She stared at him as if she had not heard. Then she replied quickly, ‘No, thank you.’ She walked vaguely to the centre of the room and stood by the light, her hair shining like black silk beneath it.
‘I think I’d better go. To my room.’ She waited for him to reach her. ‘I might have to leave tonight. I … I don’t know.’
‘I’m staying anyway.’ He gripped her hand firmly. ‘Just in case.’ He did not know how to go on, nor did he want to stop. ‘The ship will be anchored offshore for several days yet. We might see each other again if …’
She held up her hand and touched his lips. Her fingers were very cool.
‘Don’t say any more. Please. It won’t do any good. For either of us, will it?’
He gripped the hand and held it against his mouth. ‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ She took her hands away and moved back towards the door. ‘You’ve done so much for me. More than you’ll ever know.’ Her eyes widened as if from shock. ‘I don’t even know your name!’
He stood quite still. ‘Rex.’ It sounded flat and final.
‘Goodbye, Rex. I’ll remember the promise. I will write if …’ She turned and almost ran from the room.
He looked at the open door for several seconds, his mind empty of feeling. Knowing it would soon return, like an old pain.
‘Goodbye, Suzane.’ The empty room seemed to echo his words, and he walked slowly down the stairway to the desk to make his arrangements.
The clerk listened attentively and then watched as Standish took out his wallet.
‘I will send a message in my brother-in-law’s boat, sir. It shall be done.’
‘Thanks.’ He hesitated, only half aware of the noise and laughter from the bar. ‘Do you have any gin?’
‘So sorry, sir. No. Mostly Americans come here.’ He shrugged. ‘They seem to prefer whisky or vodka.’ He gestured towards a shelf behind him. ‘The whisky is, er, Japanese. The vodka I cannot vouch for.’
Standish said, ‘Get me a bottle of vodka and send it to my room.’
Later, as he sat in a battered cane chair beside the bed he wondered what he was going to do. Before, things had been planned, even predictable. After the submarine Electra he had intended to transfer to nuclear boats, the new way of life. But the fire and Alison had changed all that.
When he looked at the bottle he saw it was half empty, yet he felt ice cold sober.
What was there left for him? And to what purpose?
He thought of the girl along the corridor, and what might have been. Another delusion, one more hopeless dream.
Below his window a police klaxon brought an answering chorus of shouts and the shrill cries of some seabirds which had been dozing on the hotel’s corrugated iron roof.
Slowly, almost without thinking, Standish started to fill his pipe, his eyes distant as he watched the stars beyond the veranda. The pipe was still unlit when his head lolled against the back of the chair and he fell into a deep, mindless sleep.
At five in the morning a barefooted servant padded into the room with a pot of black coffee. After shaking Standish’s shoulder until he was awake he stood back to stare at the untouched bed with something like disapproval.
Standish stood up and examined his crumpled clothes and felt the stubble on his chin. He had brought nothing ashore from the ship, and he was conscious of the hammers beating against the lining of his skull.
He asked, ‘The young English lady. Is she awake?’
The man shook his head and gave a toothy grin. ‘She leave in the night. Her man come in great hurry.’ He nodded cheerfully. ‘Great hurry.’
‘And I was asleep.’ Standish turned towards the window and the shimmering expanse of sea below the horizon.
‘Any message for me?’
The servant frowned. ‘From the British ship, sir?’ He saw the look on Standish’s face and added hastily, ‘No messages, sir.’
What could she have said anyway? He walked on to the veranda and stared down at the cool, deserted street.
It was over.
15 The Only Place
IN THREE DAYS, to the casual observer at least, the ship’s storm damage had been put to rights, and Quarrie announced that the starboard propeller shaft was as good as could be expected under the circumstances.
The Terrapin’s brief visit had not altogether been a happy one. There had been more trouble ashore, including fights with the police and several incidents of brawls with the town’s shopkeepers for no reason at all. One able seaman had been sent overland to Singapore after receiving a severe head wound, the cause of which was as obscure to him as to the patrol which had found him bleeding in a back alley with half his uniform torn from his body.
Dalziel had received several complaints from the local authorities but had remarked on each occasion, ‘Just high spirits. It’ll pass.’
But on board his attitude had been somewhat different. In spite of growing resentment he had driven officers and ratings alike with no less determination than he had shown when he had first taken command.
On the last evening as the officers gathered in the wardroom the place stank of fresh paint, while from the bathrooms came an unending rattle of pipes as the libertymen prepared for one final run ashore to mark the end of the ‘courtesy visit.’
Apart from the regular inspections of work progress about the ship Standish had had little contact with the captain. When he was not goading and threatening, Dalziel had spent most of his spare time ashore. Pigott had told Standish that he had seen the captain on one occasion in company with Lieutenant Rhodes, the studious looking American, who had apparently flown in unheralded on some mission or other. Mostly, Standish suspected, to keep an eye on the Terrapin’s progress and report back to Admiral Curtis.
Standish sat in his usual chair, an untouched glass by his elbow as he watched the others grouped around the open scuttles.
Somehow or other a bag of mail had at last caught up with the ship, and for once the talk was not of the Terrapin’s inner problems, but of that other, remote world which Standish had almost forgotten.
Caley was unusually talkative, and even this early was well flushed with beer. It seemed that his daughter, the apple of his eye, was to be married. She was only seventeen, and the lucky man was apparently a marine corporal on the Admiral’s staff at Portsmouth.
He was saying thickly, ‘A good lad to all accounts. He’s got a cushy little number an’ should be able to make sergeant if he keeps his nose clean.’ He frowned. ‘Still, I don’t see why there’s such a bloody hurry to get spliced. I might not be home in time to see it.’
Pigott glanced at Rideout and raised one eyebrow. The doctor turned away hurriedly to hide his expression from a baffled Caley.
On the other side of the wardroom Quarrie was listening with obvious resignation to Hornby’s news from home. His son had been made captain of the school’s cricket team.
‘Did I say, he’s only ten, you know!’ Hornby’s flabby face was shining with pride.
Quarrie nodded gloomily. ‘Yes. You did mention it a few dozen times.’
Rideout had received a whole bundle of letters, but had opened the most official one first. After a quick examination he had taken it to his cabin to read in privacy. Looking at him now, Standish was unable to imagine what had caused so much interest.
He glanced at the full glass beside him and swallowed hard. He would wait a bit longer. In the last few days he had been drinking a lot, so there never seemed to be any time when he was completely clear-headed. The work, the sun, the constant stream of problems and complaints had been made almost bearable in this way, but as he looked at the glass he felt something like disgust. The others were friendly enough, but seemed embarrassed by him. They probably imagined he was still brooding about his wife. He picked up the glass and let the gin burn the back of his throat. But for a few moments they had forgotten about him, and were unconscious of the hurt they might be offering as he listened to their talk of home,
of wives and of security.
Wishart crossed to his chair and sat down beside him.
Standish said, ‘No letters for you Sub?’
‘Only one.’ Wishart relaxed slightly. ‘Just a bill from Gieves though.’ He dropped his voice. ‘We’re off tomorrow then?’
Standish thought of Dalziel’s face an hour earlier when he had told him of the new orders. An independent patrol again, but this time higher up into the great Gulf of Thailand. Until the patrol was cancelled, or the ship was relieved, they would never get closer to land than one hundred miles.
He replied, ‘Yes. There have been reports of fishing boats in our allotted area.’ It sounded vague, and it was. ‘Intelligence apparently think there might be a possibility of smuggling. Exchanging arms and illicit goods at sea.’ He took another drink. ‘It’s another stop and search job.’
Wishart nodded. ‘A bit lonely.’
‘You could put it like that.’ Standish ignored the curious look on Wishart’s face. He had said almost the same thing to Dalziel, half expecting him to agree. But he had said firmly, ‘In a way, Number One. But I cannot agree altogether. It does give us elasticity, a fluidity of movement, eh?’
Standish could not be sure if Dalziel meant it, or whether he was just making the best of what must now be evident as the ship’s last active task.
Dalziel must have had a letter from someone, too. As Standish had turned to leave the cabin he had remarked, ‘It seems that young Irvine will be going on his commanding officer’s course after this commission ends. He’ll get his half-stripe, and then …’ He had stopped there and had looked slowly round the small, outdated cabin. ‘All this will have been excellent training for him.’
Even now, just thinking about it, made Standish feel uneasy. Dalziel had seemed so pathetic, so unusually lost in his own thoughts that for a few brief moments his guard had dropped.
Wishart asked, ‘What will become of the ship?’
Standish signalled for another drink. ‘They’ll probably try and sell her to some up and coming power. You know the sort of thing surely. A country that takes all our aid and spends the cash on building its armed forces. It’s a great incentive for the newly freed colonial people. Join the army, or bloody well starve!’ He looked at Wishart and smiled. ‘Sorry. Not my day.’
God. I’m beginning to sound like Dalziel now. Why should Wishart’s question affect him like this, or at all? It was just a ship. One more for the breakers. But it did matter, and he could not help himself.
Feet clattered on the deck outside the door and a massive figure staggered over the coaming, supported on two sticks. It was the giant Australian engineer they had found in the burning village. He was scarlet in the face and had a bottle protruding from each jacket pocket.
He grinned broadly as they pounded his shoulders and boomed, ‘Had to come out and see you before you goes off again. I heard you was leaving, so I decided to cadge a lift with my two friends here an’ make it a party.’
His friends were a pair of Thai customs officers who had been regular visitors to the ship during her stay at anchor. They spoke little English but were beaming from ear to ear with pleasure at their unexpected treatment.
The Australian tapped his nose and added, ‘Course, I’ll be sure of a lift back this way, eh, lads?’
He saw Standish and hobbled over to greet him. As he flopped into a chair he said wheezily, ‘Jeez, I’m glad I caught you. Wanted to shake yer paw once more to thank you for all the trouble an’ that.’ He raised his leg gingerly. ‘It was a near thing that time.’
Standish signalled to Wills. ‘We were all lucky. Anyway, I’ve already been ashore once.’
The man eyed him strangely. ‘All the same.’ He waited until Wills had brought the drinks. ‘With a lovely little sheila like that I’d have thought you’d have been dancing a bloody jig by now.’
Standish smiled to hide his sudden despair. ‘I didn’t think anyone had noticed. But she’s gone. Left the ship three days ago.’
‘Well, there’s a thing.’ He swallowed deeply and smacked his lips. ‘I’d have liked to speak to her too before I shove off back to the bloody job. A real nice little sheila.’ He sighed. ‘But what with the traffic and my gammy leg, I wasn’t fast enough. When I got across the street she was gone.’
Standish stared at him. ‘When was this?’
‘What’s the matter with you, deaf or something?’ He was grinning broadly. ‘I was on my way here. Just now, for Christ’s sake.’
Standish took the glass and held it with both hands. She was back, and he was still sitting here, drinking, listening to his own heart beating like a drum.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Sure I’m sure.’ The Australian prodded his leg with a stick. ‘Along that street by some crabby cinema. Hell, you take some convincing, you sure do!’
Standish was on his feet, his mind racing as he tried to think what he should do next. He felt dazed and sick, and cursed himself for drinking so much. It couldn’t be true. It was impossible.
He heard himself ask, ‘Did you ever meet another engineer called Winter?’
‘What, the bloke who’s got the big job up the coast here? Sure I have. Ours is a bloody small world, I can tell you. What about him?’
‘What’s he like?’
Something in his tone made the Australian stop grinning. ‘He’s young. Got a good head an’ more degrees to his name than I’ve got teeth. He’s the sort of joker you end up working for. Not one to really know.’
‘You didn’t like him then?’
‘Hell, I only met him a few times when I was building a bridge a couple of years back.’ He frowned, his eyes vanishing into red folds of flesh. ‘Put it this way. He’s a bloody perfectionist. Everything’s got to be just right. Kind of bloke who’d wear silk pyjamas in the Sahara, get the idea?’
Standish looked round. ‘I have to go ashore. If I’m not back before you leave I hope everything pans out all right for you.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m glad we got to you in time.’
‘Thanks. Me, too.’ He looked at Standish gravely. ‘I hope I didn’t put my foot in it just now.’
Standish smiled. ‘No.’ He beckoned to Wishart. ‘I’m going ashore, Sub. Tell the O.O.D.’
Wishart asked quietly, ‘Shall I pipe for the motor boat?’
‘No.’ He cocked his head. ‘I’ll go in the Thai boat with the libertymen. It sounds as if it’s just leaving.’
As he left the wardroom Wishart said, ‘It must be pretty urgent.’
The Australian looked up from his chair and winked. ‘I would say that you have just made a fair judgment, young fella. Now would you mind calling your steward to fill an old man’s glass before he dies of thirst?’
Caley lurched against the chair and said, ‘Did I tell you about my girl? She’s gettin’ spliced!’ He swayed back on his heels and tried to focus the Australian with his eyes. ‘You know what I think? I reckon that bloody bootneck’s got ’er in the family way!’
The engineer grinned. ‘Sit down an’ have another drink, mate. It’ll all be the same in a hundred years, so what the hell.’
Caley muttered, ‘I’ll kill that bastard when I get home. You see if I don’t.’
* * *
Standish hardly noticed the awkward silence in the launch as it sped towards the jetty, its hull crammed with shoregoing members of the ship’s company. Some of the ratings who moved up to make room for him had already been across his desk as defaulters, and his unexpected presence caused a few uneasy thoughts amongst them.
Nor did he see much of the town as he strode through the lengthening shadows towards the Hotel Europa, the only place he could think the girl would be. Where she had to be.
The same clerk was squatting behind his counter and stared at Standish without recognition for several seconds. Unlike the previous visit Standish was in uniform, but in his sudden anxiety he put the man’s blank stare down to another opening for a bribe.
As he t
ugged out his wallet he snapped, ‘Miss Gail, is she here?’
‘Oh it is you, sir!’ His olive eyes dropped to the wallet. ‘Yes, indeed. We were greatly busy when she came back, but I did all I could to make her stay a happy one. It is not often we get …’
Standish asked harshly, ‘The same room?’
He nodded, ‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll go up.’ He put a note on the counter and added, ‘You’ll be able to buy the hotel soon.’
The man watched him go and pursed his lips. Buy the hotel? Later maybe. But first a large American car, he thought dreamily.
At the end of the passage Standish paused, momentarily dazed by the speed of events since the Australian had unwittingly told him about the girl’s return. Perhaps it was a temporary visit, until her new home was prepared? He looked up and down the deserted corridor with its flaking walls and long strip of threadbare carpet. No, that couldn’t be possible. Nobody would send a woman here willingly.
He was outside the door, and was conscious of the silence pressing in around him. As if the whole building was holding its breath, waiting for him to act. Half the number was missing from the door, and beneath the paint he could see a deep scar, as if someone had once smashed a bottle against it.
He knocked, feeling the painful beat of his heart, the new dryness in his throat.
Her voice seemed to come from far away. ‘Come in, please. The door is unlocked.’
Apart from a small lamp beside the bed the room was in darkness, and as he stepped inside the door Standish realized that like most of the accommodation this one opened on to a veranda above the street.
Then he saw her. She was standing just outside the window, her figure pale against the sky. Like that other night, when together they had looked at the ship.
She turned towards him saying, ‘I am not really hungry, but you can put it by the bed. If I want …’ She broke off, one hand moving to her throat. ‘Rex!’
‘I heard you were back. I had to come.’ He dropped his cap on the floor. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I might never have known …’
The Greatest Enemy Page 27