He said, ‘How is it?’ and looked around. ‘I wanted to bring something – I don’t know – flowers maybe, to cheer you up.’
‘Tell me.’ She reached out with the bandaged arm. ‘Tell me, Chris,’ and hesitated. ‘There, I said it.’
He took her hand and turned it over very carefully. ‘I was worried about you.’
She repeated, ‘No, Chris, tell me. I’ve been thinking about you since the pile-up. You see, I knew you were on some operation, a sudden decision. Otherwise . . .’
He returned the pressure of her hand. Like that moment together in the wrecked Wolseley.
‘Otherwise I would have stayed with you. All the time. No matter what.’
He felt her dark eyes watching him, her grip as firm as ever.
‘It was bad, wasn’t it?’
He shook his head. ‘You’re the one in hospital, Margot!’ He sensed her flinch. Her name. ‘It’s just been a bit busy, that’s all.’ They looked at one another, and he said, ‘Have you been up and about much?’
‘They say I’m on the mend. In fact, they’re talking of sick leave. I’m black and blue all over, but the gash in my . . .’ Her free hand moved as if to touch her thigh but stopped against her hip, ‘is healing well.’ She waited for him to look at her again. ‘All thanks to you.’
Another door opened, which he had not noticed before, and a girl in a similar blue dressing gown crossed the room and climbed into the other bed.
She glanced over and said, ‘I’m Mary,’ then she lay down and placed a damp cloth across her eyes.
Somewhere a bell was ringing urgently, and there were voices, authority.
Foley said, ‘Are you going home when you get leave?’ He saw her nod and hurried on, ‘And afterwards, will you be returning to the base, or moving somewhere else?’
She had both her hands over his now and had leaned forward slightly, so that the gown had dropped completely from one shoulder. From below the armpit was the beginning of one huge, black bruise where she had been hurled sideways by the impact. She was gazing into his face, from which he knew he could no longer hide the strain.
‘What is it? Please tell me.’
‘I want to see you after this, Margot.’ He was shivering, and yet his hands were quite steady in hers. Like being two people, one in control, the other wanting to touch her bare shoulder. Until she understood.
‘I’d love to see you again, Chris. Do you think I could ever forget what you did?’
More voices, closer now.
He said, ‘I meant to bring your cap with me.’
She stared at him, her mouth softening. ‘So you have it? It must be the only part of my uniform that stayed in one piece!’
Foley stood up carefully and smoothed the edge of the bed. He saw the opened newspaper, the headlines screaming at him, a photograph of a battleship at anchor. ITALIAN FLAGSHIP SURRENDERS UNDER THE GUNS OF THE ROYAL NAVY.
The ‘other war’, which they discussed endlessly whenever time permitted. Ships and faces they knew or had known, subjects of argument and speculation. But the other war. The real war.
Not the war he had come to know and expect. Wooden hulls of the little ships: punctured, splintered, bloodstained. Men living in one another’s pockets, sharing everything. You soon understood what really counted when you were less than twenty yards from the muzzles of the enemy’s guns.
‘I’ll have to be leaving soon. It seems a bit frantic.’
She said quickly, ‘Not yet. I so hoped you would come. Find the time––’
He took her hand again. ‘You knew I’d come. But you know what they say about getting too close in wartime . . . I . . . I’m not sure . . . for your sake.’
She did not look away as he lifted the gown to cover her bare shoulder, his fingers brushing her skin. ‘I want to protect you, Margot . . . and now it seems like the other way round.’ He tried to smile. ‘I must see you again. Soon. I’ll call the hospital . . .’
‘Ah, I see you’re just leaving, Lieutenant!’
A white coat, a fixed, tired smile, a stethoscope, the sister close behind him. It was over.
Foley touched her hair and felt her press against his hand.
‘Sorry to be such a mess,’ he said.
The sister was moving a screen towards the bed. They would examine her, pull her about. The anger was irrational, but he could barely contain it.
She lifted her chin and regarded him steadily. ‘If I’m moved from here I shall send word.’ She moved as if to extend her hand again, but instead put it to her breast. ‘Take good care of yourself, Chris. As you did of me.’
The doctor said, ‘There, now––’
Foley was outside the door without knowing he had moved. Like saying goodbye at a railway station, too common a sight these days: so much longing, but never the right words. Until the train begins to move. Until it is too late.
He strode back through the room where the soldiers were sitting, waiting for something to happen. One was rolling a cigarette, expertly moistening the paper with his tongue. He had only one hand. Another, who appeared to have lost a leg and an arm, was slowly turning the pages of a tattered magazine. Someone should tell them, he thought. They’re the real heroes in this war.
He caught sight of himself in a wall mirror as he was leaving and shook his head. It was a wonder he hadn’t scared her to death. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair and jammed on his cap.
It was absurd. He hardly knew her. He had acted out of instinct and had shared her pain, her need.
The redcap was grinning at him, and there was a car of some sort waiting by the door.
But Chris Foley knew he had never been closer to anyone in his life.
‘Try that chair over there, old chap. Take the weight off your feet. You deserve it after that little lot.’
David Masters smiled and loosened his jacket. His first meeting with the Naval Intelligence people and a few other privileged parties had been long and surprisingly demanding. Like being in the spotlight, more so because of the brightly illuminated screen of diagrams, statistics, and photographs.
The senior present had been a vice-admiral on the First Sea Lord’s personal staff, a haughty-faced officer with hooded eyes and a petulant, unsmiling mouth. It was hard to believe, let alone remember, Masters had thought. The vice-admiral had been the commander in his first ship, an old training cruiser, when he had still been a midshipman. The commander, the Bloke, as he was always known, was second only to the captain, but in many ways had more contact and influence in any large ship, especially where the ‘young gentlemen’ were concerned. As far as he could recall, they had all liked him. Keen on team activities, boatwork and sailing, even sports ashore when time and opportunity allowed, he was always there. Ready to advise, and often to demonstrate.
Sitting in that underground room, one hand tapping occasionally on an unopened folder, it was impossible to see him as the same person.
Perhaps the navy was a little like the Church, the step from wardroom to flag rank much like country parson to a bishop’s palace.
He looked at his host. Captain James Wykes of the D.N.I.’s department was thin, wiry, and never still. He was dressed in a pale grey suit which looked well-worn, if not actually shabby, but Masters guessed it had been both expensive and tailored to fit a then sturdier figure. His hair was the same colour as the suit, and there were deep shadows beneath his eyes.
Wykes exclaimed, ‘Stuffy lot for the most part, but you mustn’t mind them!’ He lit a cigarette and fanned the smoke aside, turning his head away to control a spasm of coughing. Masters had noticed that he smoked a lot. Coughed a lot, too. It had roused the vice-admiral’s irritation, and he had given the ashtray a significant glance.
But Wykes had looked after him from the beginning. Guiding him, and fending off what he considered to be pointless or time-wasting interruptions, quick to jump to his feet and emphasize a point, or to snap his fingers at the screen operator to flash back to an earlier ite
m of interest.
He thought of the others who had been there. A commander from H.M.S. Vernon he had once worked alongside; there had only been time for a handshake and a brief greeting. There were men in civilian clothes who arrived and departed together, but were not introduced, nor did they appear to speak to one another throughout the entire session.
And two officers of the Free French navy, somehow alien in their original pre-war uniforms. One held the same rank as his own, Capitaine de Corvette, the other was his superior, a full captain with a neat beard; you would have known him to be French had he been wearing a boiler suit. He had an interpreter sitting at his elbow, a woman in a dark suit or dress who occasionally leaned over to murmur something, or to jot a few notes on a pad. There had been other women present, but she had been the only one out of uniform. Whenever she had looked up she had shaded her eyes with one hand against the glare, and he had seen a brooch of some kind when she had moved, the only adornment against her shadowy outline. He had also noticed that the French officer appeared to be following the progress of the meeting without much need for an interpreter.
Wykes was saying, ‘I expect a drink wouldn’t come amiss, old chap? Sun’s well over the yardarm, I’d say. What’ll it be, Horse’s Neck? Scotch, if you like?’ He chuckled. ‘R.H.I.P., you know!’
Masters took out his pipe and pouch. Rank Hath Its Privileges. The vice-admiral who had once been the training cruiser’s ‘Bloke’ had probably said that too. But it was difficult to believe now.
Wykes was opening a cupboard and slopping drinks into a pair of finely cut tumblers. Masters looked at the clock. It was six in the evening but it could have been any time, any place. Impossible to imagine London’s traffic still roaring somewhere high above this maze of rooms and offices. The main bunker of command, or was there always another one, even more influential? No wonder Bumper Fawcett made a point of appearing here.
Wykes studied him through the smoke while he filled and tamped down his pipe.
He said, ‘Your people are having good results. But as the pace hots up, as it must and will as we draw nearer to invading, forcing that second front all the newspaper experts are demanding, the enemy’s strategy and tactics will be preparing to meet it. From the start Germany was in the lead with pattern and then strategic bombing. Factories, docklands, road and railway systems a year or so back, and they nearly succeeded. The country was almost at a standstill, production at an all-time low, convoys unable to fight their way across the Pond to fill the gaps.’
Masters watched the smoke. ‘A lot of men died trying to combat the enemy’s skill where bombs and mines were concerned. Army Bomb Disposal lost so many officers in those first couple of years that it was looked on as a suicide job.’ He shrugged. ‘And now we’re playing our part. I’ve seen some good chaps set off for that last beast. Not knowing it was their last.’
Wykes put down his tumbler. ‘That lieutenant of yours from Portland, the one who worked on the crashed Junkers, he discovered a lot more than he realized, poor chap.’ His eyes moved very quickly. ‘And you, much to the fury of your rear-admiral, “Bumper”, you call him? You stumbled on a second device in Bridport. The people at Vernon have discovered similarities. Smaller devices, mines if you like, which can be dropped at short notice, and timed to explode after a given period or be set off by magnetic fields of their own.’
‘I would have expected that our section would have been told first, sir.’ It came out more curtly than he had intended. ‘We are on the sharp end of it.’
Wykes was unmoved. ‘Exactly. Which is why I wanted you here, face to face. I’m not much of a one for classified phone calls, and all that cloak-and-dagger nonsense.’ He reached over and refilled Masters’ glass, smiling. ‘While you get the chance, right?’
At that moment a telephone did ring, almost a gentle sound after the clamour of other offices Masters had passed.
Wykes picked it up. ‘Right on time.’ He replaced it. ‘Air raid warning. Not to worry, I’ll have one of my chaps take you to your hotel. What’s it like, by the way? I’ve only dropped in once myself,’ and frowned as the telephone whimpered again. ‘Excuse me.’
Masters tried to relight his pipe; it was not his usual tobacco. ‘A bit of Pussers was all I could get, sir,’ Coker had said.
He had in fact hardly noticed the hotel, except that it was near the Thames; he had seen the river when the car had dropped him there, to book in and show his credentials. The train had been late arriving, hardly surprising after its endless journey from Dorset, with stops on the line to allow a troop train to tear past, or while some unexplained delay was dealt with, and it had been packed with passengers, most of them in uniform of one kind or another. With London opening out to greet them he had seen vapour trails twisting like ghostly writing against a washed-out sky. Two or three fighters. Young men trying to kill one another. One had eventually fallen from the sky, its smoke like a dying brushstroke.
Someone had exclaimed angrily, ‘That’s one less of the sods!’ He might easily have been wrong.
‘As I was saying, old chap.’ Wykes was back, legs crossed as he slumped in the opposite chair. His ankles looked as thin as a child’s wrists. ‘The Germans have had a lot of practice. In the Spanish civil war they had a team experimenting with landmines. Nobody saw or heard anything, of course. In Russia they’ve been using new ideas, with some success, but we only learned about that recently.’ He turned down his mouth. ‘From a neutral source, need I say?’
He glanced at the clock. ‘I have to go. Must see the gallant Capitaine de Vaisseau Lalonde over the side. He’s been very helpful in this matter.’ He smiled briefly. ‘But you know the French. They’ve never forgiven us Waterloo!’ He dusted some ash from his tie and lapels and added gently, ‘While I’m away, just think on this, old chap. A bit closer to home. Say, the Channel Islands, for instance? What if the answer to your device is right there for the asking?’
He gestured to the cupboard. ‘Help yourself. I’ll be ten minutes at the most.’
Masters stared at the door as it closed after him. A remarkable man, astute and clever. Dangerous if he wanted to be.
He tapped out his pipe in an upended shell case and tried to think back on all he had seen and heard.
This was a completely different world. At sea, or at Vernon’s various outflung sections, you always felt you were in the front line, the sharp end, as he had described it to Wykes only minutes ago. It was timeless here, too. But when the car had collected him at the terminus station he had been surprised by the crowds of jostling people. Every uniform and from every country, even those like the French captain Wykes had gone to see over the side, whose homelands were under occupation. It hardly seemed like a capital under siege. If a stick of bombs had been on its way down nobody would have heard it above the din of voices and traffic.
The Channel Islands? It seemed unlikely. He leaned forward in the worn leather chair. The only part of Britain occupied by the enemy, because there had been no way of defending them so close to the French mainland, and because of the death and suffering any such attempt would have caused. And the recriminations which would surely have followed.
He was still contemplating it when Wykes returned, rubbing his hands.
‘Gone off as happy as a priest at a funeral!’
He sat down, his fingers latched together on his bony knees.
‘Thought about it?’
‘I’m still floundering.’
Wykes did not relax or smile. ‘Your predecessor, Commander Critchley, was a man of importance and not a little influence even before he donned the King’s uniform. I had dealings with him through this department. He was helpful with some enquiries which we were making about a certain Raymond de Courcy.’ He paused, his eyes asking an unspoken question. He seemed satisfied and continued, ‘Another powerful man, head of an electronics group in France. And at some time a partner of the late Commander Critchley.’ He broke off in another fit of coughing. ‘The war came
. Raymond de Courcy found himself on the other side. A collaborator, they call them now, but often the only way to survive, I’m told.’
‘But surely Commander Critchley didn’t have any idea what was happening.’
‘He wanted to avoid the issue, of course. We were the ones who started to stir things up. Then, we were only poking sticks in the dark. Now we know.’
The overhead light flickered momentarily. Distant traffic or a bomb; it could have been an earthquake and nothing would change down here.
Masters said, ‘Where do I come in?’
Wykes smiled gently. ‘I’ve studied your record, both before and after the unfortunate loss of your command.’ He held up one hand. ‘It is a vital part of this job. Other lives depend on my being right or wrong, as much as if I had my own ship – more, in many ways. I was impressed by what you have achieved since that other time, and since your appointment to the countermeasures section down in Dorset. You’ve made a lot of progress.’ He gave a slight shrug. ‘Otherwise you and I would never have met!’ It seemed to amuse him.
Masters tried to come to terms with it. ‘When we really know what it is we’re up against . . .’
The telephone buzzed twice and stopped.
‘When we know that, old chap, the war will doubtless have been over for six months.’
Masters stood up. It really was another world. He thought of Foley, in his own command, the feel of it when he had been aboard, when they had been running for base but had stopped to pick up the dead flier. There was nothing else like it; it had been infectious, even though he had tried again and again to put it behind him, not to lose himself again. Otherwise, survival was meaningless.
Wykes was peering around and patting his pockets, for more cigarettes no doubt.
‘You can scoot back to base, day after tomorrow.’ He saw the sudden protest in Masters’ eyes, and said evenly, ‘Can’t be helped, I’m afraid. The top brass must know what’s happening, and be convinced. You’d think they were paying for the whole war themselves!’ He tapped his sleeve, with what Masters sensed was a rare intimacy. ‘In fact, I was having dinner at the Savoy a few nights back. The place was wall-to-wall with red tabs and gold lace up to the elbows. My guest remarked that it would be quite a catch for Jerry if he managed to drop a bomb right on the lot of them. I corrected the poor fellow. Told him it would more likely do a hell of a lot of good for all concerned!’ He laughed and coughed again.
Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) Page 11
