The White Guns (1989) (20 page)

Then Beri-Beri's face as close as his had been to Tim's.

'Let it go! Don't fight it!'
He had tried to cover him with somebody's duffel coat, as he had when the ML had brewed up just nights ago.

Marriott gripped the side of the bunk and tried to control his shivering limbs.

The door opened and the elderly two-and-a-half ringer stepped quietly over the coaming.

He saw Marriott and gave a startled gasp. 'Sorry, chum, did I disturb you? I was at an all-night poker party in the Guards' mess.'

Marriott stared at him. Ashamed and yet grateful to the ex-stockbroker who had saved his reason just as surely as Beri-Beri had once done.

'It's all right, sir. Couldn't sleep.'

The other man sat down. He did not seem to notice Marriott's nakedness. But he had already seen the livid scars of the phosphorus burns on his wrists and legs and shoulder. The rest he could guess.

'It'll take time.'

Marriott stared at the deck. 'I expect so.' He gripped his hands together as tightly as he could.
Otherwise I shall break down.
Like that time in Iceland when he was 'getting over it', as the MO had called it. He had burst into tears and hadn't stopped crying for a week. Just like that. Bomb-happy, round the bend, over the hill. The things he had often said about others.

'Care for a quick snort?' The officer pulled a silver flask from his coat. 'Vodka, I'm afraid. Got it off the Russian liaison chap.'

Marriott took it and let the raw spirit flow over his tongue.
Getting like Cuff.
'Thanks, sir.' He could feel his stomach protesting and his eyes watering. 'Just the job!'

They smiled at one another like conspirators, then the lieutenant commander handed him his old dressing-gown.

'Have a bath. You'll feel more like it, eh?'

The ex-stockbroker waited for the door to close. He had had one shore job after another. Too old for sea duty, they had insisted. But he had met others like this young lieutenant. Gone to the limit and past it just once too often.
It takes time.
He opened a drawer and took out the framed photograph of his wife. She had been killed in an air-raid four years ago.

He thought of Marriott's sensitive, strained features.

'And
I'm
not over it yet, my dear,' he whispered.

Marriott's old seaboots scraped across rusty sheets of steel left by the sappers, and then thudded on some of the original cobbles. A bright and surprisingly cold morning. He glanced up at the now-familiar silhouettes of hanging girders and gutted buildings and wondered if it was just his imagination, or if it was really getting cleared away.

Overalled figures moved amongst the dust, while across the water from the most obstructive wrecks he could see the diamond-bright gleam of acetylene cutters as the work continued without a break. They had been at it all night, every night and round the clock.

He saw the delicate mastheads of the HQ ship above some temporary huts and quickened his pace.

MGB 801 was in the water again, her small company, for better or worse, back in their proper surroundings.

In so short a reprieve they had not been able to manage very much, and even the usually optimistic Adair had shaken his head a few times.

'Too much underwater damage, sir. These damned diagonal-built hulls are no match for the work they're supposed to do.'

Marriott shivered again. It was six in the morning. Why did the navy always begin things so early?

He thought of his orders. Two oil-tankers were to be handed over to the Russians. The MGB would act as their escorts and then take off the German crews after the Russians had 'signed for them' as Meikle had dryly put it.

He had already spoken with Fairfax. It would be his job to deal with the extra passengers. Back in the gunboat once again, and yet the sudden contact seemed to have made him withdraw into himself. He knew he was feeling the effects of drinking too much, brooding, waiting for the night to come with its fears and its brutal pictures. Perhaps once he was back at sea again . .. ?

He returned the gangway sentry's salute and strode up the brow. Two seamen in white gaiters were gathering the mail into their bags.
Letters home.
The same everywhere, Marriott thought, now that the fighting was over. Maybe you got a wrong impression from the newspapers after the wild excitement of victory. The headlines blared the pros and cons of the fast-approaching general election, and much of the other news was preoccupied with the latest round of industrial strikes. It was amazing and sickening.

The war in the Far East only found a place on page two usually. Bombardments of Japanese islands, air strikes on the mainland, but all so vague it was hard to tell how much longer it might take. The Japanese had resisted every seaborne attack on the Pacific Islands and the battles to retake them had been savage and relentless. The Japanese had never found any honour in surrender and would likely fight all the harder when their homeland was under attack. It might still be a long campaign.

One of the 'postmen' looked up and saluted casually. 'Anythin' still to go, sir?'

Marriott smiled. He had still not written to Penny. 'No. Not this time.'

Inside the makeshift operations room it was unsually deserted. A young sub-lieutenant scrambled from his desk and said breathlessly, 'I'm Gilmour, sir.'

Marriott shook his hand. God, he looked younger even than Lowes. Straight out of
King Alfred,
if he was any judge.

Gilmour added, 'Lucky to be here, sir. Got in from Cuxhaven yesterday. They only let me come because I speak German.' He blushed and looked about fifteen.
'Some
German.'

Marriott smiled. 'That's the idea. Don't tell
anyone
in this regiment the whole truth!'

He walked to the table and leafed through the Met reports. He had not been mistaken. It
was
cold for this time of the year. He smiled to himself. Not gin, the Wardroom Devil, after all.

He glanced at the other long table where the girls had been sitting. They probably came aboard later on.

The young subbie was watching him all the time. He could feel it with his back turned.

'Where's Lieutenant Glazebrook, Sub? He's in charge of this escort.'

'Oh–' Gilmour flushed again. 'I – I'm sorry, sir. I was to tell you. Lieutenant Glazebrook's boat has had some engine trouble.' He groped around for an envelope. 'You arc to take over, sir.'

Marriott frowned and slit open the envelope. Brief, curt, no more than the bones of an explanation. The navy's way. So Cuff was staying in Kiel. One of the MLs was being sent instead as back-up.

'Very well. He'll be sorry to miss it.' But in his mind he believed otherwise. You never really knew with Cuff.

Gilmour said, 'I – I wish I was coming with you, sir.'

Marriott looked at him.
You're upset because you've missed the war.

'Perhaps another time. I'll see if I can fix it.' He thought,
sooner than you think if Lowes goes mooning around like a dying duck as he is at present.

'Where is everyone?'

The subbie brightened up. 'Commander Meikle has gone to Plön, sir. He'll be moving there once the Royal Marine Engineers have finished clearing up.'

Somewhere a telephone rang, while on the nearby jetty a giant saw split the air apart as it began to bite through useless lengths of charred timber.

The subbie said, 'I'll fetch the duty operations officer, sir. He said to call him before –'

He broke off as three girls filed through the other door and seated themselves by their files and telephones.

Marriott barely heard what Gilmour had said. The girl looked exactly as he had remembered her. But in the hard sunlight through the scuttle above the table he could see the shadows under her eyes, the tired way her hands moved to unfasten the waiting pile of files.

'Do you always start as early as this?'

She looked up at him as if she had not seen him before.

'Yes, Herr Leutnant. There is much to do.' She watched him steadily. 'You are leaving today, sir?'

He felt the others watching him even though their fingers were sorting through their work.

'Yes.' It was like trying to speak in a crowded restaurant. He could hear more voices and somebody sneezing. The Ops officer and the childlike Gilmour would be here soon, and no doubt the imposing Verner too.

He said, 'It will take a few days.' He glanced at the clock and imagined he could hear the muffled roar of 801's engines. The ML would come in handy. Without her, there would not be much room for the German crews. When he looked at her again she was busy with a file, while with her free hand she picked up a telephone and spoke quickly into it, first in German then in English.

The Ops officer strode in, a pipe jutting from his jaw.

'Morning, Marriott. Nice day for a cruise, what?'

He gestured to the nearest girl. 'Get my tobacco pouch, will you?'

As she hurried away he added, 'The whole pouch would go walkabout if I left it for long!'

Gilmour picked up another telephone before it had rung twice.

'For you, sir.'

The Ops officer snatched it. 'Yes?
Golf?
Where did you find the place?'

Marriott turned back to the table.

'Do you live around here?'

She glanced up at him, her face suddenly close.

She said in a whisper,
'Please,
Herr Leutnant. Do not ask these things!' She darted a glance over his shoulder. 'It is not
good
for me.'

Marriott wanted suddenly to grip her hand, to explain that it was not like that.

And then he thought suddenly of Penny. How he would have felt if things had gone against them. What he might have thought if he had seen her being chatted up by a German officer.

It was like a blow in the face, and he felt ashamed.

'I am
sorry,
Fräulein. I did not mean to –' He swung away to hide his confusion.

The Ops officer was puffing smoke and discussing a newly discovered location where he could play golf.

'I'm off then.' Marriott picked up his folder of instructions, the one which should have been Cuff's, and walked to the door.

Gilmour called, 'You won't forget about the –' But the door slid shut.

The Ops officer put down the telephone, then tapped his pipe into a brass shell-case by the desk. It was all there. Poor little bugger.

Gilmour said, 'Do you know him, sir?'

His superior thought about it as he refilled his pipe with great care.

'Vere Marriott. Yes, I sort of know him.
Of
him anyway.' His voice was faraway, the pipe momentarily forgotten.

'A very gallant young bloke. Lost his command shortly after the landings in Normandy. Just three survivors. I think he blames himself for being one of them.' He jabbed the pipestem at the young subbie. 'He's what they call a hero. But take a good look, sonny, and you'll see past the gongs to what it's cost
him!'