Deep Water (23 page)

‘What time
will
you be out there?’ she asked, glancing at the ocean beyond the reef.

‘Just before midnight.’

‘It’s awful I didn’t ask before, but is Tony safe, and the others?’

‘I’ve heard no names – just numbers of “parcels” to be collected. He’s fine I expect, though his boat’s been found. So there’s a hell of a kerfuffle going on. The Boches are sending direction-finding vans all over the place and closing harbours.’

‘Can’t you delay your mission, Mike?’ Her tone was scared, almost imploring.

‘Not a chance. The
BBC
messages have gone out.’

The wind was blowing back his hair, making him look as he had on the day she’d first seen him at Elspeth’s. Fighting back tears, Andrea fumbled in her bag. ‘Take this with you, darling.’ She handed him a length of green ribbon. ‘I wore it when we played tennis.’

He raised the hair-ribbon to his lips. ‘Ivanhoe before the tournament. I’d tie it to my breastplate, if fake fishermen wore them.’

‘You sound so bitter.’

‘And that’s surprising?’ He fixed her with sad, indignant eyes. ‘Quite apart from what I’ll be going through in the next few hours, don’t you think I’ve good reason to feel a little miffed? Your twelve-
year-old
son tried to kill me. Really did his best. And what do you say to me on the ’phone?’

‘He panicked, darling. He chose the wrong way.’

‘I was there, Andrea. He had plenty of time to avoid me. He’s found out about us. Must have.’

‘It’s possible.’

He leaned across and clasped her hand. ‘
It
hap
pened
,
and it changes everything. If I come back alive, we can’t have a repeat of today.’

‘I know.’

‘Either we’ll have to part, or you’ll have to tell your family about me and face the music.’

Andrea felt she was being rushed into deciding something tremendously important without being given time to think. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to argue. If she never saw him again, what would she think of herself for making their last meeting wretched?

‘It’s hard, of course it is,’ he said, relenting. ‘I hoped it wouldn’t come to this; but since we love each other, we’ll get through it somehow. Unless you tell them, something worse will happen.’ His brown eyes held hers. ‘Do it for Leo, too.’

‘I will, after you’re back.’

He noted her qualification and smiled. ‘Thank you, my darling.’

‘You do still love me?’ She was scared that Leo’s behaviour had done lasting damage to his feelings for her.

He squeezed her hand. ‘You know I do. Let’s forget the little beast for five minutes.’ Mike stared out to sea for a long time. ‘Suppose it’s this time tomorrow and there’s still no sign of me. Will you come back here, and stay for a while?’

‘Darling, of course I will.’

She hugged him to her, very tightly, as if some great wind was tearing him away.

When Andrea entered the living room, Leo and Rose were sitting together listening to the news on the radio. Mostly it was the same old story: more night raids on London, British withdrawal from Greece continuing, and yet another setback in North Africa. As soon as she had sunk into an armchair, Andrea knew she would be unable to sit still. Because Mike would not be on his way to France for many hours, it distressed her to imagine him still at the Polwherne Hotel, and therefore within reach. But if she
did
call him, would he even be able to spare the time to talk?

As Leo turned off the radio, Rose jumped up, gabbling about a pan on the stove. The sight of the two of them together had surprised Andrea, but with Leo so young what could be the harm in it? He would have wanted to hear the news because his father was in London – not that many details of individual raids were given over the air.

‘What did dad say in his letter?’ he asked, sitting
on the arm of her chair, effectively trapping her. She must have looked at him blankly because he went on, ‘I saw it in the hall this morning.’

Since Andrea had skimmed through the letter, she remembered its contents only sketchily. ‘He’s been out of London,’ she said, trying, for Leo’s sake, to sound interested in his father’s movements. He stared back at her, worried.

‘I think he’s working on triggering devices for bombs. Mainly delayed action.’

‘He told you that?’ she asked shakily.

‘No. I saw a drawing in his room.’

Andrea said gently, ‘I can’t imagine he’ll be asked to defuse anything.’

‘I suppose not.’ Leo smiled gratefully. Andrea was immensely relieved that he seemed happy to talk to her. Certainly Leo would not be beside her now if he had found new evidence of an affair – and without such evidence he would never have attempted to harm Mike, deliberately.

Not long after supper Leo went up to his bedroom, saying he wanted to write to his father.

‘I’ll send dad your love,’ he promised, after kissing her goodnight, the first time for several weeks.

‘Thanks,’ she murmured, wishing he had decided to stay a little longer. But it was wonderful he had talked at all, and this was what she would tell Mike, in twelve hours’ time, God willing. Yet in her heart she knew he would not be pleased. Mike had wanted an excuse to bring matters to a head, and, disliking Leo, would not want her relations with her son to become close again.

With this difference of opinion looming, and Mike on a mission, too, Andrea was thankful to have in her possession a bottle of the sedatives which Peter’s Oxford doctor had prescribed for him. Two of these small white tablets would guarantee oblivion until seven or eight in the morning, and by then there should only be a few more hours to wait.

When Andrea passed her son’s door, shortly after nine, and saw that his light was out, she went to bed. A half-hour later she took her pills and was soon dreaming that she was with Leo and Mike as they drifted down the river in an elegant white sail boat. Though she hugged Mike from time to time, Leo didn’t mind.

*

As Leo crept through the woods, doing his best not to step on twigs or scrape his shins, the whisky bottle in his string-bag slapped comfortingly against his leg. Straining his eyes in the darkness, he expected at any moment to see the mudflats shining between the trees like dirty silver. The tide was coming in, but, having studied the published table, Leo reckoned there would not be enough water in the creek to float the trawlers off until after eleven. This left him just over an hour.

Even in daytime, these woods were dim and
shadowy
. Hazels grew thickly between the oaks, vying to force their leaves skywards through the dense canopy. On this moonless night, the darkness seemed to press in on Leo almost like blindness as he passed beneath thick evergreen trees. At times he flicked on his torch for a few seconds, rather than lose all
sense of direction – though he knew that by doing this he was not allowing his eyes to get used to the darkness.

Nearer to the creek, the soil resembled garden leaf mould and muffled his footfalls. He rubbed the dark mulch onto his legs and face as night camouflage. Wearing dark blue shorts and a matching sweater, he felt all but invisible. The creaking and sighing of the trees increased his confidence, since his steps would be hard to hear. Considering how panic-stricken he’d been during his earlier escapade with Justin, it was a welcome surprise, on this occasion, to feel calmer.

The woods thinned out near the head of the creek where the ground sloped steeply to a narrow stream. Leo slid down on his bottom and then waded across, placing his feet gingerly. The sound of the flowing water made him want to pee, which he paused to do, before emptying the stream water out of his sandals. The creek itself lay ahead of him across an open tract of moss and reeds. Judging by the vegetation, the tide never reached this level, so he still had no idea how much water would be under the boats by the time he reached them. Retreating to the treeline, he moved along, parallel with the creek.

When he first caught sight of the trawlers, they looked small and insignificant, dwarfed on both sides of the water by tall black trees. His heart began to race. Would he really have the courage to go through with it? He sat for a moment on a fallen tree and drank some watered down whisky from his bottle. He felt a shiver of pride, recalling how brilliantly he had acted with his mother. She
wouldn’t have imagined in a million years that he’d been planning something. Nor would she have had the faintest clue that he had found her rubber thing. Unless his nerve failed, everything would be different in future.

From Leo’s present viewpoint, he could not tell whether or not either ship was joined to the bank by a gangplank. But seeing a lamplit tent, he guessed they must be. With the tide already halfway up the timber props, the sailors under canvas could hardly be expected to wade through mud and water to get aboard. As Leo crept towards the creek, an unexpected gust of wind dabbed his cheek. Away from the trees, the darkness seemed to pale a
little
. He lowered himself to the ground and crawled through the grass. From the bank itself, he could see water glinting in the central channel. A powerful smell of mud and seaweed filled his nostrils, laced with a faint savour of fresh paint.

After one more swallow of whisky, he abandoned the bottle. After ensuring that his empty pickle jar could not knock against his water flask, he thrust several damp rags into his pockets. Then, grasping a long snaky root, he let himself slip below the level of the bank. His cautious and distressingly squelchy progress along the foreshore had begun.

When Mike had been an undergraduate, he had sometimes discussed ideas such as whether reality was experienced in consciousness or in things, and then had tried to work out how, in either case, he could live his life with the greatest intensity. Or was real vividness and edge only possible in art? A decade later, looking out for enemy aircraft over the Channel, he knew that the most intense experiences available to any man were not chosen or sought out, but were flung at him.

Entering the cramped wheelhouse from the bridge, Mike grinned at Pierre Norbert, his Breton
coxswain
. The Frenchman always wore a dirty old guernsey which he swore had given him the luck to survive as long as he had. The spokes of the wheel had worn a large hole in the wool where his paunch touched it, but this, he said, only gave the
garment
greater
efficacité.
Standing beside Norbert was Martin Cleeves, a young sub-lieutenant, who made no secret of his admiration for Mike. Prematurely
balding, gentle, serious-minded, Cleeves was also athletic and had been a keen yachtsman before joining the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. As a first lieutenant, he was not a patch on Tony Cassilis, who had never been an admirer of anyone. But since every commander was compelled to act a part, Martin’s high expectations of him did not dismay Mike. They might even drag from him a bravura impersonation of relaxed self-control. He’d heard it said that a man draws his own portrait through his actions. But this was wrong. In life most men tried to resemble the person they wanted to be, rather than the one they actually were.

Mike took up his binoculars again and swept the horizon. The clouds were breaking up. Already
visibility
was disconcertingly good. The wind was also dropping and Mike feared that, further inshore, they might experience the peculiar kind of calm that made even a muffled exhaust echo for miles. Smooth water would also mean phosphorescence. Yet, regardless of such facts, even the meek Martin Cleeves was
trying
hard not to show excitement. Mike was excited, too – as a gambler might be excited, imagining a winning streak. How magnificent if, against all odds, he could bring everyone home alive.

The rendezvous would not be Beguen Island, where the Germans had found Tony’s boat, but a place about ten miles to the east. Not that today’s chosen beach would be risk-free, since it was
overlooked
, at a distance, by a German gun emplacement. According to Naval Intelligence, the Germans would not expect the English to be such fools as to land
under their noses. Instead their patrols would be scouring coves where there were no fixed defences. And this was what Mike tried to believe, as
Luciole
and her sister ship,
Volonté,
sighted the village near Pointe de Beniguet.

Soon after four in the morning, Mike raised his binoculars, and, from three thousand yards, peered at the grey-black houses behind the harbour wall before examining the dunes that stretched for a mile and a half, almost to the blockhouse on the headland’s tip. He gave the order for navigation lights to be lit in the manner of local fishing boats, and supervised the raising of sails. With their engines shut down, the two trawlers moved silently across the bay in a moderate offshore breeze. With petrol severely rationed in France, local fishing vessels used their sails more often than their engines. Mike liked to look authentic, though the lack of speed
worried
him.

As the rust-red lugsails filled, Mike sent his
starboard
lookout, Able Seaman Peters, aft with orders to the men by the gallows to drop a couple of weighted drogues to simulate nets being towed. As usual Peters struggled not to salute him. Though dressed as fishermen, he and the other three-badge ABs could not shake off their habitual deference to officers.

Luciole
’s
crew swung out the dory, ready for launching, and Mike watched the same
preparations
being made on
Volonté.
His second trawler was commanded by a recent arrival at Polwherne, Lieutenant Philip Evenshaw. Perpetually smiling as
Evenshaw was, and too manically energetic ever to make a relaxing companion, Mike wished that Tony Cassilis was out there in Evenshaw’s place. He said a silent prayer that Tony was waiting in the dunes at this moment along with all the airmen.

As they sailed sedately across the bay, Mike tried not to imagine starshell erupting from the
blockhouse
, illuminating every winch, spar and barrel. The beach at low tide stretched in front of the dunes for at least two hundred yards, and men crossing it would be visible against the pale sand, even if no lights were fired by the enemy.

Mike planned to anchor at the habour end of the dunes, keeping as far as possible from the blockhouse, preferring to increase the risk of being observed from the village. A moment later he
regretted
his decision. A match flared on the harbour wall and faded, as if cupped in someone’s palms. Was he a sentry? They couldn’t be that unlucky. But who else would be lighting a cigarette at four in the morning? A married man creeping home after meeting his mistress? Knowing he could do nothing, Mike forced himself to guess what the darkened shops might be:
Epicerie,
Bar
Tabac,
Boulangerie.

As the boats were made ready for lowering, Able Seaman Peters came panting up the bridge ladder in a distressed state.

‘A stowaway,’ he gasped. ‘I just found him.’

Mike stormed into the wheelhouse and faced Martin Cleeves. ‘You reported the ship ready to sail, Number One.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘She wasn’t bloody well ready. There’s a bloody stranger on board.’

‘But I searched the ship with Chief Petty Officer Simms. I can’t understand it.’ Cleeves cast his eyes around, as if they might miraculously alight upon some clue explaining the mystery.

Mike’s fists were clenched and he was breathing fast. He pulled Able Seaman Peters in through the door. ‘Tell Mr Cleeves where he was hiding.’

‘Under them new bunks across the stern, sir.’

‘Why the hell wasn’t he spotted?’

Cleeves took a step forward. ‘B-b-because it’s used as a glory hole. The ratings stuff all their spare clothes and kit bags in there.’ He retreated again behind Norbert’s bulk. ‘I’ve seen boxes of tinned food there, life jackets, even some …’

Mike silenced him with a wave before turning back to Peters. ‘I trust you placed him in custody?’

‘Locked in the fish-hold, sir.’

‘How old would you say he is?’ murmured Mike, already knowing.

‘Just a young lad, sir. Scared silly, I’d say.’

Wanting to sink to his knees and moan aloud, Mike was saved by the sound of an aircraft. Only one ‘young lad’ in Cornwall would have known where
Luciole
was likely to be on the day before sailing. As the aircraft roar grew louder, Mike tilted his binoculars skywards.

A Heinkel 111 was passing half a mile to
seaward
, looking very black and angular against the paler sky. Flying high and straight, it showed no interest in them – though since trawlers were meant
to fish in a single fleet at night, it was possible they might be reported. Moments ago, this plane’s appearance would have depressed Mike dreadfully, now it merely added to the sense of doom oppressing him. Yet he was a little comforted to reflect that the whole operation had been planned in such
exhaustive
detail that, even if he fell overboard and sank without a trace, everything would go ahead quite satisfactorily without him.

He said quietly to Cleeves, ‘I want to drop our hook in three cables on this course. Buck up, Martin, and forget the bloody stowaway.’

After watching
Luciole
’s
two boats being rowed away towards the beach, where they caught up with the two from
Volonté,
Mike hurried across the raised deck between the engine room and the fo’c’sle. ‘Forgetting the stowaway’ was not an option open to
him.
He lifted a tarpaulin stretched over some hatches and found the handles. The fish-hold proper no longer existed, having been divided into an Asdic cabinet, two cabins for petty officers, and a magazine for the ship’s concealed Lewis guns and .5 Colts. Mike lifted the hatch-cover and felt for the ladder with his feet.

With amazing insensitivity, Peters had locked the boy in with the ammunition, not that Mike really blamed him. He had other reasons for shaking with anger as he released the bolt.

‘Pleased with yourself?’ he demanded, surprised by the calm sound of his own voice. Leo stared back with a mixture of pride and terror, as Mike had guessed he would. He bent closer, the better to
see him in the dim light. ‘We’ve just been spotted by a Heinkel. D’you know what that means?’

‘I don’t care.’

‘Your mother’s life’ll be wrecked if you’re killed.’

‘I care heaps more about my father.’

‘He’ll be thrilled, will he, if you vanish into thin air?’

‘I posted him a letter.’

‘Perhaps he’ll frame it, if you’re blown to bits.’

‘You can’t leave me in here with this stuff.’ Leo glanced anxiously at the ammunition boxes.

‘I can do any bloody thing I like.’ Mike placed a hand on the door.

‘Please.’ Leo’s eyes were wide with fear. Over his head was a stanchion that took the weight of the deck, and the steel plates reinforcing it. A single red bulb hung from a flex twisted round a ventilation pipe. Even in the half-light, the boy’s resemblance to his mother tormented Mike: the almost feminine shape of his eyes and lips, his soft pale skin. If anything happened to him, Andrea would blame herself forever – and blame me, too, he thought. The extraordinary callousness of the boy’s stunt made Mike catch his breath.

‘Why did you do this?’ he whispered thickly.

‘You know why.’

‘I
don’t
know
why
,’ shouted Mike, starting to close the door.

Leo blurted out, ‘To stop you doing it to her, of course.’

‘It?
It
!’ snapped Mike. ‘I love her, you dirty-minded little beast.’

‘My dad loves her more.’

‘You really think so?’ Mike smiled, though he wanted to scream.

‘Why else would I be here?’ shouted the boy, as if the words had been ripped from him.

Mike said nothing. Leo’s sincerity had sneaked under his defences. So it
hadn’t
been revenge on his mother. He’d done it for his father; risked his life for him. Poor brave little bugger. Mike placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘I’ll take you back to where you were, if you promise not to move from there.’ Leo nodded assent. ‘There are life jackets under those bunks, so put one on, please.’ He pushed Leo towards the ladder. ‘Go up and I’ll follow. Do you need to visit the heads?’

‘I brought a jar for that.’

Mike could not help grinning for a moment. ‘What else did you bring?’

‘Water, and some rags to wipe away my muddy footprints.’

‘Very considerate.’

‘It was so you wouldn’t see them.’

‘I did realise that.’ They paused outside the galley, before descending again. Mike said quietly, ‘You won’t be the first boy we’ve brought back.’ He had wanted to reassure him, but Leo was clearly crestfallen.

‘I
must
be the first.’

‘We brought back a French agent with his whole family, including his
petit
fils
and
petites
filles.
’
Mike grinned at him. ‘Sorry, old chap. Better get below.’

Back on the bridge again, Mike could see the
four boats pulled up on the beach, and, through his binoculars, the tracks of the crewmen who had gone in search of the escapers. Just one alert sentry in that German blockhouse and they could all be blown apart within minutes in a blaze of pyrotechnics to shame Brock’s display after Henley Regatta. And poor Andrea would be sleeping peacefully all the while, her hair spread across her pillow like a golden fan. Even on waking she would be unaware of
anything
amiss. Very likely she would only know that her life had changed forever, when Peter ’phoned with news of Leo’s letter.

The sands were still empty – so what the hell was taking the wretched airmen so long to emerge? And where were Tony and the ratings who’d been in the dory with him? Somewhere behind the dunes, a dog was barking. Surely the whole party must be closer than that by now? If only he could risk signalling with an Aldis lamp. The aimless splashings and lappings of the sea against the hull, when
Luciole
was at anchor, always reminded Mike of how long it would take, from the moment when he gave the order to ring on the engines, before she could reach her top speed.

He stared at the beach and willed a line of
hurrying
men to appear. For them a moment of wild emotion, the end of their long ordeal in sight, but the worst dangers only yards ahead. Very likely, they had aroused suspicion locally – incongruous figures, creeping down country lanes and over fields. So when they left the dunes, and went on without one scrap of cover, a searchlight could pick them out like
a spot in the theatre. German inactivity, as every one of them must know, could indicate a waiting game, with the deadliest hand held back till last. How hard it must be for those who’d almost escaped before, or, like Tony, should never have been there at all. Wives were waiting; children, parents, lovers, friends, an invisible company many times larger than the number soon to cross the sands. And how much did Mike care about them, now that Leo was here?

A fragment of Euripides ran through his mind: ‘Love does not vex the man who begs his bread.’ But it certainly vexed the man who might be held responsible for the death of his mistress’s child. Had love ever survived such a thing? The wages of sin, he thought, remembering his conversation with Andrea. If he came back alive, bringing the boy’s dead body – what then? Suicide in the Roman manner? Maybe Peter ought to kill him instead – better tragic irony – slain by the man with no time for Greek theatricals. A smile still lingered on Mike’s lips as the first airman ran onto the beach.