Stark Realities

by Stark Realities (retail) (epub)

  Telling Anne now, ‘This wasn’t an intercept – came by landline from C-in-C Plymouth. On the twenty-second. Torpedo Depot Ship Hecla, being towed towards Devonport – having hit a mine while being moved from Rosslare in County Wexford a week or so earlier, apparently – got herself torpedoed and sunk by UB81 – commanded by your friend Otto von Thingummy. Mettendorff.’

  Silent for a moment, staring… Then: ‘Hardly my friend… Anyway, what—’

  ‘Destroyers depthcharged his submarine to the surface, then opened up with their guns, scored several hits before it went down, quote, leaking air and oil, unquote, and – then not a peep. As you might say, kaput. No doubt of identity either – the U-boat’s, that is – broad daylight and on the surface, U81 on its conning-tower plain to see.’ She shrugged. ‘Cross him off your Christmas card list.’

  Anne had subsided on to the sofa again while listening to this. Had seemed at first startled, but now – Sue thought – sort of deadpan. Maybe just not giving two hoots about it: after all, every U-boat destroyed was something to celebrate. Although it still did look as if she was finding it hard to – well, almost to comprehend, you’d think. Touching her back-swept, blue-black hair: ‘I can’t help feeling sorry for Gerda. We were really good friends – and she thought the world of him… She and I, though – imagine it – trying to convince ourselves there couldn’t be a war – getting on as we did, being as like-minded as – well, as we thought we were. Although the country as a whole was fairly anti-British at that time. Well, anti-foreigner, say…’

  Gabbling a bit, Sue thought. Quite unlike her. Highlighting the sister as a way of leaving him in the shadows?

  * * *

  Sam Lance was a large, brown-haired man, clean-shaven, with hawkish features in which it was still a surprise to her to find kind eyes. Brown ones, as it happened. He looked especially handsome tonight, in US Navy uniform with a wing collar and black bow-tie, providing what he referred to dismissively when she’d complimented him on it on some previous occasion as ‘the tuxedo effect’. He’d lavished praise on her, though, claiming to be stunned speechless all over again by her ‘sheer damn beauteousness’ in a mid-green silk dress which was the newest evening-wear she owned and was well up with the fashion, full-skirted and lowish-cut with narrow shoulder-straps, hem-line a clear inch above her ankles. Sam had asked Sue, holding Anne’s coat while she slid her arms into it, ‘Isn’t she really something?’

  Sue had agreed, ‘Something, all right.’ Anne meeting her privately derisive look, knowing that in Sue’s opinion both the décolleté and the hemline were going it a bit; Sue teasing her with: ‘As long as they have heating in that place now. Did you read how many Londoners died of ’flu just this past week?’

  ‘Now, Sue—’

  Anne told him, ‘She’s trying to embarrass me.’

  ‘Only because I’m envious. Makes it a compliment, don’t you think? Truth is you both look tremendous. I hope you have a really spiffing evening.’

  In the hired car, Anne said, ‘This Spanish flu really is terrifying. Death-roll for last week more than two thousand just in London!’

  ‘Two thousand two hundred and twenty-five, as I read it. We have it on the rampage back home too. Heck – everywhere, isn’t it. They say China and India are the worst. Anyway, let’s not let it spoil our evening.’

  ‘Absolutely not! Three cheers for us, and devil take the rest!’

  ‘No, that’s not quite—’

  ‘I know, I know. Teasing you. What I was going to say, Sam – the Ritz, such extravagance…’

  ‘Hah. Only live once. And I have an idea to put to you, so I need to have you in a complacent mood.’

  ‘I’m already about as complacent as I could be, but if it’s what I think it might be—’

  ‘It’s not. On that we have a deal.’

  He’d asked her more than once to marry him, and she’d asked him to ask her again when the war was over. Telling her now, ‘Reason I accept the delay is (a) I don’t have any choice, and (b) it can’t go on much longer, truly can’t. This is no time or place for talking shop, but – well, OK, still hurdles to be crossed, but the truth is the Germans are finished, their Army’s broken and on the run, country’s starving – thanks to your Navy’s four-year blockade…’

  He’d checked, leant forward: ‘You getting all this, driver?’

  No reply or reaction. There was a glass screen between the driver and his passengers, and seemingly it did its job. Sam flopped back beside her. ‘They’re out of Flanders, did you hear? Or as good as. Belgians have taken Ostend and Zeebrugge. Might guess at something like six weeks at most, I’ll come knocking on your door again?’

  She told him, ‘Six weeks or however long it takes, if you still want to ask me then, Sam. Since you may think I’m behaving like a spoilt brat, meanwhile.’

  ‘On the contrary, I understand entirely. After your Charles.’ His large hand had covered one of hers. ‘I said “understand” – I mean that one appreciates it’s – well, beyond understanding.’

  Charles was most of the reason. She’d had doubts then of wartime marriage – not doubts of him or of her feelings for him, or of his for her, but marrying in war at all, and in this one in particular, at a time when the likely period of survival for a young officer in the trenches had been given variously as three or six weeks – which they’d both been well aware of and dismissed as not applying to them, and had been taught almost immediately that it certainly did – had… After which she’d thought she might as well stop living; with the other thing constantly in mind as well, brought back into her mind like some incurable and unmentionable sickness – less the thing itself by that time than whether Charles had believed her – as he’d professed to – or whether he’d died in disbelief, or at least doubt.

  In all other ways you might say it didn’t matter now, had been to all intents and purposes expunged by those depthcharges and the gunfire. Could say that. If you were looking for a let-out, you could. Knowing very well that that was all it would amount to, that they could have burnt him at the stake and it wouldn’t make a shade of difference to how Charles had felt about it, in his heart of hearts – being no kind of simpleton. It was how he’d felt then that mattered, the state of mind in which he’d died – not who’d died since, or how.

  Sam was saying, ‘– no time or place to talk shop, but on that subject – German government wanting to throw in the towel – you’d think it’d be easy, wouldn’t you. But there are these complications – as you’d know, I dare say. After all, we get most of what we know from your department. Division, I should say. Long and short of it, however – well, my own guess would be five or six weeks. Could even be less.’

  ‘Depending on which way various monkeys jump.’

  ‘That’s nicely put – if were talking about the same monkeys.’

  ‘We’d better not, though, had we.’

  ‘Hah.’ A pat on her arm. ‘You’re not only a beautiful woman, you’re a very smart one.’ The car was running up St James’ Street towards Piccadilly, edging over for the left turn. ‘Nearly there… Should one assume your work keeps you generally au fait with the broader strategic situation?’

  ‘No. Not at all. Really, far from it. All I get to know is whatever happens to be dropped in my lap. Or said or argued in my hearing… Oh, here we are!’

  Still raining, but well enough sheltered under the Ritz portico. Doorman with a very large midnight-blue umbrella; Sam helping her down and telling the hire-car driver, ‘Eleven, all right?’ Anne reflecting that it had been absolutely right of Harry to have written as he had: she’d guessed that he’d been getting round to it, and she’d be able to concoct an answer now that would disappoint him, obviously, but shouldn’t too badly hurt his feelings or destroy their friendship.

  The thing about Gerda von M’s brother Otto, though: when Sue had started telling her about it she’d had a vision of his having survived, being fished out and taken prisoner, in which event it would hav
e been on the cards that she might have had to sit in on his interrogation.

  Which would have been – extraordinary. She’d had a dream about it once. Not all that far-fetched either; strangely realistic. She had taken part as interpreter in a few interrogations.

  ‘Penny for those deep thoughts?’

  She let the smile break through. ‘Sorry.’ Gaze wandering around the glittering foyer, and back to him. ‘Gist of them is I really do love being out with you, Sam.’

  * * *

  The entrée she chose was a chicken and mushroom pâté with Melba toast, and they both ordered Dover sole, which the head waiter had assured them were the size of small whales; Sam had ordered champagne. Chatting then about this and that, including his family, who had what sounded like a biggish house on the coast a few miles from the naval base at Norfolk in Virginia. They had a commercial boat-yard there which by the sound of it had been a thriving concern and was now, with war contracts, a booming one. Sam wasn’t regular Navy, but he’d been on the Reserve all his adult life.

  ‘You said your father has a cousin or somesuch with him now, in your absence?’

  ‘One of my two brothers-in-law, guy by the name of Tad Noakes, has joined him. My sister Jennie’s husband. Younger sister Gina’s in the fashion business in New York. Nice guy her husband, Colin.’

  ‘You mean the other brother-in-law is less nice?’

  ‘I’m just a little wary of him, tell you the truth. He’s an accountant by training, sharp businessman I suppose, whereas Dad and I – well, we’re boat-builders. I spent my first years out of college working right there in the yard.’ He put his fork down, spread his hands: ‘With these. I mean, real work. Then joined the old man in the office – had a stab at designing too. So there’s a difference in approach and outlook between me and Tad, and I anticipate he won’t be exactly eager to move over. When the time comes, I mean.’ One hand rested on one of hers for a moment. ‘When this is over finally and—’

  ‘He’ll have to move over, won’t he?’

  ‘Sure. Only I may have to throw my weight around a little, and I’ll be at a disadvantage, I guess, in that the business will have changed so much. Jennie’ll be no help, I can see that, coming. She has a keen eye for which side her bread’s buttered.’

  ‘And your father?’

  ‘Getting old. Maybe a little hazed himself by all the changes.’

  ‘But you’re his son, spent most of your life working with him, know it from the ground up?’

  A nod. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t that entitle you—’

  ‘Could still have some fights on my hands.’

  ‘And you’ll win them. Point of fact – as you say, when this is over – war ends, war contracts end, you’re back to where you were, except you may need new projects. Exit Tad, enter Sam – and if there are Navy contracts still going, won’t your overseas service make you the man to get them?’

  Smiling at her. ‘You’re what’s called the bee’s knees, you know. I’m nuts about you – love you, want you, can’t take my eyes off you… We like this thing they’re playing, don’t we?’

  ‘We adore it!’

  After you’ve gone…

  In his arms then on the crowded dance-floor. Most of the men in uniform, and all the women pretty. Well, a lot of them were… And this scent of victory – the certainty of it in men’s eyes, joy of it in girls’ voices. As well as each other’s closeness. She did love him: or would get to. Not as she’d loved Charles, but that had been in another world: or it might be that she’d been a different person.

  And left me crying…

  Sam wouldn’t do that, she thought. Sam was a rock. Music coming to an end, though.

  ‘That was lovely.’

  ‘Sure was. But listen to me now…’

  Breaking the spell somewhat abruptly and surprisingly, in the lingering aftermath of that song, but still holding her. Straight from the shoulder then: ‘I’ll be gone in about a week, Anne. Just for a while. Be able to tolerate that, will you?’

  ‘How long a while and going where?’

  ‘Well, I’ll tell you.’ Back to their table first, though, to await the fish. He told her, leaning close, ‘Orkney Islands, Scapa Flow. One of the assistant attachés has to visit our Sixth Battle Squadron every so often, and it’s come round to my turn.’

  ‘I thought the Fleet had moved down to the Forth.’

  She’d glanced round to check on their closer neighbours first, then just murmured it, with the thought that most people probably knew it anyway. By ‘the Fleet’, referring to the Grand Fleet, now commanded by Beattie, who’d been Jellicoe’s number two at Jutland, and comprising as well as that host of British dreadnoughts the US Sixth Battle Squadron under Rear-Admiral Hugh Rodmer. Sam nodding, reaching to top up their glasses. ‘It has. Our lot included, since they’re part of it. But Scapa’s still in use, off and on, and our battle squadron’s due to call in there for a day or two – actually half the squadron, half at a time, that is, re-fuelling break from covering the Northern Barrage and Norwegian convoys, so forth. I’ll be taking dispatches for Admiral Rodmer – by hand of officer stuff, you know?’

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have asked, and you shouldn’t be telling me. Next question, though, how long will you be away?’

  ‘Well – listen.’ His hand covering hers again. ‘You’re thinking I’m telling you this kind of suddenly and maybe not too well. Sort of blurting it out. Reason for that is I suspect I may have a job persuading you – well, in a nutshell, persuading you to come with me. How d’you react to that now?’

  Bewildered, frowning… ‘What is this, Sam?’

  ‘Not what you might think, there’s no’ – he smiled – ‘no ulterior motive, as one might call it—’

  ‘You’re either mad or joking. I couldn’t possibly. Even if there was any kind of reason that made sense, I wouldn’t be allowed to. I actually do have work to do, and anyway they’d never—’

  ‘Your mother lives in Argyll, right?’

  Still frowning. ‘How is that relevant? Hundreds of miles from Scapa Flow!’

  Her mother lived at the head of a sea-loch not far from Oban, with her eccentric Scottish artist husband, Angus McCaig. Anne’s father had died of heart failure when she’d been twelve and they’d been living in France, and her mother had re-married when she, Anne, had been at the Berlitz in Frankfurt, seven years later. Grandparents had more or less supported mother and daughter in the interim, and had made it possible to afford the Berlitz venture.

  Sam was telling her, ‘I hope you won’t think I had a damn cheek raising this with him rather than talking to you first, but I’ve met recently with a Royal Navy commander whom you know – name of Hope, very nice fellow and an influential guy in your Division?’

  ‘He’s the big white chief, to all intents and purposes. Reports to Rear-Admiral Hall directly. Anyway, what—’

  ‘Sir. Miss…’

  Waiter, with the fish. In the next few minutes of comparative silence she was wondering what he’d have had to talk about with Bertie Hope, the salt-water boss of ID 25 whose considerable sea experience and expertise balanced the civilian geniuses’ ignorance of naval matters. But why on earth Sam should want her with him in the Orkney Islands… Apart from the obvious – which was too obvious, and really not his style.

  Any case, who’d pick the Orkneys for anything of that kind?

  ‘Some fish, those!’

  ‘Indeed they are, sir.’ Grey-haired, as waiters tended to be, these days. She wondered whether they’d all lose their jobs when the young men came back. She smiled at this one. ‘Marvellous-looking fish!’

  ‘Would’ve been swimming in the sea only this morning, Madam.’

  ‘The poor things.’

  She liked ‘Miss’ better than ‘Madam’. Although of course she was Madam – wore a ring which he’d no doubt spotted. Mightn’t he have guessed she was playing fast and loose – her husband at the front, maybe, and dining
expensively with this Yank? No sign that he had, anyway: he’d gone off still smiling at her sympathy for the sole. Conceivably, she supposed, she and Sam could have been wife and husband; or the incidence of widowhood in this era was so great you didn’t bother to question it – or the morality of dining with a man who was not one’s husband.

  Would she have, she wondered, if Charles had been alive? Might she ever have?

  Sam relieved her of the need to answer that, breaking into her muddled thought sequences with ‘In Commander Hope’s view there’s no reason you shouldn’t visit Scapa, if you felt so inclined and had leave due to you and I was there to see you came to no harm, and – hang on now – and you were accompanied by a chaperone. He said he thought it mightn’t be a bad idea at all – all of you cooped up there handling stuff about the Grand Fleet and Scapa for quite some while now and never getting a glimpse of anything outside the walls of Admiralty. He has a point, I’d say – although I have a better one, as I’ll explain in a moment. As for a chaperone, what chance do you think there might be of persuading that nice little Sue to come along?’

  ‘She’d think what I’m thinking – that the idea’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Well, hold on – it may seem so at this juncture, but when you think it through—’