The White Guns (1989) (45 page)

Like the missing laugh, there was no one to see him leave.

'If you can find a place to sit –' Meikle gestured at the loaded chairs. Marriott found a vacant one. He was still thinking about Spruce Macnair. Seeing him there as he had once been. As they had all been. He had been worked to death, but at least he had seen his efforts end in victory.

Beri-Beri had told him about it; he had seen it in some report or other which he was filing for the commodore's office.

Poor Beri-Beri had got into the bad books of the top brass during the Christmas dinner. Afterwards he had insisted it was purely an act of revenge for the dirty trick done to him while he had been laid up in hospital. A senior officer had commandeered his beautiful Mercedes, and left a beat-up jeep in its place.

Beri-Beri's response had been dramatic and probably dangerous.

With a small, controlled explosion he had blown off the legs of the senior officers' serving table. The table had collapsed so that the floor had been covered with a great mash of plates, glasses, and several kinds of jelly. The explosion had not been very loud, but quite enough to send some of the war veterans diving for cover.

Like the lieutenant who had been so drunk that he had jumped off the wardroom roof into a tablecloth held by his cheering and equally tipsy friends, the commodore had insisted on suitable punishments.

The rooftop jumper had broken both legs. To punish Beri-Beri he had ordered him into the morasses of his internal filing section.

Even that had had compensations. He had met Third Officer Jill Wheatley there and through his usual, casual, gentle probing had discovered that her home was about a mile from his own. For the moment at least, the isolated life of a fisherman had been shelved.

It was strange how there had been so many changes since Christmas. Countless new faces, so that the old familiar ones seemed few and far between. Some of the old hands had gone home for demob already. A few had sought him out to say their goodbyes, others had cut free, and left without a word.

One of the former had been Petty Officer Motor Mechanic Adair, 801's unbeatable 'Chief. In his absence his young wife had put down a deposit on a delapidated garage on the Exeter road, where there was room for expansion and, perhaps, a teashop.

'Just right for the holiday trade, sir, or soon will be. I'll do most of the work myself to begin with.' Again the well-known, toothless grin. 'I reckon if a bloke can hold an MGB together as long as I have, I should be able to manage that!'

'Now, Marriott.' Meikle was watching him. 'I've made some enquiries.' His eyebrows rose. 'Is there something you were about to ask?'

Marriott smiled. It was so unusual for Meikle to offer the first opening, just as it was incredible to see him so casually dressed.

'I was wondering, sir, about Fräulein Geghin's brother being exchanged –'

Meikle plucked at his tie. 'It can do no harm for you to know. It was the SS man Maybach who was sent across to the Russians. What your late coxswain, Evans, did not know was that Maybach had once been in charge of hundreds, maybe thousands of Russian prisoners, or slaves, as Hitler's Todt Organisation called them, when they put them to work in the Channel Islands. They were worked without mercy – building underground emplacements and bunkers, a complete military hospital and many anti-tank devices for their Western Wall against invasion. Most of those poor wretches never returned. They ended up in the concrete they were pouring even as they dropped dead of starvation and brutal treatment.'

'I see, sir.'

'The Russian senior officer you made such a big hit with in Swinemünde, Captain Sakulkin, has been somewhat out of favour lately with his comrades in the Kremlin. I spoke to him on the telephone. I feel certain that by the time Maybach reached Moscow, Sakulkin would have convinced himself, and everyone else, that he was solely responsible for the capture of a criminal on the top of their lists.' He raised his hands. 'Harmony all round, and now he owes
me
a favour.'

The mood passed. Meikle said, 'Now tell me again.'

It had been a letter from Penny which had begun it after he had sent her and Jack a photo he had taken of Ursula.

Marriott said, 'The Canadian Government is prepared to assist immigrants, sir. If we were married, and could get the backing of some senior officers maybe –'

He recalled her face when he had told her of his ideas. He had added, 'Neither of us would be looking back at a country left behind. We would be sharing a new one. Looking forward – together.'

Meikle took a note pad, and said, 'Fräulein Geghin did say something of the sort to me, although I don't think she realised she was undergoing a cross-examination.' He scribbled quickly. 'I made a few notes. It is true about the Canadians. It may take time, but there are some bonus points. Lithuania was an independent and self-supporting country for twenty-two years, after being a part of the Tsarist empire. When Stalin signed his notorious non-aggression pact with Hitler he also decided to take back Lithuania and make her a part of Soviet Russia. The rest we know. Ivan is back, and has no intention of leaving ever again. But
if,
and it is flimsy, the country had remained as before, Fräulein Geghin would have been classed as Lithuanian. The Canadian Government is, ah – sympathetic'

Marriott licked his dry lips. 'My sister and her husband would sponsor us, sir, others too –'

'One step at a time. Permission to marry.' He let the word sink in. 'I can see from your face that it is what you both want.'

A messenger peered in. 'The car is here, sir.'

Meikle stood up. 'I shall be around for a few more days until my successor gets here. One of the old school, I believe, so tell your outrageous friend Kidd to watch out!' He eyed him gravely. 'I think we might just manage it. But you must make her realise it could take time.'

Marriott turned as Lavender entered carrying Meikle's reefer jacket. As he slipped his arms into it Marriott saw that there was new gold lace on the sleeves, four rings instead of three. Meikle was a captain now.

The deepset eyes fixed on him again. 'It seems that in my new appointment, all the Allied advocates are quite senior – so their lordships obviously consider this promotion justified.' He smiled. 'I am a little awed myself.'

Marriott asked, 'Where will you be going, sir?'

'The Judge Advocate's Department has a new office for me. In Nuremberg.'

Marriott guessed the implication and said, 'I'm sure they'll take notice of you, sir.'

Meikle's reaction was swift.
'Why
– because I'm a Jew? Is that what you meant?'

'I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean that. I never –'

Meikle held out his hand. 'No, Marriott. I am the one to be sorry. Forgive my hasty judgement – it's something I have had to get used to.'

Then this strange man smiled, beneficently. 'You and Fräulein Geghin deserve one another, and I mean that. You will be missed here, you know, Marriott – you've made quite a reputation for yourself during your stay. When all this is behind you, there will be days when you wonder at and question some of the risks you had to take, the sacrifices you were forced to offer in the face of death. But, believe me, the work you have done here will stay with you even longer. It is something you and your Ursula can always be proud of.'

He took down his beautiful cap and said, 'I am dining with the commodore. We shall probably discuss yachting!'

He and his rabbit-like Lavender chuckled at this obviously private joke.

Marriott stood for a long time in the deserted office.

Meikle was right. He would never forget. Nor want to.

Marriott and Ursula stood in the shelter of a concrete wall and watched a high-sided troopship being manoeuvred away from the dockside. It was February, but the snow had refused to budge despite occasional stabs of pale, dazzling sunshine.

Ursula was wearing a naval duffel coat, the hood pulled up over her hair as though to shield her face. He could guess what she was thinking.

Faintly across the murky water as the last line was let go, they could hear the cheering, the blast of a horn from a passing patrol vessel.

Soldiers, sailors too, some of the first to be going home for demobilisation.

She said nothing, but she was thinking of that ship's passage to England, where the servicemen would be discharged to depots and barracks, to be fitted up with civilian clothing at a grateful government's expense.

When the ship turned round, she would be coming straight back to Kiel. When she cast off again, Marriott would be aboard.

He said quietly, 'Commander Meikle has made certain that your job will be safe until –'

She turned and looked up at him, their breath combining like pale steam in the stinging cold air.

'He told me. I am so glad. It will keep me closer to you.' She smiled, but her eyes were wistful. 'I cannot think of him as
Kapitän
either!'

Marriott considered the passing days. He had filled in all the necessary forms, and his application to be allowed to marry here had gone through the right channels. He had heard that a major in the infantry had managed to obtain permission, but he did not know all the circumstances.

Now he was being sent home like all the others. Officially he would receive full pay until all his accumulated leave was used up. But after that he would be seen only as a civilian. The chances of getting permission to return to an occupied Germany would then be almost impossible.

They could face it while they were still together – but when that trooper sailed again?

He watched a sleek destroyer glide past the old Hamburg-Amerika liner
Milwaukee,
another HQ ship with the White Ensign rippling from her staff like all the others.

The shrill exchange of salutes, the calls cutting across the water like the cries of demented sea-birds.

She said softly, 'Look at her guns. All white... the snow. They do not look so dangerous any more.'

'I know.'

Marriott had only been back to the inn at Eutin once since Lothar's return. It was as he had expected, neither welcoming nor hostile. Lothar was home. His hopes, and recovery from what he had suffered, were their main concern now.

Usually they met at the barracks, or here near Meikle's original HQ where he had first seen her. Now the bunker was just a paint-store, a place without personality.

They often walked in the frozen woods, found small cafes, or inns like her own home. They talked and held hands. It was often difficult not to go further. He thought of the present she had given him, a photograph of herself in a leather carrying case. On the back of it in her familiar round hand she had written simply, 'For my Englishman, who is my whole life.'

If she was afraid that he would have second thoughts when he returned to England, she concealed it well. For his own part, he often tortured himself with the possibility that she would change her mind once he was beyond her reach.

She pulled off her glove and held up her hand to show him the ring he had given her after Christmas. At first she had worn it only when they were together. Now she wore it openly, with both happiness and defiance. Marriott took her fingers and kissed them. In those few seconds they had become like ice.

After he had gone there would be none of the old faces for her to recognise. Beri-Beri would be going with him, and probably Fairfax too.

Fairfax had told him about a meeting he had had with an official from the Home Office who had come out to Germany to drum up volunteers for London's Metropolitan Police. The force had had no recruiting throughout the war, and with its end they had been compelled to release as civilians all the reservists, special constables and pensioners who had comprised it for the duration only. It had left London's blue line even thinner than usual.