Killing Ground (17 page)

But that night as Howard lay in his old bed and listened to the vague drone of aircraft, “theirs” or “ours,” he did not know, he found that he could not forget it, or the girl with the green eyes.

Gordon Treherne lay back sleepily on the disordered bed and tried to guess the time. He heard her humming in the other room and felt the returning need running through him like a fever in the Gulf. She had drawn the blackout screens across the windows. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed deeply. So they had been
at it
for most of the day, and within an hour of his arrival at her flat.

Outside the room it was quiet, the town of Birkenhead bracing itself for another sneak air raid. The shipyards were still, all work stopped until the new day. So many fine vessels had gone from here, he thought. He had served in a couple of them.

She came back into the bedroom, a tartan blanket wrapped around her nakedness. Her name was Joyce, and Treherne had met her shortly after the outbreak of war, over the water in Liverpool where she had been working in a pub to make a few extra bob. She was married, and her husband was now serving somewhere in the Royal Army Service Corps.

His eyes narrowed as he thought of the first time he had made love to her. Lust, need; there had been no thought of permanence then. Perhaps it had been the savage scar on her back after her husband had beaten her up, as he had apparently done quite a lot.

She stopped by the bed and put down a tray with some beer and sandwiches on it.

She smiled. “Only Spam, I'm afraid, Gordon. You must eat as well, you know!”

She gasped as he dragged her down and flung the blanket to the floor. “You're lovely, Joyce!” He squeezed her breasts and pulled her closer, feeling the urge rising to match hers.

She had beautiful breasts and a body to match. She must have been quite lovely as a bride, he thought wistfully.

All at once he was above her, kissing her, while she moved her body against his.

When it was over they lay entwined, exhausted by their hunger for each other. He stroked her back and made her shiver when he touched the scar. “If that bastard ever bothers you again …” He never used her husband's name, as if it was something foul. “I'll take him apart.”

She nodded, like a child, then touched his beard. “I'll never go back to him. I'll manage. I have before.”

“We'll
manage, right, Joyce?” He did not know how, but somehow wanted it to be so.

She said, “I've got a good job now, making duffle coats for the Navy!”

Treherne grinned at her. A real sailor's girl. God alone knew how it might end, but he knew that he wanted her for himself. She was not at all like his Carol, nor any of the brief affairs he had entertained in the Caribbean or various ports where they had dropped their cargoes of bananas. Joyce was different, and she was fun to be with.

They both jumped as the telephone jangled beside the bed. She made to pick it up but Treherne said, “If it's that bastard, pass it to me! I'll tell him a few home-truths!” She watched his smouldering anger with quiet admiration. Gordon could make mincemeat of her old man. But she handed it to him anyway and whispered, “It's for you.” It sounded like a question.

Treherne bit his lip. “Had to leave a number, love.”

She retrieved her blanket and hurried towards the little kitchen. When she came back she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, his hands locked together, his face set in deep thought.

He looked at her, then held out his arms to her. “I've got to go back, Joyce. That was the skipper.” He glanced at the telephone as if he could not believe it. “Thought he was on leave.”

She clung to him and pressed her face against his chest. “But it's not right, Gordon! You've only just got here!” She was crying now, her eyes red with tears. “I wanted to have such a nice time with you …” She could not go on.

Treherne stroked her back and murmured into her hair, “I'll make it up to you, love.” He was trying to remember exactly what Howard had said. It had been a bad line, too.

Then he said quietly, “He wants me to take over as Number One, for the moment anyway.” She stared up at him, not understanding. He added gently, “Second-in-command, that means.”

She wiped her face and eyes with one corner of the sheet. “Second-in-command! Of a destroyer!” Her momentary pride vanished as she said in a small voice, “You won't want me any more. Mixing with all those posh officers.”

Treherne grinned as he pictured the
Gladiator
's wardroom, the old Gunner (T) minus his teeth, snoring in a corner after too many gins. “Pusser” Finlay, and dear old Taffy Price, the Chief.

He replied, “You're my girl, Joyce. Next time I come I'll get you a ring.”

She stared at him with disbelief. “But I'm still married!”

“I don't care. You belong to me, see? I want everyone to know it!” He let out a sigh.
“Posh
officers indeed!”

She looked at him searchingly. “When do you have to go?”

“Tomorrow, love. I'll be back, probably sooner than you think.”

She looked at the blackout screen. “Liverpool again?”

He nodded. “Something like that.”

She moved against him and they lay down together. Too exhausted to make love, too sad to talk about the future.

When the first shipyard hooter sounded the start of another day, they had still barely slept.

Lieutenant Graham Marrack remained quite still, his face expressionless while he watched Howard standing by an open scuttle, the sunshine on his face.

Howard said, “I don't see what all the fuss is about, Number One. Of course you must accept it. God, man, a command of your own—it's what any officer would give his right arm for!”

Marrack replied stubbornly, “I'm very aware of the honour, sir. But there will be lots of people in the queue without my jumping the gun.”

Howard turned aside as a rivet gun shattered the silence like an ack-ack fusillade. He did not know what angered him more. Losing the best first lieutenant he had ever known, regular
or
reservist, or Marrack's pigheaded attitude about accepting command.

“Look.” Howard faced him. “This bloody war will last for years. If we win, there'll still be the Far East waiting, after that probably Russia, the way they're going on. But win or lose, the Navy must have good, experienced commanding officers. You've seen the green kids we're getting, willing to die, and that's what they usually do before they can learn anything!”

There was no movement in the little pantry and he could imagine Petty Officer Vallance with his ear pressed to the hatch, reaping a harvest of gossip for the chief and PO's mess.

“And anyway, if their lordships offer you this appointment it is not a
request,
Number One!”

Marrack frowned.
“Gladiator
will be going back to Western Approaches after this. Nobody has said so, but we both know it.”

Howard nodded and waited without comment.

Marrack finished his summing-up. “You carried the lot of us last time. If I've learned anything, it's come from you, not out of books. You tell me that the Navy needs experienced commanding officers.” He eyed him calmly. “And skippers need good subordinates.”

Howard smiled. “Remember that when you take command, eh?”

As if to a signal they both shook hands as Marrack said, “Of
course
I wanted it, sir. But not like this. I'd thought to stay in
Gladiator
for a while longer.”

Howard looked at the appointment lying on his desk. They must have worded it much the same in Nelson's day, he thought.

He said,
“Tacitus.
Flower Class corvette. She's in Western Approaches too.”

Marrack nodded slowly, watching him as if he wanted to forget nothing.

“We've seen her many times in the Atlantic.”

Marrack moved to the door. “I've a few things to do, sir, before I leave.” He hesitated. “Who will you get, I wonder?”

“Not another bloody lawyer, that's for sure!”

He saw the tall lieutenant give his private smile before he closed the door behind him.

Howard thought suddenly of his father, his obvious disappointment when he had cut short his visit after a call from Marrack. He could see him exactly as he had left him by the garden wall, his tousled white hair, the single, busy hand which could do almost anything. Like an extension of his eye and brain.
I shall give him a ring later on.
It seemed unfair that the Guvnor had grown so old.

That evening, when the ship was blacked-out alongside the jetty, Howard telephoned Treherne in Birkenhead.

He thought of it later. Treherne's surprise, which matched Marrack's stubbornness, so that they each had to be convinced in different ways.

He went on deck and looked at the tall cranes stark against the pale stars, and thought of the woman who had answered the telephone. Treherne was a dark horse. Full of surprises.

The gangway sentry stiffened in the darkness and Howard said, “All quiet, Laker?”

“As a boneyard, sir!” The man grinned at him, pleased that the Old Man remembered his name.

Howard strolled along the iron deck beneath the whaler's davits, and thought about Treherne.

It was the first time that he could recall being so envious.

The red-faced coxswain stood massively to one side of the table and bawled, “Quick march! 'Alt! Off cap!” He did not need to consult his clipboard. “Leading Seaman Bishop, sir! Drunk an' disorderly!”

Lieutenant Finlay stared at the chief quartermaster across the little desk, his eyes hostile.

“Will you never learn, Bishop?”

The man met his gaze with equal animosity. “Nuthin' to say, sir.”

The gunnery officer, who was OOD, glanced at the coxswain.
“Well?”

Sweeney tilted his cap against the sunshine. “Brought aboard by the shore patrol, sir. That was after bein' thrown out of the
Coach an' 'orses,
and then the wet canteen, sir.”

Finlay glanced at his watch. “You're a fool, Bishop—your own worst enemy.” When there was no response he snapped, “Stand over for first lieutenant's report!”

“On cap, right turn, double march!”

“Next!”

Sub-Lieutenant Bizley waited impatiently by the lobby door. He hated being made to understudy Finlay's duties, or anyone else's for that matter. In the motor gunboat he had been first lieutenant, gunnery officer and watchkeeper, and anything else that was thrown his way.

The tannoy squeaked into life. “Stand easy!”

“That's the lot, sir.” Sweeney folded his list of defaulters. He did not sympathise with Bully Bishop, nevertheless he had seen some of the officers pissed enough in the wardroom. Probably not the gunnery officer, he thought. “Pusser” Finlay was sharper than any regular he had known. He never bent the rules for anyone. Unlike Treherne. He gave a grin. Even Jimmy-the-One had been known to offer a second chance. Bishop would dip his hook for certain this time.

Finlay looked along the deck. There was less disorder and mess now, fewer power-leads, and only a handful of boiler-suited
dockyard maties grouped around the new gun mounting amidships, a multiple-barrelled pom-pom. To hell with dockyard rules, he thought.
They
don't have to fire the bloody things.

“I'm going to look over this job, Sub. Take over for me, and let me know when the captain comes back. He's in the dock office, so watch out.”

Bizley looked sulkily at the coxswain. “I'll see you at up spirits.” He was about to move away when he noticed the young ordinary seaman coming aft, bent almost double under a parcel of heaving lines. He had seen Milvain several times, working ship with the part-of-watch still on board, and knew that the young seaman had been studying him too. He made up his mind. There would be too many people about when the hands turned-to again.

“Here, Milvain, put that lot down a moment. It's stand-easy anyway.”

The youth looked at him shyly, and Bizley felt a chill run through him in spite of the sunshine.

“Sir?”

Bizley cleared his throat. God, he thought, I can
see
his brother in him. “Just wanted to say how sorry I was about your brother.” If only he would stop staring. “I was going to visit your family, but I was in a bad way myself.”

The youth nodded. “They understood, sir. It must have been terribly dangerous, what you did. I read all about it in the newspaper.”

Bizley's eyes blinked. “Newspaper? I didn't see that!”

Milvain plunged his hand inside his overalls and withdrew his paybook and wallet. He opened it carefully and took out the cutting, which had obviously been studied many times. “Here, sir.”

Bizley stared at the article which had Milvain's brother's photograph, and one of himself he did not know existed. Probably obtained from the gunnery school when he had done a course there.

It was all there; words like “courage” and “unselfish behaviour, above the line of duty,” stood out like banners on a cinema.

Milvain offered, “Keep it if you like, sir. I've another one at home.”

Bizley could barely think straight. In a way it was all true, so why should he feel guilty? He saw Milvain fumbling with his paybook and another photograph as he made to close it. To cover his excitement he asked, “Who's that, may I ask? Bit young for a pretty girl like
her,
I'd have thought?”

The seaman held it out to him. “It's my sister, sir. Sarah.”

Bizley held it to the sunlight. The same look as the youth who was staring at him with something like awe.
“Very
nice.”

“Wait until I tell her, sir. She was dying to meet you, to thank you for what you tried to do for Gregory.”

Bizley had had little or no success with girls. He knew that the Milvain family was very unlike his own, that the head of it was a major-general.