“Now see here, Captain Harland,” Townes said in a surprisingly soft tone. “I’ve got poor old Repulse out with Kensington and three destroyers covering a territory that rightly belongs to three battleships and a dozen cruisers. K.G.V., Nelson, and Rodney are laid up for repairs and if I send them out now they’ll be cluttered with workmen. Renown and Victorious are with Force J and just coming into Gibraltar, so even if I were to recall them it would take some time before they arrive. My other carrier, Ark Royal, is escorting a convoy and I won’t be able to get my hands on her for seventy-two hours at least. I haven’t heard from Nottingham, which frightens me no end; and Harrogate, as crippled as any ship can be with out-of-date engines, is steaming back to her sister’s last-known position to find out what the dickens has happened. You see my situation?”
“Yes, sir,” Harland said. “Quite.”
“You can stay here and report to Sir Joshua Bimble all you like,” Townes said. Harland prepared himself for another outburst, but the moment passed. “I shall have some of my chaps make accommodations for you. But this is a case of I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
“Sir?”
“I need eyes, Harland. Very Long Range eyes. I’ve got to have Coastal Command aircraft, Royal Navy aircraft, anything that you can find that flies out there looking for what Nottingham tied into. If I can’t find it, I can’t defeat it.”
“Yes, sir,” Harland said. But it troubled him that Townes left out the obvious need to fight the intruder, whoever she was. They had gotten Bismarck right enough, but they had given up Hood with only three of her crew surviving the battle. At first Harland was going to chastise himself for disloyalty or at least being a pessimist, but he decided that his concerns had value. In between finding the German vessel and defeating her, lay the very uncertain matter of fighting her. And all indications were that she was a fighter.
Chapter 19
The Blair Residence, London
Cole watched Rebecca sit on the floor next to the fireplace. She had built a small fire—she was always cold, she said—and tended it carefully, lost in the effort. She searched through the coal bucket with the tongs, pushing aside piece after piece until she found one that suited her. Then she trapped it in the tongs and set it into the fire with deliberation. When she felt the need, she found a piece of wood and wedged it between lumps of glowing coal, careful not to raise a cloud of black smoke.
She sipped her drink delicately and when the mood struck her, talked. As the evening wore on and the alcohol began to take its toll, her movements were awkward. She was drinking more and late into the night she would make her way to the couch in a drunken stupor and collapse. Cole, covering her with a cotton blanket, knew that it was the only way that she could silence the screams of the wound, and hide the truth about her infidelity from herself.
“We had a bad lot today,” Rebecca said, her eyes never leaving the tiny flames that curled up around the lumps of coal. “Firemen. Six of them. Poor chaps were fighting a blaze near the museum. The UXB boys told them to fall back, that there was an unexploded bomb buried in the rubble.” She took a drink. “The fire chaps said no, we can hear people in there. What did they expect to find? Everyone had been burned to a crisp. Better to let them die than try to save them.” Another drink—stir the fire. “It went off. The bomb. Most were killed. The chaps we got were burned beyond recognition. They were alive, if you can call it that. But …” Another drink, emptying the glass. “Be a dear and make me another, will you?” she said, shaking the glass at him. “No lectures now. I’m learning how to hold my liquor, you know.”
He took the glass and made her another drink, as strong as the one she would make for herself. He took it back, handed it to her, and sat down in a wing chair. She had become sullen lately and Cole knew that it was because of him, because he did not have courage enough to walk away. Because he wasn’t decent enough, or strong enough, to say, “It’s over, Rebecca.”
“They were all burned black and torn open, you see. The strangest combination of colors—bright red on coal black. Have you ever seen such a thing?”
“No.”
“No? One would have thought that you had. Do you suppose that’s how Greg looks now?”
“It won’t do any good to think about it. What’s done is done.”
“‘What’s done is done’? What a bloody cold thing to say,” she said calmly, taking a long drink. “I worry about it though. How he will be, how I will be when he comes back.” She smiled at him thinly. “How it will be with you. Do you have an answer for that question, Jordan?”
“No,” he said.
“I am so very confused,” she said to the fire. “Fix me another, there’s a dear.”
He sat motionless in the chair.
“Jordan? Well then, I shall do it myself,” she said, struggling to her feet. She made her way unsteadily to the liquor cabinet and made herself another drink. “No empathy, wasn’t it? Your fiancée …” She sat down heavily in front of the fireplace and stabbed at the fire.
“Yeah. That’s me all over.” He hated to see her this way. She was destroying herself and all he could do was be angry. At her. At himself.
“I could use your help, you know, sorting out this business.”
“Sure. Get rid of the booze. We’ll talk.”
“Don’t talk rubbish. One has nothing to do with the other.”
“Suit yourself.”
She threw the fireplace poker in the fire. “Why are you always so damned sure of yourself ? Arrogant bastard. Sitting up there like some high and mighty king. On my wing chair, mind you. In my house. Some high and mighty king you are—is that it?”
“Why are you so mad at me?” Cole asked softly.
“Mad? Do you mean crazy or angry? Be precise. Speak the King’s English, not that bastardized American tongue.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I might be both,” she said bitterly. She looked at the fire and said again, but this time in a lost voice, “I might be both.” She climbed to her feet and the glass slipped out of her hand, shattering on the fireplace tiles. “Look at that. I’m almost as destructive as the Germans.” Cole watched her make another drink, brush the shattered glass out of the way with the edge of her foot, and then sit down.
“You know,” she said, “I lost my world twice. Once when Daddy betrayed me, and when this war came. When you came along.”
“Is that right?”
“You’re the war, aren’t you? You see, I believed in people, in my father and mother. In Greg. And when I could no longer believe in them, I resolved to believe in myself. In my ability to help people.”
“You’re helping people.”
“I’m not helping anyone anymore,” she said. “I’m not helping myself.”
“If you want answers from me, I don’t have any except that you won’t find answers in a bottle.”
“Trite,” she said. “Besides …” She held up the glass. “This simply helps me to sleep.”
“Rebecca, sometimes there aren’t any answers. We met and fell in love, your husband is wounded. That’s no one’s fault. You’ve tried to control every aspect of your life but it can’t be done.”
“How logical of you. One, two, three, is it? Do you always see things so clearly, Jordan? Everything except how people feel? There is no logic to how a person feels, whom a person loves, and that’s why things get so messy. So bloody messy. So you eschew emotions in favor of the logic behind human beings. Except”—she said the last word as if the revelation had suddenly become overwhelmingly clear—“except humans are not neatly stacked blocks of logic. Are they? Have you an answer for that?”
“There’s no use attacking me,” Cole said, fighting back his anger.
“But I’m not, darling,” she said, pleading that he understand her drunken rambling—trying to convince him that within the slurred words there was the truth that he had ignored for so long. “Have you replaced your feelings with logic? Is that how you
live your life? No …” She looked down, unsure of her thoughts, until she said. “No, you’re living your life by how things should be, how one should behave. What is right and what is wrong by some obscure code. That is such a cold, false world, darling.”
He saw tears form in her eyes.
“No wonder you have been so terribly alone all of these years.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“No, you’re not,” she said. “You’re someone who never ventured far from the sanctuary of the world according to Jordan Cole.” Her eyes were drifting shut. “But you’re the chivalrous type, aren’t you, Jordan? A kind man?”
Cole shrugged.
She tried to lock her gaze onto him, but her eyes were unfocused. “Yes, you are. Yes, you are, my lovely American. You’re the chivalrous type because you’ll do what I ask of you.”
“What?”
She grew very solemn. “I want you to leave me, Jordan Cole. I have decided to give credence to my marriage vows. I know it sounds silly when I say it out loud, but it has got to mean something, I have to build my life on something. Greg isn’t dead anymore. My husband is alive. He needs me. You and I were part of the war. You must go away. I could not stand the pain if you stayed. You must go away.”
Cole wanted to hear the sound of his own voice saying something that would make everything all right, but all he heard was the crackle of the fire. He watched as Rebecca slowly struggled to her feet, made her way to the couch, and lay down, dragging a blanket off the back to cover herself. He felt empty inside, dead, and he wondered what good his logic and intellect did now.
He sat in the wing chair and watched the last of the fire die out, thinking about what she had said. He hadn’t thought about it quite the way that she had described, but he had thought about it—about leaving her and not coming back. In his mind it was all neat and tidy; the boyfriend departs just before the husband returns. Circumstances of war and all that—the husband thought dead and the wife, the poor tormented wife, a beautiful creature awaiting his return. But he had never had the courage to leave, and that’s what it took—courage.
Cole moved to the floor next to the couch and began stroking Rebecca’s hair. He was ashamed because he had hurt her. He wondered if there was another way, if there was anything that he could do to stay in her life. Something held him close to her, caused him to find comfort in her presence, and he wasn’t really sure what it was. It could be love, but Cole wasn’t entirely sure that the thing existed, at least not for him. Then why not just leave? he asked himself, and the answer was as puzzling as the question: I don’t know.
The telephone shattered the silence, and Cole stumbled to his feet trying to get to it before the ringing woke Rebecca. He scooped it off the tiny hall table, pressing the earpiece against his ear and cupping the mouthpiece to trap his voice.
“Hello?” he whispered loudly.
“Lieutenant James Cole?” a very precise and professional female voice said.
He was about to answer when he heard a voice say: “Jordan, love. Jordan Cole.”
“Lieutenant Jordan Cole?”
“Yes,” Cole said and then he realized the other voice was Bunny.
“Please hold for a trunk call,” the operator said. “Before I connect you, sir, remember that this is not a secure line.”
“You mustn’t worry about me, love,” Bunny said. “I’m properly trained.”
“Very well. I’m connecting the call now.”
“King?” Bunny said. “Fancy going on a little trip?”
“Trip?”
“Remember that bauble that you misplaced? Well, seems everyone has taken an interest in it. We’ve been put on standby.”
The operator broke in. “Gentlemen, remember that this is not a secure line. I may be forced to terminate this call under the Official Secrets Act unless you take greater care with your conversation.”
“Sorry, love,” Bunny said. “Didn’t realize that I was giving away anyone’s secrets. Here it is, King. I’ve got a chap who can give you a ride up here. Get out to the airport straightaway. I don’t know any more than that, but I’m sure I will when you get here. King? Are you still there?”
Cole was looking at Rebecca, asleep on the couch. She said that he would fly away one day and never return. He felt it somehow, that he was never coming back. Not the premonition of death; nothing quite as dramatic as that, although he could not discount it. It was just that when he left he was not coming back and things would be changed forever.
“Yeah, I’m here. What’s this guy’s name?”
“Ducey. Strange bloke. Hell of a pilot. Have you here in record time.”
“Okay, Bunny. I’m on my way. Thanks a lot for the call.” Cole heard Bunny laughing.
“Don’t thank me as of yet. By the time we get done with this business, Ole King Cole might not be quite a merry ole soul after all.”
“Is this call ended?” the operator interrupted.
“Yes,” Cole said.
“All done here, love.”
The line went dead, apparently ended without preamble by the efficient operator. Cole placed the earpiece on the cradle and walked back into the parlor. Rebecca still slept on the couch, fitfully, and the house was silent. A car or lorry, headlights blacked out, moved slowly along the street outside. They were on official business or had ration cards, or black market gasoline, but even their gentle rumble added no life to the scene. Cole was left to his own thoughts and they were no comfort.
He was abandoning Rebecca, probably forever. He wondered if she could survive—not so much without him but without someone to be near her so that her loneliness and guilt did not overwhelm her. Her demons, those demons of her own making and the ones forced on her by life, were always her constant companions. We all have demons, he thought, and he realized that his were never far away, they traveled with him everywhere he went. But Rebecca paid heed to hers, allowed them to control her, and permitted them, by the monumental guilt that she carried within her, to devour her bit by bit. She tried alcohol to find peace, to find any means to numb herself to the guilt, but that was only a temporary solution, if that.
Cole pulled his ready kit out of the closet, got his cap and the car keys for the MG out of a small pewter bowl on a shelf over the umbrella stand in the hall, and quietly opened the door.
When he stepped outside he could smell smoke; not heavy, simply the trace by-product of a fire that had been subdued, the common scent of London under siege. He closed the door, carefully, and locked it from the outside. He checked the blackout tape covering the headlights on his MG, making sure that it was still in place, climbed in, slipped the gearshift into neutral, and started it. It chugged once and turned over. He released the emergency brake, depressed the clutch, and pushed the gearshift into first. Then he slowly pulled away from the house at Warren Square.
Ducey was a small man with ears packed full of hair, and the first words out of his mouth were: “Yank, aren’t you?”
Cole was getting a little tired of the question. “Yeah,” he said. “For a long time now.” He followed Ducey to the aircraft, a Blenheim.
“When are you chaps going to get into the war?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Cole said.
“Not the same,” Ducey said as he motioned to the hatch. “Shed some blood first and you’ll be welcome into the fraternity.”
“I had a paper cut the other day,” Cole said, sick of being treated as a second-class citizen because his country hadn’t declared war yet. “Does that count?”
“Are all Americans as cheeky as you?”
“I never bothered to ask them.”
“Well, climb in and we’ll make short work of getting to Scotland,” Ducey said, holding the hatch open for Cole.
The takeoff was smooth and uneventful once they got clearance from the tower. There was no copilot on this flight and Cole sat next to Ducey. The aircraft was filled with spare parts and supplies, all neatly arranged and tied down se
curely. Ducey seemed eminently at ease in the pilot’s seat, his hands wrapped loosely around the yoke, eyes scanning the instrument panel or the horizon. It was only when Cole happened to glance at the altimeter to see that they were flying just over two thousand feet that he became concerned.
“Aren’t we a bit low?”
“Are you the pilot now?” Ducey said without bothering to take his eyes away from the panel.
“No,” Cole said, “but if this plane smacks into a mountain I’ll be just as dead.”
“Listen. I’ve flown this route since Christ was a corporal. I know every tree, hill, stream, and town. I could climb to a proper altitude but I see it as a terrible waste of petrol and time. Waste offends me.”
“Okay.”
“Besides,” Ducey said, “you’ve nothing to fear. Not only am I a superb pilot, but I am accompanied by angels.”
They came into Leuchars accompanied by a light mist. Cole knew that it was near dawn, but the sun was well hidden by the clouds. There were several men scattered around a string of lorries waiting to unload the aircraft, and Cole approached one who appeared to be a noncommissioned officer. The man immediately threw his cigarette to the tarmac, ground it out with the toe of his boot, and snapped to attention.
“Sir!” He was a sergeant and responded immediately to rank.
“I’m Lieutenant Cole. I’m to meet N-for-Nancy here.”
“Just a moment, sir,” he said, his manner softening when he recognized that he was speaking to an American with no power over him. “Pinky?” he shouted to another man at the lorry behind them. “N-for-Nancy? Is she on the hardstand?”
“She is,” Pinky said.
“Be a good sort and run this officer over to her, will you?”
Between The Hunters And The Hunted Page 18
