Buchanan lowered a pair of glasses which Pargeter had lent him. ‘No good. Might have seen it if I’d looked sooner. Hills in the way, now.’ His house, he’d been looking for. He and Chalk were up front in the oval-shaped gun platform, up where the gun’s barrel projected over the shoulder-high protective screen, so their view was directly ahead and out on both bows. Virtually an all-round view, except that it was blanked off astern by the looming bulk of the conning-tower. Buchanan gestured towards Helensburgh: ‘How far would you say that is?’
‘About four miles. Sea miles – eight thousand yards.’
‘I’d have thought more than that. But I’m sure you’re right.’ He glanced round, and lowered his voice, leaning closer. ‘Tell me something else. Changing the subject rather drastically… In confidence, what’s your frank opinion of Dymock?’
The last person who’d asked him that had been Suzie – who’d been hoping for a different kind of answer than he suspected Buchanan might be fishing for. Entirely instinctive suspicion: but the thought was immediately of Zoe, and that if ever there’d been a time for caution, this was it… He told him – looking at him under the gun’s grey-painted barrel – frowning, letting his surprise show – ‘Haven’t thought about it, in any – you know, analytical way… He’s a fellow submariner I’ve known all through my Service career, that’s about all.’
‘About all. Is it, really.’ Cocking an eyebrow; but it was a comment – with a touch of irony in it – not a question.
Chalk added – on the defensive, but hardly knowing why – ‘I’ve simply accepted him, not made a study of him… Yes, that is all.’ Instinct again warned him not to make more of this than he had to; he changed the subject. Pointing: ‘Entrance to the Gareloch there. Right by your front door, you might say.’
‘Would I be right in thinking he’s a womanizer?’
That guess had been right. He temporized: ‘Awkward question, rather.’
‘You mean giving it a straight answer’s embarrassing for you?’
‘Slightly. Yes… But incidentally, in the Navy it’s not called womanizing, it’s called poodlefaking.’
Buchanan smiled rather grimly. ‘Interesting that you’d need a special word for it.’
‘Possibly Nelsonian origins?’
‘Faked his poodle all right, didn’t he. But I think I can take it from these evasions that – without hedging – the answer’s an affirmative?’
He shook his head. There was no reason on earth to defend the bastard. But no reason to tell tales out of school, either – that was yet another instinct.
‘Until quite recently it’s true that he’s had a certain reputation. Gossip, about half of it exaggerated and the other half probably invented. A lot of it sour grapes, because girls tend to run after him, for some reason. They like his looks, I gather. But things have changed rather suddenly now, as it happens. Do I gather you haven’t heard about his engagement?’
‘Engagement?’
‘I thought it might have prompted these questions. Or this question. I think you know the girl’s father – man by name of Cameron-Green?’
‘Those people… Yes, I—’
‘You shot there once, he told me. Anyway – she’s much younger than Dymock, and my own young brother is – was – very keen on her. He’s taken it rather hard, and in consequence Dymock and I aren’t on the best of terms. What makes it rather worse – for me – is that I introduced him to them. But there it is – spilt milk… This is in confidence, by the way.’
‘Of course.’ Watching a tug with a string of lighters: Trumpeter had altered to starboard to get by. He shook his head: ‘I don’t remember that I met the daughter.’
‘Two of them, actually. Both very nice and very pretty. It’s the younger one – Susan – he’s picked on. Seventeen.’
He changed the subject again. ‘That’s Gourock coming up on your side now. Kempock Point… Then to starboard here, Kilcreggan, and to the left of it – just about there, when we open the view of it a bit – is the entrance to Loch Long. Top end of Loch Long’s a torpedo range, incidentally – or torpedo-firing trials – and there’s a pub at the village Arrochar – which’d be a perfect place to take your wife for a quiet weekend. If you wanted one – and enjoy walking, not doing much else. Wonderful scenery. Steepish walks, mind you – for instance there’s a hill up behind Arrochar village called the Cobbler that’s about 3,000 feet.’
‘Sounds as if you’ve climbed it.’
‘I have. More a steep walk than a climb, though. I just about ran down it once, in heavy rain. I’d gone up thinking I’d beat the weather, and I didn’t.’
‘You’re a fitter man than I, Gunga Din.’ Buchanan was peering ahead, towards Strone Point and Holy Loch. ‘You mentioned torpedo-firing trials in Loch Long. Might Trumpeter be doing that?’
‘Doubt it. There are torpedo-ranges in the south too, you see.’
‘Ah. I’d been rather assuming they’d go straight down to – Portland, is it?’
‘Yes. Sixth flotilla. The four-stripe captain you met before we came up here – McAllister – commands it. He’s up to see how this boat’s officers and crew look like shaping.’
‘Indicating that they will be going down there right away?’
‘I’d imagine so.’
‘Well.’ Buchanan had the glasses at his eyes again. ‘Well, well.’ He hadn’t reverted to the subject of Dymock, but it was obviously still in his mind. For whatever reason… Sweeping the glasses slowly across the entrance to Loch Long as Trumpeter plugged on westward and it opened up to view. He murmured after an interval of silence – broken only by Trumpeter herself, her pounding diesels and the sea’s rushing and thumping through the casing under their feet – ‘Must be beautiful up there. In autumn, I should think – those wooded hillsides?’
‘Beautiful at any time. In decent weather, mind you. Can be fairly bloody when it’s bad…’
* * *
It was eleven-thirty before they were out of the narrows between Bute and Little Cumbrae. There’d been quite a bit of traffic and still was, freighters inbound and outbound. Trawlers were visible now off the Arran coast. No sight of the minelayer that was supposed to be exercising: but the exercise might not have started yet, and there was plenty of other enclosed water they could have been using: Inchmarnock Water for instance – north of Arran, east of Kintyre – or Kilbrannan Sound to the south of Inchmarnock.
Trumpeter began to swing, under starboard helm. Steering trials commencing – her long forepart lifting to the swell, carving white water out of green.
‘Where’s our tug with your skipper on it, I wonder.’ Buchanan was using the binoculars again. ‘One of those, could it be?’
‘Those are trawlers. Wrong place, anyway. No, he’ll be plugging on down towards the Ayrshire coast. We don’t rendezvous with him until early afternoon – just before the dive.’
‘Does one feel it – diving?’
‘Not really. Deck might tilt a little. Probably won’t this afternoon, because we’ll be doing it in slow time. The light trim I mentioned – your people will have put it on her, as I said, and it’s really to be expected – trial dive, they always prefer to flood her down slowly, rather than dive fast and then have to pump out ballast.’
‘I’m in favour of that, I think.’
‘But there’d be no danger in it anyway. We’ll be in – oh, twenty fathoms or more, I imagine, she’d have to be very heavy to go down so fast she’d hit the bottom.’ A smile – to show he was joking, that there’d be no question of it… He’d given him a rough explanation of the trimming system, during the run south past Rothesay, and mentioned that he knew for a fact she was trimmed very light. One of the Barlows’ men had landed to check the draft-marks for’ard and aft while they’d been waiting on the quayside, Chalk had gone over to talk to him and elicited that she was floating three or more inches higher in the water than she might have been.
‘The diving procedure, now.’ Buchanan had lower
ed his binoculars, nodded forward towards the submarine’s long, plunging forepart. ‘Those circular brass things are the vents which are opened – in pairs, you said – to let the air out?’
‘Right.’
‘The water then floods in through open holes in the bottoms of the tanks.’ He saw Chalk’s nod, asked, ‘All of them at once?’
‘When you’re diving in a hurry, yes. Not today, though. Incidentally, number one main ballast is a single tank, up for’ard there. It’s two, three, four, five and six that are each two tanks, one port and one starboard – in those bulges. Called saddle-tanks. And yes, those round things are the vents. Operated like almost everything else by the telemotor system – basically oil under pressure operating on a ram, forcing it this way or that. Do you want this much technical description?’
‘That much is more or less comprehensible. The telemotor system you say operates not only the main vents but other things as well?’
‘Periscopes, hydroplanes, steering, bowcaps on the tubes—’
‘The system you said you don’t favour.’
‘Only the neutral position, we don’t like. Not just me – any of us. In fact we aren’t going to use it – no need to, we’ll put the levers to either “shut” or “open” and ignore “neutral”.’
‘So then you’ll see at a glance what’s open and what’s shut.’
‘Exactly. Mind you, I’ve no idea what your own people will be doing.’ He thought again, and shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter. There’s no reason they’d be opening or shutting bowcaps.’
‘That’s a question I was going to ask. Our people in co-operation with the Admiralty overseer, you said, have put on the trim. But will they still be running things when we dive?’
‘No. The boat’s crew will. Jacko Pargeter, in fact. Although your lot and the Admiralty chaps’ll still have their fingers on the pulse, so to speak.’
‘Sounds to me like too many cooks.’
‘It’s the established process of hand-over, that’s all. And to date it’s worked all right.’
Resting with his forearms on the steel bulkhead, the four-inch barrel against his shoulder, his eyes on the submarine’s long, grey-painted fore-casing and the sea cleaving away brilliant-white, seething away aft over the fat curves of her tanks… Glancing at Buchanan: ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘Well – I suppose…’ It hadn’t occurred to him, evidently, until this moment. He nodded – faintly. ‘Yes. It is…’
‘Would you satisfy my curiosity on one thing, please?’
A quick sideways glance… ‘Dymock?’
‘Yes. What’s behind those questions?’
The light-brown eyes held his: the flickering in them was the reflection of light from the sea’s bright surface. ‘Strictly between ourselves?’
‘Of course.’ Looking past him, Chalk spotted what might well be the Admiralty-chartered tug with Ozzard on board. He’d borrow the glasses in a minute…
‘What’s behind it—’ Buchanan spoke quietly, after a precautionary glance round – ‘is that he’s been chasing my wife. I should say, he was chasing her. You’ve astonished me, with the information that he’s engaged to one of the Cameron-Green girls. Considering that only two or three weeks ago he was pestering Zoe with telephone calls – to such an extent that that’s why she went down to London, to get away from his – well, harassment.’
‘She tell you this?’
‘Night before last. I telephoned to suggest she might come back up here for a week or two, and she said if Toby Dymock had left, or when he did, she’d happily come back. I had to worm the rest out of her. She’d kept it to herself because she didn’t want to make a fuss. Thought I’d make a song and dance about it – with embarrassment to all concerned, placed as I am here. D’you understand me?’
‘Yes. Of course…’ Wondering: perhaps Dymock had been pursuing her? He shook his head. ‘I’m awfully sorry.’
‘Hardly for you to be sorry.’
‘Well – my friend, or he was. Brother officer, all that… Are you going to do anything about it now?’
‘I honestly don’t know. The obvious thing’s to confront him with it, tell him a few home truths and scare him off. But if he’s engaged now…’ Thinking about it, watching the sea part and cream away to port and starboard, the long forepart lifting to a swell and then smashing down, the submarine’s bow buried for a moment in a boil of sea: then lifting, tossing it away in streamers on the wind. The swell had been gathering strength as they moved south, and she was pitching quite hard. Buchanan glanced back at Chalk. ‘A word to Sir Innes, perhaps. If he’s the sort I think he is – and the girl’s as young as you say – what d’you think?’
‘I doubt it’d change the odds. She’s set on it absolutely. I know her quite well – I think… Less through length of time than through my brother – who was very close to her – and a sister who’s a friend of the other daughter – but I got nowhere, talking to her. And Sir Innes wasn’t exactly enthusiastic, but that made no difference either. Despite the fact that they’re a very close, united family. Or have been, up to now. She’s adamant. You could prove Dymock was the greatest libertine alive and she’d say that may be how he was, he’s a new man now.’
‘Think he could be?’
‘Can a man change that much?’
‘So – what would you do, in my shoes?’
‘I think I’d let sleeping dogs lie. Unless you feel compelled to have it out with him. In which case, I’d say go ahead. But his engagement to the Cameron-Green girl’s hardly your province, is it?’
‘None of my business. No, I suppose it isn’t. Although for the girl’s sake – in the long run – and your brother’s—’
‘Too late to salve anything there, I’m afraid.’
‘Oh. Well, I’m sorry. But you see, if I do nothing, he goes down south leaving his fiancée up here presumably – and Zoe’s on her own in London—’
‘She could tell him to go to hell, couldn’t she?’
‘She would. ’ They were watching an oiler ploughing northward. Red Ensign: and a group of men on her stern watching the submarine. Waving, now. ‘I just don’t like leaving her in that situation… In fact I’d better have it out with him – and bring her up here. Much as she dislikes the place. Happens to be where I have to spend most of my time – especially now, with certain plans for expansion at Barlows’. Trouble is I’m too damn busy, she’s on her own too much and she has no real friends up here. You may have noticed at that dull party you came to, she was knocking it back a bit?’
‘I did, yes. Not that she’s alone in that.’ He put a hand out: ‘Borrow the glasses, a minute?’
She’d been ‘knocking it back a bit’ largely because Dymock had let her down by not showing up in London… But – trying to make sense of it: Buchanan had heard this from Zoe, he’d said, two nights ago. And last night she’d been on the line to him and said nothing about it. Suppose pure supposition, but it might hold water – suppose she’d heard about the engagement, it had touched her on the raw as it well might have – and she was acting out of spite, getting her own back on Dymock for having ratted on her. It might be in character, he thought – and fit the circumstances. Remembering her sarcastic If Toby has a weekend to spare he rushes up to the bloody Highlands! I think he's got a girl up there…
But how she’d have heard… Well, Dymock might have written – or more likely telephoned, he’d hardly have been so rash as to have committed himself to paper… But that wasn’t at all improbable. He, Chalk, certainly hadn’t told her about it. Hadn’t even mentioned Dymock recently. He’d realized she’d have to hear about it some time, that she’d want to know why he hadn’t told her, and he’d have to trot out some spurious explanation – like having thought it might upset her. That would do, in fact… The true reason – it also accounted for his not having said anything about Guy going to Spain, which was very much more on his mind, infinitely more so than the engagement per se – was that he was
wary of letting her know anything that she could only have heard from him.
Back to earth. Or rather, to this brightly-coloured, jumpy seascape, in which he had the glasses focused on a small ship with a single funnel and a low, open stern; she was six or seven miles to the east of Trumpeter and steering south. Lifting swells obscured her hull several times a minute, and intermittently the white of broken water as she butted through it was like a distant flare. He told Buchanan, ‘I’ve found our tug. A tug anyway – and she’s pointing the right way. Throwing herself about a bit. Not that that’ll worry Ozzie.’ He handed the glasses back. ‘Doesn’t worry you, this motion?’
‘Not as yet. Touch wood.’
‘Good. Be a shame to miss the lunch you’re paying for.’
‘Have to go down inside for it, I suppose.’
‘Afraid so. Pity we can’t dive first.’
‘Would there be less motion – will there be, dived?’
‘None at all. She’ll be as steady as a rock.’ He paused… ‘Getting back to what matters, though – I really don’t know how to advise you, about Dymock…’
* * *
The lunch wasn’t all that marvellous, and it was spoilt by lack of elbow-room. In the wardroom especially, since all the Admiralty officials and the Barlows’ bowler hats considered it vital to their dignity to cram in there. It was a small enough space even for the submarine’s officers on their own, but there were also these shipyard dignitaries and the civil servants, and the Portland flotilla captain – who was twice the standard size – and Engineer Captain ‘Baldy’ Gleeson from Flag officer (Submarines)’s staff, with a Commander Random as well as Lieutenant-Commander Quarry in his entourage. And Buchanan of course – as a Barlows’ director, whether he liked it or not he had to be squeezed in between Jacko Pargeter and the Admiralty’s Principal Ship Overseer, a man called Hughes who at least had the decency to be thin. Scrawny, in fact – with thin hair too, combed from the side to camouflage a bald crown. There’d been numerous introductions, and Chalk was doing his best to memorize the names of the key men.
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