by Nevil Shute
She laughed at that; it was the first time that I had seen her laugh for weeks. The last thing I saw of her was that she was still laughing on the platform, waving to me with the letter in her hand that was to give her leave. I’m not sure that it’s correct for a Leading Wren to wave like that at a commander.
I saw McNeil that evening in his office in Pall Mall, and told him what I had been doing, and what I had learned from Rhodes. It took about half an hour to tell the story as I then knew it. In the end I said: “Simon is still in France, apparently. We might hear from him before so very long.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. There was a message in to-day about him.” He unlocked a drawer and passed me one of his MOST SECRET flimsies that I was beginning to dislike. It read:
DOUARNENEZ. The thirty hostages which were to be executed on November 15th were all released on November 14th. A British officer named Charles Simon is said to have surrendered to the Germans on that day. This man is said to have been a survivor from a British ship sunk in the Iroise, and to have been concerned in some way with the recent fires in minor German war vessels. Ends.
I passed it back to him in silence. “That’s the end of that,” I said heavily at last. “We shan’t see him again till after the war.”
“No,” said the brigadier. He said no more than that. It seemed to me that there was nothing more to say.
I left him and went back to my normal work. Nothing happened after that for the best part of a fortnight; indeed, there was nothing more to happen. That party was all cleaned up, or so I thought. Colvin came out of hospital about the end of November and came up to see me at the Admiralty one afternoon. I made him sit down and smoke, and we chatted for a short time about this and that.
Presently I said: “What’s your position now, Colvin? They’re giving you a decent spell of leave?”
“I wanted to see you about that, sir,” he said. “The surgeon-commander down at Haslar, he’s being mighty particular. I get a month’s leave now. Well, that’s okay, although I don’t know what in heck you do with a month’s leave in this country in December. But after that, he says I’ll be for light duty on shore for six months at least, ’n possibly for longer. That don’t seem reasonable to me.”
“How do you feel yourself?” I asked.
“I must say I get mighty tired with little things,” he confessed. “Walking upstairs, ’n that. And shaving, I keep cutting myself. But that’ll all go off, after a month.”
“How old are you, Colvin?”
“I’m forty-eight.” He hesitated. “I did knock off five years, but the commander at Haslar, he got hold of all my papers when I was in hospital.”
“Bad luck,” I said.
“You see the way it is, sir,” he explained. “I don’t want to get stuck down in one of them places like the Clyde or Liverpool, not knowing anybody in this country, ’n nothing to do but get into trouble. I’d be better off at sea.”
I bent down and opened one of the drawers of my desk. I pulled out a little box. “By the way,” I said. “I got your watch back. I think it’s all right now.”
He was very pleased. He took the box and opened it. The London Chronometer Company had done a good job on it; they had given it a complete new movement and polished it up till it looked like new. They had even sent it back in a little wash-leather bag.
“Say,” he said, “that’s dandy.” He put it to his ear and listened to it ticking. And then, unable to resist, he turned it over and read the inscription that he must have known by heart: “Jack Colvin from Junie, September 17th, 1935.”
“I certainly am grateful, sir,” he said. “How much do I owe you?”
“Nothing,” I said. “I got the admiral’s secretary to take it on his petty cash account.”
He said: “That’s mighty nice of the admiral.” He paused. “It worried me more ’n anything else,” he said, “the way I’d used this watch. But now it’s better ’n it ever was before.”
I turned back to the job in hand; I had other things to do that afternoon besides settling up Colvin. “Look,” I said. “There’s a shore job that I think might suit you. It’s the armouring of merchant ships—wheel-houses, gun zarebas, and all that. It wants somebody who knows merchant ships, to go on board each ship and say in each case what has to be done—and then to see the work is done right. It’s not difficult work, but it wants a chap like you to do it. It means rowing in with each skipper, talking it over with him, and then modifying the standard scheme to suit the particular conditions in each ship.”
I paused. “Could you tackle that?”
“I guess so. It sounds the sort of thing I used to do when I was Marine Superintendent over on the coast.”
I nodded. “That’s what I had in mind. And more than that, it seemed to me you might have local contacts that would help you.” He looked up, puzzled. “These are the Lease-Lend ships I’m talking about,” I said. “This job would be on the west coast of America. Your headquarters would be in San Francisco.”
There was a momentary silence. “Have I got this right?” he asked. “You mean you want me to go out to ’Frisco for this job?”
“If you want to go,” I said. “It’s an opportunity I thought perhaps you might like.”
“Would I like it!” he breathed. “Say …” And then he stopped and said: “Who put you up to this one, sir? Who told you that I wanted to get back to ’Frisco? Was it young Boden?”
“He said something about it. I was very glad to know.”
He stared down at his finger-nails. “He was a mighty fine kid, that,” he said. “They don’t make them any better.”
He raised his head and looked at me. “I do want to get back to ’Frisco,” he said quietly. “I got a personal reason, sir—nothing to do with the Navy.” He was still holding the watch in his hand, “I said I wasn’t married when you asked me, first of all,” he said. “That’s right enough, if you go by the law. I couldn’t have drawn marriage allowance—at least, I reckon not. It wasn’t regular, you see.”
“I understand,” I said. “This is Junie, is it?”
“Aye,” he said, “it’s Junie. Seems to me some folks get married and it takes right off, and they don’t get no more trouble. Young Boden, he was one o’ them, I guess. But others never seem to hit it right.”
I could not comment upon that.
“I been married a lot of times,” he said simply, “and each time it finished up in trouble, up till the time when I paired up with Junie. We got married by a minister as if it was all regular, but it wasn’t regular at all, on account of all the other times.” He paused. “Later on, and when this war came, I’d have give my eyes if it could have been made a proper marriage. But that’s what you can’t do.”
“You lived together for four years, didn’t you?” I asked.
“More like five,” he said. “Close on five, it was. I don’t want any better time than that.”
“Do you think she’ll be there still?” I asked. “Two years is a fair time.” I meant, a fair time to expect a girl to hang around without a letter and without marriage lines, but I didn’t say so much.
“Aye,” he said, “it’s a long, dreary time. I think I’ll find her hanging on for me in ’Frisco still. If not, well, that’ll be too bad. But any way it breaks, I’m real grateful that you’ve given us the chance to set up house again.”
“If I were you,” I said, “I should think up a cablegram and send it off to her. You’ll have a month to do on this side, getting hold of the job. I should think you’d be in San Francisco some time in February.”
He left me soon after that, and I went on with my work. I saw him again a few days later, when he looked in to show me the answer to his cablegram. He was as pleased as a dog with two tails, and insisted on me reading it. It said:
Got your cable but where you been all this time Billy died last autumn guess colic George and Mary send love will we live Oakland some dandy new apartments fifteenth street since you
left oceans of love stop now no more dough—Junie.
“Billy was her cat,” he explained. “I’m real sorry about Billy. He was a good, tough kind of cat, ’n a match for any dog.”
I handed him back the cable. “I should send her some dough to be going on with, if you’ve got any,” I remarked. “I’ve been finding out about your marriage allowance. They cater for a case like yours. You can draw it, but you’ve got to make a declaration. Look, this is what you’ve got to do.”
I went through the Admiralty Fleet Order with him and explained it to him in detail. “I did hear something about this,” he said at last.
Thinking of the girl in Oakland, I was a little short with him. “You might have done something about it,” I said.
He looked abashed. “Guess I never had a commander that I’d care to talk it over with before,” he said.
I told him he was a fool, and sent him away to make out his declaration.
About a fortnight later McNeil rang me up. “You might look in some time,” he said. “I’ve got a couple more flimsies in about Geneviève.”
I went round to his office after lunch. He took them from a drawer and passed them to me. “Not very good news, I’m afraid,” he said.
The first one read:
Rennes. A British officer named Charles Simon was executed at the rifle range to-day. This man was convicted of an act of espionage at Lorient last spring, at which time his status was that of a civilian. It is believed that the severe damage caused to the U-boat base was due to information passed by this man to the British. Ends.
I looked up at the brigadier. “I’m very sorry about this,” I said.
He nodded. “So am I.” He paused. “I was very much afraid that this would happen,” he said quietly. “It would have been a miracle if they hadn’t spotted him.”
“You think some German recognised him, and remembered?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Something of the sort. I don’t suppose we’ll ever hear the details now.”
“He must have known what he was doing,” I said slowly. “When he gave himself up, he must have known the risk.”
McNeil said: “He was probably thinking of the hostages.”
“Of course.” I sat there staring at the message in my hand, and the slow anger rose in me. “We’ve been a couple of bloody fools over this,” I said at last. “We should have managed better.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean just this,” I said. “Simon was the best officer for working on the other side this country ever had, or is ever likely to get. And now he’s dead. We should have thought more deeply before risking him again in Douarnenez.”
“It’s not so easy to rope in these chaps,” McNeil said heavily. “The better they are, the more difficult they are to manage. You know that.” I did, and I was silent. “He was a damn good man,” he said. “But there are others just as good.”
“You can’t have so many Simons as all that,” I replied. “We’ve gone and wasted one of them.”
“Wasted …” he said thoughtfully. “I’m not sure that you’re right.” He glanced at me. “Did you read the other one?”
I turned to the other flimsy. This one said:
Brest. The civil population have devised a means of harassing the Germans which is proving very effective. The name Charles Simon is written upon walls or chalked on pavements. This device is spreading rapidly, and it has been observed as far away as St. Brieuc. In every case the Germans have reacted angrily, and show concern at the spread of the movement. A man of this name was executed recently at Rennes. Ends.
I stood there reading this again, and as I did so I could feel the hate swelling and seething on the other side. I put down the flimsies, sick of the whole miserable business.
“In any case,” I said, “this winds up Geneviève. Simon was the last of them to be accounted for, and now that’s over.”
The brigadier nodded. “It’s all finished now. I’ll let you know if anything else turns up.”
“I shan’t be here,” I said. “I’m going back to sea.” It was a relief to talk of cleaner things. “They’re giving me one of the Tribal class destroyers.”
“Glad to go?”
I said: “Yes. Somebody has to do this Admiralty work, of course, but I’d rather be at sea with a definite job to do. Here you work all day in the office, and nothing ever seems to be achieved.”
He stared at me. “I don’t know what you want,” he said. “The operations that we did with Geneviève have been a most successful show.”
“We lost the ship and all her crew,” I said bitterly.
“We lost a fishing vessel and two officers,” he retorted. “Against that we destroyed three Raumboote and damaged a destroyer. We killed not less than ninety Germans. We landed seventy machine-guns, and put fresh heart into a town that needed it. And not the least part, we drew off a division from the Russian front.”
“A pretty scruffy sort of a division,” I remarked.
“I grant you that,” he said. “It was a very tired division. But it was a division, none the less, taken from the Russian front at Rostov.”
He turned to me. “Who knows what that may mean?”
