by John Kerr
She rose from the sofa and stood with her back to the fire, watching the reflection of the flames in the glass ornaments, smiling to herself as she thought how fortunate she was to have made such a fine friend. Then she realized with a start that friend was the wrong word. The image of him at the piano flashed into her mind, the strains of his music playing in her head, and for the first time Mary admitted that she longed for far more than a friend. The admission troubled her. No man since David had elicited even a second glance. Yet now, to her surprise, she found herself thinking about a man she had met only once, with whom she exchanged weekly letters. She remembered his face, his smile, his kind manner as he explained about Jamie. She remembered every movement, every nuance . . . ‘Enough of this wool gathering,’ she said to the puppy following her down the hall as she returned the bundle of letters to their special drawer. ‘I’m certain the man would think I’m off my rocker.’ She looked Chelsea in the eye. ‘And quite rightly so.’
Christmas morning dawned bitterly cold. Weak sunlight filtered through the lace curtains as Mary, wearing her heavy coat over her nightgown, struggled to kindle a fire. Standing with her arms tightly around her, she watched as the fire caught at last and spread quickly. The room seemed terribly empty with the beautifully decorated tree in the corner and the few carefully wrapped packages on a tartan rug. After a cup of chamomile tea before the fire, Mary dressed in her warmest clothes, shrugged on her coat, and, with Chelsea shut inside, carefully made her way down the treacherous path to the rocky shore. When she reached the ledge above the green sea, she sat cross-legged, her arms folded in front of her, staring at the horizon and listening to the waves surging on the rocks. After a while she unbuttoned her coat and reached inside for her silver locket. Peeling off a glove, she opened the clasp and studied the tiny photographs: David, so young and handsome, and baby Anna. She closed it and held it tight in her palm, shutting her eyes, concentrating on the images as she murmured a prayer. She sat there for a long time, oblivious to the wind and cold, just letting them go.
Climbing back up the cliff seemed almost impossible, but she made it, the icy wind pushing her back to the house. When she opened the door and knelt down, Chelsea threw herself into her arms. As Chelsea licked away the last of her tears, Mary smiled at the power of the dog to bring her back from her sadness. After warming herself before the fire, they sat by the tree and opened the few presents from home. With another log on the fire and Chelsea settled in her box, she whiled away the day in quiet contemplation.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The loneliness of Christmas took days to drift away. On the 29th, young Donald McDonough paid Mary a visit, enjoying the fresh-baked sweets and encouraging Mary to stop by the gathering at the Golden Anchor on New Year’s Eve. Most people from the village and surrounding farms would be there, and with spirits high and spirits flowing, Donald was sure this was her way back into the life of the community. After much agonizing, she decided she would go. Though the bitter cold had abated, the snow had turned to slush, and Mary decided this was one of the rare occasions to drive her grandfather’s aged saloon. With the wartime ban on the sale of petrol, she had only the ten-gallon jerry can in the shed; once it was gone, there would be no more driving. After a few lethargic revolutions, the engine coughed to life. It was long past dark when she arrived at the village crossroads. Wearing her long coat and rubber boots, she was not much to look at. As Mary approached the pub she could make out the sound of music and loud voices and the illuminated sign of the anchor over the door. She hesitated at the entrance, thinking for a moment she had made a mistake. But when she took a deep breath and pulled open the door, her spirits were lifted by the strains of fiddle and penny-whistle that filled the room. Mary hung her coat on the crowded rack, slipped off her boots, and surveyed the room, spotting an empty table at the back. Wearing her best dress, with a strand of pearls and touch of French perfume, a Christmas gift from her aunt, she smiled diffidently as she made her way to the bar and ordered a half-pint of the local ale. As she eased through the raucous crowd, she noticed Sarah McClendon with Jack Healy, who briefly made eye contact with her and then looked away. She sat at the small table, watching the festive goings on, and feeling strangely invisible in the midst of her laughing, joking neighbours, who, when they turned in her direction, seemed to look right through her. Two pretty girls in matching blue dresses appeared with fiddles at the music stand. When they rested their fiddles beneath their chins, they were joined by a teenage boy, who stood nervously before the crowd. In a single motion the girls drew their bows across the strings and the boy began a traditional ballad in a sweet tenor voice, ‘Ta mo chleamhnas deanta . . .’ Mary sat transfixed, listening to the hauntingly beautiful melody and thinking only of the handsome smile of her dear husband David. A hush fell over the room and when the final notes died away, there was a moment of silence before the fiddlers broke into a lively jig.
Mary fought to keep her composure against a wave of intense sadness. When she looked across the smoke-filled room she noticed an unfamiliar man at the entrance, wearing a felt hat pulled low and a long coat. After hanging up his coat and hat, he looked in Mary’s direction, striking her as sinister, with dark hair glistening with oil and a scar under his right eye. He seemed to have the same effect on the townspeople, who became quiet or looked away when he walked past them to order a drink at the bar. He drained his glass in one swig, ordered another and pushed his way through the packed tables, glancing briefly at Mary, to join a man seated alone at a nearby table with a pint of stout. She feigned interest in her drink as the two men struck up a conversation in voices loud enough to be overheard.
‘Well, Tom,’ said the stranger. ‘ ‘Ere’s to the bloody New Year. Out with the old, in with the new. To 1942!’ He poured down his whiskey and slammed the glass on the table.
‘Right you are, Sean,’ said the other man with nervous perspiration beading his brow. He took a swallow of the chocolate-brown stout and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
‘1943,’ the stranger said. ‘D’you suppose the Brits can last another year? I’ll tell you what, by God, it’s the best chance we’ve had since the year ’21. Let the Germans kick the bloody arses of the Brits, and the north is ours! There’s no way in bloody hell the Ulstermen could last a month without the English. Say,’ – he roughly grabbed the elbow of a young fellow in a stained apron picking up glasses from the littered tables – ‘fetch me another whisky.’
Mary stared at the scarred surface of the table, afraid to look in the stranger’s direction, fighting the impulse to rush from the smoky pub.
‘But that’s not all, Tom,’ the stranger continued in a harsh voice, ‘they mean to use the north as a base to strike against us. Make no mistake about it.’ He paused as the boy returned with a glass of whiskey. ‘Churchill and his gang would love nothing better than to send an army south from Belfast on the pretext of our blessed neutrality. So, do we sit back like a bunch of patsies while the Brits make ready to strike?’ Several women at nearby tables cast shocked glances at their husbands, but the men pretended not to notice. ‘No,’ growled the stranger. ‘By God, not the IRA!’
By now the colour had drained from Mary’s cheeks. Her heart pounding, she took a sip from her drink and forced herself to sit quietly, pretending to take no notice of the conversation.
‘Well, Sean,’ said the other man, ‘what exactly should we be doing here?’ He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. The townspeople at the nearby tables fell silent.
The stranger sipped his whiskey before answering. ‘There are things we can do,’ he said. ‘People we can help. Leave that up to me.’ He smiled in a menacing way that everyone understood only too well. He started to push back from the table and then said, ‘Oh, and the American woman’ – he jerked a thumb in Mary’s direction – ‘who’s sweet on the English officer? You’d better keep a sharp eye on her.’
Mary was momentari
ly stunned and then, indignation winning the battle with fear, abruptly stood up and approached the two men. A malevolent smile curled the stranger’s lip.
‘How dare you?’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘I will have you know, sir, that my father fought alongside Michael Collins while you were racing round your mother’s knee.’ Mary stood with her hands on her hips, her blue eyes flashing.
The man grinned up at her and said, ‘Oh, she’s a feisty one,’ with a lascivious wink.
‘There was a time,’ said Mary in a stronger voice, ‘if you bothered to learn your own history, when the Black and Tans had a price on my father’s head. He fought for the cause and raised his children with a fierce loyalty to it. My private life is none of your damned business. Nor the business of any of the people of this village,’ she said loudly, her eyes ranging around the room. She looked back at the stranger, her heart pounding and a flush on her cheeks. ‘And there’s one last thing.’ She pointed a slender finger at the man. ‘I may be the only one with guts enough to say it, but the Germans are the real enemy, not the British, and any Irishman fool enough to think otherwise is beneath pity.’ Mary turned on her heel, and with her head high, marched from the room, took her coat from the rack, and walked out. Despite the cold, she didn’t put on her coat until she was almost at her car. Well I’ve done it now, she thought, as she let herself in and pressed the starter. ‘He had it coming to him,’ she muttered. As she pulled out and accelerated toward the road to her cottage, she realized that she had parted the waters and would soon learn on which side her neighbours stood. Turning a bit too sharply onto the track, a dark form suddenly loomed in the headlights, and she slammed on the brakes, swerving in the muddy ruts almost into a tree. A good-looking young man she’d never seen before suddenly appeared at her window. Mary gasped with fright, but looking into his calm, pleasant face, she quickly regained her composure.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked as she rolled down the window.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but you almost scared me to death.’
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ he said in friendly brogue. ‘But you appeared out of nowhere and gave me quite a start.’
Blushing, Mary said, ‘I almost never take the car, and in the darkness . . .’
‘Well, goodnight, miss,’ he said, moving away into the shadows.
‘Goodnight,’ murmured Mary, as she turned back onto the lane and bumped along the short distance to her darkened cottage. It wasn’t until she switched off the ignition that it crossed her mind to question what this charming man was doing out on the country lane on New Year’s Eve. The image of the young man was replaced by the menacing leer of the stranger at the pub as she wearily undressed for bed. As she slipped on her nightgown, she reflected sadly that whatever hope there was of restoring friendly relations with her neighbours was almost certainly lost. Perhaps it was time to call an end to her self-imposed exile, to go home to her family and friends. She looked disconsolately around the darkened bedroom. If it weren’t for the war, she admitted, she’d be home now. Yet going home would mean giving up, in a way, surrendering to the expectations of her mother, and leaving behind the life she’d made for herself, as lonely as it was . . . and the chance of seeing Charles Davenport again. Besides, she was unable to return home even if she wanted to. As she turned down the covers and climbed into bed, she wondered what Charles would think of her. Thinking of him helped put the calamity of the evening and thoughts of home out of her mind, and she fell asleep.
Unfortunately, it didn’t last. She awoke with a start, her mind racing with images of her encounter with the stranger, conscious of being utterly alone in the dark, silent house. She threw back the eiderdown and, wrapping herself in the quilt, walked cautiously through the living room and out onto the porch, settling on the steps to gaze at the stars in the freezing night air. But the night was eerie, the moon and stars obscured by clouds. For a moment the moon shone through a break in the clouds, illuminating the smooth surface of the sea, before disappearing into the scudding mass. And then she saw a dim red light blinking far out in the distance. In an instant it was gone. Mary rubbed her eyes, fearing a German submarine. After a moment she convinced herself it was nothing, perhaps the running lights of a fishing boat. It had been such a terrible night, perhaps she was simply seeing things. And yet she kept looking out into the darkness, wondering what she had seen.
Davenport hunched over his desk and traced a column of figures, squinting at the small print in the glare of the overhead light. Looking up, he stared absently out of the window toward the river in the late afternoon darkness and the gently falling rain. He rose to lower the blackout shade and then returned to a report he had obtained from the Admiralty on the shipping capacities of the British and US navies. In particular, he was studying landing craft and the larger ships designed to transport them. There were surprisingly few standards governing their specifications, which had led to a bewildering assortment of vessels in both navies. But he had discovered that the US Marine Corps had devoted years to studying and training for amphibious warfare, which they were now engaged in against the Japanese in the Pacific. And the Marines favoured a landing craft of their own design, built by Higgins Industries in New Orleans. Thus the Marines had dubbed them Higgins boats. Unlike the larger, steel-hulled landing craft, Higgins boats were only thirty six feet in length and constructed largely of cheap, plentiful plywood. With their flat bottom and shallow draught, they were ideal for ferrying a platoon from its transport ship to wading distance of the beach. Davenport learned that virtually all of them were destined for the Pacific. He stared at his calculations. With plans calling for six divisions to be put ashore on the first day of the invasion, the number of landing craft would easily be in the thousands. Unless the Admiralty was persuaded to look primarily to Higgins boats, and their production diverted from the Pacific, it was inconceivable that there could be an invasion in 1943.
He took several sheets of foolscap and swivelled around to his old Royal. Inserting a sheet with the red ‘Most Secret’ heading, he began typing. Lost in the clacking of the keys, Davenport failed to notice when the door opened and Leslie Ashton-Gore entered.
‘Well, Davenport,’ said Ashton-Gore in a loud voice, ‘working late again?’ He had the habit of leaving the office punctually at five o’clock and resented Davenport’s tendency to remain at his desk long after the others had departed.
‘Oh, hallo, Leslie,’ said Davenport with a yawn, looking up from the typewriter. ‘Just trying to finish this damned report.’
Ashton-Gore took the trench coat he had returned for from the back of door and turned to walk out. ‘Charles’ – he paused with the doorknob in his hand – ‘I say, old man, several of us are meeting for drinks in the OC. Why don’t you join us for a change?’
‘Thanks,’ said Davenport. ‘This report can wait till tomorrow.’
As usual, the officers’ club was packed with young men in a blue haze of cigarette smoke and buzzing with the din of conversation. Davenport and Ashton-Gore ordered drinks at the bar and made their way to the tables occupied by the men of their section, choosing empty chairs at the nearest table. One table over, Colonel Rawlinson sat with a glass of whisky relishing his accustomed role as senior strategist in the eyes of his junior officers.
‘Well, it’s Davenport,’ said one of the men. ‘To what do we owe the pleasure of your company?’ Davenport ignored the man’s sarcastic tone and took a sip of beer.
‘I shanghai’d him,’ explained Ashton-Gore. ‘I found him, as usual, with his nose in a foot-thick book.’
At the next table Rawlinson’s clipped voice was audible as he held forth on the Eighth Army’s recent string of successes in North Africa. ‘And so you see, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘our old friend Rommel was, in the end, simply out-generalled. There’s nothing at all superior about the German infantryman, nor the German tank. Simply put, Rommel is no match for Monty.’ Expressions of
‘hear, hear’ and ‘quite right’ could be heard, and someone raised the toast: ‘To the Desert Rats.’ Once the toast was drunk, Davenport pushed back from the table. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll have another beer.’ He crossed the room to the bar as the men resumed their conversation. Resting his elbows on the counter and his foot on the brass railing, he was in no hurry to return to the table. The barman walked over, and Davenport said, ‘I’ll have another light ale.’ Once he was served, he noticed another officer standing with his back to him at the far end of the bar. Though he couldn’t see his face, there was something vaguely familiar about him. From the insignia on his collar Davenport could see he was a colonel. Leaving several coins on the counter, Davenport moved three or four paces closer to the man. At that moment the barman handed the man a glass of whisky, and he turned in Davenport’s direction to accept it. Davenport stared at him, feeling a flush on his face and his heart pounding. He put down his glass and clenched his fists. He had met him once before, at some high society affair hosted by one of Frances’s horsey-set friends. A few years older than Davenport, he was nevertheless too young to have attained the rank of full colonel without some social intervention. With neatly parted, light-brown hair, he was handsome in a cinematic sort of way, but, like many men of his class, he looked soft and fussy about his appearance. The man took a sip of his drink and then casually looked at Davenport and made eye contact, at first a simple look of greeting but then a flicker of recognition. He started slightly and averted his eyes. Davenport came a step closer.
