Knife Edge (2004)

by Reeman, Douglas

  Houston said, “’Course, you two know each other.” He grinned at her. “You heard how young Ross here refused to budge until he had reunited a couple of local kids with their family? Wouldn’t damned well move!”

  She was close now, holding out her hand. “I did hear.” She squeezed his fingers for a second, then dropped the hand to her shoulderbag.

  He said quietly, “I’m so glad you came.” He did not use her name. Like playing a part. The dark eyes were very level, but where the shoulder strap of her bag tugged at her dress he could see, or imagine, her heart beating. Like his own.

  A tray of wine thrust between them and a smiling waiter insisted, “All French, all good!”

  She said, “I saw the ship. They told me about it.” She touched the glass with her lips, but the wine did not move.

  Houston had returned. His glass was empty.

  “I hear your husband’s packing the job in when this lot’s over and done with. Back to the police in the U.K., is it?”

  Ross saw the pain in her eyes, and she hesitated as if to brush something off her arm.

  “No. His time is up in the Branch, although they offered him an extension.”

  Houston was staring around the room. “Should think so, too, after all the work he’s put in with the local force and Intelligence.”

  She said, “He’s been offered an appointment with a big security firm in London.” But she was speaking to Ross.

  Some one passed a folded paper, obviously torn from a pad, to Houston, which he opened around his glass.

  He said, “From Avondale. All our lads have embarked.” He refolded the paper. “I’ll tell De Lisle.”

  Ross heard Diamond’s voice. He was coming over.

  He said quietly, “I am so sorry. I wanted . . .”

  Diamond touched his arm.

  “Well, at least we know what to expect, eh?” He put down his glass and frowned at something. “Just a moment.”

  Ross saw that a thin silk bra strap had slipped from beneath her dress and fallen around her arm. Like the one on the floor after they had made love.

  Diamond tucked the strap out of sight.

  “That’s more like it.” He retrieved his drink and wagged it at Ross. “You’re a young chap, everything waiting for you. When you find a nice wife, do what I did. Marry one a lot younger than yourself!” He laughed. “Keeps you young, you see?” He glanced at his watch. “Come along, Glynis, we’d better mingle for a bit.”

  He took her arm and together they walked toward another group of guests.

  Ross watched her shoulders, the angle of her head. She did not look back. She did not need to.

  Houston had returned.

  “De Lisle wants a chat with you, Ross. I think he’s going to vanish shortly.”

  Ross felt the big hand on his shoulder, its suggestion of restraint.

  “A word in your ear, my son. When you’re entering a mine field, tread very carefully!”

  Ross looked across the room. Just for a moment he saw her face, before some one moved and it was lost to him.

  She had put two fingers to her lips, like a kiss. Reaching out.

  He saw Houston watching, waiting for him.

  The mine field was still there.

  Sergeant Ted Boyes sat comfortably on a rolled canvas canopy with his back against a wash-deck locker and contemplated the spread of another sunset. The sky was already patched with deep shadow, and a few early stars to mark the horizon from the sea. Around and beneath him the R.F.A. Avondale trembled to the engines’ regular beat, and the air was warm from fans or ventilators. Nearly five days since they had slipped their moorings in Hong Kong, on and on at a regular twelve knots, or so he had gathered from the brains up on the bridge.

  He watched a cluster of gulls wheeling and screaming around the ship’s quarter. Always ready: one of the cooks had just pitched a bucket of gash over the side. Their presence showed that the land was close.

  It was strange that during their entire time at sea, they had sighted so few ships of any size. Perhaps the captain had taken extra care to avoid any such encounter. The radar was always on the lookout, and at a guess the radio in constant control.

  Sixty Royal Marines, commandos, needed a lot of attention. As Major Houston had said from the outset, keep ’em fit, and keep ’em busy! They had tried to do just that. Arms drills and inspections, self-defence and unarmed combat, and every kind of physical exercise. Nobody was excluded, and usually Houston himself was in the forefront.

  Boyes gazed at the fading horizon. Singapore. He could see it as if it was in print. Houston had spoken to the whole unit as soon as the ship had cleared harbour. Until then, the ‘combined operation’ had been just another rumour.

  Boyes had thought about it, but he was past surprise at this stage of his life. For some it was not so simple. Tempers had flared and a few scuffles had broken out, nothing bad enough to warrant the defaulters’ table. Not yet, anyway. The sergeants, all experienced N.C.O.s, had made sure of that. Others had settled down to write letters to family or girlfriends, to be left with the ship when eventually they disembarked. Homesickness was a constant companion, no matter what the hard cases claimed to the contrary.

  He had gone through it enough times. He half smiled. Even for his own home in southwest London, Battersea, a council flat close to the busy Clapham Junction station, where the vibration of the express trains thundering over the points and bridges had made the cups and saucers rattle in his mother’s kitchen cupboard. Or in the summer when the windows were open, noise or no noise, and you could smell the pong from the candle factory in York Road. Or having a jar with the lads at the pub . . .

  He felt some one beside him, near the guardrails.

  “Hello, Steve.” He patted the rolled canvas. “Park your arse down here.” Sergeant Blackwood sat beside him, a cigarette cupped in one palm. “Nearly there, eh?”

  Boyes glanced at the dark profile. Probably seen more close action than any of them, except Captain Irwin, or Houston. Was he bitter? Did he deeply resent still being an N.C.O. when his was such a well-known name?

  Only once had he come straight out with it. “Both my parents were Blackwoods, Ted. I was wrong side of the blanket, though.”

  “Tomorrow, I’d say.” He grinned. “The latest buzz from the galley says so.”

  Boyes tested the ground. “I hear you’ve been put up for a gong. Bloody good show, after what you did.”

  “Won’t help young Ellis.”

  “Could happen to any one of us, you know that. If it’s got your number on it . . .” He shrugged. “It goes with the job!”

  Feet thudded overhead on what passed for Avondale’s boat deck, and somebody laughed. Follow my example.

  Steve Blackwood said quietly, “Now if it had been Blondie Piggott . . .” He did not need to say any more.

  Boyes watched the cigarette glow in the cupped hand. During the rough stuff that morning, unarmed combat which usually got out of hand, several marines had jumped on Piggott, the one chance you got to thump an officer without any comeback. That made it worse. Piggott was more than a match for any attacker. It was time to change the subject.

  He said, “My Mr. Blackwood’s certainly got his eye on the Diamond girl. Bit of all right, if you ask me.”

  “You think so?”

  “Well, I’d rather be on her than guard duty!”

  He glanced down as he felt something put into his hand. It was a flask. Steve Blackwood said, “Have a wet with me. May be the last chance before we get busy.”

  It was neat brandy. Boyes wiped the flask with his sleeve and returned it.

  “Thanks, Steve. Good stuff.” Perhaps just what he had needed. That, and the friendship. “Any thoughts about this coming job?”

  The cigarette glowed in one final, deep drag.

  “Yeah. Remember, shoot first!”

  The transfer of the sixty-strong commando unit took place at sea in less than ideal conditions. Following the tail-end of
a tropical storm, there was a deep swell running, and the air was clammy and lifeless.

  The marines lined Avondale’s side and upperworks to watch the two vessels manoeuvring, all fenders rigged to lessen any impact upon going alongside. For once, most of them had little to say. Surprise, disbelief, in some cases a hint of shock described their feelings.

  The amphibious patrol vessel of the Singapore Navy was old in design and years. Houston had already given a rough outline of her service, but even he must have been taken aback.

  She had begun life as a tank landing craft in the U.S. Navy, and had been commissioned in 1944, just in time for the closing campaigns of World War Two: Korea and Vietnam had seen her employed in other support roles, and last year she had been transferred, with several of her aging sisters, to the new navy of Singapore. In various guises, from training to anti-terrorist and piracy patrols, she had survived when most of her breed had long gone to the breaker’s yard.

  She was named Vigilant, and according to the records she mounted two forty millimetre guns, and, to every one’s surprise, a solitary howitzer, for ‘local bombardment work’.

  Houston watched the heaving lines going across and murmured, “Talk about Ancient and Modern.”

  Irwin nodded. “No wonder De Lisle went by air!”

  Ross Blackwood felt the deck shudder as both hulls ground against the fenders. The Vigilant’s box-like deck was crammed with assorted gear, two-man canoes, camouflage netting, lifting tackles, lengths of timber and sacks of fuel, presumably for the galley. But Singapore had survived and prospered, where many others had gone under.

  Irwin had described the kind of obstacles which could be regularly encountered in the area they would be covering. “A spanking new frigate wouldn’t last a dog watch. Fast rivers one minute, hard aground the next. Vigilant might have the edge on the newcomers.”

  Houston rubbed his battered nose. “If you say so, John. Give the word, then. No slip-ups.”

  Watched by Avondale’s seamen and greeted with wide grins by the Singaporean hands, the marines clambered down the nets and across the narrow strip of trapped water.

  Ross paused to recover his balance and gripped a rail below the squat bridge structure at the after end of the hull. It had been newly painted, but through the last coat he could see the builder’s name plate. Chicago Bridge & Iron Co., 1944.

  Some one said, “Must ’ave ’ad sails in them days!”

  Others laughed. Ross felt his stomach muscles unclench. They were on their way.

  The Vigilant’s captain raised a casual hand to them from the bridge and then called to his deck party. The lines were snaking free, fenders already splashing inboard, the strip of choppy water suddenly a widening arrowhead.

  “Get your men below as soon as possible!”

  Ross turned at the voice. The speaker wore a loose army waterproof coat, without insignia of rank or regiment, and was carrying what looked like a bush hat, again with no badge.

  This was the liaison officer. The mark of Commonwealth. He thought of Houston’s summing up at their first meeting. He was not disappointed.

  “They know what to do, sir. This is a commando unit.”

  The other man did not even blink. A narrow, sharp-featured face, with a neat military moustache: he might just as well have been wearing a red coat and bearskin.

  “Mannering. Major, Welsh Guards.” No change of expression, nor did he offer his hand.

  Houston grinned pugnaciously.

  “At your service, sir!”

  “Er, yes. Well, there’s a signal for you. Urgent.”

  The Vigilant was moving again, shaking to the thrust of her twin screws. Ross looked abeam. There was a smudge on the horizon. Land, but it could have been anywhere.

  He saw the liaison officer striding ahead, followed by Houston’s athletic figure. Welsh Guards. Maybe the mission was off, superseded by something else. But all he could hear was the lilt in her voice, something Mannering would probably not even recognize.

  Piggott joined him by the bridge ladder. “Bit of a bloody mess, isn’t it? No wonder the Yanks gave it away!”

  Ross said nothing. You could usually get along with your opposite numbers, if you had to. And Piggott had a good record; De Lisle would have made sure of that. But, unlike some officers, he did not even try to be popular.

  He would brush it off. Steve had saved his life that day on Raven’s Island. Piggott had turned his back.

  Houston clattered down the ladder, beckoning to Irwin.

  “The plan has changed.” He was thinking aloud. Seeing it. “We’re making a different landing for the first section.”

  Irwin regarded him without expression, as if nothing could surprise him.

  “Not the rubber plantation, sir?”

  Houston had removed his beret, perhaps without knowing it, and was screwing it up in his hand.

  “It’s been attacked. Bombs, flamethrowers, the lot. The owner, his family, any one who wasn’t fast enough on his feet got the chop. Oh, it’s started all right!”

  Ross saw the sea rising and falling beyond the flapping ensign, but felt nothing, was removed from it. Letting fragments fall into place, like the arrows on the maps and charts, the cold statistics of life and death. The man who owned the plantation and other valuable property was an important government official, a future Malaysian leader. He corrected himself mentally. Who had owned the plantation. Irwin would understand only too well. It was history repeating itself.

  “I want to speak to all N.C.O.s.” Houston looked at his watch. “In half an hour. You too, of course.” He replaced his beret, in charge again. “Tomorrow, next day at the latest, otherwise we’ll lose ’em. And that I don’t intend to happen!”

  He shaded his eyes to stare up at the bridge. “Half an hour, then, chaps.”

  Ross walked to the guardrails and watched Vigilant’s sluggish bow wave rolling past.

  Houston was angry. As if it had become personal, a challenge.

  The jungle on one side, the sea on the other. He had heard Boyes remark, “You could lose a bloody regiment in there!”

  Tomorrow. Next day at the latest. The luxurious suite at the Mandarin seemed like a year ago. As if it had never happened, except for the kiss across the room. The last time he had seen her. Did Houston remember that, he wondered, or the warning remark about the mine field? Further and further astern, with every turn of those screws. She would soon forget. She would have to. But can you?

  “Coming, Ross? Better not keep the boss waiting.”

  The waiting was over, too.

  She walked slowly across the room, her bare feet soundless on the carpet. She pulled the curtains partly open, bracing herself for the arc lights and the endless din of construction. Some of the lights were on, but most of the street below was in darkness. There were still a few cars crossing the intersection, and some reflected glare of advertising signs shone back at her from the empty windows opposite Java House.

  She closed the curtains and walked through to her own room, one hand brushing the sofa where they had come together. Ecstasy, joy, madness. She had believed that she could deal with it, cope with any aftermath.

  She was seated at her dressing table although she did not recall moving. She stared at herself. In white silk pyjamas. All in white; she could hear him saying it. She shook her head and saw the lock of dark hair fall across her forehead. No, she could not deal with it.

  She put her hand inside her jacket and touched her breast, as he had done.

  Not he. His name. Speak his name. She watched her lips move. Ross. She took off her watch and laid it on a bedside table. She did not look at it; she did not have to. It was Thursday night. Club night. He would be getting into the lift in about ten minutes, after he had checked his change from the taxi driver.

  Hard to remember how it had all started, what had changed things. She recalled Ross’s face when she had mentioned the hospital at Homerton, in the East End of London. Another world. And he cared, be
cause he could not share it with her. Where she had first met Duncan, or ‘Jock’ as he liked to be known. A C.I.D. officer in those days, he had come to the hospital to question a man who had been injured in a pub brawl. He had just been divorced, and she had been getting over an affair with a young doctor.

  They think you’re anybody’s! Perhaps they had needed each other at that moment in time. Jock had done well in the force, C.I.D. to Special Branch, and on to more confidential work with various embassies. Now he was a chief inspector, looked up to by every one. Almost . . . And finally, Hong Kong.

  How could it have happened? A bright young officer in the Royal Marines, from a well-known service family. Out of the mould, many would say. She pushed her hair from her forehead, remembering. Nothing rough or brutish. And not taken for granted. Used.

  She had held him, guided him, given herself as she could never recall having done before.

  Now he was gone. It was not like a war, the war. This was something that would appear on TV and the front page for a few days, and then be forgotten, except by those who waited for the dreaded telegram. Like the marine who had been met by an ambulance when the others had returned. And I called Ross to ask him to come here. That night.

  She ran her palm along her bare arm. It had been like a dam bursting.

  And at the hotel, when Jock had mentioned marrying a woman younger than himself. Proud, boasting? Or was it a threat?

  Where was Ross now? At sea, or on some other worthless island? Who would care?

  It happens, they all said. It made no sense.

  She felt her spine go rigid. Like that night when she had heard the door bell, and he had been standing there. No uniform. So young. So unsure. So eager.

  But it was the lift. Right on time.

  Club night. As if she could see it happening, like a spectator.

  But she was not a spectator. He would pour himself a drink. A large one, and glance at the newspaper, always laid out by the table. Where she had prepared the champagne. And then . . .

  Suppose I refuse? Tell him the truth? Or just pretend. Many did; she heard enough stories about it.

  Her heart was pounding. She heard him call out, “Home, dear!”