Good Enough For Nelson

by John Winton

  ‘Thank God for the Navy! ’

  They had had a petrol leak in the bilges, it seemed, and when the boy went down to look for it and mend it, the vapour had exploded. There was surprisingly little visible signs of the fire on Shangri La’s deck, but the boy had been very badly burned by the flash, on his face, his right arm and shoulder. Lucy saw his face as he was carried on board Pegasus. He said nothing, but just looked at her. The disfiguring blotches on his cheek and fore-head, the eyelashes frizzled yellow-white, the head scorched almost bald like an old man’s, made her feel physically sick. While he was carefully laid on a bunk, his father and sister sat, trembling with shock, unable to speak, in Pegasus’ cabin. Persimmons and Adrianovitch wrapped them both in blankets and gave them steaming tea in mugs they could hardly hold, their hands were shaking so much.

  Lucy had been vaguely aware that the thunder was louder and the rain was falling harder, but looking up she saw the helicopter directly overhead, as it had been that day on the moor. But this time, Isaiah Nine Smith was beside her. They were lowering a stretcher inside a cage on a wire line. McAllester and Bingley and Chung Toi carefully handled the boy on to the stretcher, but it was impossible for Buster to keep his helicopter directly over Pegasus, and no sooner was the boy in than the cage swung away and out over the sea, where it soon dipped and scraped into the waves. In a flash, Chung Toi and Bingley had their oilskins off and had dived into the sea, but before they could reach the stretcher Buster’s winchman had hauled it up. Soon the line was lowered again with the rescue collar for the daughter and her father, and both were whirled upwards into the dusk. Buster made one triumphant pass over Pegasus and then flew out across the sea towards the College.

  They took Shangri La, with a ‘prize crew’ on board, in tow and headed back under power towards Dartmouth. Lucy, still steering Pegasus, had time to reflect. Ikey’s crew had behaved very well, all of them. They had worked as a team, with the minimum orders needed. They had fought a fire, handled unfamiliar sails in an unfamiliar boat, called up help, rendered first aid, made tea, jumped into the sea, all as it seemed necessary at the time.

  ‘Have we got any of that beer left?’ Isaiah Nine Smith asked. ‘We’ve got some whisky, sir.’

  ‘I won’t enquire how that got on board, but let’s have some. Would you like some grog, Lucy?’

  Lucy realised she was freezing cold and wet. Her arms and legs felt like ice. ‘Yes, please.’

  Isaiah Nine Smith came and sat beside her, in the steering position. ‘I hope you weren’t too dismayed by all that?’

  A few weeks earlier, Lucy might have resented such a condescending question. But now, she said, ‘To be honest, I was absolutely petrified, half with fright and half with sheer excitement.’

  ‘Don’t be too worried. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it seemed.’

  ‘I think your team did very well indeed.’

  ‘Yes they did, didn’t they?’

  Ikey himself, in Lucy’s opinion, had done better than anybody. He had handled everything and everybody without ever appearing to get ruffled or at a loss. It was very comforting, Lucy admitted it freely, to be in the hands of somebody who so clearly knew what he was about. Somebody passed up a mug of cocoa to her and Lucy sipped it, gazing at the friendly shaded light of the compass. In the comfortable darkness, Isaiah Nine Smith put his arm round Lucy’s waist and they sat together in the stem-sheets companionably, quite oblivious of McAllester’s baleful gaze from astern of them, where he was steering Shangri La in tow.

  Back at Norton, the helicopter had landed, to be welcomed by the PMO and The Bodger. When the three members of the Dartmouth Amateur Dramatic Society got out, The Bodger was ready for them.

  ‘How did it go?’ he asked.

  ‘Marvellous. Better than Strindberg any day!’

  ‘There was one anxious moment when Tom got washed into the sea and we thought his make-up and his rubber scalp would come off!’

  ‘I must say, Sam, I thought you were pushing it with your touch of the old Altmark's. I was sure they’d rumble that. The Navy’s here, indeed!’

  CHAPTER XII

  Reading his breakfast Times, The Bodger slowly became aware, first, that these crumpled pages had been read before and, second, that Julia was regarding him steadily and intently. From previous experience of these two phenomena, The Bodger knew enough to turn at once to the court circular page, with its notices of marriages which had been arranged. And there it was, the top notice.

  ‘Hell’s teeth! Well, I’ll be homswaggled! Ikey Smith and Lucy! How about that! Who’d have thought it? How on earth did that happen without anybody noticing?’

  ‘Without you noticing, you mean,’ Julia said. ‘It’s been as plain as the nose on your face for weeks and weeks. They did everything but put in it in the College daily orders...’

  ‘Have they put it in Daily Orders?’

  ‘They might just as well have done. Looking back now, I think it’s been on the cards since they first met. It is amazing in one way, I will agree. Naval officers are so diffident about these things, one wonders how they ever do get married. They deserve to become extinct.’

  ‘Well, these two certainly fooled me. Lucy marrying an NO! Lucy a naval wife! Cor, there’s a turn up for the book! Whatever happened to the reactionary running dogs of fascism or whatever? This is like Madame Mao marrying General de Gaulle.’

  All the same, The Bodger reflected, this had happened before, many times. This engagement was typical of the Service and, in a way, it was reassuring to find it still so. The Bodger had forgotten how many times in his life he had opened his morning paper and found that someone he would never have expected to get engaged had got engaged to someone he would never have expected him to get engaged to.

  But Julia was still looking expectantly at the paper. The Bodger looked again. And there it was, much further down.

  ''Polly and Lionel Tinkle! Ye Gods and little sharks, wonders will never cease!’ The Bodger read the notice again, and blinked. ‘Goodness, I didn’t know that was who her father was. I knew he was an admiral from what Polly said, but I didn’t somehow connect the two names. Hell’s teeth, how’s he going to react when he finds out his daughter is going to marry someone like Lionel Tinkle? I can hear all those dear dead distinguished family admirals of the red, white and blue revolving in their hammocks! ’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Julia. ‘Polly’s the youngest daughter, and she’s got two older sisters, both married, and there are three older boys, all married. Knowing that family I expect they’ll be glad that Polly has brought a fresh face on to the scene. It’s Mr Tinkle I’m sorry for. Marrying into that family. They’ll eat him alive.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said The Bodger. ‘He’s pretty indigestible, young Tinkle, like his little red book.’

  But Julia was still on edge.

  ‘Don’t tell me there’s more ... Holy Mackerel, what a day for the College! Here it is, Professor Alastair McAllester, PhD, MA, to Mrs ... Mrs Who?’

  ‘She’s a near neighbour of the Prof.’s. I’ve met her a couple of times. Very nice woman. She’s a widow.’

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’ The Bodger laid down his paper and stared at it. ‘A College hat-trick. This is really quite incredible, you know...’ The Bodger’s eye caught another notice. ‘Half a moment, here’s something you haven’t seen. The marriage took place quietly in London, of Dr Seamus Rothesay, MSc, of Dartmouth, and Mrs Myra Shanks, of Ames, Iowa...’

  ‘Let me see that,’ Julia snatched the paper away.

  ‘Ha! You missed it, didn’t you?’

  ‘That’s the lady in America old Seamus has been corresponding with all these years! That’s very nice, Robert. He’s retiring this term, and now he’s got a brand new wife to keep him happy and occupied.’

  ‘Poor chap.’

  The clock on the mantelpiece, set three minutes fast, began to gong the hour. The Bodger looked at his watch. ‘Must go. Divisions. When Lucy gets down, give
her my love and congratulations ...’

  When The Bodger had gone, Julia sat on at the breakfast table, trying to recapture her own feelings when she was newly engaged to be married. To be honest, it was probably one of the most ambiguous sensations in life. Happiness, certainly, but anxiety, too. Pleasure alloyed with tinges of doubt. Fulfilment, but a sense of anti-climax, too. To get engaged was a clear-cut decision, but it was overwhelmed with complications. It gave a great increase in confidence to face life. Now there would be two of you, to face whatever might come.

  When Lucy came down, wearing a dress instead of trousers for the first time that term, Julia got up to kiss her. ‘Congratulations, darling, I’m very happy for you. I’m sure you’ll be very happy. Though I must say Robert was very surprised to see you going to marry a naval officer.’

  ‘I know,’ Lucy said, dreamily. ‘But I just fancy him. I think he’s marvellous.’

  Julia nodded, recognising the authentic language of passion. ‘But have you thought about what it means to marry someone in the Navy? I mean I’m not trying to dissuade you, of course not...’

  ‘Too late now,’ said Lucy happily.

  ‘Of course. But there’s a lot to marrying someone in the forces.’

  ‘You mean the separation, and that? There’s not as much now as there used to be, is there?’

  ‘No, not quite. But you don’t want to ignore it entirely. There will still be quite a lot of time away from him. Even when he gets a job in a shore establishment, you’ll find he’s quite often tied up in the evenings.’

  ‘I suppose we can always get to know each other again, after each separation. Be like having another honeymoon again!’ ‘That’s true. But a marriage that never gets past a series of honeymoons, might be very enjoyable, but it is still likely to be an immature one.’

  ‘So yours with Uncle Robert must be immature then, if what you say is true?’

  Julia felt the prick of the shaft. ‘Yes, I suppose that must be true. But really, Lucy, there’s quite a lot to marrying someone in the forces. You’ll find you have to entertain the oddest people, and the more senior your husband gets the odder your guests will be. Can you bear the thought of meal after meal with the most peculiar complete strangers?’

  ‘But surely, that will only be when you get like Uncle Robert and you, as Captain of the College, and Mrs Captain?’

  ‘Yes, up to a point, but it happens all the time. Are you ready to be independent, and yet not independent, mend the lawn-mower and handle the garage man and discipline the children while he’s away?’

  ‘Oh I’m sure I can do all that! ’

  ‘I’m sure you can, Lucy darling, but can you also handle him when he gets home and starts telling you you’ve been doing the lawn-mower all wrong and you’ve been giving the kids the wrong breakfast cereal and why did you send the car to that garage didn’t you know the mechanic was an alcoholic, and all the rest of it? When he comes back, he’ll want to take charge again, although you’ve really got quite independent while he’s been away. You’ll have to adjust to that. By the end of the day the children might have been driving you round the bend and when he comes home you want him to punish them, as their father. But when he comes home he’s delighted to see them, because he’s their father.’

  ‘Did you ever think of divorce, Aunt Julia?’

  ‘No,’ said Julia. ‘Murder often, divorce never. Let me see your ring.’

  ‘Ikey says it belonged to his grandmother.’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  With a shock, Julia realised that she was saying all the conventional things and Lucy was making all the conventional responses. For all her hippy friends and her unconventional life style, Lucy was still a conservative conventional at heart. Her clothes, her beads, her shawls, her joss-sticks, her conversation, her yoga, her meditations, her politics, were only surface effects. They would soon be swept away and be replaced by the basically traditional view of life that Lucy held, in which a white wedding with all the trimmings, husband, home and beauty, all had their traditional place. Looking at Lucy now, Julia fancied she could already see the firm chin and decided manner of the future matriarch, another Lady Betty Monson, in fact. When all was said and done, Julia thought, it was Polly who was the rebel one, Polly who had kicked over her family’s traces.

  Polly was her usual imperturbable self at The Bodger’s morning briefing. Perhaps, The Bodger thought, he could see just the faintest of flushes on her cheek.

  ‘Many congratulations, Polly. I hope you’ll both be very happy.’

  The flush became a definite blush. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘I suppose you’ll be starting all the paper-work to get out of the Wrens now, will you?’

  ‘Oh I don’t know, sir. I won’t be leaving just yet.’

  The Bodger fancied he could detect the faintest note of defensiveness, as though Polly were already girding herself against family criticism.

  ‘That’s a splendid ring.’

  ‘Yes, Lionel gave it to me.’ Polly laughed. ‘Of course he did!’

  ‘OK, let’s have the day’s disasters now, if you’re ready, Polly.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The local papers and the local television people would like to interview Hilda and take her picture standing in front of the College today, sir.’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  ‘It’s her menu book, sir. Apparently it’s selling like hot cakes, sir.’

  ‘What, that cyclostyled thing, all stapled together and typed out, with June’s drawings, that thing?’ The Bodger could not entirely repress a momentary but unworthy twinge of jealousy that someone else was of interest to the media.

  ‘That’s it, sir. She called it Lady Hamilton’s Personal Cookery Book for Gallant British Tars, sir, and apparently it’s a bestseller and now some proper paperback publisher wants to do it in a new edition.’

  ‘Good God! Hilda having her picture taken in front of the College! Do you know, Polly, thirty years ago Hilda wouldn’t have been allowed to even live within thirty miles of the College, let alone have her picture taken there?’

  ‘Those were the days, sir.’ There was a warning glint of battle in Polly’s eye. ‘Shall I go on, sir?’

  ‘Yes please, Polly.’

  ‘Today, in the College, there’s the cricket match against Plymouth Command Marines. The final swimming tests for backward swimmers. There’s the performance, the first night actually, sir, of the Senior Tutor’s play The Highflyer Affair, in the theatre at six o’clock, sir. Lieutenant Commander Wright would like to see you, sir, on a personal matter to do with his division, this morning if convenient.’

  ‘Do you know what that’s about?’

  ‘Yes sir. I gather it’s one of his division who says he wants to leave the College and doesn’t want to go any further in the Navy, sir.’

  ‘Oh Lord. Well, I’ll see them as soon as you can fix it, Polly.’

  ‘Yes, sir. They’re outside now, sir.’

  It was, predictably, Persimmons who wanted to leave the Navy. The Bodger could see at one glance that the young man was determined. It was always an ordeal for any OUT to be hauled in front of the Captain of the College for whatever reason, but Persimmons had clearly made up his mind to see it through. In The Bodger’s opinion, he was quite old enough to decide for himself that he wished to leave the Navy. The Bodger thought it almost always fruitless, and might even be considered impertinent, to try and make anyone alter his decision. But the Navy convention demanded that Persimmons be interviewed. Even had he been a senior Captain, loaded with medals, dripping with honours, quite bowed down under long years of service to his country, he would still have been interviewed by a superior had he announced he wished to retire prematurely.

  ‘All right, Persimmons, tell me why you want to go.’

  Persimmons explained how he came to join the Navy, and how he was quite good at some of it and enjoyed a little of it but disliked and mistrusted most of it. There were other things he wanted to do with
his life. He did not say so, but The Bodger knew, that leaving the Navy would be a personal defeat for him. He would have to go back to his family, who might not actually say ‘we told you so’ but would hardly be human if they did not think it. In the circumstances it was peculiarly brave of Persimmons to leave the Navy.

  The Bodger’s heart was not in his own argument, but he took the line that it was early days for Persimmons to come to such conclusions, that something must have persuaded him to join in the first place and he ought to let that something have longer to prove its point, that the Navy had never been an easy profession to follow, that the Navy was all the better for having officers who had periodical doubts about it, that the Navy was now on the brink of a series of revolutionary changes, and needed young men like Persimmons himself who were not only representatives of the Navy’s future but also, through their families, links with the Navy’s past. The Navy was a hard life, but that made it all the more worthwhile.

  The Bodger advanced his arguments, because it was his duty to do so, and without much hope that they would have any effect. But, to his surprise, and almost to his regret, he saw that they were having an effect. Persimmons was weakening. Maybe he was overawed by a Captain’s interview in spite of himself, maybe his respect for his family’s tradition was a bigger part of his nature than he realised, maybe he retained some residual feeling of challenge about the Navy, maybe even The Bodger’s arguments were more persuasive than The Bodger gave them credit for, but, after some more conversation, Persimmons agreed to withdraw his application to leave the Navy.

  After Persimmons had gone, Shiner Wright lingered behind. ‘May I say how very well done that was, sir? I tried to convince him, without any joy ...’

  ‘No it wasn’t well done,’ said The Bodger. ‘Actually, I think he was right. He should leave. And he probably will, when he’s recovered from this. I had to do my duty and try to persuade him, and the combination of being interviewed by the Captain of the College and appeals to his sense of family pride were all too much for him. He might do well in the Navy. He’s got a lot of talent. Probably bred into him. But he might well be better off out of it. I can see that, and so can he. I’ve just put the Navy’s interests before that young man’s. The Navy may have gained a competent and useful officer just now. But he has probably lost something the Navy can never give him. Actually I’m a little disappointed I managed to persuade him so easily. No, I don’t feel I’ve done at all well. I don’t feel any particular satisfaction in what I’ve just done, I can tell you.’