Sunset (21 page)

She reached out and grasped his wrist, her fingers surprisingly cold. ‘There was a picture. I tried to dry it for you. Of a girl. You love her?'

Brooke laid his hand on hers, holding her fingers between them.

‘I thought I did.'

‘But you do not . . . ?'

He knew it was suddenly important. ‘She married my brother.'

‘I see.' She was pulling her hand away. ‘I did not know about her until afterwards.'

He saw her staring around the temple as if she did not know where she was.
Afterwards?
It might mean anything.

She continued in the same low voice, ‘It seems we were both mistaken, Commander Brooke.'

She stood up quickly and for a moment he imagined she was going to leave him.

Instead, she walked to one of the attendants and took four joss-sticks from him.

‘Come.' She held them over a candle until all four were smoking. ‘We pray now.'

He knelt stiffly on one of the well-used cushions and stared up at the images of Man and Mo. They gazed back at him while the incense curled around them from the many smouldering sticks.

She glanced at him, her eyes in shadow; but her jade necklace was moving to reveal the intensity of her emotion.

She said simply, ‘Say nothing. They will unroll your thoughts.'

So he thought: of his father, his jokes and his memories of so many places. Hong Kong had been one of them. Had he ever come here?

He thought of Sarah, who was expecting a baby. In other circumstances, it might have been his. Perhaps she had not realised that Jeremy had no use for sentiment. He might display some counterfeit of it if he thought it might help his progress, but it went no deeper. Maybe, after all, she was like him.

And he thought of Lian. Did the gods, who were sharing these thoughts, find nothing strange in this unsettling situation? That this lovely Chinese girl, about whom he knew almost nothing, had helped dress his wounded and, in his eyes, obscene leg? Sarah had been repelled by it.

Did the gods know the future?

He helped her to her feet and together they planted their josssticks side by side.

She bowed towards the nearest altar and said, ‘We can only hope.'

Then she said in a different voice, ‘You will come back to the house for some tea?'

‘I have to go to the ship.'

She nodded. ‘I will take you to the dockyard.'

He heard the old amah shuffling after them and saw William standing on the pavement, dwarfed by the car he drove with such pride.

She asked directly, ‘Will you be sailing for England soon?'

Again, he knew it was important. ‘I think it unlikely.' He watched her face but it gave nothing away.

She said, ‘I could not rescue the photograph. I am very afraid it had been spoiled.'

They faced one another, and again he was very aware of her, and wanted to tell her so.

‘That is
all right
, Lian.'

Then she smiled for the first time since they had come to the temple.

‘I hoped it would be,' she said.

They drove back slowly towards the harbour, along Connaught Road and past the piers and busy shipping.

At the gateway to the little naval dockyard a sentry snapped to attention as the car rolled impressively to a halt; but the sailor showed no surprise or curiosity. Charles Yeung was obviously very well known in Victoria.

Brooke got out and looked at her. ‘I would like to see you again.'

He heard voices and glanced round in time to see Pike, the coxswain, and his friend Andy Laird the chief stoker, with their arms around the shoulders of Onslow, the yeoman of signals. All disentangled themselves and saluted.

Brooke saw that Onslow wore his new petty officer's peaked cap and shirt with blue badges pinned in place. He had heard that as soon as Onslow had his proper rate confirmed the chief and petty officers' mess were going to pay for a completely new, made-to-measure fore-and-aft uniform. They had obviously been celebrating.

Pike grinned hugely. ‘Takin' Yeo ashore for a spot of sightseein', sir!'

They all chuckled but their eyes were on the girl inside the splendid car.

Brooke smiled. ‘Get along with you! And congratulations, Yeo!'

Andy Laird nodded. ‘All right for some, eh, Swain?'

But Pike knew exactly how far he could go. ‘Beats the Smoke any time, don't it, sir?'

They all tottered away, set on a good time.

He explained quietly, ‘My yeoman of signals lost his wife and child just before we came here.'

He turned back to her and saw her watching his mouth as if to read each word.

‘They
like
you.' She looked suddenly sad. ‘I must be careful, or I might like you also. That would never do, I think.'

He lifted her hand off the lowered window and kissed it. People hurried past and neither stared nor made any obvious comment.

He said, ‘I will call you, Lian.'

She held her hand to her cheek, her eyes very bright.

‘Good-bye, Es-mond.'

The car moved away and Brooke stared after it, but she did not look back.

Es-mond
. He had never cared for his first name. Like everything else, the girl had given it a new value.

Esmond Brooke sat squarely in his bridge chair, an unlit pipe clenched between his teeth. The air was heavy and clammy, but compared with between decks where it was like an oven in spite of the busy fans, and the blazing heat in the confines of an open bridge during the daylight, it was almost exhilarating. He watched the arrowhead of the sharp forecastle rise streaming from the sea, water cascading down either side as far as ‘A' gun before ploughing into the next steep roller. Even some of the older hands would be throwing up in this, he thought.

It was pitch black, with no stars to divide the ocean from the sky.

Down again, the spindrift flying over the glass screen like white arrows.

Kerr emerged from beneath the chart table's hood and said, ‘Pretty lively, sir.'

‘It may get worse.' Strange how easy it was to talk with the first lieutenant now. Perhaps Kerr's admission of his fear aboard the sinking fishing boat was a part of it. Like Calvert, who had even touched very briefly on flying.

Like me
. He wiped his face with a wet towel as he recalled his shame over his injured leg. He was not over it, but the girl had helped more than she could ever know.

He had seen her only once more before
Serpent
had been ordered to sea on another patrol. Without effort he could summon her to his mind, even though he had repeatedly told
himself he was being ridiculous. Perhaps she was trying to show his brother that she did not care about his behaviour. That she had never been really serious.

Their last meeting had been so formal he had barely spoken to her. Her father had invited some of his own friends to dinner at his fine house on the Peak, dedicated eaters to a man. Charles Yeung had prodded the air with a cigarette, which he was rarely without, and through the smoke had said, ‘Lian, sit beside the Commander. Teach him the foreign ways of chopsticks!'

She had not looked at him but had watched her hand on his as she had guided his fingers until he had eventually obtained a proper grip on them.

A wet figure lurched across the bridge. Sub-Lieutenant Paul Kipling, at odds with the others in the same old khaki drill uniform in which he had first come aboard.

Brooke twisted round in his chair. ‘Number One? What can we do about getting some Chinese dhobi-men on board? Other ships on the China Station have them. They could manage our shirts and other gear in no time, I'm told.'

Kerr's teeth shone through the gloom. ‘The old three-badgemen won't thank you for that, sir. They've got their own firm down below, in league with the boiler-room crowd of course, for drying out the clothing!' He considered it. ‘I'll lay something on. The wardroom funds can stand it.'

He watched Brooke as he raised himself in the chair to stare into the spray. More like a first-passage midshipman than the commanding officer, he thought.

‘You were always in destroyers, sir?'

‘Except for a training cruiser, yes. Always wanted to be. I suppose my father had something to do with it.'

Kerr saw him run his hand along the rail below the screen, where canvas dodgers had once been rigged to help protect the bridge team from wind and weather. The dodgers had vanished with many other original fittings.

‘I never thought I'd get to drive
Serpent
though.'

‘You seem to get along well together!' Kerr staggered as the bows went down again and somebody sprawled headlong by the
ladder. The ship was at cruising stations, four hours on and eight off. Welcome under other conditions, but not in this.

Brooke commented, ‘My father always said of destroyers, “
Bigger than anything faster, faster than anything bigger
”. Suits 'em, eh?'

Kerr said, ‘I hear you've been doing Hong Kong in some style, sir.'

‘The car, you mean?' Before, he might have looked for some other reason for the remark. To Kipling he said, ‘Phantom II, you said?'

Kipling walked across the rolling bridge like a Liverpool drunk. Against the pale paintwork his shirt looked black. He was soaked.

‘Give me a chance to drive it, that's all I ask!'

Brooke wiped his empty pipe on his shirt. So Kerr knew. Then the whole ship would. In destroyers it was like that.

He said, ‘Better go round the ship, Number One. Make sure that everything is battened down. I know you've done it, but be certain the hands know what it's all about. After the Atlantic and home waters – well, it might take the edge off them. Sub and I will hold the fort until you get back.' He lowered his voice and added, ‘There might be a temptation to open a scuttle or raise a deadlight. It's common enough. But this ship is on active service, although it may not seem like it to some. I want her blacked out, right?'

‘Are you still considering the chance of a German commerce raider, sir?'

‘No.' He touched his bare arm; it was not only wet but also it was suddenly cold. It was absurd. He reached down and felt the fresh bandages on his leg. It was not that.

‘Something wrong, sir?'

‘Just me. Forget it. Can't get used to all this, I suppose.'

Kerr peered at him and wished he could see his face. More likely that stunning Chinese girl, he thought. Probably thinking of her right now. The island was about fifty miles astern. It could have been ten times that much.

‘D'you think we'll ever be returning to the U.K., sir? I mean, for active duty?'

‘It rather depends on . . .'

A bridge messenger called, ‘Signal, sir!'

‘Tell the W/T office to send it up.' He heard Kerr say, ‘Not urgent, anyway.'

The messenger hauled the little brass cylinder up the tube from the W/T office and pulled out a rolled flimsy.

Together Brooke and Kerr crawled under the canvas hood and switched on the chart light.

Brooke read it aloud. ‘Broadcast from Hong Kong. Typhoon of unknown intensity situated within fifty miles of Latitude nineteen degrees North, Longitude one hundred and ten degrees East. Moving North-West. Time of origin seventeen hundred.'

‘Well, now we know, sir.' He watched as Brooke's brown hands moved the parallel rulers expertly on the soiled chart. Outside their tiny haven the spray hammered the hood like lead pellets, and Brooke could feel the sweat running down his spine as if there was a leak in the canvas.

He said, ‘Should veer away before it gets here.'

‘Bit early for a typhoon, I'd have thought, sir?'

Brooke tapped the chart with his dividers. ‘October is usually the worst, according to the good book. But you can never rely on it apparently. Pass the word when you go round the messdecks, will you? Nothing too dramatic. I'll speak to the lads on the tannoy if it does get bad.'

They ducked out from cover and into the clinging heat. It was not raining, but it might just as well have been, Kerr thought.

‘Tell Pilot if you see him. He can log its progress when the watch changes.'

Kerr knew there was something else.

‘Have you ever been close to marriage, Number One?'

Kerr gripped a rail as the side went down. ‘I know a girl, sir. Known her since I was a cadet. I'm not sure, though . . .'

‘About what?'

Kerr looked in his direction. ‘In wartime – you know, sir.'

‘I suppose so.' He clambered into the tall chair again. ‘Carry on.'

‘Wheelhouse – bridge?'

Kipling went straight to the voicepipe. He had learned fast.

‘Forebridge?'

‘Able Seaman Shaw relieving the helm, sir!'

‘Very well.'

It never stopped. Soon the various messes would start to prepare their evening meals, provided the galley fire was still alight. If the sea really got up they would be sharing the meal with some of that too, Brooke thought.

He recalled her eyes when she had told him about the damage to Sarah's photograph. She must have done it out of anger. She had thought him to be like Jeremy in that too.

A fanny of tea came to the bridge but it tasted salty; it must have had a rough passage from the galley.

Kerr returned and shook his sodden cap on the deck.

‘All secure, sir. Told Pilot about it.' He took a mug of tea and grimaced. ‘God, I should have brought some from aft!'

A voicepipe squeaked again and Kipling reached out to snap open the cover.

‘Busy this evening,' Brooke observed calmly. But his insides were far from calm.

Kipling snapped, ‘Send it up, man!'

To Brooke he said, ‘
Mayday
call, sir.'

Kerr seized the little brass tube again and took the signal flimsy to the chart table.

Brooke said, ‘Call the navigating officer to the bridge, someone!'