Gant returned aboard at noon. Lieutenant Flynn RNVR was officer of the watch on the quarterdeck. Gant asked him, stepping off the gangway and bringing his hand down from the salute as the thin wail of the bosun’s call died away, “Any news of the captain?”
“He’s been moved to his cabin, sir. Last I heard, he was still unconscious.”
Flynn was short, dark and dapper; he was a yachtsman, one of the pre-war weekend reservists. Rowley arrived, apologetic for not having been on the quarterdeck in time to meet him.
“Sorry, sir, I was down in the—”
“This is no time for standing around gangways, Charles … Did any bombs come near us?”
Rowley shook his head. “They seemed to be more interested in the hotels.”
“I know. I was in one of them, talking to the admiral.” Gant looked round at Flynn. “Send your messenger to the engineer commander, tell him I’ll be in the cuddy and I’d like to see him if he can spare a minute. Same message to the PMO, please.”
Harkness, the captain’s PO steward, came out to meet him. He murmured, “No change, sir. He hasn’t moved a whisker.”
It was half dark in the sleeping cabin, and curtains were drawn over both the scuttles. Nick Everard was lying on his back, motionless as a corpse. Gant asked Harkness, “Has he said anything?”
“No, sir.”
When he’d been up for’ard, he’d been mumbling to some imaginary woman about her breasts. With half the ship’s company listening to every word. Gant said, “He was delirious, earlier on, talking nonsense. If you hear any—you know, personal stuff—”
“I got cloth ears, sir.”
Sibbold, the PMO, tapped on the door and came in. He stopped beside Gant, and stooped to look closely at the patient. He explained, “We changed the wrapping, you see, so when he comes round he’ll be able to open his eyes. One of the question-marks, after a crack on the head like he had, is whether his sight may be affected. Hence drawn curtains, in case the light’s too much for him at first.”
“Harkness here says he hasn’t moved or spoken.”
Nick recognized that voice. It belonged to—Bob Gant. And Bob Gant was …
Damn … But it would come. Just for the moment, it had slid away from him. He could see the face in his mind and match it to the voice, but he couldn’t follow it beyond that. He lay still, keeping his eyes shut, wanting to listen to the voice and let it trigger his memory.
There was a lot of noise—clattering and banging and scraping—but it was farther away than it had been before, and it didn’t torture his skull like it had. The pain was less intense now anyway, more of an ordinary headache.
He’d had a nightmare, about Jack. “Halfbrother” Jack … Sarah had been talking about him. And about Nick’s father, John Everard, who’d died after a series of strokes which had been triggered by Nick telling him the truth about Jack’s drowning: how he’d had to leave him—and about five hundred others—and how the German pilots had been using swimmers for target-practice.
No. Wrong, again. That had happened—one year ago. And Nick’s father had died in—oh, 1931 … It was David, then, he’d told him about. David at Jutland. Nick’s elder brother David, who right from the nursery had had a great deal wrong with him and who’d cracked, gone round the bend before he drowned. A quarter of a century ago. History. History meant pain, for some people. And complications. It was important to keep Paul clear of all that, to keep the sins of the father to the father. Or fathers, plural.
David had looked very much like Jack. Sarah had always denied it, but it was a fact and there was an oil painting of David in her Dower House at Mullbergh to prove it. She denied it because she knew the truth about David, although she denied that too. She certainly had known the truth: but she possessed this extraordinary ability to change the truth even as it existed in her own mind, turn black into white because that was how she wanted it. And having changed it, stick to the manufactured truth, admit no other view, no doubt … That way, you built your own surroundings, your own history, you justified the loyalties you wanted to give and the hates you needed … Make-believe was reality, to Sarah. Although she’d admitted, finally, that Jack was their son, hers and Nick’s.
No—she had not. That was the dream he’d had, the nightmare. Sarah would never, not even if she were tied to a stake and burning alive, admit to Nick’s having fathered her son. She’d wiped all that out of her mind, washed out completely any memory of how she’d loathed and feared John Everard and in one moment’s—oh, weakness, aberration, love—turned to her stepson. Who hadn’t been—wasn’t—all that much younger than herself.
That dream, though: Jack’s dead face, and the sea reddened, washing over it …
Nightmare. There’d been no alternative to leaving him and the others in the water: to have stayed and tried to pick them up would have done them no good at all, would only have thrown away his own ship and ship’s company. And Jack was alive, anyway, and he didn’t know he wasn’t John Everard’s son. Only he, Nick, and Sarah knew it. Sarah had known it.
Paul must never know it: never have an inkling of it.
He said, “I must write to Paul.”
Sibbold leant forward, listening. He’d sent Harkness out for a smoke, and Gant was in the day cabin talking to Sandilands. Sibbold had pulled a chair near the head of the bunk. He got from it now and leaned over to peer through the semi-darkness at his patient’s closed eyes.
“Feeling a little better, sir?”
“Who’s that?”
“Sibbold, sir. PMO.”
“Oh. Sibbold.”
Silence … The pulse-rate was all right. He tried again: “How do you feel now, sir?”
“Not bad.” The right hand moved, pointing. “Head aches, but it’s better.”
“You had a very nasty bang on it.”
“What about this arm?”
“Your left arm’s broken in two places. I’ve set it and splinted it, and it’s strapped to your chest to keep it still. I don’t expect any problems with it.”
“Did I miss the meeting in the flagship?”
“No, sir, you—”
“Admiral Doorman’s conference?”
“You attended that meeting, sir. You’ve had a knock on the head, you see, and it’s left you with concussion, so your memory’s confused. What I’d like you to do, sir, is just lie still, relax, sleep if you can. Commander Gant—”
“Did you say I did attend Doorman’s conference?”
“Yes. And we sailed—the whole squadron—soon after that. Now we’re back in Surabaya.”
He didn’t see how this was possible. Sibbold explained: the conference had taken place two days ago. They’d sailed that same day, turned back yesterday to refuel the destroyers, but an enemy report had sent them hurrying north again. This time, they’d found the enemy.
“Where am I?”
“In your sleeping cabin, sir.”
He hadn’t asked yet how he’d sustained his injuries. There were still loose connections in the mental processes. “What—time of day is it?”
“Early afternoon, sir.”
“Well, my God, I’d better—”
“Please, you really must lie still, sir!” Sibbold eased him down again. “You have to rest—you have a badly damaged head and some minor wounds as well. The only way you can do anyone any good is to stay there and rest, get your strength and memory back. Now, please …”
“Why are those curtains drawn?”
“So you’d rest better, sir.”
“Where’s Gant?”
It was amazing how quickly a brain that had been jolted off its gimbals could get back on them again. Even though it would, obviously, still take a while to settle, you could see and hear awareness growing every minute. Sibbold told him, “He’s been ashore to see the admiral, sir, and now he’s talking to Commander Sandilands about the repairs to the boiler room. I expect he’ll be in to see you in a minute—he was here earlier, but you were asleep.”
“No, I wasn’t. I heard his voice.”
He hadn’t picked up that mention of repairs to the boiler room. But he might at any moment, as his mind mulled over what had been said. And any such extension to what had already been a lengthy question-and-answer session would keep Sibbold even longer from his other patients … “Look here. I just walked clear through the ship, didn’t I? I mean, to get here. If I can do that, why shouldn’t I turn out now?”
“You were brought aft on a stretcher, sir. Unconscious.”
“I’ve just told you, Sibbold, I came on my own two feet!”
“You’re concussed, sir—”
“Who’s this?”
The door had opened, and shut again very quietly. Sibbold, glancing round, was glad to see Harkness back again.
“Your PO steward, sir.”
“Petty Officer Harkness?”
“Ah, you’re a lot stronger now, sir!”
“I’ll be turning out, in a minute. Where’s Gladwill?”
“Gladwill, sir?” Harkness looked round for Sibbold, but the doctor was retreating stealthily towards the door. Nick said, “I can see two of you, Harkness … What did you say about Gladwill?”
“I—er—been seeing to ’is birds, sir. Singing away fit to bust, that littlest one is. They’ve eaten all their grub, though, would you believe it? Every time you look, they’ve wolfed the lot!”
“Why can’t Gladwill look after his own canaries?”
Sibbold had come back to the bunkside. He asked Nick, “You said you could see two of Harkness, sir. Can you see two of me now?”
“Yes.”
“Double vision. It’s probably only temporary, but I’d like to take a look at it. We’ll need to have those curtains open—you may find it a bit bright, at first. Harkness, would you—”
“You haven’t answered my question about Gladwill.”
The curtains were open, and he was blinking at the sunlight.
“We were in action, sir.” Sibbold held up his thermometer in its metal case in front of Nick’s eyes. “Watch this, please. Follow it with your eyes as I move it … We were in action last night. We were hit just under the bridge, and in number two boiler room. There was a hit aft as well—starboard side here, by the after tubes. It was the shell in the bridge that did this damage to your head. Actually you smashed the glass windbreak with your forehead, and it was the glass that cut your face too. I’m sorry to say just about everyone else up there was killed. Including Gladwill. I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, sir … How many of this object are you seeing now?”
Gant told Sandilands, “You’ve got until sunset tomorrow. No matter how much still needs doing then, we sail as soon as it’s dark.”
A siren was howling, ashore, signalling another air-raid alert. This time, perhaps, they’d be going for the ships. Defiant’s alarm buzzers were sounding, but her AA armament was already closed up and for the moment there was nothing Gant could be doing. There wasn’t anything to be seen, either. He turned back from the scuttle.
“Including tonight, it gives you twenty-eight or thirty hours. Can you finish in that time?”
Sandilands was personally supervising the boiler room job. He was in overalls, oil-stained and unshaven. He was a rugged-looking character, but here and now he also looked just about exhausted.
“In present circumstances I couldn’t finish in twenty-eight days, let alone that many hours. We need a dockyard and shoreside facilities. There were bits falling off before any of this happened, you know … All I can say is we’ll do what’s physically and mechanically possible. If all goes well I’ll have two of those four boilers back on the job.”
“Four altogether, you mean?”
Sandilands nodded.
It was better than he’d expected. He told him, “Sloan’s captain wanted to spend an extra day here. He’s got engine parts coming by rail from Tjilatjap.”
“So?”
“We can’t wait that long. Everyone’s of the same opinion. Even Jordan agreed, finally. What will our own best speed be, John?”
“Twenty-three or twenty-four.”
“You’ll have done damn well, at that … I’d say you needed some rest, though. Did you get any, last night?” “Christ’s sake, how could I?”
“You don’t have to turn every nut and bolt yourself, John. You’ve got Murray, Holbrook, and young Benson, not to mention—”
“The boiler room isn’t the only job we’ve got. But I will—I’ll get my head down, later … Sloan’s troubles came from a near-miss, you said?”
He nodded. “Pretty bad, too. She ground to a halt, apparently, out there in the Strait. One of the others towed her in.”
“If they don’t get the spares they’re hoping for—”
“They don’t. But they’ll manage twenty-five knots, as opposed to more than thirty. They’ve had artificers from all the other destroyers working with them, I gather.”
“Some people get all the luck, don’t they?” Sandilands pointed upwards, as a thudding of AA guns came to them. “Here’s some more of the other kind.”
Gant followed him outside. The Jap raiders were high, over the land in the west. He couldn’t see them at first, but bursts of AA shells led his eye to them, to half a dozen mosquito-like objects flying north or northwest. The smoke bursts were already fading, gunfire tailing away. Looking for’ard he saw the crew of the starboard four-inch, on the raised gun platform that straddled the ship from one side to the other between her funnels. They were already securing the gun and discarding tin hats and anti-flash gear. It was likely those aircraft had been attacking some military target inland; the enemy had been bombing road and railway junctions, so he’d heard ashore, and there’d been raids on Tjilatjap on the south coast of the island as well as on Batavia and Bandoeng. They were preparing for the military invasion by disrupting Dutch lines of inland communication.
Pinner was waiting, at ease, near the entrance to the cuddy. He had rather a self-satisfied look about him, Gant thought. Perhaps he was thinking of himself now as the commanding officer’s doggie, a step-up from being only the second-in-command’s?
“Pinner, find Lieutenant-Commander Rowley, please. Tell him I’ll see heads of departments in the wardroom at 1800 hours.”
Nick had been tired by his talk with Sibbold, and he’d fallen into another deep, dream-filled sleep. Kate had been with him, somewhere or other, and he’d been trying to explain why he had to go through with the idea of marrying Fiona. Kate had argued, “You and I hadn’t met at that time, had we?” It wasn’t easy to explain his view that the point was irrelevant, that a man had to stand by his word. There was more to it, as well, an attitude of mind much harder to put across to her because it had roots that led right back into his youth. It was the fact that he’d already done a lot of harm to several individuals, and the prospect of adding to the list of injured parties by breaking his word to Fiona was anathema to him. He’d never set out to harm anyone, it had simply resulted from things he’d done. This time he could see likely consequences, and choose for himself.
“Do you really think you can make amends for bloomers you’ve made way back by messing up your own future now—and mine?”
He wasn’t sure whether he was asleep and had dreamt of Kate asking him this, or whether he’d imagined it, put the words into her mouth in his own imagination as a way of arguing with himself.
Thinking about Kate was soothing to the spirit, anyway.
When she’d been with him in Alex and Cairo—after he’d brought her out of Crete—she’d never even hinted at any such thing as marriage. The Cairo interlude had been when he’d had a few days’ leave, with Tuareg boiler-cleaning in the dock at Suez. Ostensibly, he’d gone up to see the pyramids, and that was what she’d told her people she was doing, too. And they had looked at them, once or twice … And he, Nick, had talked about the future, peacetime, and hinted at the idea of marriage. He’d felt guilty about it, having Fiona in the back of his mind and w
ishing he did not have; and Kate had totally ignored the openings he’d given her.
“It’s too late now, isn’t it? I am committed. I’m sorry, Kate, I’m truly—”
“A bit late to be sorry!”
He was asleep; Sarah, not Kate, had said that. They were on the steps leading up to the front entrance at Mullbergh, which had been Sir John Everard’s house and had just become Nick’s. They’d just come from his father’s funeral. He’d said, “I feel as if I’d killed him.” Sarah had stopped, and her dead-white face had jerked round to him, her eyes venomous.
“Didn’t you?”
He told Kate, “I killed my own father.” He saw the contempt in her expression before she turned her back on him. Turning slowly, like a dummy swivelling on a central pivot. Then her back was towards him: that long, slim neck and the tawny hair, her tall, slim figure. Receding, leaving him.
“Kate!”
She was going, getting smaller, leaving not only physically, in terms of distance, but out of his life for ever. Well, he’d as good as told her to. And the thought of that was suddenly horrifying, like a new crime on his conscience: he shouted, “Kate, please, come back?” She was tiny, as if he was looking at her through the wrong end of a telescope, and the concept of her being totally and permanently out of reach was too frightful to accept. He shouted, “Kate, I love you!”
He woke with the shout ringing in his skull. Harkness, the PO steward, said, “Ah, you’re awake again, sir. Nice little sleep, you had.”
“Was I yelling something?”
“Only muttering a bit, sir. Not what you’d call comprehensible like … The commander, sir, was wanting a chat. He said I was to let him know when you found it convenient. Should I—”
“Yes, please. I’d like to see him.”
Paul and Kate would get on well together, he thought. They were the same sort of people: direct, straightforward … He wondered where Paul was now, at this minute. If he was in the Mediterranean—as he would be, by now—there’d be a time-difference of about—what, six hours between them?
All the Drowning Seas: The Nicholas Everard World War II Saga Book 3 Page 14