Ian Slater - Arctic Front

“David!… David!” It was a soft, urgent voice. He could smell it, too — roses, yellow summer roses, but it was still snowing heavily, and he was perspiring, sitting up, mouth dry as parchment though he was lathered in sweat. Only then, as he became fully awake, the outside view not Moscow — the snowcapped church spire he could see devoid of the onion domes of the Kremlin’s inner sanctuary — did he realize that he was looking at the small church at Laugharne. And the snow that was falling was disappearing — into Carmarthen Bay, the outflow of the River Taft. And in the distance there was the open sea, indistinct, the defeated rays of the sun rising over Llanrhidian Sands smothered by sudden bad weather that had swept all the way down from the Brecon Beacons in southeastern Wales, where the SAS trained — down over West Glamorgan county, to Swansea and the mouth of the Bristol Channel.

“Poor boy, you have been in a state!”

David was catching his breath, embarrassed that Georgina should have seen him experiencing the recurring nightmare.

“Following in my brother’s footsteps,” he had happily put it when he had written home, telling his folks of visiting the Spences in Surrey during Robert’s last leave in England before Robert had been recalled from the U.S. sub base at Holy Loch in Scotland to command the USS Reagan. In Surrey he’d not only met his older brother’s new wife, the former Rosemary Spence, but her younger sister, Georgina. The “smart” money in the family, meaning that of David’s father, retired admiral John Brentwood, predicted from his eldest son’s letters home that Georgina wasn’t young David’s type. His skepticism was fueled, though he didn’t know the details, by the failure of his daughter’s marriage to Jay La Roche.

“What type’s that?” David’s mother had asked her husband. “Robert says she’s pretty, very well educated — London School of Economics and Political—”

“A lefty!” declared the admiral, who had definite views on everything from LSE graduates to the conviction that battleships were “totally obsolete,” that if the navy had any sense it would build more fast guided-missile frigates like the Blaine in which his middle son, Ray, had served, instead of spending millions refurbishing old battle wagons, like the Wisconsin and Missouri, purely “for sentimental reasons.”

“How can you say that?” asked his wife Catherine. “Build more boats like the Blaine. That boat nearly killed him.”

“It was not a boat, Catherine — it’s a ship. I regret what happened to Ray as much as anyone. It was — but all that medical ‘stuff’ is over, Catherine. He’s a distinguished skipper of—”

“It was horrible,” said Catherine. The “stuff” John Brentwood was referring to was the other side of a theory about fast, light, modern ships that, like the HMS Sheffield, were so badly gored in the Falklands. One hit and they burst into flames, the fire reaching temperatures unknown in earlier warships. With the aluminum superstructures white hot within minutes, many of the crew would the not from the intense heat of the conflagration but from the overwhelming toxic gases given off by everything from synthetic carpeting in the officers’ mess to the resins and plastics used in the high-tech electronic consoles.

When the Blaine had been hit off Korea it sent the first of what the medical establishment euphemistically referred to as “unprecedented burn cases” to San Diego’s Veterans’ Burn Center. Many had died, and it took more than a dozen sessions under general anesthesia and the most intricate plastic surgery before Ray Brentwood’s face had regained even the faintest resemblance to his former self. Admiral John Brentwood, more afraid, in fact, than Catherine of feeling the horror, had tried his best to rise above it. It sounded noble, but in the long, dark nights he suspected it was not so much an act of bravery as of escape.

“Anyway,” he told Catherine, “we were talking about this Georgina Spence. David’s not the intellectual type.”

“You mean he isn’t smart.”

“Of course he’s smart, but she sounds a bit hoity-toity to me. Degree in political science and…”

“You may know a lot about boats, John, but you’ve a lot to learn about women. David’s probably attracted to her because she’s got brains. Lord, you don’t want an airhead for a daughter-in-law, do you? Besides, you didn’t mind Robert marrying her sister, and she’s a school teacher.”

“That’s different,” proclaimed the admiral. “More, well-now they’ve got the young one coming along. This Georgina, on the other hand, doesn’t seem the marrying type.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“It’s this shacking-up business,” retorted John Brentwood.

“Oh, so that’s it. You think she might be ‘preggers,’ as the English say?”

“Well — aren’t you concerned?”

“Fiddlesticks! I gave up worrying about that a long time ago. After Ray. I didn’t think he’d live through that ordeal, and I vowed to God that if he did — if Beth, their children, that family came through together, I’d quit worrying about things that don’t matter.”

“Don’t matter! You tell the pregnant doesn’t matter??”

“Of course it does. But David’s a grown man, John. You still think of him as a little boy.”

“Yes,” he said, and paused. “I do.”

“John, your sons have been decorated by the president of the United States. And if young David has survived that maelstrom in Europe, don’t you think he can take care of himself in bed?”

“Not the same.”

“I should hope not. I’m glad he’s not in combat.”

“He might be if he marries too soon. By God, Catherine, I’ve seen domestic situations in the services. Make your hair stand on end. Like sailing into a typhoon. Husband’s away at sea for months at a time… you can’t expect—”

“Well, we’ve stayed together haven’t we? Anyway, David isn’t in the navy, and for another thing he’s about to be demobilized.”

The admiral, normally tight-lipped about such matters, decided that it was time to enlighten Catherine about something that normally wasn’t discussed, even between husband and wife. “Catherine, David’s in the army, yes, but he volunteered for SAS.”

“I know that.”

“But you only know that because those blabbermouths on TV have no regard for military security. If I’d had my way, I wouldn’t have allowed anything to be printed about the raid on Moscow. For my money every damn blabbermouth on those networks would—”

“John, don’t go on about what you’d do to Peter Arnett. Besides, I don’t think it’s anatomically possible with a cannon.”

The admiral scowled, Catherine patting his arm.”What were you going to say about David?”

“He’s on the SAS/Delta Force list. They’re on twenty-four-hour call, Catherine — especially during crises like this.”

“Like what?”

“Good God, Catherine. Siberia’s decision to—”

“Oh, that. I’m sure they’re bluffing.”

“Bluffing? Woman, haven’t you been watching the news?”

“You told me I shouldn’t watch TV.”

“I didn’t say you shouldn’t watch it. I said you shouldn’t believe any of the goddamn—”

“Then why watch it? And don’t swear. It makes you sound like a ‘lefty.’ “

While Admiral Brentwood was fuming, his youngest son was calm, made so by Georgina Spence’s attentions; but there was nothing inactive about his serenity, the blood pumping through him with every caress. The old stone cottage turned motel was a favorite among SAS because it was no more than fifty miles from Brecon Beacons, the three-thousand-foot-high twin peaks east of Carmarthen Bay that marked the site of the most gruelling commando courses in the world. He’d chosen the cottage carefully for he could be back in Hereford, SAS HQ, in a matter of hours should the call ever come.