Alan Evans - Ship of Force

The other man’s mouth was open. The Army officers stood staring. Smith looked at them all and told himself his temper had wrecked everything.

Finally Trist said, “You — are — insubordinate!”

He was going to relieve Smith of his command. Smith knew it. It would be the first mistake Trist made because it would mean a court martial and though he had engineered matters so that he was covered, nevertheless some mud would stick.

But then the Captain stepped in and the four gold rings around his sleeve were interspersed with scarlet. He was the Fleet Surgeon. He said easily, “I really think, Commodore, that both this officer and the young lady are suffering from overstrain. I see a great deal of it and the signs are there if you know what to look for. I suggest release from all duties for a few days.” He glanced meaningly at Trist. “I’ll authorise that with your permission, sir.” He was breaking it up, getting rid of the troublemakers.

Trist saw the opportunity to avoid a court martial and all it entailed. He hesitated, reluctant, then nodded. To Smith he whispered, “ Get out !”

For a second or two Smith did not move. He was trying to find words to try again. And then he realised, slowly, that it was hopeless. Trist did not believe him, did not want to.

Dunbar was dead but Smith remembered his warning about Trist. “He never does anything he doesn’t have to…Mister Cautious himself.” Trist would not authorise any operation out of the ordinary. A bombardment, convoy escort, a sweep of the Belgian coast — all of them were arguably within the brief for Smith’s flotilla. But not a reconnaissance in force off the coast by De Haan where no U-boat would or could have its base.

Trist would not authorise it.

Smith walked out.

They halted outside the house, for a moment a silent group. Smith was fighting down his anger with Trist, and with himself because he had let his temper run away with him again. He thought he had made a fool of himself, fouled it all up. If he had bided his time, got Trist alone, maybe buttered him up — No. He recoiled from that. But if he had to? No matter. He had handled it badly and now somehow he had to set it right.

There was a fire in the town, sparks flying up amidst the smoke. There was another across the basin that smelt like a paint-store burning. The smoke coiled across the water, acrid. The air-raid was over but as always there was the distant rumbling of the guns at Nieuport and this day they seemed louder, nearer.

Hacker said quietly, “I have some friends in London. I propose to go to them.”

Smith nodded. Friends? He knew he had no influential friends. Except…“There’s someone in London I might talk to as well,” he said. There were rules and he was about to break one of them, or try to. He could see no other way.

Hacker asked, “When will you be ready to leave?”

Smith looked down at himself. His kit was in his cabin aboard Marshall Marmont . He had to get out to her.

Hacker said, “Curtis is in the basin and is still on detachment to me as requisite. He can take us across to Dover.”

But Eleanor Hurst put in a word. “Look, I want a bath and my hair washed and clean clothes and I want to go home today, but before anything else I want to go somewhere and have a drink and sit quietly.” She paused for breath. Her voice had a high pitch to it.

Hacker asked anxiously, “Are you all right? Do you feel ill? The doctor —” He gestured towards the house.

Eleanor said desperately, “I don’t want the doctor and I’m not ill but I’m not all right, either. If you want to know how I feel then I feel as if I’d been captured as a spy and threatened with shooting. As if I’d been thrown out of a boat into the sea, hauled out of it again and then shot at. As if I’d been involved in a blazing row with a man I’ve never seen before and never want to see again.”

Hacker put an arm around her shoulders and said gently, “Of course. I’m sorry.”

She looked up at him. “Can’t we just go somewhere where we can have a drink and sit quietly in a seat that doesn’t go up and down and sideways? Just for a few minutes?” Her legs trembled under her and she was close to tears. Hacker was solicitous but awkward while Smith stood aloof and stared at her blank-faced.

But it was Smith who said, “Just down here.” And took her arm.

He led her along the quay past the French destroyers where the hands were securing the guns and gathering up the spent brass cartridge-cases whose clanging sounded like a badly executed carillon. He led her to Le Coq, Hacker marching along stiffly on the other side of her. It was not yet noon and the bar was empty but for one customer. Mrs. Victoria Sevastopol Baines sat at her customary table at the back of the room with the customary glass before her. Smith thought that was one stroke of luck and delivered Eleanor Hurst over to her.

“Mrs. Baines, this is Eleanor Hurst. We had the good fortune to pick her up this morning when her ship went down.” That was true enough and all he could say. He could sense Hacker’s Secret Service eye on him, worrying. He explained to Eleanor, “Mrs. Baines owns a tug and she’s helped me out of trouble on occasion.”

Victoria fussed over Eleanor like a mother-hen and bawled at Jacques for cognac in a voice that shook the bar and made Eleanor flinch. But she found the old woman comforting.

Smith felt the cognac warm his stomach, felt his tense muscles relaxing and his thoughts begin to move again. He did not have to talk. Victoria Baines did the talking.

She asked only a couple of questions about the sinking and got brief, vague answers from Eleanor: a U-boat had attacked them and Sparrow had picked her up. It was enough for Victoria. She could fill in the details herself; she had seen enough ships sunk. Smith thought she probably assumed the sinking was somewhere in the Channel and that the ship had been British. Victoria chattered on, making plans. “There’s a hotel in the town. I go up there to have a bath — there’s nothing so grand as that in the Lively Lady though she’s snug enough. You’ll be able to have a bath and a sleep and I’m sure I can get you some nice clothes. I’ll get Jacques to send out for a cab —”

Hacker stood up. “That won’t be necessary. I have a car nearby. I’ll go and whistle it up.”

“That’s very kind of you, Colonel, I’m sure. One of those Staff cars is it? Well, it’ll be nice for it to be doing something useful for a change, won’t it?”

Eleanor’s lips twitched and Hacker said drily, “Yes, madame, it will.”

He walked towards the door and Smith said, “I’ll be waiting aboard Marshall Marmont within the hour.”

“Right.” Hacker passed out of the bar through the open door and as Smith watched his broad back receding down the quay, memory stirred.

He turned to Eleanor Hurst. “The day I left — I was going to come back but then I saw Hacker at your door —” He stopped.

There was a silence. Eleanor Hurst’s face was blank for a moment as she stared at him but then her lips tightened and he thought, You bloody fool, you’ve done it again. He said lamely, “He’d come to see you about — this other business.”

Now Victoria’s face was blank, turning from one to the other but the bright eyes were watchful and she smelt a row brewing. “What about another drop o’ —”

Eleanor said softly, “That’s what you know now , but what did you think then ?”

Smith could not answer her. He remembered her mood, her blazing anger in that bedroom and he waited for it to burst upon him now. He waited.

She laughed and that was worse than the outburst he had expected. She laughed and said, “Well, Commander, my life’s my own and what I do with it is my business. How I spend it and who I spend it with is my business. It has never been your concern and never will be. I’m grateful to you for saving my life but I think we’re all square now.”