Twelve Seconds to Live (2002)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Masters watched the gunnery officer making a final inspection of the firing party.

  It was like sharing a secret. So she knew the church . . . Maybe she did not care. He found that he was going over it again. When she had been called away; a car had arrived to take her back to London. Just like that.

  She had put the greatcoat over his arm and had been thanking him, at the same time waving to the driver and Wykes by the door. He said, ‘We shall meet again soon.’ And she had turned her face, a lock of hair falling across her cheek as he had kissed it. A second, no longer. And she was gone.

  He had not imagined it. After she had gone he had held the collar of his greatcoat to his face. The same perfume still lingered in his quarters, something he knew he would never forget.

  She was not a girl; she was perhaps the same age as himself. Intelligent, confident, someone used to men being interested, persistent if the chance offered itself. I know that look. I recognized it, she had said of Sally. The Frenchman, perhaps? Others?

  Chavasse, with his secretary Brayshaw at his elbow, had reappeared, his eyes directed briefly at a bugler and then at the chaplain. He was ready.

  The others took their places, including a Wren officer, the one who had been with Critchley’s widow on that other occasion. He had seen an officer of his own rank looking at him, giving a discreet wave, his successor at H.M.S. Vernon.

  And the bereaved parents, the subbie’s mother in tears, her husband grim-faced, watching the firing party critically, comparing them, perhaps, with something from his past.

  They had already spoken; Masters could still feel it like a slap in the face.

  ‘Well, I suppose you couldn’t be expected to be everywhere, to know what’s happening all the time!’ Which was exactly what he had meant, and who could blame him?

  The chaplain had opened his book, his surplice billowing around him in the breeze. They should have asked the padre from Lulworth, the fisherman. He, at least, would have understood.

  The coffin was in position, a new flag folded over it, and Masters had seen the hearse parked near the main gates, ready to take the young officer back to his home town.

  There would not be much to put in the ground. There rarely was.

  Caps removed, heads uncovered, the bugler moistening his mouthpiece with his tongue. Only the firing party stood fast, the gunnery officer’s face like stone. Masters could imagine what he was thinking. As a sub-lieutenant he had once been involved with an admiral’s funeral. Peacetime: sword and cocked hat on the coffin, guard and band. Everything.

  But all that really stuck in his mind was the senior gunnery officer who had been in charge of the ceremonial.

  And during the period of Resting on the Arms Reversed, an expression of deep melancholy will be worn by all officers present . . . until Carry On is sounded.

  She said suddenly, ‘Hold my arm, please. I’m no good at this kind of thing.’

  He slipped his hand into the sleeve of her fur coat, and gently gripped her wrist above the glove.

  After all the preparation the service seemed to last only a few minutes. The chaplain did not once look at his prayer book; he knew it by heart, Masters thought. He felt her shiver, although her skin felt warm in his grasp. Remembering someone, or something?

  ‘The days of man are but as grass: for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon as the wind goeth over it, it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it no more.’

  Masters saw the dead subbie’s mother lean forward as if to touch the draped coffin, her husband reaching out to restrain her.

  Then the bark of commands.

  ‘Firing party, load!’ The metallic, precise clatter of rifle bolts.

  ‘Pre-sent!’ The rifles angled towards the misty sky, the ratings’ caps all in line, chinstays down.

  ‘Fire!’

  He held her wrist more tightly as the crash echoed across the inlet in a single blast. Some gulls rose, flapping angrily from the water, and beyond the main gates Masters saw an old man stop on the road and remove his battered hat while he faced the sea.

  ‘Re-load!’

  ‘Fire!’

  Someone was sobbing uncontrollably, and Masters heard Wykes break into a fit of coughing.

  ‘Order arms!’ The rifles came down together. Chavasse would be pleased; H.M.S. Excellent, the gunnery school, could have performed no better.

  ‘Thank you.’ She seemed very calm, but the blue-green eyes were misty. Like the sea. She repeated, ‘Thank you.’ She was trying to smile. ‘David.’

  It was almost over. The coffin had gone, the firing party were having their rifles inspected, bolts worked smartly in and out to make certain that not even an empty blank cartridge should escape the lieutenant’s notice.

  People began to move towards the wardroom building where the mess stewards would be waiting. All part of the drill, as Coker would put it. Chavasse was talking to Brayshaw, pointing at something, probably telling him to make sure the flag which had draped the coffin did not go astray. It was otherwise unused, and would be needed for the Trafalgar display.

  A passing lieutenant said to his friend, ‘I hope mine’s as quick as that when the time comes!’

  ‘Can’t wait, can you?’ They both laughed.

  Masters said, ‘Don’t mind them. They care enough to be here.’

  ‘I know that,’ she said.

  He saw Wykes disentangling himself from another group of officers and heading towards them.

  She said, ‘You don’t have to take your hand away, you know.’ She twisted her wrist, but that was all. ‘Unless you feel that you must?’

  Wykes returned the salute and cleared his throat noisily. ‘Smoke from those blanks. Still, went pretty well, I thought?’

  Masters smiled. There was something very reassuring about Wykes; he could have been commenting on a regatta or a cricket match.

  Wykes raised a hand to someone, but came directly to the point uppermost in his active mind.

  ‘I have some fresh information for you. We shall have to stay overnight at your quarters, I’m afraid – don’t want to make things look too obvious, do we?’ He did not wait for an answer; he never seemed to. ‘We shall be undisturbed that way, eh?’

  The girl said, ‘You could have mentioned it earlier.’

  Masters felt her hand slipping away from his. Her surprise was genuine; it must have taken her completely aback. The perfume.

  Wykes was saying, ‘You have a good staff there, as I recall. Nothing fancy, but something decent to drink, I hope?’

  Then he sighed. ‘We’d better show our faces inside, I suppose. I hate this part of it.’

  They followed him towards the queue by the wardroom entrance.

  She said, ‘I’m very sorry.’ She was calm again. In control. ‘He does things like this. He’s in another world sometimes.’ Then, as if to change the subject, ‘There’s a pretty girl, one of your admirers, obviously!’

  Masters saw a dark-haired Wren who had been talking with a Royal Marine driver, apparently discussing his car.

  He exclaimed, ‘Don’t salute, not today!’ and saw the uncertainty vanish, her face open in a smile as he took her gloved hand in his.

  He said, ‘This is Leading Wren Margot Lovatt.’ And then, ‘Light duties, remember? You shouldn’t be here, really, and you know it.’ They stood looking at one another, then she said, ‘I wanted to come back. Needed to.’

  The burly Royal Marine said, ‘I’m keepin’ an eye on ’er, sir!’

  ‘Do that, will you?’

  She murmured, ‘Thank you for saying that.’

  He released her hands and saluted her.

  ‘Come on, I need a drink.’

  He realized he had taken Elaine’s arm, that she had not resisted.

  ‘The girl who was in the car crash? I heard about it. She was lucky, very lucky to all accounts . . . That was a nice thing you did just now. Obviously she thinks the world of you.’ She was watching his face, his eyes.
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  ‘Her brother was serving under me in Tornado. When she went down.’

  ‘But she stayed with you, all the same.’ She braced herself as Wykes and another captain came towards them.

  She knew what she had just witnessed. What it had cost him, and the Wren, in their different ways.

  She was moved by it, and disturbed; it had affected her more than she would have believed possible. And vulnerable, which must never happen again.

  She took a drink from a passing steward and swallowed some without tasting it. She knew Wykes was observing her even as he was sharing a joke with the other captain. If she could not go through with it, he would drop her like a hot brick.

  She turned and looked at Masters.

  ‘Your little Wren had the right idea!’

  A telephone jangled outside and a steward hurried through the throng, his eyes everywhere, searching for someone. She saw Masters tense, like that night at Portland, then relax with something like physical effort as the steward found the officer he was seeking. And I will not see you suffer because of me.

  Somewhere a bugle blared. ‘Hands to dinner!’ Some wag would always call, ‘And officers to lunch!’

  Masters touched her arm and felt her hesitate, like that barrier when they had first met. It was never far away.

  ‘We’re almost the last to leave.’ He felt her move her arm, the tension gone.

  She glanced around the room, where children had once danced and drilled to an out-of-tune piano.

  Now, only the ghosts remained.

  The small van with Royal Navy painted on the side stopped at the top of a steep slope and stood rattling tinnily while Sub-Lieutenant Michael Lincoln and his assistant climbed out. The driver said, ‘I’ll try and chase up your transport when I get back to base, sir.’

  Lincoln shaded his eyes and stared down the slope, which appeared to lead directly to the sea. The Channel had many faces, he thought. This morning it was flat calm, hardly a ripple, the horizon touched with a faint silver thread. There was a three-ton Bedford lorry parked by a pile of crates, where a gap had been opened in the rusting barbed wire barrier, and some Royal Marines in their camouflaged denims were sitting or standing around them. One was throwing a piece of driftwood for a rough-haired terrier to fetch and recover with unending energy.

  An officer was standing apart from his marines and looked up when he saw Lincoln. He made a point of peering at his watch. The car which was to have brought them to this desolate-looking beach had broken down minutes after leaving the inlet. Lincoln felt a growing resentment. It was not an emergency, anyway.

  ‘Got all we need?’ It was something to say. Downie never needed to be reminded.

  Most of the Royal Marines had turned to watch, and someone gave an ironic cheer. Their captain waited for Lincoln to reach him, and snapped, ‘You took your time! If we have to wait for the next low water we’ll lose a whole day!’

  Lincoln attempted to tell him about the breakdown but knew he was wasting his time. It was a bad beginning.

  ‘Let’s get started!’ The captain gestured to a launch which was being fended away from scattered rocks by some of his men. ‘Muster the others, Corporal!’

  They climbed into the launch and Lincoln hoped that it, too, would break down. It did not.

  He looked around at the others. The marines were from one of the units based at Portland, highly professional, and employed mostly on demolition or clearing away wreckage after an exercise or training programme.

  He shaded his eyes again and peered ahead past the bowman. At first you might think it was an isolated spur of rock. At low water you could see all that was left of the old freighter Latchmere. She had hit a stray mine along this coast and her master had tried to beach her where she would cause the least harm to other shipping: a hazard or an aid to navigation, it depended on the circumstances. Today the remains of the old Latchmere were to be destroyed.

  The captain of marines was also studying the approaching wreck. Like many of her kind, most of the freighter’s superstructure and cabin space was right aft. She had been carrying scrap iron when the mine had found her, and her cargo had broken open the hull and scattered where it would never be salvaged. He consulted his watch again. Just what he might have expected: a sub-lieutenant in battledress, working dress, as the navy chose to term it, with a wavy stripe on each shoulder so new that he must have been commissioned only months ago. So what was he doing with the special countermeasures section? And the rating . . . what were they thinking, for God’s sake? He looked like a schoolboy, reaching out to fondle the dog which had somehow slipped into the launch.

  The wreck was closer now, looming over them, another forgotten victim of the narrow seas. Rust had overwhelmed most of the paintwork, and the bridge rails were badly buckled, the wheelhouse windows blasted away by that first explosion. There was other damage too, holes punched by cannon shells when a fighter bomber had used the old Latchmere for target practice. A pathetic sight, for anyone with imagination. The captain of marines had none. Newly promoted himself, he was proud of his unit, but saw it and its efficiency as a stepping-stone to something even better. Above all, he loathed amateurs.

  Lincoln was aware of the hostility. It made him angry, but he was used to it. He looked over at his assistant. What did the snotty little captain know? Downie had dealt with eleven serious incidents, ‘of major capacity’ as it was described in his report. Twelve, if you count the one he stopped me from screwing up. He found himself smiling. I’m getting just like my dad.

  He tried to concentrate on the job in hand. He had got all he could from Operations, and had even managed to speak with the first lieutenant of ML366, which had been confronted by an E-Boat right here only days ago. It was hard to imagine now. Lifeless, barely undulating water, the Channel empty of everything but two armed trawlers on their way to Poole or the Dover Strait. He saw the green wreck buoy, soon to be replaced by one with a beacon, which neither lookout nor radar could confuse with a lurking enemy.

  The captain of marines was moving up the boat towards him. Here we go. He had heard most of the old jibes, including the R.N.V.R. Really Not Very Reliable. They had mostly died out now, or, like the young subbie who had been killed on his first ‘incident’, just died altogether.

  ‘Now you know what you’ve got to do, right?’

  They both swung round as Downie said, ‘Check the bridge for any equipment not part of the wreck, sir.’ He lifted his arm so that the dog jumped to snap playfully at his oilskin. ‘The E-Boat was reported as an S80 type, so she only drew a fathom at the most.’ He fell silent as one of the listening marines gave a chuckle.

  Lincoln said, ‘Nothing bigger would dare to come in so near.’

  They looked at one another like conspirators.

  It was not lost on the captain. ‘Well, we can’t hang about. The new wreck buoy will be here this afternoon. I’ve got more important things to do.’

  A Royal Marine corporal murmured half to himself, ‘I’ll bet ’is mother just loves ’im!’

  Lincoln turned away. He was not alone. He thought of the memorial service he had watched at the base; he had never seen a firing party in action before. He had met Masters there too, but only briefly. Of today he had said, ‘No heroics. Just have a look around for anything strange or unexpected. We’ll not get another chance, not with the old Latchmere, in any case.’

  And he had seen the young woman Masters had been with. Tall, wearing a fur coat, like someone out of a film. He smiled again. My sort of film, anyway.

  Downie was gripping the gunwale, staring up at the wreck. Even the boat’s fenders would have a rough time on the jagged plates. It was probably a waste of time; he had sensed that most of the others thought as much, Lincoln too. Otherwise why would they have sent only him? Downie still did not know if he would ever understand him, or know him like Clive. Not afraid to stand up for himself. Or me. But he had a chip a mile wide on his shoulder.

  They were level with the tiltin
g wheelhouse now, the shattered ports and scuttles like blind eyes. On a bracket by the bridge door was a hanging basket, now rusty and bent like everything else. But it had once held flowers or potted plants, like the ones his mother had always cherished in their little garden behind the shop. He felt the dog rubbing against him; it only made it worse. After all this time.

  ‘Stand by, forrard!’

  He saw two large and ungainly rubber floats hooked on to the derelict superstructure, and some marines in frogman suits waving and jeering. They were met with cheerful insults, equally crude.

  He would never understand the Royals, either. Soldiers one minute, sailors the next. They even called their quarters, a bunch of gaunt-looking Nissen huts, their ‘barracks’. He had also noticed that despite their warlike, camouflaged denims, each man had a Globe and Laurel badge on his beret polished so brightly you could have seen it ten miles away.

  The boat grated alongside, and grapnels brought them as close as possible. Downie peered over the deck. Trapped water moving this way and that, some carpet rolled tightly behind a stanchion. Perhaps someone had been cleaning the bridge, ready for reaching port, when the mine had blasted the ship apart . . .

  One of the NCOs was shouting something, then their captain called, ‘Look, let’s not make a meal of it!’ The wristwatch again. ‘Not much time for my men to plant the charges. No point in dithering, is there?’

  Lincoln said, ‘I’ll be as fast as I can, sir. Have you got the torch, Gordon?’ He saw Downie nod, and two of the marines nudging each other.

  It was a dangerous descent. Outside the wreck the sea had seemed calm, almost lifeless; once below the bridge deck it seemed powerful, heavy enough to take away your balance. Slippery and treacherous, with jagged glass and buckled plating adding to the risk of injury.

  Somehow Downie had got ahead of Lincoln, although he did not recall seeing him pause or hesitate. He looked up through a broken skylight, the solitary funnel above it like a tusk against the sky. Even the sounds were different here, booming water trapped in the lower hull, or what was left of it. Hissing, rustling sounds, as if creatures still lurked here. He swung the torch, dipping the beam slightly beneath the water. Some broken cups in one corner, charts still folded in their rack, although he knew they would fall apart at the slightest touch. Water had lapped over his boot and his foot felt like ice. He peered up again at the skylight. The paintwork was stained but still intact, one part of the wreck which remained above water even when the tide was at its highest. He screwed up his eyes, trying to remember the correct naval term. He had heard the ML’s young captain use it when he had been aboard that night and they had fished the dead flier out of the drink. His mother had warned him about doing that to his eyes. Make you look old before you know it. And he would be twenty next month. And Sub-Lieutenant Lincoln would be . . . He gripped a voicepipe and stared. Lincoln was crouched at the upper end of the sloping deck, gazing into the water, searching for something. His eyes were fixed, vacant. Like that moment near the railway. The extra fuse. The booby-trap. He had been unable to move or speak.