Pride and the Anguish (38 page)

She said quietly, “Please, Ralph. We must have this moment just for ourselves.”

She closed her eyes as he moved his hand to hold her breast, and as the towel dropped away she said, “It's you I want. There's never been anyone else.”

For a moment longer he made himself lie quite still, looking at her perfect body, torturing himself with his longing. Then he ran his hand across her breasts and down over the softness of her thighs. She was moving her head from side to side, her lips parted as if in pain. But as he rose above her and his shadow covered her like a cloak she opened her eyes and looked directly into his face.

Trewin felt her hands reaching up for him, all at once insistent and demanding, their touch sweeping away his last control, so that he seemed to hear a great wind roaring in his ears as their bodies came together as one.

He thought he heard her cry out, but as she rose to meet and encircle him he forgot everything but their love, which by its power and desperation held the other world far at bay.

Later they lay without moving or speaking, their bodies whipped by the drifting sand beneath the wind-stirred palms which looked so black against the sky.

Trewin felt her lips move against his shoulder. “Now we have something to remember if things get bad.”

He lifted her chin and studied her with great care. “We can wait up here for a while longer.” He saw the bushes swaying in the wind and heard the distant murmur of surf against the beach. The weather was changing fast. It might be an ally, or a bad enemy.

He said, “It's strange. I'm not afraid any more.”

She took his hand and laid it impulsively against her breast. “Feel my heart, Ralph.” She turned her face away, but not before he had seen the sudden tears. “I'm stupid to cry like this. But it is because I'm happy.”

A few drops of warm rain touched their bodies, but they stayed in each other's arms, neither wanting to let go, and each praying for the sun to stop its measured journey towards the horizon.

Far below them on the
Prawn
's bridge Lieutenant Adair squinted at the sky and consulted his watch. Then he looked up at the headland and gave a small smile. To a petty officer he said, “Call all hands. We'll get under way in thirty minutes.”

The man followed his gaze and asked, “Shall I fetch 'em down from there, sir?”

Adair shook his head. “They'll be here in time.” As the man walked away he added to himself, “That's the least I can do.”

B
Y THE TIME
the sun had dipped behind the nearest hill the
Prawn
was edging away from the protective rocks and butting her nose into the first ranks of unbroken rollers. The wind had increased, but the rain had shown no inclination to follow the first quick downpour. Far out towards the horizon the sea looked broken and angry, with small tufts of white curling from the crests of incoming rollers, and the troughs which opened beneath the gunboat's bows were already making themselves felt.

Trewin clung to the bridge rail and watched Adair as he sat in his chair, his splinted arm resting on the screen for support.

Adair said, “It's going to be hard on the passengers. These little ships were not designed for deep waters.” He ducked as a burst of spray pattered over the screen. “But with any kind of luck we should be into the Banka Strait by midnight. There will be some shelter there.”

Trewin felt the old ship lift and plunge forward over the back of a long roller and saw the water creaming back over the
forecastle. Without her camouflage the
Prawn
's battle-scarred bridge and decks added to her appearance of forlorn frailty as she headed away from the island's small protection.

He stared back towards the headland. It was already curtained with bursting spray as the waves swept jubilantly amongst the reefs and leapt to claw at that little piece of jutting cliff which he had left such a short while ago. Even the beach where he had waited beside Clare for the motor boat to collect them was covered by the inrushing water, and he could see the tall trees swaying and quivering as the waves thundered inland to the foot of the hill itself.

Adair turned as a look-out reported, “
Porcupine
's rounding the headland, sir!”

Trewin watched the familiar shape turning end on as she butted into the swirling criss-cross of waves, a shaded signal lamp flickering across the narrowing distance between them.

“Signal, sir. ‘Nice to have you around again.'”

Adair showed his teeth. “Acknowledge. Make to
Porcupine,
‘We are sending your first lieutenant across by life-raft.'” He grinned, “And tell them ‘Thanks for dropping by!'”

He turned and looked at Trewin. “Sorry about the raft. But it's too dangerous to lower a boat. You won't even get your feet wet if you're lucky.”

Trewin climbed down the swaying ladder and stood beside the guardrail as the waiting seamen manhandled the life-raft alongside and paid out a line in readiness to drift him across the water where
Porcupine
had already moved to receive him. He looked around the spray-washed decks. Apart from the gunners, they were stripped for action and deserted. It was hard to imagine that beneath his feet were crammed all those people he had seen on the beach. People who were solely dependent on Adair and the battered little ship around them. He recalled his words to Clare as if he had just spoken them aloud. “Don't try to see me when I leave. Just remember that I shall be thinking of you all the time.”

A rating shouted, “It's now or never, sir!” He was actually grinning.

Trewin clambered down to the raft and felt it fall away beneath him as the seamen paid out the line. The raft lifted and dipped in great, painful swoops, and he caught sight of Adair watching him through his glasses. A gaunt shadow against the darkening sky holding the binoculars in his one good hand.

When he turned his head again, the
Porcupine
was swaying above him like a grey cliff, and he saw Hammond and Dancy with the men by the rail and others staring down at him from the guns.

He waited for the right second and then jumped, his legs kicking at air as the raft was hauled rapidly away. Even before he was properly aboard he heard the clang of telegraphs and saw the spray flying back from the stem as the ship gathered way towards the open sea.

He touched Hammond's arm as he reached for the bridge ladder. “She's safe and well, Sub. So you can stop worrying.”

Hammond did not seem to be able to speak. He just smiled and then walked quickly along the tilting deck.

Corbett was seated on his chair, his body shrouded in a black oilskin. He peered at Trewin and nodded briefly. “Good show.” Then he settled down in his chair and stared over the screen, apparently indifferent to the spray which ran down his face like tropical rain.

Phelps stepped on to the gratings. “'Ere's an oilskin, sir.” He held it out for Trewin, his body swaying easily in spite of the motion. “By the way, sir. I fixed yer pipe.” He grinned. “Nice to 'ave you back.”

Trewin smiled and hauled himself to the bridge wing where he managed to wedge his body against a flag locker. When he looked astern he saw the
Prawn
's blunt shape swaying dizzily from side to side, a long banner of smoke streaming from her funnel as she swung on to the other ship's wake. Behind him he heard Phelps whistling a little tune and wondered how he
managed to stay so cheerful.

Phelps readjusted the signal halyards and glanced at Trewin's back with a small, secret smile on his freckled face. He was glad he had mended the first lieutenant's pipe. Apart from anything else, it helped to ease the guilt from his uncomplicated mind. Briefly he wondered what Trewin would have said if he had known that he was still on the top of the hill with his powerful binoculars when he had met the girl by the pool.

Masters growled, “Quit makin' that row, Ginger! You're like a cat with a sore arse!”

But Phelps was unmoved. He had a secret, and in a ship of this size, that was hard to come by.

I
N SPITE OF
the deep swell and a steadily rising wind the two ships somehow managed to maintain their southerly course towards Banka Island. The motion aboard the
Porcupine
was both savage and frightening as Corbett used every trick he knew to hold his ship on her corkscrewing track, and the fear of being discovered by the enemy seemed to fade in the face of the sea's probing anger.

Trewin clung to his corner of the bridge wing and watched the water come surging back over the bows to thunder around the superstructure and leave the forward gun isolated on its small steel island. It was bad enough heading into the long, dark-sided rollers, but when they began to turn around Banka Island into the Strait they would have a diagonal attack to contend with, and the danger of capsizing would have to be considered if the weather persisted in worsening.

The silence from the radio room added to the sense of complete isolation. No warnings, no messages of guidance from some far-off friendly weather station. It was as if the whole world was in the grip of the enemy forces and the moment the ships touched any part of it they would be destroyed.

Once, just before darkness finally blotted out the misty horizon, he saw the mountains of Sumatra far to the south, aloof and
unreachable, as if suspended above the sea, and he wondered grimly if the Japs were already there too and if there were other refugees from Singapore hiding and dying in the jungles, fugitives already forgotten by the world they had abandoned.

He gripped the wet steel and watched a long hummock of water as it rolled out of the gloom on either side of the bows. Just before it reached the stem its smooth crest curled and broke into a sharp-edged wave, as if caught in a strong wind, and then crashed across the forecastle with a booming roar of triumph. He felt the ship shudder, and watched fascinated as the whole of the foredeck became buried beneath the onslaught of water and the leaping white spray as it burst above the bridge and stung his face like hail.

After what seemed like minutes the ship pulled herself wearily above the surface, the water streaming in rivers from decks and guns and draining noisily from the scuppers as she lifted her bows before crashing down again into the greedy trough beyond.

Every piece of the bridge seemed to be squeaking and groaning in protest, and above the hiss and boom of the sea Trewin heard the steady clank of pumps as they too fought their battles from within. Some of the fuel oil had leaked into the bilges, and no doubt the pumps were unwillingly adding to the trail which still floated astern, defying even the fury of the sea.

If only they could increase speed, but Trewin knew it was impossible. The
Prawn
was holding her own in spite of the crazy rolls of her gaunt superstructure and masts, but only just. And to maintain her six knots in this weather her stokers must have sacrificed the very last standards of safety. Down in the tiny boiler room her men would have their work cut out to avoid being thrown bodily into the demanding furnaces as they struggled to maintain steam and answer Adair's needs.

Corbett asked sharply, “Is it time to turn, Pilot?”

Mallory was clinging to his table, his head and shoulders beneath the hood, his buttocks and legs soaked with spray as
he fought to work out the ship's approximate position while the world went mad around him.

“Five minutes, sir!” His voice was muffled. “Then alter course to two three zero!”

Corbett shouted, “Good.” He settled down in his reeling chair and wiped his face with a sodden towel. “Banka Island must be about three miles ahead. We will run down the northwest coast as close inshore as we can.”

Trewin lifted his glasses and stared beyond the distorted spectres of broken wavetops. Corbett was doing the right thing. No enemy destroyer would risk being caught near the great mass of Banka Island with its treacherous shallows and eager reefs. The gunboats' shallow draught and the weather were their only true allies, he thought.

A voice called hoarsely, “Land, sir! Dead ahead!”

Trewin squinted through his glasses, and before the lenses were again shrouded in spray he saw the darker shadow which stretched away on either bow, a solid link between the tossing water and the racing clouds above.

Corbett snapped, “Stand by to alter course!” To Masters he added, “Signal the
Prawn,
Yeoman!”

Masters wrapped his arms around Phelps' slim body and held him against the bridge wing as the boy trained his shaded lamp astern for that one brief message. It was dangerous to show a light, no matter how well it was concealed. But the danger of
Prawn
running headlong on to the shore was far more serious. Adair's small bridge lacked even
Porcupine
's scanty protection, and Trewin imagined that watchkeeping in this sea must be like clinging to a half-submerged rock.

Corbett watched Masters and the signalman reel back together in an untidy heap and then ordered, “Carry on, Number One!”

Trewin gripped the voice-pipes. “Starboard fifteen!” He tried not to think of the straining rudders and Nimmo's hasty repairs. “Midships!” He peered at the blurred figures on the luminous
compass repeater. “Steady! Steer two three zero!” He heard Unwin's voice from the wheelhouse, followed by a shouted obscenity as one of his telegraphsmen stumbled and fell headlong on the tilting deck.

The
Porcupine
swayed alarmingly on the surging criss-cross of rollers and hung suspended over a deep trough. She seemed unwilling to right herself, and as the water lifted and thundered along her submerged sidedeck Trewin heard Dancy yelling at his damage control party to put more lashings on the motor boat.

“Breakers on the port beam, sir!” The look-out's voice was neither surprised nor fearful. Like the rest of the men, he was too bruised, too stunned by the weather and the dreadful pitching to have any emotion left.