Goudie was standing .by a long table converted to a bar and looked as if he had been at it for some time. Frazer nodded to him and received a glassy stare in return. It no longer worried him. Whatever it was that held Goudie together seemed to
carry him through each crisis, no matter how much it demanded of him.
He saw most of the flotilla’s officers dotted about amongst the crowd. Archer, unusually animated, his ginger hair standing out like wings as he made some point or other to a wide-eyed WAAF from the local fighter station. Prothero, red and sweating badly, was discussing something with the admiral, and Heywood, somehow aloof despite the press of people around him, watched in silence, his pale eyes everywhere.
It was lucky they were not putting to sea until noon, Frazer thought. There would be hangovers in plenty in the morning.
Then he saw her auburn hair between two army subalterns and plunged towards her.
She was laughing, pretending to be shocked by some joke which one of them had told. But she saw Frazer, and again their eyes seemed to lock, to exclude all others.
He exclaimed, “You’re hard to find, Lynn!” He was shouting.
One of the soldiers said, “I’m the one who’s hard, chum.” Frazer ignored him. “Come and have a drink with me.” The officer who had told the unfortunate joke muttered, “Bloody colonials!”
Frazer found a corner and turned his back on the rest like a rugby forward.
“You look lovely.”
“Not you as well!” She held up her glass and studied him over the rim. “Here’s to you.”
He clinked his glass. “To us.”
She said, “Thank you for taking Alex with you.” She moved nearer so that he could hear above the din. “He’s really just a kid.”
Frazer smiled, “Not like you, eh?” He could smell her perfume. The same as she had used on that night when he had carried her. When her breast and shoulder had been quite bare. He hoped she did not remember it.
“Can I see you for a few moments after this?”
She looked up at him in the same searching way, as if she was doubtful about something. “Don’t you care for this? I’d have-thought it would be just your cup of tea.”
Frazer did not know if she was goading or testing him. “I can live without it.”
“I’ve been asked to join the Boss and the admiral after wards.” She saw the disappointment on his face and added, “You once told me that you were a fan of Nelson’s.” Frazer started, off guard. He barely remembered it. On one of those fleeting visits to the pub she must have brought it out of him.
He grinned. “So what?”
“What would he have done, d’you think?’
Her eyes were very bright, very steady, as if she was trying to conceal her thoughts from him.
He held her hand and replied, “Nel would have said that orders are no substitute for initiative.”
She pulled her hand away and tugged her jacket into place. “I must mingle.” She reached up impetuously and touched his mouth with her fingers. “No wonder Emma fell for him.” Then she turned and was swallowed up in the crowd.
Another admiral entered with his aide, and Frazer recognized him as a flag officer from Plymouth. But he did not care who he was. He turned away and touched his lips as she had done. What did she mean? Who was she behind her careful defenses?
He saw Lieutenant Quinlan and his first lieutenant by the bar and made his way towards them. Nobody in this strange navy within a navy had been left out. Except those who . would never be able to come, ever.
By the entrance doors Allenby stared at the swaying figures and grimaced.
“God, what a riot!”
The girl slipped her hand into his and looked at him steadily.
“We needn’t stay. But the Boss would be hurt if we dodged it.”
He looked at her and squeezed her hand. She would never, could never, know what she had done for him, how close it had really been.
It had been an enchanted week, and even her home in Devon had lost its threatening atmosphere. Probably because her father had been away in London.
They had walked together for hours, no matter what the weather had been like. Her mother had been at the house, and several visitors had called, some to take lunch or dinner with her. But to Allenby it had been on a different plane. Magic. He had found that he had been able to sleep at night, and only once had a nightmare jerked him upright in bed. He had heard not the thunder of the X-Craft’s charges demolishing the German supply ship, but the pathetic clatter of the bicycle on that unknown Jersey road.
She had come to his room. He must have been making a hell of a noise although she had denied it. For several precious minutes they had clung together, she with her face against his hair, while he clutched her body to his and, despite all he had told himself, had stroked her, feeling her respond through her nightdress. Her mother had come to the room eventually. He still wondered if her delay had been deliberate.
The next day, the last one, he had explained, had tried to apologize. She had not been able to face him as she was now.
“I did not know I could feel like that, Dick. I have never been with a man. Not that way. And yet I felt….”
He had held her, desperately, protectively. “I have never been with any girl.”
It was so easy that he was still amazed. No lies, no boasts to impress others more worldly.
He said, “I love you, Jo.”
She kissed his cheek. “I love you.”
They did not see the expressions of the chief steward and his assistant.
The steward gave a silent whistle and said, “All right for some, innit, Fred?”
Inside the big room Allenby said quickly, “There’s your father.” He found he could say it without discomfort. In one week she had done that for him.
She stared across the room and saw the familiar straightbacked figure with the red tabs on his collar. For some reason she felt a sudden anxiety. Her father was speaking to the admiral from Plymouth.
She replied, “They went to school together.” She squeezed his hand tightly. Nothing must spoil things for him. Nor would it if she had anything to do with it.
The room was just as Frazer remembered it when, out of desperation, Dick Allenby’s girl had called him here.
There was no fire in the grate but Lynn switched on an electric heater and busied herself with the curtains.
Frazer said, “Your friend’s not here yet?” He glanced towards the adjoining room. “She’ll probably come in smashed in a minute.”
Lynn kicked off her shoes and sat on the sofa. “Help yourself to a drink.” She watched him as he opened the sideboard. “I’d have been smashed, as you so delicately put it, but for you. You know that, surely?”
He slipped out of his jacket and sat beside her. He was very aware of her nearness and the fact she was watching him. One stupid move and he would destroy everything. If there was anything to destroy. Maybe his need for her outweighed both caution and common sense.
“You must be tired,” she said. “And you’ve another long day tomorrow.”
It would soon be over. Either she would ask him to leave or her housemate would arrive. Drunk or sober, it would make no difference.
He twisted round and looked at her. “You really are marvellous. “
She held up her hand. “Easy, Keith. I’m not marvellous at all. I’m just an ex-secretary who wanted some excitement. I never thought I could get involved as I did and so badly hurt. I’m very ordinary really.”
He took her hand and held it firmly. “I know better, Lynn. It’s why people like you.” He felt his will weakening under her blue gaze. “And why I love you.” She made to pull her hand away but he persisted. “I guess I felt like that the first day I saw you at Portsmouth. It was there, but you were so wretched about Paul you couldn’t see it. I loved you then. It’s never stopped even though I thought it was hopeless, a non-starter. “
“You remember his name.” She watched h
im, his uncertainty. “And I can hear it without pain. It’s so strange.”
She stood up so suddenly that he thought she was already regretting her words.
But she said, “I think I will have that drink now.” She waved him down. “No. Let me. I need to think.”
She walked past the fire, her stockinged feet soundless on the old floor.
She said. “If you’re not ready to leave, I’m going to change, all right?” She made to smile but it only half came. “Change into something more comfortable, as Bette Davis would say.”
Alone by the unblinking fire Frazer wondered what he would say to her. He knew it was important, vital that he should get it right. A car halted outside the cottage and he heard a door slam. He groaned; he had missed the moment.
The other door opened and she came in again, her glass in her hand.
From throat to toes she was covered by a peacock-blue robe; in the fire’s glow it seemed to shimmer like her hair. Only her face was still as she watched him. Like a lovely mask.
She said, “Nice, isn’t it? Real silk. The Boss got it for me on one of his North African jaunts.”
She put her glass on a small table and held out her hands to him.
Frazer held them tightly and drew her towards him. “I think we’re about to have company.” He barely recognized his own voice.
The car started up and drove past the cottage, the sound dying and leaving the room silent again.
She said quietly, “We’re not. Jane’s not coming back tonight. “
He stared at her, seeing the look in her eyes, like a plea, like defiance.
“I told_ her not to come, you see.”
She slipped down beside him and raised her face to his, her lips slightly parted like that night when she had known nothing about his concern, his desire for her.
They kissed gently at first and then with an eagerness that left them dazed, startled even. She nestled her head against his shoulder as with great care he slowly unbuttoned her robe. She watched, her heart pounding as he lifted her breast in his fingers, caressed it and squeezed it until he could barely contain his longing.
Then they stood up and she waited motionless as he let the gown slip from her shoulders and fall to the floor.
She watched his eyes as he picked her up and said, “I carried you before, Lynn.”
As they entered the bedroom she put her arms round his neck and kissed him again, and again until they were breathless. He laid her on the bed but when he went to switch off the light she said, “No. I want to see you. No secrets. Promise, no secrets.”
He threw his clothes anywhere and then knelt on the bed beside her.
“I love you,” he said. “So much.”
She reached up and held his shoulders, her fingers hot on his bare skin.
“I never dreamed.” She studied his face feature by feature. Only the quick movement of her uplifted breasts told him that her need matched his own. She added, “Oh Keith, was it meant to be?”
He stroked her breasts, and felt the nipples harden under his fingers, saw the way her lips moistened as if she was losing control. Very gently he knelt over her, her legs parting as she continued to watch his eyes. She said, “I knew you would be gentle. I just knew.” Then
she seized his arms, her nails digging into them as she murmured, “Come into me, now!”
Even as he came down on her she gasped, “It’s been a long time. It may hurt. But don’t stop.” Frazer heard her sob, saw her eyes close as he pressed into
her. But her body arched to receive him, to hold him and carry him down until they were one together.
16
SUNSET
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER JOHN GOUDIE stood by a small fence above the river, one scuffed boot on the lower rail as he watched the activity below.
Prothero ambled over to join him. He looked and felt tired. His flotilla had worked and trained for weeks and months, so that some of the crews as well as the operational staff had begun to believe this was their only purpose.
Prothero looked down and followed the other man’s gaze. The river was packed with craft, and yet when they came to this new HQ they had imagined the place already full.
Some landing craft were disgorging soldiers onto a pontoon, harried and controlled by the harsh tones of their NCOs. Even at this distance Prothero thought the men looked dispirited, resentful. You could take only so much training. Then tempers frayed and you got careless. It could be a fatal disease.
Goudie said, “They’ll be refuelled right away, sir.” He watched the three MGBs swaying together beneath a faint haze of petrol vapor. Their crews, in a mixture of sweaters, woolly hats and seaboots, looked like pirates. Lines snaked ashore, and he picked out the people as individuals. If he had been that kind of man Goudie might have admitted he was proud of them. Pride was not something you tossed about.
The boats had lost their newly painted image too. The hulls were stained and bore a few scrapes, marks of unexpected encounters in pitch darkness. But he knew there was nothing wrong with the machinery of war, the new guns, the big Packard motors which in spite of some extra gear could still offer forty knots.
Prothero pictured the maps in his Operations Room, the bright arrows and stars, a gathering of armies never seen in a lifetime. But there was still the Channel. It had stopped plenty of England’s enemies. It could just as well stop Overlord as the secret files had labelled it.
Goudie glanced at his profile. “Weeks not months is my guess, sir.”
Prothero grunted. “Maybe.” It was as near as he could give to agreement.
He saw the first of the sailors clambering ashore, grubby, outwardly weary. But he knew his jolly jacks by now. In an hour or so they would be thronging the local pubs, smart as paint in their tiddly suits and gold badges and facing the taunts of the military or a few unwise civilians. “Home again, Jack?” But it could not go on.
Prothero thought of Second Officer Balfour. How she had changed. She seemed to work longer hours, but nothing ever riled her. He had noticed that when Frazer had visited HQ ostensibly to study the plot or obtain intelligence reports they - had kept apart, and yet it did not take a genius to see their oneness, their ability to touch even at a distance. He felt the old envy rising, and said, “There’s a job on. One boat. I suggest Frazer. But no heroics, dyou hear?” He glanced at Goudie’s uncompromising features. “I can’t afford to lose a boat. Not now of all times.”
Goudie frowned. “What’s wrong with Coastal Forces? Surely they can handle it.”
“They’ll be involved, of course.” Prothero sifted through his thoughts. He knew so much that he was always afraid he would let something slip.
“We’ve had word from the admiral’s Intelligence Section. About a Dutch agent. We’ve got to bring him out.” He saw the argument on Goudie’s face. “No other way. The Germans have got the whole coastline buttoned up. “
Goudie nodded, his eyes distant. “My old stamping ground. The Hook of Holland. Ah, well-“
“He’s important because of the invasion.” Goudie shrugged. “Aren’t they all?”
“Don’t be such a bloody cynic. Do you imagine I like it?”
Goudie eyed him flatly. “It looks good for your SBS, sir.”
Prothero glared. “Not this time, damn you!” They both grinned at each other. -It was like an old rehearsed act.
Then Prothero said, “Frazer has the right temperament. It’s not the time for Archer’s death-or-glory attitude.”
“What about me, sir?”
Prothero smiled. “Too valuable.” He saw Frazer and Allenby climbing the steep track from the river past a sandbagged Bofors gun.
Prothero said abruptly, “Say nothing, John.”
Goudie groped for his pipe. He did not need to be told.
Prothero strolled away. “See you at the briefing then.”
Frazer and Allenby paused on the track and turned to look at the boats.
“D’you think we’ll get a break fo
r a few days?” Allenby knew Goudie was watching them but did not care. “Surely we’ve worked up enough now?”
Frazer nodded. “Likely.” He could not get over Allenby’s recovery. During the many and sometimes complicated exercises at full speed Allenby had usually been the first to encourage the hands when things went wrong. He was like somebody rebuilt, so different from the broken man who had returned from the Channel Islands raid.
He thought of his own new life with Lynn. People thrown together by war and danger, but it had worked. They met as often as possible. When Lynn’s obliging housemate Jane was absent, they made love, they talked for hours, or merely lay in each other’s arms, strangely content although their longing was never far away.
Allenby said hesitantly, “We’re getting engaged, Keith.” He flushed as Frazer looked at him. “That’s between us, see?”
Frazer wrung his hand. “You sly old son-of-a-gun! Why the hell didn’t you tell me sooner?”
Allenby smiled. “It always takes me an age to do anything.”
Frazer thumped him on the shoulder. “Not this time, dammit!”
Goudie greeted them with, “Something to celebrate, have we?”
Frazer nodded. “Getting back in one piece. Give me a real battle any time.”
Goudie gave a lazy grin. “Liar.” Then he said, “There’s a flap on. We’ll need just your boat, it seems.” He thought of Prothero’s words. “No heroics. So stay around the base. Local liberty only for the hands.” He looked from one to the other. “What, not smiling any more?”
He sauntered away, pipe smoke trailing over one shoulder.
“What does that mean, I wonder.” Frazer glanced at his friend. It was bad luck.
Allenby said, “I’ll change and go over to HQ.”
Frazer watched him hurry away. “Give her my love, Dick.” That seemed to help in some way. Allenby turned and grinned. “Not bloody likely!”
Sub-Lieutenant Balfour and Ives tramped through the gate and Frazer told them the news. They both took it in their different ways. Ives expected it. Balfour was keen just to show what he could do, no matter what it was. His sister would not be pleased.
The Volunteers Page 23