of thirteen, he was commissioned in 1906 and served on the old armored cruiser, Cornwall. He was assistant navigator in battle cruiser Inflexible off the Falkland Islands when Sir Frederick Doveton Sturdee’s force destroyed Admiral von Spee’s cruiser squadron, sinking Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Leipzig, and Nürnberg in 1914. This great victory should have accelerated Farrar’s career; instead, his records showed frequent clashes with his superiors over a variety of matters from tactics to the recovery of German survivors—Farrar argued abandoning enemy swimmers to freeze in the cold waters off the Falklands. His conduct at Jutland had been workmanlike but undistinguished. Overall, his ratings had been poor, causing Farrar to be passed over several times. Now he was suffering the indignity of serving under a captain at least six years his junior.
“Starboard watch closed up at defense stations, sir,” Farrar said in his soft, raspish voice. “As per your orders, course one-three-zero, speed twelve, Captain.” He focused his glasses over the bow.
“Very well, Lieutenant,” Reginald said. “At ten hundred hours come to zero-four-zero.”
Farrar lowered his glasses. “Put us in the center of the Channel, sir.”
“Just as you shaped it, pilot.”
“Think we’ll stuff the Jerries this time, Captain?”
“We have a plan and we’ll give it a go, Mister Farrar.” Reginald felt his stomach churn with an amalgam of anger and despair, bitter thoughts flashing through his mind. A plan—Watts with his bloody stupid plan.
He grasped the arms of the chair as a large comber caught the destroyer full on the beam, green-gray water breaking over the quarterdeck. The ship took a vicious roll to starboard, then righted herself with the short, snapping rollback typical of narrow-beamed ships wi
th low freeboard. Reginald heard the crash of crockery in the pilot house followed by curses.
“Things will be better when we come about and put our bows into this lot,” the navigator said, grasping the teakwood rail with both hands.
Reginald nodded, his mind on the sweep and the details of the plan that had been outlined at Whitehall three days before. Every detail of that turbulent meeting in Operations Room Four had been burned into his memory.
Located in the basement of Whitehall, Operations Room Four was a large room with a long, highly polished walnut table and walls covered with charts. Twelve destroyer captains representing three full squadrons had been seated around the table, eyes fixed on Vice Admiral Sir Rosslyn Watts. Watts was the fattest man Reginald had ever seen. Positioned at the head of the table, Watts had stood with his legs set apart and his body braced much like a heavily pregnant woman hard put to counterbalance her monstrous womb. The blue expanse of his tunic required to cover the bulge of his stomach and chest was so vast, it reminded Reginald of the curtain at the Palladium. His chins hung down in rows like a soft chop at sea, white and sickly in color like rancid vanilla pudding. Always open, his mouth was a purple gash, laboring for breath. The son of a wealthy barrister, Watts had attended the best schools and in his youth, had served in Africa without distinction. However, in 1898 he happened to be the commanding officer of a gunboat during the relief of Omdurman where the Twenty-first Lancers were trapped. The relief force fought its way up the Nile and the siege was lifted. One of the rescued lancers was Winston Churchill, who was eternally grateful and, it was said, became his patron. Watts’s star rose from that moment on and had not declined with Churchill’s after the Gallipoli fiasco. His only level of communication was a hoarse, whiskey-addled rasp that showed no feelings and, to Reginald, little intelligence.
