The fire continued to burn in the distance. For a time it revealed the black shapes of the other ships, but they moved on and left it. And then suddenly the column of red flame vanished like a candle snuffed out.
‘She’s gone,’ the seaman said.
But a few smaller fires continued to burn, spread over a wider area, and Sterne concluded that this was petrol burning on the surface. And there were perhaps men struggling in that inferno. What hope for them?
Very soon these fires died away too, and the convoy had gone from their view. Sterne shivered. There was a light breeze blowing and he felt the chill of it through his shirt. He wished he had put on his duffel-coat before leaving the cabin; there would probably have been time. But in the confusion the overriding thought had been to get away, not to be trapped in the cabin. There were a dozen men in the boat, sitting on the thwarts, not talking much, shocked, trying to come to terms with the situation. The second engineer was the only officer there besides the third mate. The black donkeyman and the carpenter were also present. The rest were seamen and firemen, one of whom must have come straight up from the stokehold and was wearing nothing but a singlet and thin cotton trousers. He must have been feeling the cold even more, Sterne thought, having been sweating below decks before this sudden exposure to the elements.
McNab was sitting next to Sterne, hunched forward, hands on knees. He said:
‘This is a fine old how-d’ye-do, Bom.’
‘Well, you volunteered for it, same as me.’
‘Aye, so I did. But I never thought it would come to this.’
Sterne was thinking again of that old soldier’s dictum: ‘Never volunteer for anything in the army.’ He had ignored it and this was the result: adrift in a boat in the middle of the night and a thousand miles and more from land.
‘You know what we are, Angus?’
‘No,’ McNab said. ‘Tell me.’
‘We’re two bloody fools, that’s what.’
‘Aye,’ McNab said. ‘Either that or bloody heroes.’
‘Do you feel like a hero, Angus?’
McNab shook his head. ‘Just now I feel like a man that could do wi’ a wee dram o’ gude Scotch whisky.’
‘You’d have to go a long way for that, I’m afraid.’
‘Aye,’ McNab said. And he gave a sigh.
He had once told Sterne that he came from a small town on the east coast of Scotland where his wife kept what he called a wee sweetie shop. It appeared that she sent him postal orders now and then to augment his army pay. He himself before the War had done ‘this and that’, from which Sterne gathered that he had been an odd job man, probably subsidised by Mrs McNab’s sweetie shop.
Sterne had never disliked McNab; his only complaint against the man being that he was a bad gunner. Now he felt closer to him, and not only in the physical sense, than he had ever done before. It was as though adversity and a shared danger had drawn them together as comrades. Yet he knew that if the two of them survived he would make very sure that he never again went to sea with Angus McNab as one of his detachment. And that applied also to the rest of the team.
They were fortunate. They had been in the boat only a short time when the rescue ship found them, homing in on the light they were showing. The rescue ship was a small fast passenger vessel that in more peaceful times had carried out less hazardous duties for one of the Scottish coastal lines. Now, manned entirely by merchant seamen, it was performing one of the most dangerous of jobs, staying behind to pick up survivors while the rest of the convoy and escort moved on. It was a sitting duck for any U-boat that might have remained in the vicinity, since it was necessary to heave to while men were being taken up from boats or the water.
This ship took on board survivors from all the Dagon’s boats, but neither Douglas nor Carr was among them.
Sterne reflected that circumstances had conspired to render it unnecessary for him to report Gunner Hamish Douglas for his conduct in Montreal. Douglas would never face a court martial and never be forced to pay for the flogged items of kit. He had gone beyond the reach of military law.
Bombardier David Sterne found it impossible to gain any satisfaction whatever from this reflection.
Chapter Eighteen – FORTY-SECOND STREET
About a year later Sterne was in New York. He was now assigned to a freighter of six thousand tons called the Northern Light, a motor vessel powered by diesels. This was a relatively modern ship that had been built in a Birkenhead yard shortly before the outbreak of hostilities. The Bofors gun was mounted amidships, abaft the bridge, and the gunners’ quarters were a few decks below in one large cabin just above the engine-room. While you were at sea you could hear the thump-thump-thump of the diesels going on and on and on. You got so used to it that it even lulled you to sleep. Not that gunners ever found it difficult to sleep even in the worst of conditions; the difficulty was in waking them to go on watch.
Sterne had had the same team now for three voyages, all in different ships. They had been to Bermuda and Jamaica and Argentina with no glimpse of a U-boat or a Focke-Wulf, and he had come to the conclusion that he was not a Jonah after all. The gunners were all new men, and he was well satisfied with them. Two of them had come to him straight from training camp. One of these, Dick Farman, had been a stevedore in the London docks. He was a tall lean man, rather older than Sterne, who did a lot of reading and was something of a hypochondriac. The other, Frank Lancaster, of about the same age, had been a printer in Watford. One of the others was very young; he had been in the first batch of conscripts called up in April 1939. His name was Danny Wicks, and he had the finest crop of pimples Sterne had ever seen. The other two were Liverpool men. John Staples had been a clerk in the office of one of the football pools firms and was a very precise and clerkly sort of person. The fifth man, Harry Carter, had been a tailor and would always oblige if a bit of sewing needed to be done.
Sterne felt himself fortunate to have these five men under his command. They made a good team and there was hardly ever any serious friction between them.
He had started writing again. He wrote short stories and verse and was currently working on a novel, which he was putting together in exercise books purchased in various ports of call. He had been engaged on the novel off and on for quite a while, carrying the manuscript about with him from ship to ship. Sometimes he thought it was pretty good; at other times he felt sure it was sheer rubbish and had best be thrown away. But he did not throw it away, and it gradually grew and took shape.
He read a lot. Most ships had small libraries, though the choice of books was limited. In New York they received stacks of old copies of Time and Life and other journals, and he discovered that American magazines and newspapers were very much fatter than their paper-starved British counterparts. He was particularly interested in the stories in Saturday Evening Post and Atlantic and Collier’s, and wished he could have written something half as good.
The Northern Light had been delayed in New York for essential repairs to be carried out, a circumstance which Sterne and his team could not have found more to their liking. For servicemen in uniform New York was a delight. There was so much to see, so much to do. There were all sorts of institutions where free meals were provided, and free tickets were available for cinemas and theatres. There was no reason why anyone should want to leave the place and get to sea again.
*
One day he went ashore with Dick Farman and they found themselves walking down 42nd Street.
‘Do you remember,’ he said ‘a film called Forty-Second Street?’
Farman did remember it. ‘All dancing and singing. Lots of lovely girls. I saw it three times. All them legs! Cor!’
Sterne remembered it too. It had been one of those backstage spectaculars, with crowds of dancers going through the glittering routines and singers belting out the songs. It had been the time of the big Hollywood musicals: Broadway, Broadway Melody, Gold Diggers of Broadway. Stars like Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell and
Warner Baxter were in them. The depression was hitting America hard; in 1929 the Wall Street crash had ruined vast numbers of stock market speculators – and in those days half the population was speculating. The cinema was a way of escape from all that; a place where for a few hours you could sink into a plush seat amid luxurious surroundings and live in another world.
‘They were gorgeous,’ Farman said.
But somehow this 42nd Street was not much like the one in the film; it was too ordinary, too drab even. But of course the film had been the Hollywood idea of the street; it had been a view of it from a couple of thousand miles away. Still, the street had something now that the film had never had: it had the Stage Door Canteen. And in there you not only got free grub, you had it served by people from the New York stage, and maybe had a few cabaret turns thrown in.
Sterne had been there before, but Farman had not. He was quick to agree to the suggestion that they should go inside.
‘You think we’ll see some stars?’
‘Probably nobody you’ll recognise. These are stage people, not film actors. You won’t find Marlene Dietrich or Loretta Young here.’
They went in through the rather unimpressive entrance and left their caps and greatcoats with the cloakroom girl, receiving a numbered tag in exchange. Beyond the entrance lobby there was a large room with a lot of tables and on the left a dais or stage with wooden railings round it. There was music being played by a juke-box, and in the enclosure a couple of American soldiers and a sailor were jitterbugging with three girls in tight roll-neck sweaters and flared skirts.
They found a table and a waitress in a red, white and blue striped apron came across to take their orders. She glanced at their uniforms and said:
‘Oh, you’re English, aren’t you?’ Then she took a closer look at Sterne and said: ‘Oh, my God! David!’
It was as much of a surprise to him as it was to her. He could hardly believe what he was seeing.
‘Angela! But it’s not possible. What on earth are you doing here?’
‘It’s obvious, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘I’m doing my stint of waiting on the troops. Don’t look so amazed. I’m in a show.’
‘On Broadway?’
‘Yes, on Broadway.’
‘But how –’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘it’s far too long a story to tell just now. And anyway, if it comes to that, what are you doing here yourself?’
‘I’m from a ship. We’re in dock at the moment.’
‘But you’re not a sailor. Not in that uniform.’
‘I’m a soldier-sailor.’ He showed her the shoulder badge of fouled anchor and the letters R.A. ‘Maritime Royal Artillery. We man anti-aircraft guns on merchant ships.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Farman was staring wide-eyed during this exchange. Now he broke in with a question that could hardly have been more superfluous, the answer being self-evident.
‘You two know each other?’
Angela treated him to one of her most dazzling smiles. ‘However did you guess?’
‘From way back,’ Sterne said.
They looked at each other in silence for a moment or two. There was so much to say, such a vast gap to fill. But it could not be said there. They both seemed to realise this and were momentarily tongue-tied.
Then she said: ‘Look, I’ve got this job to do. You’d better give me your orders.’
Sterne laughed. ‘That’s very professional of you.’ and into his mind there came the memory of a day long ago when they had first lunched together in a Lyons teashop and had been served by a Nippie in a black dress and a frilly white cap. He wondered whether she would remember if he reminded her. But he did not put it to the test.
When she had gone to fetch their order Farman said: ‘Now that really is one lovely girl. How’d you ever get to know her?’
‘Wouldn’t you just like to know?’
‘Yes. But you’re not going to tell me, are you?’
‘Not now. Not here.’
He doubted whether he would ever tell it. Not the whole of it certainly. It was not something he wished to share with anyone.
She came back with a tray and set out the things on the table, doing it with the dainty elegant movements that were natural to her and which he remembered so well and with a poignant longing.
She said to him: ‘We’ve got to talk, but it’s impossible here. We must meet somewhere. How long will you be in New York?’
‘I don’t know. Not long. A few more days maybe.’
They had already been there a week. A wasted week, he realised now. If only they had met earlier. If only he had known she was there.
‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’
‘Nothing important.’
‘Could you meet me at, say, one o’clock?’
‘I think it could be managed.’
He would make damned sure it could. He would have moved heaven and earth to see her again.
She found a card and wrote on it. ‘This is my address. You can find your way?’
‘You bet.’
She looked at him again, her head tilted slightly. ‘You’re older.’
‘It’s what happens. The years pass.’
He thought she looked older too, more mature. But this maturity had if anything made her even more beautiful.
‘Oh, my darling,’ she said, with a little catch in her voice, ‘it’s so good to see you again.’
And then she stooped quickly and kissed him on the lips and was gone.
‘She called you darling,’ Farman said. It was like an accusation.
‘It was nothing. Stage people; they call everybody darling.’
‘Not like that. She called you her darling. She kissed you too.’
‘Oh,’ Sterne said, ‘you noticed.’
‘She didn’t kiss me.’ Farman sounded faintly aggrieved.
‘I’m sure it was just an oversight.’
‘And she wants you to meet her tomorrow. Know what I think?’
‘No. What do you think?’
‘I think you’re a bloody lucky sod,’ Farman said.
Chapter Nineteen – TAKE CARE
It was an apartment on the second floor of an old brownstone house some way from the stir and bustle of Broadway. The names of the occupants were listed with a row of push-buttons at one side of the doorway. He pressed the button allotted to A. L. Street and heard a click and then a voice coming from the grille.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me,’ he said. ‘David.’
‘Oh, fine, come on up.’
He heard the mechanism working to unlock the door, and he went into the lobby and up the stairs, and she was waiting for him in the doorway of her apartment.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Do come in.’
He went in and she closed the door and locked it. And then they were in each other’s arms in an instant without saying another word, as if some irresistible magnetic force had drawn them together.
*
They stayed in the apartment until it was time for her to leave for the theatre. They had a meal and made love and talked and talked. The apartment was not large, but it had everything one could have asked for to make living easy. There was only one bedroom, but the bed was all that could have been desired. He looked for a sign of any other male having been there, but he could find none. This pleased him.
There came a time when he could no longer resist asking the question that was floating in his mind.
‘What happened to Judas?’
‘We split up.’
‘Ah!’
She hesitated for a few moments. Then: ‘Okay; I’d better tell you. It was all a mistake; it didn’t take me long to realise that. It was the most God-awful mistake I’ve ever made. He just wasn’t the man I remembered. Maybe prison changed him; made him harder, meaner; maybe that’s what being inside does to a man, I don’t know. All I know is that I wasn’t in love with him any more. Perhaps it was because I was stil
l in love with you.’
‘With me!’
‘Does it surprise you so very much?’
‘But you left me. You went to him.’
‘Yes, I know, damn it. But all the time I had this feeling that I was taking the wrong step. And you didn’t help.’
‘How could I have helped?’
‘You gave in too easily. You should have fought for me, argued with me, refused to let me go. But you didn’t, and I got the idea that you didn’t care, that you didn’t really want me all that much.’
‘My God!’ he said. ‘How could you believe that?’
‘Wasn’t it true?’
‘Of course it wasn’t. It nearly drove me out of my mind, your leaving. It was like the end of the world for me.’
But he could see that she was right; he hadn’t fought hard enough. He had let her go too easily. Maybe he had deserved to lose her.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to hurt you. And I was really afraid of what Jude might do.’
‘But then you left him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Didn’t he put up a fight?’
‘No. I think all he really wanted was to get me away from you. It was his pride. He resented you taking me from him. His property, as he saw it. But once he’d done it he didn’t care any more. We had a flaming row, and that was that.’
‘Why didn’t you come back to me?’
‘Pride again, I suppose. How could I? I thought about it. Believe me, I really did think about it; but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.’
They were both silent for a while, thinking back in time. Thinking of what might have been.
‘So after that,’ Sterne said. ‘After you’d split up, what then?’
‘Nothing for a bit. Then I auditioned for a new musical called Up, Up and Away. I thought it might just be in the chorus, but they seemed to like me and I got one of the supporting roles. Then there was this American producer who planned to put the show on on Broadway. He had a look at the London production, and I must have made an impression on him because he came round backstage and invited me to go to New York and join the American company. The money he was offering was too good to refuse, and he made it okay with the London management and in a few days there I was on board the Queen Mary on my way to the States.’
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