The Glory Boys (2 page)

Someone called, “You’re wanted on deck, sir!”

Even that seemed unimportant. Soon it would all make sense: the naval uniform with its two tarnished stripes on the uncovered shoulder, and something else, something familiar, at odds with the tension and the vague signals following that solitary explosion, which had remained uppermost in the Fisherman’s mind. Had made him persist when another might have given up the search.

“We’re going in now,” he said. “Try to rest.”

The senior medic was holding up an identity disk.

“Name’s Kearton, sir. Lieutenant.”

Even that seemed familiar. He realized that the rescued man’s eyes were open, unmoving, coming to terms, accepting the stark truth of his survival. He tried to turn his head as the dead airman was covered with an oilskin, but the effort was too much.

The Fisherman murmured, “Did the other one give you any trouble?”

The lieutenant smiled, or attempted to.

“I’d be dead, but for him.”

A steaming mug had appeared. “Try and swallow some of this. It’ll help.” There was rum in it. Nothing in the medical log about its benefits, but it often did the trick.

More voices; he had to go. But he said, “Kearton, right?”

The lieutenant tried to nod, and some cocoa trickled over his chin.

“‘Bob’ will do …” Then he fainted.

The Fisherman groped his way up to his small bridge again. It seemed much darker after the bright lights below.
I must be getting past it
. But he kept thinking of the handshake. Like a reward.

Someone reached out to slap his shoulder as he passed. A signal had to be acknowledged, and an outward-bound minesweeper was flashing another:
Happy New Year
. Faces grinning in the shadows as the lamp clattered some witty reply.

He listened to the reassuring power of the engines. For some, it was already over.
But we are going home
.

Lieutenant Robert Kearton turned his back to the solitary window and glanced slowly around. Three days, two nights to be exact, since he had been brought ashore from the Air-Sea Rescue launch. A spartan room, a couple of chairs and a table,
and
some sort of cupboard which he had never seen opened. And the bed. Different now, with blankets folded and clean sheets lying across one end. Waiting for the next arrival.

Two nights. Was that really all it had been? He could not recall falling asleep. Always the sense of shock, the inability to relive those lost hours, to accept that he was alive and safe.
Nothing
. Once, he must have called out, and a sickberth attendant had appeared with a flashlight.

“Thought you was in trouble.” A pause. “Sir.” It had sounded more like a rebuke than sympathy. A chief petty officer in rank, so he had probably seen it all.

He took a deep breath and looked at the suitcase beside the bed, the uniform jacket draped across the back of one of the chairs. His best jacket, brought here by a friend from the depot ship in the harbour.

He tried to clear his mind.
It was today
, not part of a dream or nightmare. Today, and he was leaving here. A new beginning, as originally intended. Ordered …

He heard someone call out, or cough. The S.B.A.s were waiting to come and prepare the room. A small local hospital, taken over by the navy at the outbreak of war, this had most likely been part of the staff quarters. It felt remote: hard to believe it was less than a mile from Harwich and Felixstowe, the thriving and ever-busy naval base.

He turned and looked out of the window again. A yard, with what he thought was a kitchen on the opposite side, empty bins lined up for food scraps or vegetables for the pigs, wherever they were. Puddles left by an overnight rain, although the sky was clear now. He could see some far-off barrage balloons, like tiny whales beyond the harbour, and a solitary vapour trail.

He bent his arm, feeling the bruise. Like the one on his thigh, it was almost black. But he still had no clear memory of what had happened.

He gazed out at the yard. There was a sign pointing to the
nearest
air raid shelter, and some sort of ramp, maybe for wheelchairs. He shivered, and stared at his watch. Still working, despite the … His mind hesitated, exploring it.
Despite the explosion
.

He concentrated on the watch. A birthday gift from his father, what seemed like a hundred years ago.

He realized that he had his jacket in his hands and was pulling it over his shoulders. It had hardly been worn, except on rare ceremonial occasions, an admiral’s inspection, a few Sundays in harbour, and some burial duty. He flicked down the lapels and saw his reflection in the mirror by the window. The blue and white ribbon on his left breast above the pocket: the Distinguished Service Cross. People still stared at it. Out of curiosity, or perhaps thinking,
why him and not me?

The jacket seemed looser. He thought of his old seagoing uniform, and the sodden working rig he had been wearing when they had hauled him out of the drink. In another wastebin, no doubt.

He stared into the mirror again, eye to eye for the first time. Like an inspection. His eyes were described in his records as ‘blue’. That was wrong: they were grey, in this light at least, like the North Sea.

He touched his hair and knew it needed cutting, and soon. He smiled a little and some of the strain left his face, so that it became younger. He could see the strands of white in the dark hair, above the ears, and remembered how it had upset his mother on that last home leave when the boat was having a refit. Even more upset because she had been unable to hide it.

And the tiny, pale scar above his right eye, no bigger than the head of a match. He no longer felt it. A wood splinter blasted from somewhere during a running battle in the Channel. Nothing now, but an inch lower and he would have been blinded.

And yet, when they were ashore in the mess they could still make light of it. Because they had to.

‘Old sweat’ and ‘over the hill’ were just a part of it. Surviving. Bob Kearton was twenty-seven years old.

He had been in the navy since the beginning of the war, even earlier, because of his part-time training with the Volunteer Reserve. The Wavy Navy, they called it: the amateurs who had become the true professionals, through hard-won and often brutal experience.

Youngsters … He found he was gripping one of the heavy black-out curtains. His mind was clear and sharp now. Youngsters like the sub-lieutenant who was in charge of the harbour launch sent to collect him from the M.T.B. which had been his own command until the change of orders. Kearton had handed over to an officer he already knew and liked, but it had still been a hard moment. Meaningless jokes, handshakes, grins: dragging it out. He had scarcely noticed the M.L.’s youthful skipper. His first real authority, weeks rather than months. And his last.

But he should have been ready, doubly so on that stretch of water. It had been New Year’s Eve, no matter what K.R.s and A.I.s laid down: maybe they had been drinking. It did not take much to blunt the edge, the caution, and then it was too late.

There might have been a shout from one of the lookouts, maybe even a scream. In the vague flashes of memory he could even see the mine, and the leaping bow wave as the helm had gone hard over. Then oblivion. No explosion or sound as the hull had been blasted apart, the crew with it. Nothing.

“I see you’re ready, sir? There’s a car here for you.”

It was the same chief S.B.A., a note pad in one fist. A name to delete; another to replace it.

There was somebody outside the room, a Royal Marine, the badge on his beret gleaming in the overhead lights. The Captain, Coastal Forces, had sent his own driver. That must have caused a stir …

He picked up the suitcase and seemed to be waiting, until the
chief
petty officer said, “That’s
all
, Royal.” Then, after a pause, “Better luck this time, sir.”

Kearton put on his cap, tense, already knowing it was pointless to ask.

“Any chance someone else survived?”

The other man cleared his throat.

“’Fraid not, sir. Next of kin have already been informed.”

Like a door slamming.

He walked out of the hospital, and saw the Royal Marine standing beside his car. He quickened his pace, feeling the cold air sting his face and eyes. It was over. The chance was his.
If it’s got your number on it
…

They all knew that, or should by now.

Two young sailors passed him, throwing up smart salutes as if on parade. Probably on local leave from H.M.S.
Ganges
, the training establishment which was not far away.

He returned the salutes and felt the pain lance through his arm. Such young faces … only boys. And instead, he saw the subbie aboard his M.L., laughing at something, sharing it with his little crew.

And then he heard the scream.

It was not over.

The car had barely come to a halt before the white-painted pole across the driveway had been raised smartly, and they were waved through. A few salutes, but no questions or identity checks this time. The sight of the big Humber staff car was enough.

Kearton stared over the driver’s shoulder, caught off guard by the sense of unfamiliarity: he had visited Coastal Forces H.Q. often enough in the nearly two years he had been based here. From the driveway it still looked like a hotel, despite the uniforms and sandbags, and the White Ensign that streamed so brightly in the keen air. He forced himself to relax. It would pass. It must.

“I’ll take care of your case, sir.”

He saw the Royal Marine’s eyes in the driving mirror. Probably thinking,
another one who nearly bought it
. But he said, “An’ to think people used to
pay
to stay in this place!”

Kearton laughed, for the first time.

Inside, it was exactly as he remembered. Bustling figures, some carrying packs of signals or documents, snatches of conversation fading when a senior officer was close by. Open doors and the clatter of typewriters, and the urgent chorus of teleprinters, in stark contrast to the bunches of tired-looking holly and Christmas ribbon draped above framed photographs of the King and Winston Churchill, and a notice that read,
In the event of an Air Raid
…

“Ah, here you are. Nice and early, too!”

A second officer in the W.R.N.S., attractive and smiling; not the face he recalled from his last visit, or the one before that. The Captain C.F. must be a hard taskmaster. He could imagine that.

She said, “I’ll take you to him. A short cut,” and waited for him to follow. “Bit of a flap on today.”

Over her shoulder she added, “But you’d know all about that.”

Through another office: more Wrens, looking up from their work as they passed. One called, “Is it all right now if—”

“Later! I told you, Collins!”

But she was smiling again when they reached the passageway beyond. It was empty, and comparatively quiet, with one door at the end.

Kearton thought of the quick exchange between his companion and the troubled-looking Wren.

“Spot of bother back there?”

She pulled up her sleeve with its two blue stripes and peered at her watch.

“Just one of those days.” She was smiling directly at him
now
, but it did not reach her eyes. “Ready? He’s waiting.” She hesitated. “Good luck. I know I shouldn’t say that, but …’

He touched her arm.

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Come in!”

She must have tapped the door.

“Lieutenant Kearton, sir.”

“About time, too.” But he was grinning. “Good to see you, for more reasons than I can shake a stick at!”

The door closed.
As if it were yesterday
…

Captain Ewart Morgan was not a big man, nor was he tall. Kearton had once heard him described as “that nuggety little Welshman”. It was fortunate for whoever had said it that the captain had been out of earshot, or the sky would have fallen on him.

But as he stood up and reached across his desk to seize Kearton’s hand, Morgan seemed to dominate the room, and his grip was warm and strong.

A straight-ringed regular, Morgan had served under Admiral Jellicoe aboard
Iron Duke
, Jellicoe’s flagship at Jutland. It was said that he had been on the beach for a while between the wars, like so many others, but the display of medal ribbons on his jacket told another story.

He gestured to a chair directly opposite the desk.

“Take the weight off your feet. It
is
good to see you.” He sat down and touched a file marked TOP SECRET on the desk. “I’ve read all the reports. They’ve given you a clean bill of health. Never thought otherwise …” He leaned back. “Ready to start again?”

Something Kearton always remembered. Incisive. The opening shot.

A telephone rang suddenly from beneath a pile of signal flimsies. Morgan snatched it up.

“I said I was not to be disturbed!” His free hand was turning
over
some of the signals, as if his mind were already elsewhere. “Well,
this
is important, so tell him to wait!” The telephone slammed down.

Kearton wondered if it was the same Wren officer on the other end, and recalled her comment about ‘good luck’.

Someone must have told her about it. Warned her, perhaps.

Whenever a flotilla or group of M.T.B.s had put to sea from here, usually at dusk, to seek out and destroy the enemy, as their lordships might describe it, Morgan had always made a point of being on the pier to watch them leave. His signal never changed.
Good luck
. Then back to the wardroom and a good night’s sleep, or so they used to tell each other. But Morgan was always there, watching them come home, back to base again. Most of them, anyway.

And then one night, as the boats had slipped their moorings and Morgan had made his familiar signal, one of the commanding officers had switched on his loud-hailer and retorted, “Actually,
sir
, we rely on skill!”

The officer had not survived that patrol. But Captain Morgan had never mentioned luck since.

He realized Morgan had leaned forward in his chair, as if nothing had happened to interrupt him.