Killing Ground (35 page)

The waiter's shadow was across the table. “Would you like the bill, sir?”
She
would go to the ladies' to powder her nose as they always did. Then he would put it to the young lieutenantcommander about the empty bedroom.

Howard said, “Two brandies.” He saw her start to protest and added, “Large ones.” He faced her again and said, “Sorry about that.” He waited, knowing that she was fighting it again.

She said, “He was seeing some girl, one he'd known at his old airfield. We had a blazing row about it, and he told me about the job he had volunteered for. I asked him not to do it. He'd risked his life countless times. Luck can't last forever.”

She broke off and asked abruptly, “Do you have a cigarette?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, I'm a pipe man, but I'll get the old retainer to find some.”

She shook her head so that her hair fell across her forehead, and Howard could easily picture her as a schoolgirl. “I don't smoke, David. I just thought this might be the time to begin.”

She watched the waiter place the glasses carefully on the table and said, “This will do, though.”

Howard watched; she was unused to brandy too, he thought. It was best not to recall Vallance's Horse's Necks, which had grown larger and larger over the past months.

She faced him calmly. “He stormed out of the house, telling me he'd do what he liked, and no stuck-up bitch would change him.” She swallowed some more brandy and looked at him, her eyes very green in the reflected lights. “He came back that night so drunk he could barely walk. A different man, like somebody else—a stranger. Do you want me to continue?”

Howard said nothing. She was going to tell him anyway, no matter what it might do to her.

She said, “He wanted me. He kept pulling at me, telling me I'd soon be rid of him. I tried to calm him, to find the man I had married—in the end I was fighting him off.” She gripped his wrist until her nails broke the skin. “He hit me in the face and threw me on the bed.” Her eyes were quite level and unmoving. “Then he raped me.”

“Dear God!” Howard pictured it as it must have been. Lust, anger, madness. And she had been made to submit to that and to the memory which had tormented her until now.

She said simply, “The rest you know. He was killed shortly afterwards.”

Howard said quietly, “If he hadn't been I think I would have
done it for him.”

She released her hand very gently and said, “The waiter is coming back. I'm told he makes ‘arrangements' for certain officers and their girlfriends.” She looked for her bag. “So if I was ever in a position like that, I'm not sure I could …” She broke off as the waiter put down the bill on a dented tray.

“Everything all right, miss?”

Her voice was surprisingly calm. “A very nice meal, thank you.”

To Howard she said, “Take me home will you, please? I'll show you where I live.” As they walked to the door several heads turned to watch them, something which Howard resented more than he would have believed possible. She said, “That will give the old goat something to ponder on!”

But Howard knew it was to cover what she had been trying to tell him. That she might never be able to make love again.

As they walked through the darkened streets and watched the first searchlights criss-crossing the sky she said, “You see, David, I
do
care. Very much. I never thought I would again. Perhaps I didn't even know what I wanted.”

He turned her lightly in his arms. It was not happening. Another dream. “I love you, Celia. I'll not change.” He held her, and they kissed gently, as if they were meeting for the first time. “I'd never do or say anything to hurt you.”

Her hands were gripping his jacket as if she would not let him go, and at the same time knew that she must.

She said, “I know that, David. That's why I want it to be
right.”

They stood apart as two policemen walked past, their steel helmets shining in the faint searchlights.

All right for some, they would say.

Howard said, “I'd like to see you again as soon as we get back.”

“Get back?”

“Well, you'll know soon enough when you go to your new job in ops. We're off again now that the maintenance commander
has put a rocket under the Asdic people. Don't worry—we're getting pretty good at it now.”

“I'll be watching and thinking about you.” She lifted her head and looked at his outline in the darkness. “I'm glad I told you about …”

He kissed her lightly on the mouth. “Come on, I'll walk you the rest of the way.”

The smouldering ammunition ship, the inability to listen for U-Boats, even the next convoy; they were all far away.

This was now; and David Howard was young again.

There's a sight for sore eyes, sir!” Treherne levelled his binoculars and studied the convoy, which was making a wide turn, hard sunlight flashing from tiers of scuttles and across the spacious bridge of the leading ship. Three ocean liners, well known on pre-war cruising posters, none of them a stranger to the Atlantic for those lucky enough in the Depression to be able to afford such luxury. Even their dull grey paint could not disguise their majestic lines, and even as the signal lamps began to blink between Vickers's group and the convoy's own close escort, it was possible to see that the leading ship's upper decks were packed with soldiers. They were mostly American, and had been handed over to their new escort in mid-Atlantic.

Howard loosened his coat; it was surprisingly hot in the open bridge, and he tried to estimate how many troops were crammed into each liner. All bound for Britain, and then after further training, to some point where an invasion must be launched.

“Port fifteen.” Howard glanced at the gyro-repeater. Like the other commanding officers in the group, he knew what to do. Half of them would sweep astern of the convoy's close escort; the rest would take station further to the south. The original escorts must have had their work cut out to keep pace with those powerful ships, he thought; it had made refuelling for the destroyers doubly difficult at sea because the liners stopped for nobody.

“Midships … Steady.”

“Steady, sir. Course zero-four-zero.” Howard smiled. The right direction anyway. They would be back in port in a couple of days if this weather held.

“Aircraft, sir. Bearing Green four-five. Angle of sight two-oh!”

“Disregard.” Treherne lowered his glasses. Even that was different now. The chill of despair when you sighted any aircraft was less evident. This one was a big Sunderland flying boat, crossing the convoy while the soldiers stared up at its great whale-shape and waved their caps.

Howard heard the clatter of feet on a ladder and knew Bizley had arrived to relieve Treherne for the afternoon watch. Was it noon already?

Bizley seemed to have recovered his old self-confidence, Howard thought. He was discussing course and speed and the air recognition signals as if he had been doing it all his life. At least he and Finlay were avoiding another clash, so Vallance's wardroom would be more peaceful.

Howard climbed on to his chair and thought of the girl he had walked home to her billet, the one she shared with the second officer they called “Auntie.” It was still hard to believe it had happened, or how it had begun. She was shy; probably still very shocked by what she had told him. But it meant more than that to Howard. She had trusted him. He would never repay it with some clumsy attempt at love. But as he had held her outside the darkened doorway he had felt her pressed against him, and had known then how much he had wanted her.

Sub-Lieutenant Rooke called, “From
Kinsale,
sir.” He held out the intercom handset, while Howard stared across the screen as if he still expected to see the leader. But she and the others were already out of sight, lost in a rippling mist created by the hard sunshine.

Vickers sounded as if he was on another planet, or was speaking through water.

“Received a signal from the Sunderland, David. Thinks they may have sighted a submarine, submerged and well astern of the
convoy. They'll make sure she doesn't surface to try and catch up.” He gave a hollow chuckle. “No chance of that, eh?”

Howard peered at his little radar-repeater. How huge the troopers' blips looked, the escorts—all destroyers for no corvette would ever keep pace with them—spread around them, a sure shield.
The most precious cargo of of all.

Vickers added, “I've detached
Ganymede
to support. You remain on station, just in case.”

Howard relayed the information to Treherne, who was still on the bridge.

He said, “They'll keep the bastard down. I don't expect the Jerry commander even realised the Sunderland had spotted him. Like a shadow in the water, I suppose.”

The yeoman of signals said, “There goes
Ganymede!”

Howard watched their sister-ship angling away towards the opposite horizon where another destroyer, Tail-end Charlie, was signalling to the flying boat as it cruised sedately overhead.

Howard thought of his friend Spike Colvin on
Ganymede
's bridge, sporting one of the famous brightly coloured scarves he had worn at sea even as a subbie. He lowered his face to the radar-repeater again. He saw the blip made by the destroyer, a big modern one named
Mediator
over five miles astern. Then
Ganymede,
bustling through the revolving radar beam as if drawn on a wire.

It was a marvel Colvin had ever made command, he thought. He had committed every sort of prank imaginable. He had painted their class number on the grass with weed-killer when they were about to pass out from
Excellent,
the gunnery school. But it had rained unexpectedly and the enormous figures had appeared even as the captain had been about to conduct the passing-out parade. Colvin had confessed. He always had. Another time, at a Christmas party, he had loaded and fired a brass cannon outside the Devonport Barracks wardroom. It had, unfortunately, blown out most of the windows in the commodore's house.

The three troopships were completing another zigag, lights flashing to the close escort commander as they wheeled in perfect unison. No chances with this lot, Howard thought.

“Starboard ten. Midships. Steer zero-eight-zero.” He raised his glasses but it was difficult to see
Ganymede
now, and anyway one of the wing escorts blocked the lenses while she, too, made a rapid change of course.

Rooke still held the handset and shouted, “From
Kinsale,
sir! Sunderland reports torpedoes …”

But Howard had already seen the flash, and then a second one. Against the eye-searing sunshine it was little more than a blink. By contrast, when it reached them, the double explosion was like a thunderclap; Howard felt the bridge quiver beneath his sea-boots as if they had run across a sandbar.

Treherne snapped, “Where the
hell
was that?”

Howard was watching the blip which was furthest astern. It had to be the
Mediator.
There was nothing else that far out.

The Sunderland was already swooping down over the sea's glittering face, depth-charges ready to drop if it sighted anything. That was exactly what the second U-Boat had been depending on.

There was a double flash and even above the mist Howard saw the tall water-spouts shooting skyward, followed instantly by a great plume of black smoke.

“Captain Vickers—for you, sir.”

Howard did not need to be told. The second salvo from a different bearing had hit
Ganymede.

“Sunderland's dropping floats, David. Take your section to assist.”

“Hard a-starboard. Full ahead together. Steer two-five-zero. Yeoman, make to
Blackwall
and
Belleisle: Take station for search on me.”

Treherne watched him grimly. He knew exactly what Howard was thinking. He had mentioned it several times; what a senior officer had once said to him.
When they start going for the escorts
instead of the convoy, you'll know you're winning the battle.

A powerful blast echoed across the sea, loud enough to muffle
Gladiator
's racing screws as she worked up to maximum revolutions. A ship blowing up? It would not be depth-charges; the Sunderland would not dare with so many men fighting for their lives in the water. The enemy would know that too. In no time a second Sunderland joined in the patrol, but the U-Boats had gone deep and headed away from danger.

When
Gladiator
and her two consorts reached the scene
Mediator
had already vanished. She had been a big destroyer, newer and more powerful than Vickers's
Kinsale.
She carried about two hundred in her company. Of their sister-ship only the forward portion remained afloat. The torpedoes must have hit her amidships and blown her in half, the engine-room exploding like a huge bomb.

Amidst the usual slick of oil and bobbing flotsam Howard could see a few struggling figures; not many.

“Action stations, sir?” Bizley sounded stiff and unreal, as if he did not believe what had happened.

“No. But clear the lower deck, and turn out the boats. Tell Ayres to stand by the Carley floats and scrambling nets.”

Treherne said, “They're already dealing with it, sir.”

He trained his glasses on the
Ganymede
's uplifted bows, and wondered how many might be trapped inside. He could see two tiny figures clinging to the port anchor, another trying to pull someone on to a waterlogged float.

“Slow ahead.” Howard heard the motor boat's engine cough into life as it was lowered down alongside.
“Stop engines!”
The moment of risk. He felt suddenly sick, as if nothing would stop him vomiting in front of them all.

“Boats away, sir!”

Blackwall
was already lowering her two boats near where the other warship had gone down, while
Belleisle
continued to circle round the scene, her Asdic listening for any tell-tale echo. But in his heart Howard knew there would be none. Two destroyers
gone within thirty seconds. They had made their point.