Deep Water (25 page)

He gazed in stupefaction. Bodies were strewn about the cabin. A jagged hole in the roof admitted a bright shaft of sunlight. Someone was trying to help the men, but they lay very still, like members of a collapsed rugger scrum before the referee blew his whistle. A pool of red liquid was leaking from under them and trickling a little closer to Leo with every roll of the ship. His stomach tightened to a fist, squeezing vomit into his mouth.

A sailor, bending over the tangle of limbs,
managed
to lift one of the men into a sitting position. This airman’s nearest arm was attached to his shoulder by
a few string-like sinews. A dazzling white bone stuck out from his sleeve. His lower arm was a bloody pulp. Something resembling a length of laboratory tubing had escaped from the clothing of one of the other men.

As Leo gazed uncomprehending at this man’s intestines, he heard Mike call his name despairingly.

‘I’m here,’ gasped Leo, finding his mouth and tongue too stiff to function properly.

‘Thank God you’re okay.’

Mike knelt down beside the sailor who was trying to help the only surviving airman. Together they lifted him, and, after Mike had given him an
injection
, they knotted something round the top of his mangled limb. The wounded man went on crying out until Mike had used his syringe again. Then, having covered him with blankets, Mike beckoned to Leo.

‘Follow me.’

As Leo obeyed he could not resist his desire to clutch Mike’s hand for comfort. He was shivering with shock and longed to run away from what he’d seen. Though Mike appeared to be unhurt, his neck and hair were streaked with dry blood.

They emerged on deck in time to see a dory approaching very slowly, rowed by two bedraggled men. Several others were lying on her bottomboards. The top of the sun had risen above the horizon and Leo could see the people clearly.

‘Who are they?’ he whispered to Mike.

‘Survivors from
Volonté.
They’d have sunk us, too, if we hadn’t brought down one of the 109s.’

From the engine-room hatch, an oil-smeared head emerged, followed by a pair of broad shoulders.

‘How goes it, Chief?’

‘We’ve plugged the oil tank and are working on the manifold exhaust.’

‘Is it still leaking over the distributor?’

‘Not any more, sir. We should be able to supply fuel to the port engine with a hand pump.’

‘Can we make fifteen knots?’

‘Ten if we’re lucky, sir.’

‘How long till we can start up, Chief?’

‘Twenty minutes.’

Mike raised his binoculars to the cloudless sky. The early morning light was a bluey-orange colour. To the west the sea was still dark.

‘Will we be attacked again?’ quavered Leo,
wanting
to cry. Memories of the attack and of the dead bodies increased his fear of seeing, at any moment, dark dots moving towards them. ‘Please tell me,’ he begged.

Mike placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m quite hopeful.’

When the dory was below the davits, Leo looked down and saw a youngish woman in the stern. Her bandaged head was lolling against the shoulder of an airman. Her skin looked pale and lifeless. The airman stood up and lifted her very gently. Mike and two sailors got down onto the scramble nets to bring her aboard.

The airman maintained an unhappy silence as the woman was placed on the deck. Her
underwear
was visible through her soaking dress. All Leo
noticed was her freckled face and the shallowness of her breathing. She looked slightly younger than his mother.

Mike faced the airman. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Shrapnel in her head.’

‘Know who she is?’

‘Mary Colwell. She’s an agent, so it may be a cover name.’

After the woman had been carried below, Mike took Leo to the bridge, where he heard the engines burst into life. His relief lasted until he saw a black speck closing fast. Too shocked to utter, he raised a finger. Mike ignored him, as he rested both elbows on the rail to steady his binoculars. At last he lowered them and rumpled Leo’s hair.

‘Panic over. It’s a Hurricane.’ He thrust the
binoculars
at Leo. ‘Our air escort. You’ll see the other one shortly.’

‘Friendly aircraft bearing Red three-oh!’ cried an officer with a heavily strapped arm, coming out of the wheelhouse.

‘Thanks, Number One.’

Tears spilled down Leo’s cheeks and he sobbed aloud. Why did he feel worse now they were safe? Staring at the deck to avoid looking at Mike, his eye fell on a bloodstained tarpaulin covering a body. An icy tingle went down his spine. In the wheelhouse, only yards away from this dead man, Mike and the fat Frenchman were chatting to the man with the strapped arm about their likely arrival time in Falmouth. A sailor in fisherman’s clothing brought up cups of tea and handed them round.

‘Condensed milk, I’m afraid,’ Mike warned Leo. ‘Want a drop of this?’ He held up a rum bottle.

‘Yes, please.’ Mike splashed some into Leo’s mug. ‘A bit more, please.’

Mike gave him a second tot and then told the Frenchman something before going below. Deep folds of water were creaming away from the ship’s bows as the engines throbbed reassuringly. The
shadows
of the circling aircraft moved across the waves, crossing and recrossing one another’s paths. Leo rested his head on the rail and said a prayer for the wounded girl. But he had little confidence in his plea being answered. She was probably dead by now. He himself would certainly have died with the airmen, if Mike hadn’t told him to get under the bunks.

Remembering what he had hoped to achieve by stealing on board a dozen hours ago, Leo felt the biggest fool alive. He had thought that if Mike found him on the trawler on the way to France, he would be shocked enough to end his affair. But now, he saw no reason why Mike should give a damn about anything except pleasing himself. If I had to go to France as many times as him, and I saw people die around me like he did, I’d come back to England and swear in the street at anyone who annoyed me, and I’d certainly go with any woman I wanted.

When the English coast appeared like a colourless smudge on the horizon, Leo felt as if every hope and feeling had drained out of him.

*

After the frenzy of the docks, with tugs hooting, engines shunting and men with bright welding torches
working high on ships’ sides, Leo found it unreal to be passing through peaceful countryside again. Cows grazed or lay under trees. People stopped to chat in village streets and walked into shops as if nothing had happened in the night. Seated beside Mike, on the back seat of the car, Leo gazed out with a fixed frown. They were being driven by a rating whose white-topped hat dazzled Leo as the sun caught it. He closed his eyes and thought of the chaotic scenes he had witnessed at the dockside on
Luciole
’s arrival. Ambulances, nurses and sailors galore: a mass of people, some of them cheering. Not that he’d had time to see much of this. Mike had rushed him away and locked him in a hut for almost two hours before returning for him.

What Mike would say to mum when they reached Trevean Barton, Leo didn’t try to guess. He still felt fuddled after the rum. Mike would have telephoned her, so she must be out of her suspense by now. Leo tried to see Mike as a stranger might. He’d changed his clothes, and, in a clean white polo neck sweater, he might almost be a school gym instructor or tennis pro. But inside he must be crumbling and falling apart.

Mike’s breath smelled of brandy, but his hair was brushed, and he’d even found time to shave. A few hours ago he’d been telling sailors what to do, and sticking needles into dying people. Now he was probably reckoning up the number of men who’d be alive today if he’d never showed up in France. Imagine feeling a failure after a night like that! The unfairness of it hit Leo hard. What Gold
Star holiday could possibly be nice enough to reward someone like Mike? There couldn’t be a treat that was half good enough. No strawberries and cream, no chocolate cake, no orchestra stalls for a favourite show, no cups or prizes – nothing would be any use at all. Leo thought of the happy, easy way Mike and mum had played tennis together, before he’d wrecked it for her by upsetting Justin. It came to him that mum had been Mike’s Gold Star holiday.

Andrea had been expecting their arrival ever since Mike had called, and had decided not to show the full extent of her joy and thankfulness until she could be alone with her son and with her lover in turn. But when she saw Leo coming up the path, with Mike walking just behind, Andrea was overwhelmed by emotion and ran to her son to hug him. As if experiencing all over again her grief on hearing that Leo was not in the house, tears filled her eyes and she could not speak. Almost immediately, Leo became tense in her arms, detaching himself as soon as he felt he could.

‘I’m fine, mother,’ he muttered, in a breathless undertone.

‘It’s so wonderful to see you, darling.’ She dabbed at her eyes. ‘When Rose told me you weren’t in your bed, I was out of my mind with worry.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Leo, standing stiff-faced and awkward.

‘Why on earth did you do it, sweetheart? You
knew
how dangerous it would be.’

Leo did not answer. Conscious that Mike was standing just behind him, he moved away from his mother and went into the house.

‘He knows about us, Andrea,’ murmured Mike, as he followed her into the hall.

‘Since when?’ she gasped.

‘Probably before I lied to him.’ Andrea felt
suddenly
isolated, as if the two of them had long
understood
something she had only just grasped. She walked into the sitting room and saw Leo ahead of her, staring out of the window. Wanting to hug him and whisper reassuring words, she kept her distance, in case he rounded on her in front of her lover.

Mike said matter of factly to Leo, ‘I’d like to talk to your mother for a few minutes. That all right with you?’

The boy nodded and left the room without
speaking
. As soon as Andrea heard her son’s footsteps on the stairs, she flung herself into Mike’s arms.

‘Thank God you’re alive,’ she gasped, struggling with tears. ‘Poor Mike, how awful to find him like that. I’m so happy you’re both safe.’

‘We damned nearly bought it.’

Mike’s unhappy expression shocked Andrea as he sank down beside her on the sofa. In his pristine white sweater he called to mind some chaste and suffering knight from Malory’s
Morte
d’Arthur.
She put her face to his and murmured, ‘I’m so terribly sorry he did this to you, darling.’

He took one of her hands in his and looked at
her with disconcerting directness. ‘Leo didn’t stow away to get me in trouble, or hurt you, Andrea.’ He closed his eyes for a moment as if overwhelmed by tiredness. Then he stared right into her eyes. ‘He risked his life to stop us going on together. I really mean that.’

‘You’re wrong.’ Her voice trembled despite her efforts to be calm. This
couldn
’
t
mean the end of their affair. She wouldn’t let it. ‘He did it to wound me,’ she cried. ‘Remember how spiteful he was to Justin.’

Mike shook his head slowly. ‘He risked his life to show how much he cared.’

‘Cared for what?’

‘For his father. For you two staying married.’ Mike’s resignation made Andrea’s stomach lurch. Stay calm; stop him saying things he may find hard to retract.

‘Do I have this right?’ she asked with a brave smile. ‘Leo will go on till he gets himself killed, unless I stop seeing you?’

‘That’s
not
my suggestion. Obviously he didn’t mean to get killed, only to make sure we end it. He won’t give up till we do.’

‘He returns to school Friday. What can he do then?’

Mike looked at her with desperate sympathy. ‘You expect him to stay there meekly for a whole term – a boy who’s been under fire and seen men die?’

Andrea could feel control spinning away from her. Her face paled. ‘Jesus Christ, Mike. He saw people die! I didn’t know
that
!’

‘I couldn’t tell you on the ’phone.’

‘Will he be scarred for life?’

‘I doubt it. Look at the way kids have coped with the bombing.’

Filled with gratitude, she would have kissed his haggard face, if his manner hadn’t made her hold back. ‘I couldn’t have borne it if you’d died,’ she whispered.

He kissed her quickly and then got up. ‘I’m afraid Leo posted a letter to his father the day before yesterday. He’ll be on a train by now.’

‘Don’t look like that, Mike. You can’t give in to him.’ She left the sofa and rested her head against her lover’s shoulder as he stood by the table. ‘Darling,’ she began confidently, ‘we were going to tell Peter anyway. That’s what
you
said you wanted. So what’s changed?’

‘I don’t know,’ he sighed, touching her hair. ‘Maybe nothing. I’m too whacked to think straight.’

‘But you
do
think
something’s
changed.’ She heard the fear in her voice and was appalled by it.

‘I have to sleep a few hours. I’ve so much on my mind and can’t seem able to …’ He held his head in his hands.

‘Darling, of course you must sleep. You
mustn’t
think now. Please don’t. You’ll wake up feeling quite different. I know you will.’

‘Let’s see what happens when Peter and Leo have talked,’ he remarked almost to himself.

‘We’ll listen. Of course we will,’ she replied, shaken by his tone. ‘But, Mike, we don’t have to do what they want.’

‘That’s true.’

‘You don’t sound sure.’ At last her self-command was deserting her. ‘It’s not fair to hide what you’re really thinking. It’s wrong to lie to me.’

He turned away with a long sigh. ‘I’m really thinking I’ve a report to write, and letters to bereaved relatives. And thanks to Leo, I’m wondering how to avoid an inquiry.’ Exhausted and restrained, his voice seemed to scream ‘don’t press me’. But her anxiety was like a fever, banishing common sense; making her uncertainty seem unbearable. She
had
to know his thoughts, however exhausted he was.

‘Is this the end for us?’ she demanded, appalled that these dangerous words had left her lips.

‘I can’t go on with this now,’ he snapped, losing patience at last.

‘Darling,’ she insisted, ‘it’ll be too late to discuss things after Peter joins forces with Leo. They’ll tear us apart unless we have a plan.’

‘For God’s sake, Andrea. They’ll be more confused than we are.’

He’s right, she thought, amazed to be convinced. ‘Peter’s a realist,’ she laughed. ‘He may even accept that our marriage is over. What else can he do?’ Her words seemed to fall between them, never
reaching
him.

Mike walked slowly to the door. ‘I really have to sleep, Andrea. I’ll ’phone you around eight.’

When he had driven away, Andrea stood on the path without moving. Through her tears, she saw the blood-red spears of peonies thrusting through the soil. How long had they been there, unnoticed
by her? The apple blossom and the birdsong battered her senses as if she had been deaf and blind for days. She felt as though she were falling down a deep well.

*

Leo was sitting with Rose in the kitchen wondering how he could convince her he had been to France. But, so far, nothing he’d said had impressed her. And no report would appear in the papers to back him up. If he could have brought back wine, like Mike had that time,
that
would have made her sit up. Only there was no hope of getting a bottle from somewhere and pretending he’d brought it back with him. It was pretty hard to have nobody to boast to. A little admiration might have helped him forget some of the blood and guts.

At least, chatting to Rose, he was briefly able to stop worrying about how awful it would be when his father turned up – and dad certainly would turn up if he’d read the letter. He would be sure to beg mum to stop seeing Mike, and she would definitely refuse, making poor dad feel even worse. But the thought that made Leo cry in front of Rose wasn’t to do with his father but was about the dying girl on the trawler. And then he found he couldn’t stop.

‘No call for that,’ Rose told him, coming to sit beside him at the kitchen table. ‘I don’t hold with boys being that miserable.’ And before he could get away, she was hugging him as if she was his mother; and though he knew that if anyone saw him like this, he would want the ground to open, he made no effort to push her off. And soon his sobs became shallower
and less frequent, as if he was a child who’d been soothed after grazing a knee. Only with Rose he felt something else too: an extra nice sensation. He was savouring this feeling as a car drew up in the lane.

Leo left the kitchen, and from the scullery door, saw his father paying the taxi driver. He looked so crumpled and unhappy that Leo wanted to ask his forgiveness for telling him about mum. But when Peter limped into the sitting room and sank into an armchair, he said nothing.

His father muttered gruffly, ‘Run along and get me a glass of water.’

Leo returned with a dripping tumbler which his father drained in a few gulps. As always in sunny weather, Peter looked hot and slightly bad tempered. Last week, in the papers, Leo had read a story about an army captain who had come home, and, finding his wife with another man, had shot them both. How scary it would be to have a dad who really might shoot someone dead. Peter produced a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his forehead.

‘It’s good to see you in one piece. The best sight in the world. But what a damned silly thing to do.’

‘I know, dad.’

‘Pull up that chair.’ Peter waited till Leo was sitting opposite. ‘What’s it all about? What did you see mum actually
doing
?’

‘She’ll admit if you ask her.’

‘Answer my question.’ His father’s irritation shook Leo.

‘Justin saw them kiss.’

‘Is
that
your evidence?’ Peter sounded stunned. ‘For God’s sake, boy, it could have been a peck on the cheek. Or Justin could have made it up.’

Leo blushed deeply. ‘She’s been using her pessary thing.’

Peter’s lips tightened in distaste. ‘You can’t know that, Leo.’

‘One day it was in the box, the next it wasn’t.’

‘There may be some perfectly innocent reason. And how come you were rooting about in her room in the first place?’

Upset at being doubted, Leo said fiercely, ‘She took Justin’s bike at night.’

‘You saw her take it?’

‘The saddle had been raised.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It was the bike Justin used.’

‘So Justin noticed it, not you?’

‘Yes,’ cried Leo, squirming when he saw his father’s sad and knowing smile.

Peter reached out a hand, which Leo did not take. ‘I’m touched by your concern, really I am, but it wasn’t your place to take things into your own hands without talking to me first. Even supposing you’re right about mum and Harrington, how do you know you haven’t made things worse by forcing a crisis? Mum’ll be back in Oxford by the end of next week and Harrington won’t be able to get away from here. It’s often best to leave well alone.’

Leo felt tears pricking. ‘I couldn’t have let you go on not knowing.’

Peter said sharply, ‘Just telling me would have
been fine. You didn’t have to gate-crash a secret mission, too, endangering your own life and maybe other people’s. Whatever you think of Harrington personally, his work matters.’

‘I only tried to help you,’ gasped Leo, suddenly remembering what he should have told his father to start with. ‘
Mike told me
,’ he cried eagerly. ‘We were on the boat, and he said he loved mum.’

Peter let out a long low breath. ‘What else did he say?’

‘That you can’t love mum like he does.’

His father covered his face with his hands and Leo looked away. He heard him sniffling and then blowing his nose loudly.

‘Was Harrington unkind to you?’

‘He was too busy. We were attacked by Messerschmitts, dad, and he had to give all the orders, and even had to stick injections into wounded men. And when our engines were hit, he decided what to do.’

Peter tried to smile. ‘He didn’t fix them, too, by any chance?’

Leo shook his head, not realising his father had been attempting a mild joke. ‘The chief engineer did that.’ His father’s silence worried Leo. Perhaps he’d sounded too admiring.

At last, Peter remarked dryly, ‘It’s ironic really, but you’ve probably saved his life, in the long term.’

‘Ha, ha, dad.’

‘I’m serious. Because you made mincemeat of his security procedures, he’ll be moved to other duties. A safe job on a destroyer. Something like that.’

‘He’ll get the sack?’ Leo was appalled. He had
wanted to give Mike a shock and make him stop seeing mum, but not lose his job.

‘Secret operations can’t be compromised, Leo. Anyway, he won’t be too sorry to have a chance of surviving the war.’

Leo was taken aback by his father’s bitterness. ‘Isn’t that good, dad?’

‘I imagine your mother will think so.’

‘I’ve made a total hash, is that it?’ Leo’s voice rose to a squeak. He was close to tears.

‘I’m afraid
hash
is no word for it.’ Leo had never seen his father look more downhearted. ‘What you’ve done is put mum in a position where she’ll have to choose between him and me. Do you fancy my chances?’

Leo was silent for a while. ‘I could refuse to live with her if she chooses him.’

‘Sweet of you. But no good, I’m afraid. Even if you make her feel guilty enough to stay with me for a time, it won’t last.’

They both stared at the window as they heard the sound of an approaching car. The expression of anguish on his father’s face was too much for Leo. ‘Don’t worry, dad. I really think she’ll choose you in the end.’

‘I wouldn’t choose me,’ muttered Peter, searching his pockets for a comb. When Leo knew what he was looking for, he ran upstairs to fetch his own. Peter was using it as Andrea entered the room.

‘Peter! I thought you’d be on a later train.’ She sounded shocked and painfully nervous. ‘I haven’t had time to think – to decide what to do.’

Peter sat up very straight on the sofa. ‘Do you love him?’

‘Yes, I do.’

Peter sagged. Leo wondered how his father could have endured asking that question. Now that mum had given her answer, nothing could ever be how it had been. Perhaps dad was thinking this, too, because he looked terrible.