Kilo Class

by Patrick Robinson

  They had entered this relationship with their eyes open. After only three meetings with her American Naval officer, Laura had left her children at home with their nanny and their father and flown to New York to meet Bill. He was, she knew, the only man she had ever truly loved, and the only man she ever would love. They had stayed at the Pierre Hotel on Fifth Avenue opposite Central Park, gone to bed together before dinner and stayed there for the night. In the morning Bill Baldridge had told her flatly he was going to marry her. She did not know it, but that was the only time in a somewhat rakish bachelor life he had ever uttered those particular words to anyone.

  Bill then took her to the opera on successive nights, before flying her out to Kansas to meet his family. Bill’s mother, Emily, and she instantly became soul mates, and after one week Laura flew back to Edinburgh and told her husband, Douglas Anderson, a landowner and banker, that she wanted a divorce and that nothing would change her mind. Douglas Anderson was stunned. His parents, the inordinately wealthy border farmers Sir Hamish and Lady Barbara Anderson—he a senior magistrate, she a power on the main board of the Edinburgh Festival—were equally shocked. As for Laura’s parents, Admiral Sir Iain and Lady MacLean could scarcely believe it, though they had received some warning when Laura had made the journey to Kansas.

  The problem was going to be the children. Except that the problem had turned out to be a bit bigger than Laura expected. The custody fight had turned into a public battleground. Douglas Anderson, the deputy chairman of the Scottish National Bank, had consulted the Edinburgh law firm of MacPherson, Roberts and Gould, who had made one thing very clear. If his two daughters, Flora, four, and Mary, six, were not to be whisked off to the American Midwest and never seen again, Anderson had but one course of action.

  He must file for divorce immediately, citing his wife’s adultery with this Naval officer from the United States. They must then make every effort to paint Laura as a totally unstable woman, prone to affairs and utterly unsuited to raise her two children.

  No one really believed any of this, but that is what the divorce papers claimed. The tabloid press got hold of the story when it appeared on the court lists and gleefully charged ahead under the headline: “ADMIRAL MACLEAN’S DAUGHTER ELOPES WITH KANSAS COWBOY: Edinburgh Bank Director Stunned by Wife’s Treachery.”

  From then on the situation worsened. MacPherson, Roberts and Gould moved to have the girls placed under the supervision of the Scottish court, which would preclude their leaving the country at all until they were eighteen years old. The Anderson estate was under siege by photographers hoping for a glimpse of the children. The great MacLean mansion on the shore of Loch Fyne was besieged by groups of photographers hoping for a glimpse of the “scarlet woman,” Laura Anderson.

  The custody hearing was brutal. With the separation order under way, Bill Baldridge flew from Kansas to be with Laura while a lawyer pleaded her case. They sat on the defendant’s side of the Court of Sessions in Edinburgh’s Parliament Square while the Admiral and Lady MacLean sat with their lifelong friends the Andersons.

  No one would help Laura except for Bill. Ostracized by Scottish friends, relations, and society alike, Laura faced the music alone with the man she loved. And she wept while Urquhart MacPherson, a man she had known for many years, described her as little better than a cheap slut, who had brought disgrace upon her own family, disgrace upon the Anderson family, and heartbreak to her husband and children.

  “And now…this…this…lady…seeks to make off with the children to some shack at the back end of beyond in the Wild West…I would remind you, with the granddaughters of the most eminent Scottish admiral, and one of Scotland’s most eminent landowners. There are questions of inheritance, of the natural rights of these children, but perhaps, above all, there are questions of morality. I refer now to the environment to which Mrs. Anderson intends to remove these two innocent daughters of Scotland.”

  “Say what you like about ole Urquhart,” whispered Bill, “th’ ole bastard gives it everything.”

  Laura’s own solicitor, citing a loveless, mistaken marriage and describing the eminence of the Baldridge family in Kansas, implored the court to use its powers to give her custody, arguing that her relationship with Baldridge did not make her an unsuitable or unfit mother. He requested that she at least be given access during the long school holidays and was irredeemably ignored.

  The assessment of the judge, who sat imperturbably in his wig and flowing scarlet gown, was plain. If Laura Anderson chose to continue her adulterous relationship with the man named in her divorce, it would be a very long time before she saw Mary and Flora again. Custody would be given to their father, with formidable assurances from the entire Anderson family and also from the MacLeans that the children’s needs would be attended to for the rest of their lives. Until they were eighteen the girls would formally be wards of the court and be permitted to leave the country only at the judge’s discretion. The judgment devastated Laura, and she walked out of the courtroom, rejected by both families, clutching the arm of Lieutenant Commander Bill Baldridge. She had no more tears to weep, and she never looked back.

  They left for New York that night and waited at Kennedy Airport all night for the first flight to Kansas City. Bill’s mother sent a private, twin-engined Beech-craft out to bring them home. And that had seemed to be the end of it. Until one evening last September when there was a knock on the front door of the Baldridge ranch. Bill answered it and found himself face-to-face with Admiral Sir Iain MacLean, Laura’s father, who said quietly, “Hello, Bill. I’ve brought you a bottle of decent whisky. Wondered if we might not have a talk. I won’t take up much of your time. I’ve got a driver.”

  As it happened, the Admiral had stayed for four days, charmed Emily Baldridge almost to distraction, and on the third day made his confession—that he had come to see them because he knew he would never have forgiven himself for having sat in that courtroom and turned his hand against the daughter he loved. “Besides,” he told her, “I am very fond of your…er…fiancé…matter of fact I like him much better than I ever liked young Douglas, and I’ve been trying to mend a few fences really.”

  The Admiral had come with some fresh legal advice, a course of action that may never have stood a chance against the combined Anderson-MacLean battalions, but would most certainly stand a chance if Sir Iain now stood alongside Bill and Laura.

  He proposed they file a new appeal against the decision of the court that the girls not be allowed to leave Scotland and that their father enjoy sole custody. “Thing is, you know, I found out that Douglas has got a new girlfriend, a girl with a bit of a past, actress up from London for the festival. Totally unsuitable of course. But I think we might have a chance now. I mean my daughter did run off with a highly regarded United States Naval officer who has a degree in nuclear physics from MIT and counts the President among his friends. Meanwhile, Douglas Anderson is cavorting around with some actress, from Notting Hill Gate, in London. Quite frankly, my dear, I’d prefer my granddaughters to live here. And if the court won’t grant that, they’ll grant something, I’m sure.”

  In the weeks that followed, their appeal was heard twice with lawyers only, plus a private appearance by the Admiral. It was then put back until March, pending a suitable defense from Douglas Anderson. But in Sir Iain’s opinion, he had done the damage. And no one thought the court order would remain in place after July of this year.

  And now Laura Anderson was looking forward to her divorce decree coming through. She and Bill were to be married on May 20, and the awful strains of the past year would soon be behind them. But it had all taken a toll on the dark-haired daughter of Sir Iain. She looked every one of her thirty-five years, she had lost weight and often seemed preoccupied. The rift with her own mother was also a source of grave worry to her.

  Bill had known he had to take her away, somewhere interesting, warm, and relaxing. He wasn’t exactly sure that a voyage through the Roaring Forties was absolutely ideal, but it
was a lot better than a ranch out on the frozen Great Plains at this time of year. And he regarded with profound gratitude the summons to the lonely Southern Ocean from the commanding officer of USS Columbia.

  5

  BOOMER DUNNING TOOK THE HELM OF YONDER shortly after first light on the morning of February 1. The sky was cloudless, and the waters of Algoa Bay were deep and clear blue. There was a large scattering of yachts moored in the harbor of Port Elizabeth, and the Captain of Columbia ordered his first mate, Roger Mills, “to heat up the old iron-spinnaker.” This brought a frown of confusion to the young Englishman’s face, but he caught on quickly and hit the button that would bring the big Perkins Sabre to life. Moments later Boomer steered expertly through the anchorage and out into the open waters of the big South African bay.

  From just below, in the chart, radio, and radar area at the foot of the companionway, Bill Baldridge called up: “Steer course 090 for twenty-five miles, then 135 to Great Fish Point, which will come up to starboard. We’ll give that sonofabitch plenty of sea room. The chart marks a light up there flashing every ten seconds. Right after that we sail into the open ocean, where I expect to be served a superb lunch.”

  Everyone who was awake laughed at the mock-serious tone of the Kansas cattle rancher. Mills and his two cohorts, Gavin Bates and Jeff Hewitt, began to think this trip might not be such a pain after all, despite the fact that Commander Dunning had made it clear that on no account were the three men to touch alcohol between Port Elizabeth and Hobart.

  His warning was delivered with a captain’s authority. Boomer was the biggest, most powerful man on the boat and was not used to being questioned at sea. None of the three uttered one word of protest, mainly because, in the words of Gavin Bates, “He looks like he could throw all three of us overboard with one hand.”

  Boomer’s own words had been both strict and forbidding. “The weather down here is extremely fickle. It can change faster than anything you’ve ever seen, and I mean from a stiff breeze to a howling gale in less than twenty minutes. If we were ever to find ourselves in a big and dangerous sea, and I detected one shred of evidence that any one of the three of you was even slightly drunk, I should without hesitation slam you straight between the eyes for endangering the lives of us all, especially the lives of my own wife and Laura.

  “So if any of you have a couple of bottles in your quarters, go and get ’em, and give them to me. I will return them to you in Hobart. If I find them myself, I will empty them over the side. It goes without saying that neither I, nor Lieutenant Commander Baldridge, will drink either.”

  The crew took no offense. They had a half dozen bottles of rum and Scotch with them, which they handed over. None had sailed with a really severe captain before, though they were more than happy to be sailing with a man who absolutely knew what he was doing.

  It also brought home to everyone that the Roaring Forties were not to be underestimated.

  At 0630, they were well clear of the anchorage. “OKAY, guys, hoist the mainsail,” Boomer ordered, “then lemme have the cruising spinnaker. We gotta light nor’wester off the land…looks as if it’ll hold. We’ll want the pole out to port, then we’ll cut the motor…haul in that jib on the starboard main winch…come on, Masta, get into it.”

  If Gavin Bates took exception to his new nickname, he made no indication. He got into it, and Boomer eased the mainsail and settled Yonder onto an easy broad reach with the wind steady force three on their quarter. He noticed the big white sloop was making nine knots through the calm water, and he handed over the wheel to Roger at 0730 while he and Bill had some breakfast together, which was served in the stateroom by their beaming West Indian cook, Thwaites Masters, aged twenty-four. “The most ambitious black man I ever met,” said Bill. “He could end up owning Antigua, either that or the New Zealand Bank.”

  By 1100, they were within sight of the headland of Great Fish Point. Jo and Laura were both sitting in the cockpit drinking coffee with Boomer while Bill sailed the boat. Lifelong friendships get made at sea—in the case of Bill and Boomer, under the sea—but the laughter between Jo Dunning and the future Laura Baldridge was obvious. And already, after just a couple of days in the warm south, the care lines were vanishing from Laura’s face, and she had gained three or four pounds.

  On the eve of the voyage, they had stayed up half the night drinking ice-cold West Peak chardonnay, from the historic Rustenberg Estate in the Stellenbosch Valley. Jo found the story of the runaway romance between Laura and Bill as good as a novel. “But when did you think you first loved him?” she persisted. “Was it before or after you played the operas together?”

  “I think about that time,” Laura smiled.

  “How ’bout you, Billy…how long before you thought you loved Laura, before or after the operas?”

  “A bit before that. And I didn’t fool with preliminaries, like thought…I knew.”

  “My God, this is wonderful,” sighed Jo. “It was just like that with me and Boomer. Anyone got any opera CD’s…?”

  “I have,” said Laura. “I took the two CD’s of Bohème and Rigoletto from my parents’ house the next day, and I’ve never gone anywhere without them since. They’re in my bag.”

  “You mean the actual CD’s that you both heard those nights in Inverary?”

  “The very ones.”

  “Oh, my God…I can’t stand it,” said Jo, theatrically. “Play the music someone, before my trembling heart breaks.”

  At this point Boomer Dunning had shot South African chardonnay from the great Rustenberg Estate clean down his nose, since he always fell apart laughing at his zany wife, who should have been a comedienne instead of a serious actress.

  But he had made the state-of-the-art music system work, and before long the divine voice of Mirella Freni was drifting out over the southern Indian Ocean. Even Boomer, whose taste in music had ceased to develop once he had heard Bob Dylan and then Eric Clapton in action, sat silently as she sang the most poignant aria.

  “I just wish I could understand the words,” said the skipper.

  “She’s in a cold, unheated garret in Paris, and she has consumption. It’s famous. Her tiny hands are frozen,” said Bill.

  “You’ll know how she feels when we get a bit farther to the south,” said Boomer, boisterously. “You’ll be singing, My Tiny Rear-End Is Frozen.”

  The spell had thus been broken by the nuclear submarine CO, but the curiosity of his wife was not. For the next hour Jo made Laura tell the entire bittersweet story of her romance with Bill, the fight over the children, the bruising war with her husband’s divorce lawyers, and the public humiliation back in Scotland, a place she never wanted to see again as long as she lived. And how she would have probably committed suicide but for Bill.

  “’Course if it hadn’t been for him, none of this would have happened in the first place,” Boomer had remarked, cheerfully but unhelpfully. “Still, I guess he proved himself to be what we all know he definitely ain’t…steadfast, reliable, sound of judgment, loyal.”

  “Will you guys gimme a break?” yelled Bill, laughing. Jo had joined in, “Yes, shut up, Boomer…Bill’s gone through a terrible time.”

  “As the Captain of the ship, I just wanna announce I’m ready to marry ’em,” said Commander Dunning. “By the powers invested in me…right here I’m talking holy matrimony. No bullshit.”

  “Jesus, this is unbelievable,” said Bill. “I’m sailing to the end of the earth with a goddamned heathen skipper…Laura’s still married.”

  “Well, sir,” replied Boomer formally, standing to attention and raising his glass, “if that’s the case I’d have to say you are regarding the Ten Commandments…er…opportunistically.”

  “Try to ignore him, Billy,” said Jo. “He’s drunk with power.”

  “This is probably the nearest to drunk anyone’s going to be for the next four weeks,” added the skipper. “So I guess I’ll have another scoop of that good wine before I turn in. We’re under way early…�
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  But that had all been the night before, and now they had set sail, and the sun was high up behind them, over the mast, and the temperature was in the low nineties. All four of them were experienced sailors, and they all wore large caps with visors and layers of zinc ointment on their noses, the cooling breeze, disguising as it does, the fierce rays of the blistering sun.

  Thwaites served lunch in the stateroom at 1300 and received a round of applause for perfectly cooked Spanish omelets, with french fries and salad. The crew ate ham sandwiches in the cockpit, where Roger Mills had the helm. Bill Baldridge kept them on a southeasterly course, 135, and as the wind increased they were making twelve knots through a quartering sea. Down here they were way out of range south of the trades, but they were still slightly too far north for the big westerlies.

  At 1600 they saw their first whale, a fifty-footer, with a massive square head, blowing not thirty feet off the port beam, the vaporized jet of oily water aimed unmistakably forward in a fan shape. “That’s a sperm whale,” said Boomer. “Big male, migrating north from the Antarctic.”

  “How the hell do you know that?” asked Bill.

  “By the shape of his head. No other whale this big looks anything like that. And because he blows at a forward angle, out in front of him. I also know that only the male sperm whale migrates. The females stay in the tropics. This guy’s been feeding in the Antarctic all summer and now he’s on his way home. I know about whales, like you know about cattle. Coupla friends of mine run one of the whale-watching boats back home on the Cape.”