The Glory Boys (12 page)

She looked up, and grinned when she saw him.

“I am Maria. Mrs Howard gone away for two or three days.” She shook the broom. “I clear up!” She moved toward the other door, which was now open. No apparent damage here, and a bed with a dustsheet draped over it. Her bed.

Maria stopped sweeping long enough to call, “You watch your feet, sir! Broken glass!” She carried on with her work, still humming.

There were fragments of glass neatly piled on a piece of newspaper. Then he saw a picture frame lying in a wastebasket beside a desk, where it might have fallen or been flung by the blast.

More glass. Something made him hesitate, and then lift the frame into the light.

A photograph, taken on their wedding day. She was all in white, a wide-brimmed hat held loosely in one hand. Very young, with a smile he had never seen. Lovely. A domed building in the background, probably here in Malta.

He tilted the frame to look at the man beside her. A soldier, his rank obscured by the angle of the shot, smiling at her, very relaxed. Older than his dark-haired bride, and somehow familiar …

The frame fell back into the basket amongst the broken glass. The humming and the broom stopped together, and he called
out
something he never remembered as he walked toward the door.

He saw the old Wolseley waiting for him, but he knew that if it had not been there he would have kept walking, going nowhere.

How could he be so certain? The smart, confident army officer or the dishevelled, stinking vagrant they had been told to call Jethro … One and the same?

To our next rendezvous
.

The driver glanced at him incuriously, and let in the clutch with a jerk.

“Sounds as if there’s a flap on, sir.”

The car edged out into the road where men who had been digging at wreckage were throwing their tools into a dust-caked van. Until the next time.

He turned in his seat to stare back at the house with its demolished roof. The torn curtains had disappeared.

He felt the car gathering speed.

It was not a dream. But it was over.

TURNBULL STOOD JUST
inside the cabin, his cap pressed under one arm, the usual clipboard in his hand.

“Just wondered if you’ve any last-minute mail to go ashore, sir?”

He watched Kearton shutting a drawer, then patting his pockets to make sure he had not forgotten anything. Automatic, without thought: he had done the same. Even now, his head was half turned to pick up the familiar sounds and snatches of conversation that merged with the steady vibration of a generator.
His boat
.

Kearton smiled. “By the time any mail scrapes past the censors, the war’ll probably be over!”

Feet thudding overhead, the rasp of a mooring-wire. Spiers was making certain there would be no delays when they were ordered to get under way. A hatch slammed and someone laughed. There was no tension; they seemed impatient to cast off. To get away from the raids and the explosions, when they were helpless onlookers.

Turnbull said, “I got the new hand settled in, sir. Seems a steady sort of chap.” It sounded like a question.

Kearton nodded. “Good gunnery rate. He’ll be with the Oerlikons.” Their eyes met.
Dead man’s shoes
. Nothing would be said; it never was. But it would take time. “Able Seaman York.”

Turnbull grinned.

“
Yorke
, sir.” He shook his clipboard. “With an ‘e’!”

They both laughed.

Turnbull heard something and said, “I’m wanted, sir.” He jammed on his cap. “No peace for the wicked!”

Kearton buttoned his jacket and stared around the cabin, holding on to these last moments of privacy.

It was still bright enough over the moorings, or had been when he was last on deck. But dusk would be early, and they were leaving in one hour’s time.

He sat by the little table and tried to see everything at a distance, as if they were all markers on some Admiralty chart. Two destroyers had weighed and left harbour during the forenoon. A routine patrol, and the M.T.B.s would rendezvous with them tomorrow, and if nothing was reported to be on the move they would return to base. He patted his pockets again. It was never that simple.

He had called a hurried meeting with the other commanding officers, Mostyn of 977, and Stirling the Canadian, of 986. The latter had been forthright about it. “They’re expecting a convoy from Gib. Stands out a mile. Malta’s running out of everything, that’s nothing new. But it’s getting tough for Rommel too, finally. Supplies are vital.”

Stirling had been in the Mediterranean longer than any of them. Greece, Crete, Tobruk. He had added, “Jerry’ll be wise to the convoy. He’s got a lot of sympathetic eyes watching from Spain—Algeciras. And you can’t hide a bloody convoy!”

Kearton opened a scuttle and peered at the sky. No clouds, no smoke. Holding its breath …

He closed the scuttle and screwed down the deadlight. In those few seconds he had smelled the extra fuel which had been brought aboard in drums, as it had on his first passage from Gib. But this was different. The Chief would have to top up his
tanks
at sea, or cast them adrift at the first hint of trouble. One burst of tracer into a deck-cargo of petrol, and the boat would be an inferno.

He felt the deck move, the squeak of the hull against rubber. Restless. Eager to be on the move again.

He got up from the table and hurried to the door. Feet on the ladder, someone almost out of breath. It was Ainslie. He must have run all the way from the pier.

He saw Kearton.

“Fast as I could, Skipper!” He gestured behind him. “Just saw him! Heading right here,
now
!”

Kearton took his arm and shook it gently.

“Take it easy, Pilot. We’re all going to need
you
very soon, so just count to ten and tell me.”

Ainslie collected himself.

“Captain Garrick, large as life. No aides, no warning—”

Kearton shook his arm again. “Let’s go and see what he has to say, shall we?”

He was surprised that he felt nothing, neither anger nor apprehension. If anything, it was relief.

Garrick, with Spiers close on his heels, strode past the W/T office and into the cabin. He tossed his cap on to the table and looked sharply around at the others.

“Just want a brief word with our S.O. Would have come earlier—” He shrugged. “But I’m here now!”

The door closed and Garrick sat abruptly on a chair, as if a wire had snapped. He looked at the door and said, “Good. Don’t want half the fleet listening in, do we?” He leaned back and pulled a hip flash from a pocket. “Won’t offer you one, Bob, under the circumstances, but I really do need it.”

Kearton put a glass quietly on the table, and saw it half filled from the flask. Scotch, by the smell of it, and not the first one.

Garrick saw his eyes and poured another.

“R.H.I.P., Bob!”

Rank Hath Its Privileges
. Rarely heard in Coastal Forces, unless used with contempt.

Garrick looked up as something thudded on the deck above him.

“I keep ramming it home. We need more boats like this one, with range and firepower, even if they’re not as fast as we’d like.” He pushed the empty glass away. “The Chief of Staff was a good listener, I’ll give him that. But by the time he’s spilled everything to his lord and master, my troubles will have gone to the bottom of the pile!”

Kearton thought of the men on deck, Spiers and Ainslie. They had all seen Garrick come aboard. Laidlaw and his team of mechanics would also know. This was no time for doubt, uncertainty.

“Is it still on, sir?”

Garrick looked at him, perhaps surprised, but concealed it. He leaned on one elbow and grinned.

“I asked for that!” He was fumbling in a breast pocket. “It’s still on, very much so.”

He had taken out his cigarette lighter, and clicked it deliberately. “The way things are going, I’ll be hard put to fill this soon.”

“Are we getting more boats, sir?”

Garrick looked away, as though listening to something.

“They’re coming, eventually. As I told C.O.S., so is Christmas!”

He smoked in silence for a minute, and when he spoke again his voice was calmer, almost relaxed.

“Convoys are vital, especially here, more especially now. Axis forces in North Africa are on the defensive. In a few months they’ll have their backs to the sea, or be trying to cross it. Their supply line is an artery, and Malta, more than ever, is like a poised dagger. Battered, bloody, and defiant—it’s a pity some of their lordships can’t see that and act on it!” He was on
his
feet. “I was a lad at Jutland. I hope I learned something from it. I sometimes wonder …”

He tugged down the front of his jacket and flicked something from his sleeve.

“I think the enemy will have a plan to stop or divert this convoy. Probably mines. Just the hint of a new minefield is enough to stop things moving. Malta’s been through it several times. The mine is cheap, the torpedo is not, and it’s a menace long after it’s dropped.” He looked down at his cap on the table. “The enemy is working on a new type of mine, to be fitted with a cutting device. If it can be perfected, it will sever the sweep as it cuts the mine adrift. One mine, one sweeper: not acceptable odds on any scoreboard.” He looked at Kearton keenly. “In Special Operations we’ve kept our ears and eyes wide open.” He half-turned, still listening. “I must be on my way. Would have come earlier, as I tried to explain to your young pilot.” He was reaching for the door. “I’ll do all I can.” He stepped over the coaming and paused when he saw Leading Seaman Dawson.

“They’ve not enticed you back into the boxing-ring yet, Dawson? Our loss, but their gain if you go.” They laughed; Dawson wheezed something in reply, but Garrick had already walked to the ladder. “I’ll see myself over the side, Bob.”

He paused on the second step and looked down, framed against the dying sunlight.

“It’s … important.”

Kearton went back to the cabin and stood for a few minutes, waiting for the boat to settle down again. No ceremonial, no bullshit. He pulled open the drawer and reached for his repaired pipe. Beside it was the little package, the clean handkerchief.

Not perfect, I’m afraid. Best I could do
.

The tannoy squeaked into life.

“All hands! Hands fall in for leaving harbour!”

Just as suddenly, it was quiet again. He picked up his binoculars and slung them around his neck. The generator had
stopped
. He should be used to this moment, but they would all be watching him, trying to read something in his face, in his manner, that might reassure them.

He hesitated at the door. The desk drawer was still open.

He picked up the little package and folded it before slipping it into his pocket.

Feet skidded to a halt.

“Standing by on deck, sir!”

He closed the drawer, and walked out of the cabin.

“Thanks. Let’s go!”

Lieutenant Toby Ainslie pressed his fist against his mouth to smother the yawn. It was infectious: if you gave into it, everybody would be yawning his head off.

The morning watch, but the sky and sea were still like night, although he could dimly see the outline of the helmsman’s duffle coat now, and the faint gleam of the compass. Others he recognized only by where they stood or crouched at their lookout stations and guns, or by an occasional voice.

He felt the bridge sway, with the responding creak of equipment and clink of ammunition.

Eleven hours since they had cast off, and wended their way past the harbour defences and out into open water. An empty sea. But in his mind he could see it like a map: they were soon to enter the narrowest part of the Strait between Cape Bon on the North African coastline and the southwestern tip of Sicily. He gripped the handrail beneath the screen and stared into the darkness. About fifty miles abeam from either side. No wonder the convoys had to take such risks to fight their way through to Malta.

He had heard some of the older hands scoffing about it, men who had served in the English Channel, with both coasts rarely out of sight and the enemy often within range. But at least they had had somewhere to run.

He surrendered to the yawn and listened to the engines. Hard
to
believe by their muted beat that they were the same ones which had roared into monstrous life, as if nothing could control them. And that it was the same two-pounder, clinging to its target, the smoke tinged with red, like blood.

He moved aft and saw the sky, defined by a pale edge for the first time.

He thought of their last-minute discussions, the skipper and the two other commanding officers answering questions, even joking from time to time, apparently at ease. As if they had all known one another for months.

He saw a surge of spray out on the starboard quarter, and knew the other M.T.B. would be keeping station on the opposite bearing. The arrowhead formation gave the widest arc of vision, and was the best for immediate action.

Someone coughed, either to show he was awake or as a warning to others that something was about to happen.

Spiers was talking to one of the gunners, then Ainslie heard him laugh. That was rare enough these days.

Ainslie felt the beard catch against his sweater. He had been tempted to shave it off: that was what everybody seemed to expect. His mind shifted just as quickly. What about Sarah? His girl.
The
girl …

She would laugh, tease him. And then …

Somebody nudged against him and he saw a mug of something steaming, balanced beside his hand.

“Sorry, no saucer, sir!” The grin showed in the gloom as he groped his way back to the ladder. Ainslie sipped at the enamel mug. It was badly chipped. He felt his mouth crack into a grin.
No saucer
. Better than any salute.

A door or hatch slammed somewhere beneath him, almost lost in the unbroken tremor of engines. The starboard lookout said, “Skipper’s comin’ up, sir.”

“Nothing wrong with
your
ears, Ellis! I’ll have to be careful in future!”

He heard him chuckle.
If only you knew
.