A group of ratings clustered at the rail, waiting impatiently for the tender. For them, Falmouth was just another port with another lot of pubs.
Not that pubs weren’t a consideration for Ashley too. He enjoyed drinking. Just as he enjoyed the other opportunities ashore. In his wallet he had the telephone number of a girl he vaguely knew who lived not far away. He would take her out to dinner if she were free. It had been well over a month since he’d spent an evening with a girl.
A night out would cheer him up. Like everyone else in the ship he needed it. They’d had a rotten couple of months. After Dunkirk they’d started convoywork, escorting ships along the south coast and through the Dover Straits, fighting off increasingly heavy air attacks. By the end of July they were losing ships at an alarming rate and, when three destroyers were lost in the space of a few days, the Admiralty was forced to abandon day-time passages through the eastern half of the Channel. Now even the western Channel was difficult. On this last convoy, which had been westward bound, they had been attacked by Stukas south of the Isle of Wight and had lost a horrifying five ships before the attack had been driven off. It seemed to Ashley that, ever since Dunkirk, the Navy was being forced inexorably out of the Channel.
The tender was closer now, and turning in a long slow arc which would bring it neatly alongside the destroyer. Ashley put his face up to the blustery west wind and breathed deeply, willing himself to wake up.
‘God, they’re not letting you loose too, are they, Ashley?’
He turned and saw Blythe, the gunnery officer, also in best shore-going uniform.
Ashley smiled. ‘Of course. Begged me to go actually.’ He thought how trite and out of place the old jokes sounded now, yet one trotted them out as a matter of course, to maintain a feeling of normality.
Blythe said, ‘Want to join forces? I thought of sampling the ale in a few of the local establishments.’
Ashley watched the tender bump alongside and considered. An evening with Blythe would be ruinous. The two of them had been out drinking together once before and ended up speechless and legless on the floor of a hotel ballroom in Weymouth. His hangover had lasted two days.
He chuckled at the memory. ‘Just a quick one then. But I won’t be able to stay long.’
‘Aha!’ Blythe gave him a steely glare. ‘A woman, is it?’
Ashley grinned enigmatically and started down the gangway to where the tender was waiting, already crowded with the ratings who, anxious to start their precious leave, had swarmed aboard the moment it came alongside.
As the two men took their seats the boat drew away and Ashley turned to get a good view of the forward bulwarks, where a damage repair party was working on a series of dented, hole-peppered plates. A gunner had died up there during the last air attack. Although they’d been at war for a year, it was the first time Ashley had seen a man die at close quarters. The scene was still vivid in his mind.
He shook his head and muttered to Blythe in an undertone, ‘You feel so damned ineffectual.’ Blythe nodded; he knew exactly what Ashley meant. In company with another destroyer they had been trying to protect fourteen ships against a dozen or more enemy aircraft: an unpleasantly one-sided fight.
Ashley added, ‘Let’s hope the RAF have some more luck soon.’ The Battle of Britain had been raging for a couple of months and still the bombers came, against convoys, against ports and military establishments and, increasingly now, against cities and civilian targets.
The tender buffeted its way up-wind towards the town nestling comfortably in the lee of a hill, its buildings rising haphazardly from the water’s edge. Eventually they came to the small-boat moorings, where coastal patrol boats, oyster smacks and the occasional yacht lay swinging to the tide.
Suddenly Ashley peered ahead. An MFV – a motor fishing vessel – lay close under the town. She was painted dull grey and had obviously been requisitioned as an inshore patrol boat. Yet there was something unusual about her, something that didn’t quite fit. For a moment he couldn’t place what it was, but then, as the trawler came into full view, he had it.
The vessel was French. It was nothing definite, nothing you could tie down. But her lines and the long canoe stern definitely looked more Breton than Cornish. As the tender passed astern of her, Ashley saw someone come out of the deckhouse and saunter to the rail. He was wearing plain overalls and was bare-headed. A cigarette hung from his lower lip in the Gallic manner.
Ashley had seen French fishing boats in England before – everyone had. They had been appearing regularly since the fall of France in June, three months before. But this was the first time he had seen one under the white ensign. He wondered if the crewman on deck had been a French fisherman and, if so, how he liked Naval discipline. Not, he guessed, very much at all.
The tender came alongside a stone quay. Ashley was the first off, running up the steps two at a time and striding away across the cobblestones. Blythe was panting when he caught up with him. ‘Gosh, what’s the hurry, old man?’
‘I spied a pub, Blythe, and I didn’t want it to get away.’ In truth he had been in a hurry to feel the land under his feet and he had run up the steps for the sheer pleasure of it. Like most people who loved the sea, he hated to spend too long on it and, after a few weeks, felt desperate for the land again.
Blythe laughed and followed Ashley up a narrow street and into the saloon bar of a pub with a low door and thick oak beams. Ashley knew immediately that it was the sort of pub he liked – old, rather dowdy and, most important of all, unpretentious. It would be very easy to stay here all evening and drink several pints too many. Instead, he had just one pint and went out to find the nearest telephone box.
He called his parents first, at their home in Hampshire. As always, his mother was light-hearted and gay. She considered it bad form to mention any anxieties she might have about her family, and always made a point of imparting only good or amusing news, usually about one of her many dogs. His father, now back in the Navy at a desk job after more than ten years’ retirement, was more serious, and listened attentively to his son’s news, limited though it was by the constraints of secrecy. When the conversation was over, Ashley put the telephone down with regret. He liked his parents very much.
Then he called the girl.
He’d met her twice, once at a party given by his sister and once when staying with an old schoolfriend. She was a good-looker in a cool English sort of way. She was the sort who liked riding and hunting and going to dances. She wasn’t exactly a ball of fire, he remembered, and she certainly wouldn’t offer him more than a kiss on the cheek – but she might be quite fun all the same.
She was at home when he called, and in her cool voice said that yes, she would like to come out to dinner very much. She would borrow her father’s car and meet him in an hour.
He walked back to the pub to find that it had filled up considerably. He spotted Blythe at the bar, well into another drink, and made his way through the crowd towards him. Ashley felt far less tired now; he decided he was in the mood for a party. He slapped Blythe on the back and grinned. Blythe nodded briefly then returned to the discussion he was having with two men, one a balding, overweight civilian wearing the armband of the Auxiliary Fire Service, the other a silver-haired merchant navy officer. For a change, they were talking about the war.
With a sigh, Ashley settled down to listen. The AFS man was wagging his finger vehemently. ‘They’ll invade before the end of the month, mark my words. The bombing of London and the ports – that’s just to soften us up, you know. As soon as they’ve knocked the RAF out of the sky, then they’ll be on their way!’
Ashley interrupted brightly, ‘Hello’, and introduced himself to the two men. They shook hands.
Blythe resumed, ‘But the Jerries won’t be able to do that. Knock the RAF out of the sky, I mean.’
‘But they will – they are!’ the AFS man insisted. ‘Oh, the BBC tell us it’s all going all right, but you don’t want to believe them, you know.
They just tell us what they want us to believe.’
A professional pessimist, Ashley noted. He interrupted lightly, ‘Now, old chap, that sort of talk isn’t going to win the war, is it?’
‘That’s as may be, but we might as well face facts!’
Ashley smiled charmingly at him. ‘Then what do you suggest we do to stop the Germans coming?’
‘Ha! Not much we can do now. It’s too damn late.’ The AFS man tutted with contempt and took another sip from his drink.
The merchant seaman looked thoughtful and said, ‘I still don’t understand how France went under so quickly … I just don’t understand even now.’
The AFS man dropped his glass to the bar with a bang. ‘I’ll tell you why – because the Frenchies aren’t fighting men, that’s why. In fact, they ran backwards the moment they saw the first German tank.’
Ashley felt the adrenalin pump into his blood. He said coolly, ‘That’s not true.’
‘Well, they didn’t put up much of a fight, did they?’
‘Incorrect, old boy. They held Dunkirk while we got out. They fought all the way.’
The AFS man was determined to press on. ‘But if they fought so hard, how did the Jerries get from Paris to Brest in five days, eh?’ He turned to Blythe and laughed. ‘Seems mighty strange, doesn’t it?’
Blythe looked nervously towards Ashley and muttered, ‘Er, how about another drink …?’
Ashley knew he should turn away and laugh it off, but he couldn’t. After a moment’s pause he said in a low voice, ‘You’re speaking about friends of mine.’
The AFS man shrugged a little. ‘Well, facts are facts, and when the invasion comes it’ll be no thanks to the French.’
‘Nor, I’m sure, to you!’
‘Now look here—!’
Blythe tugged at Ashley’s sleeve. ‘Er, how about another pub, Richard? Come on, it’s just not worth it.’
Ashley looked into the AFS man’s belligerent piglike eyes and knew Blythe was right. With an enormous effort he closed his mouth and, putting his drink on the bar, turned to leave.
At the last moment he couldn’t resist a parting shot. He leant towards the man and whispered, ‘When you’re next fighting a fire, careful you don’t get your hose up the wrong passage!’ He turned and pushed his way quickly through the press of bodies to the cold freshness of the street.
He heard Blythe come up behind him and said half to himself, ‘Slow strangulation for that one. I could cheerfully kill types like that.’
‘I agree.’
‘Murder by degrees.’
‘Yes, but it’s never worth it …’
Suddenly it all seemed rather ridiculous and Ashley laughed out loud. ‘No, it could be the ruination of my brilliantly promising career!’
Blythe smiled with relief. ‘Not to mention your prospects.’
Ashley chuckled. He could laugh now, but his future in the Navy had been a touchy point until the war. He’d blotted his copy book by answering an admiral back in something less than respectful terms. He knew Blythe had heard about it – everyone had – and now he enjoyed making a feature of it. It gave him the reputation of being rather a devil in the wardroom.
Blythe said cheerfully, ‘How about going to another boozer? There’s the Admiral Something-or-another up the hill.’
‘No.’ Ashley suddenly felt tired again. More drinking wouldn’t help. ‘I’ve other plans. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Blythe winked. ‘Aha! Tender loving care, is it? Good luck!’ With a quick wave, he walked off up the hill.
Ashley looked at the time. He still had half an hour before meeting the girl. He decided to wander down to the water, to rid himself of the last taste of the unpleasantness in the pub.
The moment he stepped back onto the quay he was glad he had come. The early evening sunlight had ripened into a warm yellowy gold, illuminating the soft purple-green Cornish hills with a mantle of vibrant colour. Looking across to Flushing, its small cottages gleaming white above the water’s edge, and watching the small-craft catch the golden light as they swung quietly and obediently to their moorings, it was difficult to imagine losing all this to the Germans. More than that, it was unthinkable. And if, like the AFS man, one ever started to believe it, then that was the beginning of the end.
He thought again: Nasty little man. And determined to forget about him.
He walked idly along the length of the quay and paused. Jutting out from the maze of houses and workshops that lined the waterfront there were a number of quays and jetties, with harbour craft and fishing vessels tied alongside. Against one, he could just make out the masts and upper-works of what looked like a grey MFV.
Ashley stared for a moment, then, carefully gauging the distance, walked up to the main street and made his way along it until he guessed he was above the boat. Then, at the first alley, he cut down towards the water again.
It was the right quay. The MFV lay close against the wall beside a fuel pump.
He went closer. It was the French boat all right. He took a long look at her. She was in good condition, the grey paint bright and fresh on her sides and the sails clean and neatly furled. The original fishing gear had been left intact: on the main deck there were two large winches for hauling the nets and against the bulwarks on the afterdeck, two trawl boards.
There was no-one about. Ashley crouched on his heels and called down.
After a few moments a face appeared at the window of the deckhouse. The face watched Ashley to see if he would go away and, seeing that he wasn’t going to, emerged reluctantly on to the deck. It was the man Ashley had spotted from the tender. He was still wearing overalls and smoking. He raised his eyebrows.
Ashley smiled. ‘Hello. Just wondered where the boat came from originally.’
There was a frown of puzzlement.
Ashley took a guess and, switching to his inadequate French, tried again.
‘Ah!’ the man nodded. ‘Concarneau!’
Ashley smiled to himself; he’d been right about the boat then. Concarneau was on the south coast of Brittany and a well-known fishing harbour. Ashley had been there once. He said so and the Frenchman nodded slowly and smiled. Ashley wanted to say how hospitable the people had been and how much he’d enjoyed it, but his French wasn’t up to it. Instead he said that the town was very nice.
He would have liked to know what the boat was doing nowadays but, since the beginning of the war, one didn’t ask questions like that. Instead he asked, ‘And where did you go to fish … er … before?’
‘On the banks.’
‘A long way?’ Ashley gestured to show what he meant.
The man shrugged. ‘Away four days or so.’
Someone else appeared from the deckhouse. An RNVR lieutenant, dressed in uniform jacket and battered cap. He smiled up at Ashley. ‘Evening. What can we do for you?’
Ashley switched back to English with relief. ‘Just interested to see a Concarneau boat after all this time.’
‘Ah. You know Concarneau?’ With surprise Ashley realised the lieutenant wasn’t English; there was a slight accent that was almost but not quite American.
He replied, ‘I’ve sailed around there.’
The lieutenant nodded politely. ‘In a small boat?’
‘A sloop. Smallish. Twenty-five feet overall.’
‘Very nice. You cruised a lot?’
‘Yes, most of Normandy and Brittany.’
There was a pause. The lieutenant asked, ‘What ship now?’
‘Destroyer. A bit more solid underfoot.’
The lieutenant smiled. Ashley stood up. ‘Well, I must be going now.’ He said to the fisherman, ‘Au revoir! Bonne chance!’ And, waving to the lieutenant, turned to go.
‘Hey, wait a moment.’ The officer vanished behind the wall and, after a few seconds, appeared over the top of the ladder. ‘Look, er, how about coming aboard for a drink this evening?’
Ashley looked at his watch. He was late already. ‘Sorry, got to dash.’
‘Perhaps later then?’
Ashley hesitated. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘I’m a French-Canadian, from Quebec. But then you speak French too, don’t you?’
Ashley threw back his head and laughed. ‘Exceptionally badly!’
The Canadian smiled but his eyes were serious. He asked for Ashley’s name, then said, ‘Try and drop by later. I’d like to show you the boat.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ Ashley waved again and walked off, glancing briefly over the boat as he left.
When he was half way up the main street he stopped in his tracks. There was something wrong with that MFV.
He walked on, not quite certain what it was. It was only when he got to the hotel where he was due to meet the girl that it came to him. That boat was going to make a rotten patrol boat.
It had no guns.
The girl was beautiful, well-bred and boring. Ashley wouldn’t have minded if she’d had a sense of humour, but if she had one, it was well hidden. Nor would he have minded if she’d been especially attractive. But she was too cool for that. Making love to her would be like embracing a cucumber – a distinctly one-sided experience.
He decided he must be getting more discerning in his old age. A few years ago he wouldn’t have cared what a woman’s conversation was like if she was as lovely as this one. But now he was more particular. He liked his women warm, attractive and – what? Funny, earthy, capable of laughter. And this one most definitely was not.
By nine the conversation was drifting aimlessly and Ashley found himself drinking too much. By ten he was bored and restless.
When she started talking about the problems of finding young men to come to the austerity dance that her father was giving for her in London, Ashley knew he had to get away. He made a show of looking at his watch and said he had to be back at his ship at eleven, which was not quite true.
The moment he’d seen her off he felt a wonderful relief. There was still a good hour before the last boat left, still time to have some fun. He sauntered down the dark main street, wondering whether to go in search of Blythe. Almost immediately he decided against it. He could drink with Blythe any time.
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