The Volunteers

by Douglas Reeman

  “Yes. I study all the details. Part of the job.” She rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and studied him thoughtfully.

  “You come from a rich family, you could have stayed at home. Instead you went to sea.” She glanced away, her body restless beneath her shirt as if she had remembered something bad.

  “Lost one ship, became navigating officer of a fleet destroyer.” She looked at him and gave a small grimace. “No easy thing that. It’s 1943 and there are still some idiots in high places who would rather have an elderly relic brought in from retirement than allow reservists, hostilities-only officers, into vital posts.” She smiled. “Especially chaps from the colonies!”

  He laughed. “What about the Boss?”

  Her smile went. “You must decide for yourself.”

  “Anyone else coming?”

  She answered severely, “Too many questions.” She relented very slightly. “Lieutenant Allenby. He joined us late. He’s been ill.” She shrugged as if it was of no importance. “But he’s an explosives expert, so it didn’t matter too much.”

  “I see.”

  “You don’t, best keep it that way.” She picked up a telephone. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve things to do.”

  Frazer relaxed. What would Caryl, or some of the other girls he had known in Vancouver and elsewhere, make of Second Officer Lynn Balfour, he wondered. In some ways it was harder for the people in Canada to understand the war. There were no obvious shortages, no air raids, not too many uniforms once you got away from the ports and larger towns. And yet it was worse when the troopships, the convoys and the aircraft left for far-flung theaters of war which ranged from Iceland to Burma. How could they share it? Here in England it was different, and he had long decided it was better to share the good and the bad with the people you were trying to defend. Only the casualty lists were the same on both sides of the Atlantic.

  The Wren officer glanced at her watch and said, “He’s here now. That red light will flash, and in you go.” She bit her lip and added, “What the hell has happened to Allenby? The Boss won’t thank him for keeping him waiting.”

  The red light did indeed flash and Frazer stood up, wondering as he did so what sort of giant he was about to meet.

  The outer door opened and shut with a bang and he saw the girl staring at the newcomer with sudden surprise.

  It was Allenby. Without his raincoat he looked somehow too young for his rank and the decoration on his left breast.

  Second Officer Balfour asked quickly, “Is something wrong?”

  But Allenby looked directly at Frazer. Seeing someone familiar, even if he had only known him for a matter of minutes, seemed to give him strength.

  “That girl out there. The Leading Wren. I just met her.”

  His faced looked damp, as if he might be sick. The little lamp flashed again, and this time was accompanied by an impatient buzzer.

  As the Wren officer hurried to open the other door Frazer took Allenby by the arm and said, “Easy, Dick.” It was strange how the fact he had remembered the pale lieutenant’s name helped to steady him. “We’ll talk about it later, eh?”

  But Allenby did not hear him.

  “That Wren. Her name’s Hazel. I think I killed her brother.”

  The office into which the two lieutenants were pushed without ceremony was probably the same size as the other one. But it seemed almost filled and overcrowded by the huge figure who stood, beefy hands on hips, in a raincoat which looked like a tent.

  He stabbed a finger at two canvas-backed chairs. “Frazer? Allenby?” He nodded curtly. “Punctuality rates very high with me.” He raised his resonant voice. “Lynn! Ring Gieves and tell them my new reefer is still too tight.”

  Frazer heard the girl call through the door, and wondered what it would be like to work for this man. The Boss.

  The latter stripped off his raincoat and Frazer realized that his size was no illusion.

  He wore a blue battledress with the shoulder straps of a commander RNVR. Very rare in high places, as Second Officer Balfour had commented. He had a giant girth, heavy shoulders which were surmounted by a large head. He was nearly bald, but his scalp was like tanned leather, and he had a short piratical beard; like a figure from Boys’ Own Paper.

  “I’m Prothero,” he announced in his deep voice. “I command the Special Boat Operations Section. Here and on the ground, so to speak.” It seemed to amuse him and his weathered face creased into a grin.

  Frazer noticed his eyes were very small, like chips of washed-out blue glass. In his big features they looked almost incidental.

  “Rear Admiral Oldenshaw is in overall command but he’s away.” He did not elaborate.

  “I’ll get right down to it.” He leaned back on his heels as if to proportion the weight. “We’ve had a lot of success in the Med. There’ll be a lot more once the Germans are completely out of North Africa. Our work is tough, it makes big demands and all our people are handpicked for their various talents. ” The small eyes rested momentarily on Allenby, but only for an instant. “You can forget most of what you’ve learned. This is the thinking man’s navy, no place for your feather-bedded regular. We are here to fight, not to carve out a career. No passengers.”

  Frazer guessed he made this speech quite often.

  “Fact is, we use any type of vessel that suits the operation in hand. We cooperate with the other Special Services when we have to. The Levant Schooner Force, the SAS, even the Long-Range Desert Group and Commando. The work involves stealth, the ability to mingle with local vessels, but to use initiative and guts if Jerry gets too nosy, which he has, and will a lot more when he is forced back to Sicily and the mainland.”

  He lowered his voice. “You’ve both got excellent records.

  You, Allenby, have more than proved your courage and resourcefulness. You’re going to need both. Frazer, you’re a small-ship man and by all accounts are a dab hand as a navigator, much of which you picked up before the war, sailing with your father. According to him anyway.” He saw the surprise on the lieutenant’s face. “Raced with him at Cowes, as a matter of fact.”

  Allenby tried to relax, but felt ice-cold even in the damp, humid air and had to clench his knuckles against his thighs to stop himself from shaking.

  He tried to listen to what Commander Prothero was saying, but instead he kept seeing the girl’s face. It was so obvious, she even looked a bit like his dead assistant.

  Dead, that was the word. He went over it again, as he had since he had been dragged out of the debris, barely able to breathe, temporarily deafened by the blast he had not even heard, but without a mark on him. That same mine had knocked down six streets. His commanding officer had visited him in hospital. It was just one of those things. Allenby had done more than almost any other render-mines-safe officer. He could not be blamed. Allenby had tried to ask about Hazel.

  It was the usual story. Hazel had simply disintegrated. Not a button or even a strip of uniform. Nothing.

  His superior had asked, “Did you not think of rigging the telephone, Dick?” It was unnerving the way Frazer had recalled his first name.

  “There was no time, sir. There was a breeze.” After that he had recalled very little.

  “You told him to run for it when the fuse started?” He had smiled sadly. A silly question for one as experienced as Allenby, he probably thought.

  And that was the terrible doubt. Allenby could not remember. Had he hurled himself to safety and left Hazel standing there within a foot of that long smoke-stained cylinder?

  Someone at the hospital had tried to console him. “He wouldn’t have felt a thing.”

  Not for long anyway. But surely even in the split second before the mine had exploded Hazel must have wondered about the lieutenant he had trusted and worshiped since their first meeting. And then the Leading Wren. When she had told him who she was in a flat, unemotional tone he had felt the walls begin to cave in. He had started to explain, to describe it, until his memory had tri
cked him yet again.

  He had been aware of voices in the other room, and the fact he was late for his appointment with the commander, and he had been unable to move as she had said quietly, “Well, sir, at least you’ve come out of it all right.” Her eyes had been on his George Cross ribbon. If she had hit him her words could have had no greater impact.

  Prothero’s voice thrust through his thoughts like a ram.

  “No questions, Allenby? All quite clear is it?”

  Allenby stared at him like a trapped animal. “I-I’m sorry, sir. “

  Prothero smiled but there was no warmth in it. “You are a brave man, Allenby. Courage is not always enough, however. Too many hopes, too many lives may rely on you in the future, perhaps even before you have become accustomed to our ways in the group.”

  Frazer said abruptly, “He’s had a bad time, sir.”

  Prothero did not move his small eyes from Allenby. “I know. I know all about both of you. Despite that, you are here, and in this section you do not have the exclusive right to be miserable. Do you understand?”

  Allenby nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He rested his buttocks on his table so that his considerable belly stood out like a bay window.

  “You will take forty-eight hours’ leave to deal with your personal affairs. Second Officer Balfour will attend to travel warrants and the like. When you report back you must expect to move at short notice.”

  Frazer asked, “May we know where, sir?” At this stage he did not really care but wanted to draw Prothero’s fire from Allenby. He saw Allenby glance at him. Curious, grateful? It was hard to tell.

  “No.” Surprisingly, Prothero gave a great grin. “But as it is too far for you to return to Canada in the time, I would suggest you take a girl and a bottle up to London, right?”

  The door opened slightly. “Gieves on the phone, sir.”

  “Very well, Lynn.” The meeting was apparently over.

  Frazer and Allenby left the room and glanced at each other.

  Allenby asked, “Will you?

  Frazer laughed. “What, the girl-and-bottle bit? I shouldn’t think so.” He looked at the Wren officer who was staring at some new signals, one hand thrust into her hair like a claw. Unless. He dismissed the idea and asked, “What about you, Dick?”

  Allenby already knew what he would do. There never seemed an alternative.

  “Home, I suppose.” He looked quickly at Frazer’s profile. A strong face, someone you could trust. He was a Canadian and probably expected him to ask him to his home for their short break from duty. Forty-eight hours. He thought of the dull, suburban house, his mother’s incisive voice, everything. It made him feel cold. How could he?

  “Good. I envy you.”

  Allenby said, “Perhaps next time we could-” Frazer smiled. “Sure. Why not?”

  The Wren officer said, “If you drop in after lunch I’ll brief you and give you your new passes.” She looked from one to the other. “Welcome to the Club.”

  Frazer watched her. It was an act. She had been hurt, badly.

  She turned to Allenby. “One thing. How do you do it?” She saw the immediate guard drop behind his eyes, and added more gently, “I saw the pictures in the papers of you in that hospital, just sitting on that bloody great mine and chatting with the old lady in bed, and making the nurse laugh. I couldn’t have done it. I don’t know anyone else who could.”

  Allenby looked at the floor, confused. “I never thought much about it.” In spite of his guard he shot a glance at the outer door. “Not until the last one.”

  Frazer watched the girl, saw the compassion in her eyes before she too returned to her role in the drama.

  She said softly, “Well, don’t you worry about Leading Wren Hazel. She’ll get over it given time.”

  Allenby clenched his fists. “You see, I can’t remember. Maybe I did forget-“

  Frazer said, “Come on. I’ll take you for a drink.” He

  glanced at the Wren. “Maybe we could-

  She opened a file of papers. “Could what?”

  Frazer shrugged. “I’ve been too long at sea, that’s my

  trouble. “

  She grimaced. “Perhaps you should take up the Boss’s suggestion. “

  Frazer felt himself flushing. “Were you listening, for God’s sake?”

  She laughed. “It is what the Boss always says!”

  In the outer office there were two different girls at the desks. Frazer could almost feel Allenby sigh with relief.

  He glanced at the lieutenant’s pale face. So that was what a hero looked like.

  Almost to himself Allenby said, “As a matter of fact-He hesitated. “Keith, isn’t it? Well, as a matter of fact, I was scared, every single time.”

  Frazer laughed. “We’re going to get on just fine.”

  Allenby stared at him, unable to stop himself.

  “Look, I wonder if you’d like to come home with me?”

  It was against everything he had planned and guarded since he had entered the navy, and Frazer guessed as much.

  He answered softly, “Sure, I’d like that.” It was settled.

  A seaman pushed his head around the door and shouted, “Air-raid warnin’, gents!”

  Mark Ives stood up and studied himself in a mirror at the tailor’s shop attached to naval stores. On his sleeve the new badge of leading coxswain was still like part of the dream, the unreality of it all. .

  The elderly petty officer who had been his guard and instructor since his arrival chuckled, “Bit better than a crusher, eh?”

  Ives shook his head. “I didn’t believe they could fix things so easily. Before it’s always been draft chits, duty rotas and requests to see the Old Man about the slightest thing.” He grinned. “This’ll do me.”

  The petty officer filled his pipe and said, “You’re entitled to forty-eight hours, y’know.”

  Ives checked over his pile of brand-new gear. It would be good to get back to something like Coastal Forces, if that was what the job entailed. Small ships, and a feeling of selfdependence which was lacking in carriers and cruisers. He controlled the urge to laugh. Or in detention quarters especially.

  Ives said, “I’ll stay put. Talk to some of the others.”

  The PO watched him and liked what he saw.

  He said, “You’re to be a replacement. I’m not supposed to say, but I think you should know.”

  Ives shrugged. “What happened to the other chap?”

  “Dunno for sure. It’s pretty hush-hush in the mob you’re joining. But it was a raid of sorts, a raid what went wrong.”

  Ives looked at the commando knife and the holster in which he would be carrying his newly issued revolver when he went on active service. He had used it on the pistol range, but was already an excellent shot and had been in the Metropolitan Police display team in those far-off days.

  A good all-rounder they had said. Rugger, boxing .and a fair hand with revolver and rifle. It was coming in useful at last.

  The face reappeared in the doorway. “All clear, gents. False alarm, it’s another raid on London.” The PO said, “Poor sods.”

  Ives saw it clearly in his mind. The piles of rubble. Gaping holes, upended double-decker buses. His London. The catch in your throat when you rounded a corner and a tearful voice screamed, “Thank Gawd, ‘ere’s a copper!” And then the clearing up. The removal of the dead. Putting a face on it no matter what you felt inside.

  He picked up the knife and drew it slowly from its scabbard. Now he had a chance to hit back.

  The stores petty officer joined them at the counter.

  “Sign here then.” It didn’t matter to him if it was a would-be hero or a prisoner awaiting a court martial. Everything had to be signed for.

  Alone in her brightly lit operations office Second Officer Balfour watched the door close as a Wren carried the travel warrants out to await collection by the two lieutenants. She thought about them briefly. Allenby was nice, but seemed withdr
awn to the point of self-destruction. She found she could accept such complications since she had transferred to Prothero’s Special Section. Secret or not, it was known by almost everyone as Prothero’s Navy. It fitted him.

  She thought too of Frazer, the tall Canadian. She had seen him watching her body and guessed he would be an easy one to fall for.

  The thought stabbed at her like a dart.

  She had hung a “Do not disturb” sign on her door. Prothero was on his way to Plymouth for a meeting and to watch a commando exercise. He might ring her in the dogwatches but not before. She shifted in her chair and then pulled open the bottom drawer of her desk. It lay there glinting at her, a half-empty bottle of gin. It had been full, when?

  She groped for a tin of peppermints and suddenly thought of the small, dedicated section. of girls she controlled. Did any of them know or guess? Prothero obviously did not, otherwise he would have sacked her and sent her back to general duties, like being a quarters officer at some dismal Wrennery.

  She shook a teacup into the litter bin and filled it deliberately with neat gin.

  Aloud she whispered, “Oh God, help me.” Then she drank it down, gasping at the rawness of it in her throat, at the gesture which did not seem to help.

  She reached behind her and drew a wallet from her reefer jacket and laid it on the desk.

  It was always the same. Sometimes it took longer than others. Then she slipped out his photograph and stared at it. It was as if she might have missed something although she had studied it a million times.

  Just another, naval lieutenant, squinting at the camera on that last morning. That so very special morning when-a tear . splashed on her wrist and she hurriedly replaced the picture in the wallet.

  Oh Paul, I miss you so.

  The telephone jangled by her elbow and the empty cup.

  “Second Officer Balfour, Operations.”

  The voice asked something and she replied, “I’ll ring back.”

  She could barely see through the mist in her eyes, but nothing in her voice betrayed her. Yet.

  She put down the telephone very carefully and straightened her tie.

  She said, “It won’t do. It simply will not do.”