Torpedo Run (1981) (4 page)

‘But the overall responsibility is bigger, even awesome. A mistake now, a break in security somewhere, and everything could fall apart before we can begin. It’s the horseshoe-nail syndrome, except that we’re talking about the Eastern Front, not the bloody cavalry!’

Devane sat on the bed and played with his tie. Whitcombe had listened without further interruption as he had explained what Claudia Richie had said, or had not said.

Then, surprisingly, Whitcombe had suggested, ‘Go and see her, John. Why not? It might calm her down, poor lass. It won’t help us in Operations to have her making inquiries somewhere else. Some idiot in high places might check up and spill the beans about Richie’s suicide. Questions will be asked, the bumph-war will spread, and I shall have to delay
Parthian
until I can see what’s happening. In Berlin, for instance?’

Devane wondered if Whitcombe had just been opening the door for him. Had known or guessed that he had had every intention of seeing the girl again.

‘Oh, hell!’ He stood up and reached for his jacket. She would probably pitch him out on his ear anyway. She might even have gone back to Devonshire without further delay.

When he reached the lobby he found the petty officer and a naval fire-watcher listening to the news on the radio, and noticed they were both carrying steel helmets.

The PO came round the desk and said, ‘You’ll not get a taxi now, sir. Some of ’em do ambulance and fire duty after sunset.’ He added unhelpfully, ‘Be a raid tonight, sir, sure as eggs.’

Devane went out into the cool evening air and paused to get his eyes accustomed to the gloom. A few people were still on the move, but the blackout curtains and shutters made the square look dead, deserted.

The PO was right, not a taxi to be seen. But there was a bus, and wedged between a fat lady with a roll of blankets and a downtrodden youth in a boiler suit Devane managed to convey where he wanted to go to the girl conductor.

There were strips of paper and netting pasted on the bus windows to protect the passengers from blast. It brought this other war much closer to Devane than he would have imagined possible. The fat lady beside him was making her way to some draughty underground station or air-raid shelter for the night, to make certain of a good place. The youth was quite likely on a night shift at a factory somewhere. Working through the raids to make something which Devane and his men probably took for granted.

The girl clippie called, ‘That’s the Richmond, sir!’

The bus stood grumbling throatily against the kerbside, and then, after taking on a few dark figures, moved on again towards the Albert Bridge.

Some watery searchlights licked out across the clouds, their invisible crews testing them, just in case. Devane saw the reflected glitter on water and knew the hotel was facing the Thames.

It had often been his dream to come and live in Chelsea. Leave his father’s old-fashioned firm and start with an up-and-coming company with prospects and ideas. He and Tony had often discussed it. They could have shared a flat and kept the little MG for weekends.

Devane shook himself angrily. It was always the same when he was too long alone. At sea he was too busy to remember and regret. On land, he could only wait to get back again. A sort of madness, with nothing at the end of it. Perhaps that was how Richie had seen it? His number was nearly up anyway. They all said that. If you got through the first few operations you gained a kind of immortality, a confidence that nothing could destroy you. Then it passed. Maybe Richie could wait no longer and had ended it before
his desperation had put others’ lives at stake.

Whitcombe had made it sound easy. Five boats and one hundred and ten human beings.

It was a pity that men like the journalist who had written those sickening headlines about him could not see what really happened when a man died in combat, without hope, stripped even of dignity.

His fingers groped for a door handle and then he found himself stumbling through some heavy curtains which smelt of stale tobacco.

The lights inside the hotel were coldly bright. It was a combined lobby and lounge, with an oak staircase turning above a small reception desk, and a wall-covering which looked like dark red velvet. There were potted plants, and Devane could imagine there might once have been a small trio to play light music before tea and dinner.

He noticed for the first time that the half-dozen or so people who were sitting at the small tables were all women. With something like panic he thought he had blundered into an hotel which was off limits to servicemen. It would make his retreat even more ridiculous.

‘May I help you, sir?’

Devane turned and saw a woman in a black dress regarding him from behind the desk. She had not been there before. Like the pantomime genie, she must have popped up through the floor.

She must have seen his expression and said tartly, ‘I’ve been in the cellar. The
shelter
, that is.’ She had omitted the ‘sir’ this time.

‘Sorry. I was wondering if I could see Mrs Richie.’

He waited but nothing happened. The voices still murmured from the tables, and he heard the clatter of plates and someone singing. The kitchen.

‘Are you a friend of hers?’

Devane stared. ‘Why? Do I need an appointment?’

She flinched. ‘We get a lot of strange callers.’ She nodded very slightly towards the women in the lounge. ‘Some men, well, you know how it is.’ Her mood changed completely. ‘It’s my turn to apologize. I recognize you from your picture,
and on the newsreel at the Odeon.’ She added quietly, ‘These ladies are in town to receive their husbands’ medals.’

Devane made himself turn and look at them. So that explained it. The stillness he had felt, the strange similarity of these women. This was the side you never saw. He was learning a lot today.

At sea, and especially in coastal forces, the companies were mostly too young to be married, and the average age seemed around nineteen. In bigger ships and shore establishments there were jokes in plenty at the expense of those who were married, and little sympathy for the meaningless problems of house mortgages, school fees and the shortage of money which affected all families in wartime. The letters of sympathy which Devane had written had mostly been to mothers, not widows.

I should not have come
.

‘This
is
unexpected.’

Devane swung round and saw her standing at the foot of the stairway. She was wearing the same dress and carrying a coat over one arm.

‘Yes. That is. . . .’ Again she made him feel awkward and on the defensive.

She said, ‘I was going for a walk along the embankment.’ She held out the coat to him. ‘You are staring. Hold this for me.’ She turned into the coat with the ease of a dancer and studied him curiously. ‘It
was
me you came to see, I assume?’

He forced a smile. ‘I couldn’t just walk away. You were upset. I wanted to help.’

‘Walk with me.’ As he held the heavy curtain aside she said, ‘This place is like death’s waiting room.’ She said it without contempt or bitterness.

As they crossed the darkened road to the embankment she added, ‘I’m better now. Sorry I made a scene. Not like me at all. But I felt sick. Fed up with all the solemn smiles, the evasiveness about Don.’

Devane tensed. ‘It’s hard to know what to say at times like this.’

‘I expect it is.’ She turned up her collar and paused momentarily to peer down at the swirling river.

She continued in the same controlled tone, ‘There is a woman at the hotel. She’s here to collect her late husband’s gong from the King or somebody. I gather he got burned to death in a bomber when he stayed with his plane to avoid crashing it on a village. That’s what they told her anyway. He might have died seconds after the last of his men bailed out.’ She was looking at him now, her eyes hidden in the gloom. ‘That’s not the point. She said that, if he had to die, it was how he would have wished!’ She shook her head very slowly. ‘Can you imagine being glad about burning to death?’

He felt her move off again and fell in step beside her. He could even smell her perfume, as he had when they had almost touched by the taxi.

‘That’s why I wanted to speak to you, John. Someone who knows what it’s like. To reassure myself that I’m not going out of my mind.’

‘I can’t tell you anything about Don’s death. Really.’

A searchlight sprang across the sky like something solid, an unending blue lance. Devane saw her face, pale in the glare, the moistness of her mouth.

She said, ‘I should like a drink. Very much.’ She looked across the road. ‘There’s a place there somewhere. I don’t think I could stand a drink in the hotel. I would probably be branded as unpatriotic, or have my head shaved.’

It was then Devane realized. It was a carefully delivered act. She was frightened of being alone, even more afraid of sympathy.

The pub was exactly right. Small, packed and full of noise and cheerful voices. There were several servicemen and their girls, the former mostly Americans, the latter mainly from the profession. Victorian mirrors, some photographs of a prize fighter, cap badges from a score of regiments, a cartoon of Churchill making a V sign at Hitler. A typical London pub.

The landlord peered through the smoke haze, his glance taking in Devane’s rank and the girl’s dress and appearance.

‘Up this end, sir. Officers only.’ He winked, and anyone who was listening laughed at his joke.

There was one vacant bar stool, wedged in a corner.
Devane smiled and took her arm to help her on to the high stool, while he jammed his hip against the wet bar.

The landlord, whose face was battered into a shapeless ruin, said cheerfully, ‘Two gins, right, sir?’

She whispered, ‘He must be the boxer in the photos. Or what’s left of him!’

More people pressed through the blackout curtains, and Devane had to shout to make himself heard. He was pressed against her knees but she made no obvious effort to move. It was as if she were trying to lose herself here and could not face the brooding stillness of that hotel.

She said, ‘I suppose you’re taking Don’s job?’ She watched him steadily. ‘Don’t answer, not that you would anyway. But it doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Your sort don’t grow on trees. Don always said you were the best.’ She touched her lip with her tongue. ‘Next to him, of course.’ She pushed her empty glass towards him and Devane signalled to the landlord.

Devane said, ‘When you go back to Devon. . . .’ He got no further.

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Her voice softened slightly. ‘Sorry. Gin talking. I’m bad company. Especially for you.’

She swallowed the gin in almost one gulp and Devane saw her grimace at the taste.

She said directly, ‘You’ve not married, I hear.’ She nodded as if in agreement. ‘Don said you’d wait. He talked a lot about you, did you know that?’

Devane shook his head, afraid of breaking the spell. She was speaking freely now and one stupid remark could smash it. Down the bar two men were arguing tipsily and the landlord was watching them as he polished a tankard. Outside an air-raid warning had droned for several minutes, but as usual it was ignored. It had become a part of daily life. If it had your number on it. . . .

Devane had not known Richie that well. Another flotilla, and later a different sort of war with fresh faces and new problems to contend with had kept them apart. But when he thought of Richie, here in this crowded bar, he seemed more the way she had described him than he remembered him.
He
wanted to be a winner
.

She leant forward and brushed something from Devane’s sleeve. Her hair, almost jet black, fell across one cheek, but she did not seem to care.

‘He told me once that you were always looking at me. That last time, at the party, after we had been married for a few months. That was when he went on about it.’

‘I – I didn’t know.’

Devane tried to think rationally. Perhaps he had made some indiscreet remark which Richie had clung to.

He added, ‘It would be a lie if I said I didn’t look at you. I doubt if anyone but a blind half-wit could pass you without his heart taking a few jumps.’

She put her shoulders against the wall and studied him thoughtfully. ‘Tell me. Is it true that every time you go into action you have to clear your mind, wipe it clean so that you can cope? That’s what Don said. Several times.’ She put her hand over his on the bar and tightened her grip in time with her words. ‘I should like to know.’

Devane felt vaguely cheated. He must be crazy. What did he expect?

‘It’s true. There’s so much happening all at once.’ He could not take his eyes from her hand on his. It was small and beautifully shaped, and seemed to be listening to what they were saying. ‘Vigilance is everything. One moment of carelessness or complacency and it can cost lives, other people’s as well as your own.’

She nodded as if satisfied. ‘I needed to hear that. From you. Because if anyone in this damnable war knows about it, you do.’ Once more she nodded, the movement listless. ‘Thanks.’

Devane took her other hand and held it carefully. ‘Tell me, Claudia. What is it?’

‘Don is dead. It’s over.’

There was a long pause, and Devane knew that some of the others nearby were watching them, fascinated by their behaviour.

Then she said in a tired voice, ‘We had a blazing row, a real beauty, on that last leave before he went off to. . . .’ She
took her hand from his and wiped her cheek with the back of it. Like a child. ‘He’d been at it too long, but would never admit it. He had to do better. To be
the best!
’ She spoke the last words so loudly that several people had stopped talking to listen.

‘I wanted to hurt him. To get back at him. I told him I was having an affair.’

He stared at her, seeing Richie with the pistol in his hand as if he had been there.

‘That was how we parted. The last time I saw him.’ She gave a shrug. ‘So you see, John, he was most likely killed because of me. That’s what I had to ask you.’

The landlord’s battered features loomed over the bar. ‘Everythin’ okay, sir?’ He glanced anxiously at the girl. ‘She looks a bit dicky.’