“We’ll need each other.” Drummond looked away. “But thanks. “
For some reason he kept thinking of Frank. All those miles away in hospital. No legs. Helen visiting him daily. Watching him withdraw from her and the world as they had once known it. Why him?
Kydd asked, “Are you all right?”
He tried to smile. “Yes. A bit bushed, that’s all. But I’m glad something’s been decided.”
He tried to imagine what it would be like. The coast. The land reaching out for the elderly destroyers.
Kydd picked up his cap as Beaumont walked towards them. “Yes. God has spoken.” He strode after the others.
Beaumont smiled. “Sorry about the little drama, Keith. That bloody man Selkirk really gets up my nose. Had to cut him down to size. These reservists … ” He glanced at Kimber. “Sounds a bit slow, but Aubrey Kimber is no slouch. He’ll be taking flag-rank before this year’s out. ” He was thinking aloud. “Nick Brooks can pick all the winners. ” He turned and said suddenly, “No need to mention all this to Mrs. Kemp if she corners you. You know what women are. She might say something indiscreet. Miles will fill her in on details later.”
“When it’s all over?”
Beaumont regarded him thoughtfully. “Something like that. “
“I don’t really understand what Miles Salter is doing here, or anywhere else for that matter.”
“You don’t?” Beaumont seemed to find it `amusing. “His ministry is keen on putting events in perspective. Boosting morale. That kind of thing. He used to be a magazine editor before the war. He’s brighter than he looks. ” He winked. “Not difficult, eh?”
The man in question slouched across the room and said, “I’ve fixed up for the pictures. John will have his camera set up as you go on board your boat.”
Beaumont winced. “Boat indeed!”
“Well anyway …” Salter looked at Drummond. “I’ve arranged for a tailor to see you about some uniforms. Must get the new rank made up, if you’re to look right. ” He moved away, his face frowning.
“What …” Drummond fell silent as Beaumont raised one pale hand.
He said, “Just take it as it comes, Keith. You are now my second-in-command. I could have had anyone. Nick Brooks said so. What he says goes. I wanted a chap who could think before all else. Not a Cromwell who wants to be popular all the time or a bloody moaner like Selkirk. Between ourselves, I was going to have Duvall shifted to another billet. We didn’t get on. Death or glory. ” He winked again. “I have no objection to the
latter, but I’ve been too close to my Maker for wishing to make his acquaintance just yet!”
Kimber called, “Are you finished here, Dudley?” He looked at the clock. “The admiral is expecting us for drinks before dinner.” He nodded to Drummond. “I’ll have a chat with you later.” He smiled. “Commander.”
Drummond left the building and walked towards the gates. He paused at the guard hut and asked permission to use a telephone to call the ship. It was a bad line to the harbour and he had to wait for nearly ten minutes before he managed to get an answer. Then Sheridan came to the phone almost immediately. As if he had been waiting for a call.
Drummond said, “If there’s nothing urgent for me I’ll be ashore for a while.” Faint voices hummed on the line, and he had a mental picture of several German agents tapping the conversation. “All right?”
“Yes, sir. All quiet here.” He hesitated. “Is it true, sir? About the promotion?”
News moved very swiftly. “Yes.”
“Congratulations, sir.” He seemed to be searching for words. “It must be quite a feeling. “
Drummond saw a jeep preparing to leave the base and wondered if he could cadge a lift.
He said, “Tell Able Seaman Jevers I want to see him sometime tomorrow.
“Jevers?” Sheridan sounded puzzled. “Is something wrong?”
“Tell you later.”
He dropped the telephone, and with a brief nod to the duty officer, ran out to the jeep.
A R.A.F. officer grinned at him. “All aboard for the gay lights of Reykjavik! Whalemeat and chips!”
The jeep roared from the base camp, red lava dust spewing from its wheels, while the crowded occupants clung to whatever they could to avoid being hurled on to the track.
Drummond was thinking of Sheridan’s remark. It must be quite a feeling. Strange. He felt nothing but a sense of foreboding.
They sat opposite each other across a small square table. The restaurant in the commandeered hotel was gaunt and unwelcoming, and the solitary waitress, who was dressed in an ill-fitting white smock, completed the picture of dingy, temporary occupation.
She said quietly, “Sorry about this place. ” She was watching him gravely. “It’s not exactly the Savoy.”
Her chance remark brought it all back. The staff officers in the Savoy grill, his own thoughts at the time. Wishing she had been with him instead of Beaumont and the others. The old waiter whose son had died in Warlock.
He smiled. “It will have to do.”
She was simply dressed in a green costume, and against the dull walls and dreary room her face seemed to shine like one in a partly cleaned painting.
She said, “You are staring again. “
The waitress paused by the table. “Will you want any coffee?”
Drummond nodded and she went away muttering.
The girl whispered, “Nice to be so welcome!” She leaned .forward slightly. “Miles Salter came by. Told me about your promotion. I’m glad.” She thrust out a little package. “A present for you.”
He stared at her. “Because of my promotion?”
She laughed, the sound making two elderly nurses on the other side of the room stare at them with obvious disapproval.
“You are the giddy limit!” Impetuously she reached out and gripped his hand. “It’s your birthday, isn’t it?”
He replied, “I’d forgotten.” He smiled at her, feeling her smooth fingers on his skin. “Thanks very much.”
She shook her head, the short chestnut hair bouncing across her forehead. “I was hard put to find out about it. Might have guessed you’d forget.”
Drummond felt her hand move away as she said, “I hope it’s the sort you like, if not … “
He opened the parcel and turned the brand new pipe over in his hands.
“You must be a mind-reader, too. ” He looked at her again. “It was very good of you.”
She relaxed. “I’m glad it suits. Had one helluva job getting it. Don’t smoke a pipe myself.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sorry you had to eat here. I just thought you’d like to get away from all those uniforms for a bit.”
“I’m enjoying myself very much. ” He took her hand across the table. “Believe me.”
She did not take her hand away. “Good. How was it today? With Dudley Beaumont? Miles seemed to think you were feeling a bit fed up. “
“It was nothing much. Just a feeling. ” He looked at the new pipe. It must have cost quite a bit and no little trouble to get. “I had an idea that some of the other skippers were blaming me for Duvall’s death. “
“Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” She met his astonishment calmly. “I should think that is exactly what Beaumont intended.”
“Is that what you really think? You hate him that much?”
She smiled sadly. “You think I’m an idiot. You may be right. “
He asked carefully, “Your brother? You were pretty close?”
“Yes. Our parents died in an air-raid right at the beginning. Tim was everything to me.”
His fingers moved gently across hers, touching the plain gold ring.
She said, “My husband? You’re wondering about him?”
He said, “Only if you want to tell me.”
“Nothing much to tell. Tim was away with the Navy, I was a bit wild, I suppose. I met Philip at a party. He was a soldier. Good-looking, witty. Just what I needed with all the bombing which was going on in London
.” Her eyes were dreamy, far away. “Just one leave. It was all we had. I don’t think we got out of bed for more than a minute or so. Then off he went. “
Drummond waited, seeing the memories crossing her face.
She said, “He’s in Canada now. Army liaison job in Ottawa. ” She looked at him, but her expression was distant. “He wants his freedom. Seems he’s nicely fixed up with a fresh Canadian girl. “
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s her I’m sorry for.” She took her hand away as the waitress banged the cups on the table. “Philip has had several others before her. He’s the sort of boy we find hard to refuse.”
She tried to smile, but it did not come. “So there you are. The story of Sarah, although not the one that gets spread around usually. “
Drummond said, “He must have wanted his head examining. “
She looked at him again, her eyes misty. “That was nice. Very nice. Usually when they find out I’m married but separated they all think I’m fair game. And the married men are the worst. Pawing you about. One minute telling you about the dear wife at home and all the little toddlers, and the next trying to tear your clothes off.” She shuddered. “Do you take sugar?”
He grinned. “Yes.”
She sipped the coffee and then said, “I suppose all this made Tim’s death harder to take.- She hesitated. “There were two other survivors from the Conqueror. “
“I know. A stoker and a seaman.”
She nodded. “The seaman was called Carson. He was a messenger apparently. Got blasted over the side and found his way to a raft of some sort. I saw some of the reports about it. You can get hold of almost anything in this job. There were about four or five men on the raft. One of them was Beaumont. Carson insisted that one was Tim. But when the neutral ship went looking for survivors there was only Beaumont, Carson and the stoker, who was half mad with shock. ” She dropped her eyes. “Poor devil.”
He asked quietly, “Just the three?”
“Yes. Carson can’t remember a thing now. He’s in hospital. I went to see him. He told me that Tim was alive.” She traced an invisible line on the table. “Beaumont denies it. He says that there were two other seamen with him, but although he tried to save them, they died of their wounds and drifted away.”
“Perhaps Carson was mistaken. ” He gripped her hand as she looked up at him, her eyes suddenly angry. “I said perhaps! Have you thought about it?”
“I’m sorry. Yes, I have thought about it. But he seemed so sure. So definite that it was Tim.”
The waitress returned and said abruptly, “This hotel is out of bounds to all males as from ten o’clock.” She sniffed. “Sir.”
Drummond stood up. “Thank you.” He took the girl’s arm and guided her towards the lobby. “I have to go now.” He felt her arm stiffen. “But I’d like to see you again. Tomorrow?”
She looked at him evenly. “Yes, I’d like it, too.” She reached up and touched his cheek. “Many happy returns.”
He knew he was staring at her. That he wanted her so badly it hurt.
He said, “I’m not married, and I won’t tell you about the wife at home.”
She watched him. “I checked on that, too. ” Then she smiled. “Perhaps we could get out, away from the town, climb that damned volcano, or something.”
He forced his voice to stay calm. “What did Salter tell you?”
“Oh, that the mission is being shelved. I’m not to mention it, but I can’t tell you how glad I am for your sake.”
“Yes.” He did not know what else to say.
She walked with him to the door. “It’s funny to see all the lights on. Like it used to be at home.” She shook her head. “No, I am not going to get morbid. The lights are on here, and … ”
She looked up at him again. “And I’m very happy at the moment.”
As he walked through the town towards the harbour, past well-lit shops and jostling groups of sailors and soldiers, he kept thinking about Sarah Kemp. It was like seeing life through, another dimension, and the realisation left him confused, breathless.
Sheridan was waiting for him as he stepped aboard.
“All quiet, sir. Most of the libertymen are off now. Two are in the rattle ashore. Drunk and disorderly.”
“Normal then.”
He glanced along the deserted iron deck. And she had been the only one to remember his birthday. Even his mother had forgotten.
Sheridan added, “Good run ashore, sir?”
“Yes. “
He nodded. “Pilot said he saw you going into the hotel by the square. So I guessed you were dining with Mrs. Kemp. ” He fell into step beside Drummond. “I hope she didn’t get on to you about her brother. She tried to get me involved like that. When I wouldn’t, she soon put the fence up.”
Drummond turned away. “I’ll see you in the morning, Number One.”
Sheridan watched him as he vanished into the quartermaster’s lobby. What the hell, had made him speak like that about her? Was it jealousy at Drummond’s success? At his promotion? He stirred uneasily. Anyway, it had not been completely untrue.
She had kept pestering him about the bloody Conqueror. Then on the landing of the hotel he had turned her round into his arm. Pulling her against him so that she was helpless. He had cupped her breast in his hand, his cheek on her hair, feeling his blood surging like a hot wind.
He gripped the guardrail and stared fixedly at the water alongside. She had asked him quietly to release her, her body stiff against his. But he had felt her breast moving beneath his fingers and had known that she was just playing for time. The pain had come like a stab wound.
As he had fallen back, gasping and holding his groin, she had said shakily, “Touch me again and I’ll reallydo you an injury!”
The humiliation still left him ashamed and furious. With her and himself.
Below his feet, in his cabin, Drummond stood motionless under a deckhead light, examining the pipe, remembering what she had said. How she had looked. Nothing Sheridan could do or say could take that away from him. He sat down in a chair and began to fill his new pipe.
Surgeon Lieutenant Adrian Vaughan stood beside the desk and watched Drummond examining his daily sick report. It was halfway through the forenoon, and around and above the cabin the ship moved uneasily against her fenders and nudged the destroyer which was moored alongside.
A normal routine day in harbour. Drummond initialled the report, his mind only half attending to the list of ailments. A few bruises from a fight ashore. A stoker who had cracked his thumb. A suspected case of V. D. which Vaughan had packed off to the naval hospital.
Boots clumped overhead, and somewhere further forward he heard a man chipping paint. The endless battle against rust.
Vaughan was wearing rimless glasses which only helped to accentuate his lack of colour. Pale hair and eyes, delicate, almost transparent skin. But Drummond had seen him at work. Knew that behind those glasses was a carefully concealed hardness.
He said, “Well, Doc, it all seems quiet enough in your department.
Vaughan examined one scrubbed hand. “You mentioned Able Seaman Jevers, sir.”
Drummond nodded. Straight to the point. Like a scalpel.
“You know his history. ” He pushed a folder across the desk. “Read this and fill in the details for yourself. I’m worried about him. I’ve made a few notes at the bottom.”
Vaughan’s eyes lit up as he scanned the papers. “Wife missing? There’s no report on that from Welfare. They say she went off with an American.”
“Well, maybe she went off with someone else. But I’m not satisfied. You are in charge of welfare aboard this ship. See what you can find out. Discreetly.”
Vaughan smiled. “Of course, sir.”
“I don’t want him worried. There may be nothing in this idea of mine. In which case it will only cause more trouble.”
It was strange to be sitting here like this. Discussing a seaman’s problems. Within a few days they
would be moving again. And then … he felt his stomach muscles contract as if expecting a blow. Was that why Captain Kimber and his staff had been so frank and open about the proposed submarine attack on Tirpitz? To stress the importance of the destroyer’s mission, or because there was no hope at all of their surviving it?
Vaughan said, “I have just signed for an additional amount of surgical stores, sir. My S.B.A. was quite upset about it.” He chuckled. “Ranting about the sickbay like a bitch on heat trying to find room for everything.” He asked smoothly, “Any reason, sir? I mean, I carry quite sufficient dressings and drugs for most happenings.”
Drummond looked at him. “We are under orders. That’s all I can say.”
Vaughan shrugged. “It’s enough, sir.”
There was a tap on the door and Galbraith peered in at them.
“What is it, Chief?”
Galbraith wiped his face with a smutty piece of rag. “Just wanted a chat about spares, sir.”
“Doc’s finished now. Come and sit down.”
And so it went on.
A few yards away in the wardroom Sheridan was standing with his back to the unlit fire, while Rankin and Wingate sat nearby, their notebooks open on their knees. The base staff had been aboard since dawn, and were now clambering through the destroyer alongside in search of flaws and makeshift repairs.
Rankin drawled, “Well, my department is all buttoned up.” He sounded resentful, which he was. “Bloody men peering through my four-inch guns as if they were looking for contraband!”
Wingate was watching Sheridan. “It’s going to be sooner than we thought then?”
“I guess so.”
Sheridan was thinking about the captain. No sign of anger at what he had said about Sarah Kemp last night. At the defaulters’ table, where he had been attending to the two ratings who had been in a brawl ashore, he had seen Drummond speaking with some of the base staff. He seemed quite calm. Remote, even, from any sort of nerves.
The quartermaster peered into the wardroom. “Base staff ‘ave left the ship, sir. They’re now aboard Whirlpool. “
“Thank you, Jevers.” Sheridan thought the man seemed more intense than usual. Perhaps the captain had already spoken to him.
The Destroyers Page 17