The Blooding of the Guns
Page 29
‘Time I moved, in any case.’
Whatever she said now, it was obvious she wanted him to leave. He opened the door for her, and followed her into the hall. Perhaps when he had time to think, he’d understand this…
‘McEwan will send the motor round.’ She spoke without looking at him. ‘If you don’t mind, Hugh. I think I will go straight up and lie down.’
‘Of course.’
She’d rung for the butler; now Hugh watched her climb the curving staircase. McEwan came shuffling from the back regions and she stopped on the first landing to give him instructions about the motor. Hugh waited looking up at her; she raised a hand.
‘All the very best of good luck, Hugh. I’m so sorry about my silly head. You will forgive me?’
That had been totally artificial… The front door bell clanged. Sarah looked as if she’d been shot at: alarmed, flustered. McEwan, who’d begun to move towards the door of the servants’ quarters, halted and turned about. Sarah was coming down the stairs: her cheeks were flushed, and she looked beautiful as well as upset.
McEwan opened the double doors to the storm porch and went through it to the outer door. As it swung back. Hugh saw an officer in the uniform of the Camerons. Sarah called out quickly ‒ too quickly ‒ ‘.Why it’s Alastair! Hugh this is an old, old friend of my family’s—’
‘My dear Sarah.’
The Highlander advanced into the hall. Sarah told Hugh. ‘Major Kinloch-Stuart. A very old ‒ oh, you’re a sort of cousin really, aren’t you. Alastair?’
Kinloch-Stuart, Hugh thought, looked a bit surprised at that. Sarah added, ‘My brother-in-law, Captain Everard.’
The two men shook hands. Kinloch-Stuart said, ‘Captain of the celebrated HMS Nile, of course. May I say, sir, it’s an honour.’
‘McEwan, show Major Kinloch-Stuart into the drawing-room… ‘Alastair, would you excuse us, for a few moments?’
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll come with you to the motor. Hugh.’ Hugh and Cousin Alastair exchanged courteous goodbyes. Then he was walking out into the driveway with Sarah, knowing finally what all the clock-watching had been about, and the tension and the headache… He felt surprise, and jealousy, and disappointment. He’d feel worse, he knew, presently, when it had sunk right in. But he’d no right to feel anything, he told himself. He’d assumed far too much, taken far too many things for granted.
Sarah murmured, ‘I’m ‒ sorry. Hugh. I’m so—’
‘Why? Why should you?’
‘It isn’t ‒ well, as it may seem, to be—’
‘I’ve no idea why you should be upset. Or why an old friend shouldn’t call on you.’ Looking down at her, he met her worried, hazel eyes. He might have been looking into that photograph, the one Bates had rescued. He thought, my God, but I’ve been an idiot!
‘Hugh ‒ please understand ‒ it is not as it might appear!’
He nodded, and smiled easily, seeing how desperate she was that he should believe her. He felt as if he’d been kicked in the stomach by a horse.
‘It doesn’t appear like anything at all. I promise you.’ He could hear the motor chugging round from the stable-yard. He asked her, ‘May I write to you, from up north?’
She nodded, seriously. ‘Please. Soon. And ‒ Hugh, don’t stay up there too long?’
* * *
As it happened ‒ no, he didn’t expect he’d be up in Scapa very long.
Sarah had said ‒ last time he was here, when they’d discussed Nick’s future in the Navy ‒ she said something like ‘the Navy’s your God, does it have to be his too?’ And she’d been right, up to a point. In a way, the Navy was his God; and he was caught up in it all the more strongly, perhaps, for having been so to speak excommunicated, a decade ago. Perhaps one might profit from that now? Not only in the determination to make up for lost time, but from having been left with few illusions, no blind faith or blinkers.
Recent developments ‒ Beatty’s popularity and the criticism of Jellicoe, who was ten times the man Beatty could ever dream of becoming ‒ was a perfect example of the need for such awareness. Jellicoe had given his whole life and his very considerable, exceptional talents to the Navy, and it was allowing him to be treated as a whipping-boy. Kicking him upstairs. Beatty was to take over as Commander-in-Chief, and Jellicoe was to go to the Admiralty as First Sea Lord.
Hugh knew it privately, from old friends now at the Admiralty. He’d also heard a whisper ‒ which it would probably never be safe or politic to allow past his own lips ‒ that during the night of 31 May/l June the Admiralty had intercepted and deciphered no fewer than seven German signals all of which had made it clear that Scheer was steering for Horns Reef, and they’d passed none of them to Jellicoe. They’d wirelessed two earlier intercepted messages to him, but these had conflicted with reports coming in at the same time from Jellicoe’s own scouting cruisers. If the Admiralty had confided to their Commander-in-Chief the information they’d possessed themselves, the Grand Fleet would have been at Horns Reef at daylight and Scheer would have faced annihilation.
The car had stopped. Hugh Everard emerged with a start from his thoughts, realising he hadn’t consciously seen a yard of the miles they’d covered. In the process, he’d managed not to think of Sarah.
He climbed out. ‘Thank you. Hart. A very comfortable journey.’
Actually the man could have run over a cow, and Hugh wouldn’t have noticed it. Half-a-crown changed hands.
‘Thank ye, sir.’ Hart touched his cap. ‘An’ guid luck tae ye all!’
Hugh wondered, If you’d been on this shore a month ago, would you have wished us luck ‒ or catcalled?
The great chance had come, and it had been missed. The best one could say, perhaps, was that the High Seas Fleet would almost certainly not put out to sea again. An American commentator had summed it up neatly by observing that the Kaiser’s fleet had assaulted its gaolers but was now back behind bars.
He watched the car drive away in its cloud of exhaust smoke and dust. Then he turned, strolled out along the railway pier. It wasn’t much after four-thirty, but that looked like his gig leaving the boom already. Gathering way: but end-on, hard to see… He stopped, narrowing his eyes against the brightness on the water. And it was the gig, sure enough: he could see the slow rhythm of its oars.
Plenty of time…
The gig would be taking him this evening to dine aboard a flagship with an admiral who’d intimated that he’d like to celebrate Captain Everard’s imminent promotion to rear-admiral. There’d been no confirmation yet about his new appointment, but there’d been a strong hint, privately, of a cruiser squadron. This, and other flag changes which would have to be announced first, was known at present by only a few men in the Admiralty, and Jellicoe, and Evan-Thomas, and the admiral with whom Hugh would be dining tonight. Before long, though, Jackie Fisher would read of it in The Times: and the old man could choke, if he cared to, on his eggs and bacon!
Halfway out along the pier; and the boat was halfway from ship to shore. This evening ‒ he wasn’t looking forward to it, but it was the sort of thing he’d have to learn to handle now ‒ this evening the gig would display his pendant in her bows. The crew’s drill would be immaculate, and the admiral, glaring down from his quarterdeck, would see nothing that could fail to please a seaman’s eye.
If he doesn’t have one, I’ll lend him mine!
He suppressed both the thought and the smile that came with it. The order of the evening must be tact, diplomacy. There’d been too many rifts, cliques, factions; the whole Service had suffered from them in past years. The thing now was to forget personal views, likes and dislikes, and get on with the job in hand.
The gig’s wake was a slim streak stretching back ruler-straight to Nile’s impressive silhouette. And she was an impressively happy ship these days. Experience of battle had given officers and men an appreciation of each other’s qualities and a sense of inter-dependence that had perhaps been lacking earlier. At the co
st of lives and ships, the Navy had a new edge to it, a sense of unity it hadn’t had in years.
One had now to preserve that unity, and use it.
He waited at the top of the steps, and watched his boat curve in towards them.
First published in the United Kingdom in 1976 by Michael Joseph Ltd.
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2017 by
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Copyright © Alexander Fullerton, 1976
The moral right of Alexander Fullerton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781911591504
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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