The Little Ship

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Yes, last year I enjoyed it very much. This year I’m afraid it’s not possible.’

  ‘Well, see you next term, then. In October.’

  Otto shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. I’m to join the army immediately on my return. A tank regiment.’

  There was a short silence. Christ, Guy thought, I know what that’s about. And he knows it too. He put the book down, swung his legs to the ground and stood up slowly. He ran his fingers through his hair. What the blazes was he supposed to say next? They were probably going to be fighting each other, on opposite sides. There was nothing in the etiquette books to cover this particular one. He held out his hand. ‘Well, good luck in the army.’

  Otto stepped forward to shake it. ‘I wish you good luck as well. In the Royal Air Force.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll meet again.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps. I very much hope so.’

  Guy said drily: ‘Let us know if you’re ever thinking of coming to England.’

  A faint smile flickered across Otto’s face. ‘Of course. Goodbye, Guy.’

  He sat down and picked up his book again. Ludicrous, he thought – wishing each other good luck. Bloody absurd. He lit a cigarette and smoked it thoughtfully for a moment. Damned shame that there had to be wars.

  ‘Otto came here while you were out, Anna. He wanted to say goodbye. He’s going back to Germany.’

  ‘That’s very good news.’

  ‘He asked me to say goodbye to you for him.’

  ‘I am glad that he couldn’t say it for himself.’

  ‘He has to go back to join the German army. He seemed quite upset about it.’

  Anna looked at her. ‘I believe that you still feel sorry for him, Lizzie. Don’t you realize that he is going back to get ready to fight against your country? The Germans know that there will be war soon. Everybody knows it. Just now, when I went to see Mademoiselle Gilbert she was packing everything ready to go home to France. She is taking her mother back there as soon as the school term is finished. France will be fighting together with England against Germany and they must go home to look after their apartment in Lille.’

  ‘It might not happen,’ Lizzie said stubbornly. ‘It might not.’

  ‘I wish I believed that too. But I don’t. And I have made a plan, Lizzie.’

  ‘What sort of plan?’

  ‘Today Mademoiselle Gilbert told me that she has heard of an organization in France which can arrange for Jews to escape from Germany and Austria to Switzerland. They provide papers, passports – everything necessary – and transport them to the Swiss border. There is a man in Lille who is in touch with them and who has helped the daughter of a friend of Mademoiselle to leave Berlin. I am going to go to Lille to see this man myself. And I shall pay whatever is necessary. I don’t care how much it costs. I have my money in the bank here and I can get more, if need be. A whole lot more.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘I will show you.’ Anna went away and returned with a red velvet box in her hands. She fumbled with the little gold catch and opened the lid. Lizzie blinked. ‘Emeralds and diamonds. It once belonged to a grand duchess in Russia and then to my great-great-grandmother. My grandmother gave it to me. She said I was to sell it if I ever needed some money.’

  ‘It must be worth a fortune.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Anna lifted the necklace out of its case and dangled it round her neck. ‘I’m going to wear it just once – because that would have pleased Grandmama. A man that I met at that silly party I went to last week has invited me to a ball at Oxford. I shall wear Grandmama’s necklace in her memory. And then I shall sell it – in France.’

  * * *

  Guy finished tying his white tie and studied his reflection critically in the looking-glass. The tails were hired, but he thought they fitted pretty well. He tweaked at the stiff wing collar, adjusted the silk handkerchief in his breast pocket, gave his white waistcoat a final tug and shot his cuffs. The gold cuff-links had been a twenty-first birthday present from his parents, together with the pearl shirt studs. Aunt Helen and Uncle Richard had given him a silver cigarette case, engraved with his initials, and his godmother had given him a silver lighter. His godfather had stumped up a gold wrist-watch from Aspreys. They all compensated for the hired tails. He filled up his cigarette case and checked his lighter for fuel.

  The Commem. promised well. The dinner party first up in the rooms and then dancing down in the marquee in the quad until dawn and breakfast. After a good deal of deliberation between half a dozen possibilities he had settled on inviting Cynthia, a deb he’d taken out once or twice, and two hours earlier he’d met her at the station off the London train and taken her to the Randolph where he’d booked a room. She was rather boring to listen to but very pretty to look at. He planned to take her punting from Magdalen Bridge in the early hours and to persuade her to go further than the last time he’d taken her out, when she’d suddenly refused at the final fence. He strolled into the large room he shared with Lewis where the table was set for ten. Their scout, Baxter, had done an excellent job getting everything organized and the dinner menu was a good one: iced cucumber soup, cold salmon, new potatoes and asparagus, strawberries and cream. Dry martinis to kick off with, followed by some first-class wines – a different one for each course – and champagne with the strawberries.

  Lewis was still getting dressed up in his finery; Guy could hear him whistling loudly in his bedroom, next door. Interesting to see who he’d asked. Some girl he’d met in London: foreign, apparently, and a knockout, according to Lewis who prided himself on his high standards and had the lucre and a Lagonda to support them. Guy, on a strict allowance from his father and only a bicycle, found it stuck in his craw at times, but Lewis was a decent chap and good company. They’d worked out a pretty fair system for clearing out when the other was entertaining a girl, with an unwritten, sacred rule never to poach. He’d added a couple more to the history don’s wife and with any luck he’d increase his tally with Cynthia tonight.’

  He cranked up Lewis’s gramophone and picked a record from the tottering pile. Essential aids to seduction, Lewis termed them, and invested heavily in any he thought conducive to that subtle art. This one had been worn thin: ‘Blue Moon’. Guy lit a cigarette and listened to the familiar tune while he looked out of the open window at the quadrangle. A big marquee had been erected in the centre and the ancient brick and stonework of the surrounding college buildings were bathed in the golden light of a summer’s evening. He admired the scene. It’d been a fantastic term – marvellous weather, not too much work and plenty of cricket and tennis and rowing and parties. Maybe he’d do a spot of travelling on the Continent in the long vac before the war put a stop to it. France most probably. He’d like to see Paris. Spend a bit of time there. It seemed most unlikely that he’d be able to finish his three years up at Oxford. The general consensus was that war was bound to break out by the end of the year. In one way it was a damned nuisance but in another he couldn’t wait for it to start because it would mean getting to fly a fighter. Trundling about in a Moth was all very well, but he was itching to get his hands on something a lot faster. He hadn’t thought much about killing some other chap, but the idea didn’t worry him especially. Fighter combat seemed a pretty civilized form of individual warfare. You either killed or were killed. A duel in the skies. Good, clean stuff and nothing like the gruesome carnage in the trenches that Simpkins had always harped on about. The needle had reached the end of the record and he stopped it.

  Lewis came out of his room, sporting an outsize red rose in his buttonhole, topaz studs glinting down his boiled shirt, curly hair watered under control. He rubbed his hands, beaming. ‘All set for a bloody good evening, old boy? Wait till you see my eye-popper.’

  He might have known that it would be Anna.

  All heads turned at her entrance and all conversation stopped. She put every other woman present into the shade, including Cynthia. Her long white evening gown was devoid of frills or
fuss and she’d pinned her hair up on her head. She looked sensational. Round her neck she wore an extraordinary necklace that might have been something belonging to the Crown Jewels. Guy, pouring martinis, watched in amusement as Lewis made the introductions. The men’s eyes duly popped and the women’s snapped.

  ‘This is Guy Ransome. We share rooms.’

  ‘We’ve already met,’ he said. ‘Hallo, Anna.’

  ‘I didn’t know this was your college.’

  He handed her a martini. ‘And I didn’t know you were coming this evening. How on earth did you come across a scoundrel like Lewis?’

  ‘A cocktail party in London. I scarcely know him. But I was curious to see Oxford. Have you a cigarette, please?’

  He offered his new case and she fitted the cigarette into a long holder. He flicked his lighter into life and as she bent towards the flame the jewels round her neck flashed green fire. ‘Where on earth did you get that incredible necklace?’

  ‘From my grandmother. She gave it to me.’

  ‘It must be worth a king’s ransom.’

  ‘I am hoping so. But not for a king. Isn’t that one of the Grey Heron brothers over there?’

  ‘Tom Chilver? Yes, he’s in a different college but he’s a pretty good friend of Lewis’s, so we asked him. He’s got almost as much money as Lewis, you know. In case you’re interested.’

  ‘I am not.’

  He smiled. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘Lewis has a car. He drove me in it from London today. Very fast.’

  ‘Are you staying at the Randolph?’

  ‘I believe that was the name.’

  ‘You want to watch out for Lewis, by the way.’

  ‘I can take care of myself, thank you, Guy.’

  Lewis swooped and removed her with a hissed aside: ‘Hands off, old boy.’

  ‘Do you know that girl?’ Cynthia pouted up at him.

  ‘I’ve known her for years. She lives with my aunt and uncle.’

  ‘Is she French?’

  He lit a cigarette. ‘No, she’s Austrian. She comes from Vienna.’

  ‘Oh. Is she a sort of refugee, or something?’

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’

  ‘How odd. Well, she certainly looks awfully foreign.’

  At dinner, Anna was seated at the other end of the table, but diagonally so that he could see her easily. From time to time he glanced across, but she never looked his way. Cynthia, beside him, prattled on about a cookery course that she was doing. He half-listened to her talking but his eyes kept returning to Anna. He thought about the first time he’d seen her, playing the piano in the drawing-room at Wimpole Street; she would have been about fourteen and he’d been pretty much bowled over. Poleaxed, actually. She’d made it clear from the start, though, how little she thought of him and how much she preferred Matt. He’d long since given up trying to impress her.

  ‘… the meringues turned out to be a complete disaster. They’d gone all flat, just like cow-pats.’ Cynthia giggled. ‘It was an absolute scream.’ She giggled again. He was beginning to regret having asked her; the giggling got on his nerves. Her cheeks were very flushed and she was getting squiffy which might have been to his advantage except that he had a feeling it was only going to be an infernal nuisance. She’d probably throw up by the end of the evening. He glanced across at Anna again and this time he managed to catch her eye. She smiled.

  ‘Where have you been all my life, Anna?’

  ‘In Vienna and in London, Lewis.’ She brushed his hand off her knee for the twentieth time. He was quite drunk already, which was going to be very tiresome. Sober, he was rather amusing; drunk he would be a bore. She might need Guy to rescue her eventually. It had been a big mistake to accept the invitation. She could hear a dance orchestra playing somewhere and she was not in the mood for dancing. How could she dance when Mama and Papa were in such trouble? How could she sit with all these people stuffing themselves with food, drinking and joking and laughing, as though everything in the world were perfectly all right? It was a travesty. She looked at the faces around her. Had they no idea what was going on? Were they aware of the monster spreading its hideous tentacles over the Continent? Of course, the English didn’t care. If they cared they would have tried to stop it; to slay it before it could grow and grow. If they were not very careful the tentacles would reach out as far as their own smug little island. She picked up her glass and drank more wine.

  It was late in the evening by the time they went down to dance in a stiflingly hot marquee. She had drunk far more than she had ever done in her life and the kaleidoscope of couples on the dance floor made her feel nauseated. Lewis tried to hold her too close and she had to keep pushing him away. She danced next with Tom Chilver who was not so drunk but still a nuisance.

  ‘I bet you don’t remember me.’

  ‘I remember you very well. You are the one who lost the sailing race.’

  He laughed. ‘I’m still jolly miffed about that. We would have beaten that old tub of Guy’s easily if we hadn’t had that bit of bad luck.’

  ‘It was not bad luck, it was bad steering; you got stuck in the mud.’

  ‘It can happen to anybody in those waters. Very tricky, you know.’ He spun her round in a dizzy-making turn. ‘I say, you look absolutely stunning tonight. An absolute knockout. Best-looking girl here.’ Another whirling turn, the other way. ‘Tell me, where are you living now?’

  ‘I am still with Lizzie’s family.’

  ‘Wimpole Street, isn’t it? I come to London quite a bit, as a matter of fact. We’ve got a place in Knightsbridge. I’ll give you a buzz when I’m next in town. Maybe we could have dinner?’

  After that she danced with another man who also wanted to take her out to dinner. He trod on her toes while asking for her telephone number which she gave, putting the numbers in the wrong order. Then it was Lewis again, who had become even drunker and grasped her with sweaty hands. She escaped to powder her nose and spent a long time redoing her hair at the mirror and wishing that the evening would end. The necklace winked at her in sympathy. When she returned to the table Guy stood up and asked her to dance.

  ‘You don’t look very happy.’

  ‘I’m not. Lewis is drunk, and so am I. Or nearly. I have had much too much wine and champagne. My head is spinning round and round. Please dance very slowly.’ She leaned against him. The band was playing something smooth and quiet; after a while she closed her eyes. When the music stopped, Guy took her outside into blessed fresh air. They walked away from the marquee along a piece of lawn and she could feel the dew seeping through the thin soles of her evening shoes. She took a deep breath. ‘I feel better now.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Can we sit down somewhere?’

  They sat on a stone step in the darkness. The dance music still reached them. ‘Cigarette?’ Guy offered his case, but she shook her head. ‘I’m not yet that much better.’ Guy was lighting his cigarette. ‘Lewis will be searching high and low for you.’

  ‘No. He will be very happy drinking even more champagne. But the girl you were with …’

  ‘Cynthia.’

  ‘She will wonder where you are.’

  ‘She’s fairly smashed, too.’

  ‘Then perhaps they can both drink together. And they will not miss us at all.’

  ‘The only snag is she’s not really Lewis’s type.’

  ‘What is his type?’

  ‘Someone like you. Exceptionally beautiful.’

  ‘Are you drunk, too, Guy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you’ve never told me any compliment before.’

  ‘Paid. You pay compliments. You should know that by now.’

  ‘You have never paid me one, then.’

  ‘Well, you’ve never exactly encouraged me to, have you, Anna?’

  ‘Perhaps not.’

  ‘You know damn well you haven’t. Why – that’s what I’d like to know? What have you got against me?
’

  She shivered, rubbing her arms. ‘It’s cold out here. We should go back inside the tent. But then I will have to dance with Lewis again.’

  ‘We could go up to my rooms,’ he said. ‘It’ll be quiet there.’

  Baxter had cleared away the debris from the dinner party but left the bottles and glasses. Guy picked up a half-empty one of champagne. ‘Want some?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ She looked round. ‘I like this room. You share it with Lewis?’

  ‘This one, yes. We each have a bedroom that leads off it. Lewis’s is through there, mine’s this door.’ He wondered whether there was any remote chance of getting Anna through it. He poured some champagne and sipped it, watching her as she moved about looking at books in the crammed bookcase, at Lewis’s nude French bather on the wall, at his own framed print of Gloster Gladiators flying in close formation at the Hendon Pageant against a stormy sky.

  ‘Do you still make models of aeroplanes, Guy?’

  ‘Not lately. Not enough time. Too much else to do here. There’s a hell of a lot going on at Oxford.’

  She nodded. ‘And if a war starts, I suppose you will have to leave all this?’

  ‘I imagine so. But I’ll be able to come back when it’s over. I shouldn’t think it will take long. The French will be on our side and they’re supposed to have a first-class army.’

  ‘The Germans may have one even better.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past them. Otto’s gone off to join up, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Lizzie told me. He came to the house to say goodbye. Fortunately I was out.’ She turned to look at him. ‘The Germans have tanks and planes and guns and many, many men, Guy. Everything that they need. What does England have?’

  ‘We’ll manage all right – if we have to.’

  The dance-band music reached them clearly through the open window: ‘Blue Moon’. Something of a coincidence. He reached across to switch off a lamp, leaving only one on – the low-wattage one. Another of the essential aids. ‘Anyway, don’t let’s talk any more about that tonight. Dance?’