Ian Slater: WW III

Suddenly throughout the whole store, from the paperback section atop the old spiral iron staircase down to the hardcovers on the main floor, the staff and customers broke into applause. Brentwood looked around to see who they were all clapping for, and blushed like an afterburner when he realized it was him. It was the convoys — they were starting to get through, the convoys without which the British would die, let alone Europe, and the guardians of the convoys were in good standing with the people of Britain.

The manager, Mr. Harris, was quite definite about refusing payment, handing Brentwood a mint-new copy of Bing.

“No, look, I’d like to—” protested Brentwood.

“No, old man. Least we can do.” Everyone from assistants to the unloading clerk had gathered to welcome the American captain.

“Have you time for tea, Captain?” someone asked.

“Why — er — I’ve got to be getting up to Oxshott.”

The manager was so tickled by the occasion, he couldn’t bring himself to correct the American, but he did ring British Rail and ask them what time the next train down to Oxshott was. Eleven p.m.

While they were having tea and biscuits, someone brought in a dolly with a carton of at least fifty paperbacks for the officers and crew of Brentwood’s ship. The manager saw the captain of the most deadly armed ship in history looking rather nonplussed.

“Not to worry, Captain. We’ll have them sent to your ship. You won’t have to carry them about.” There were a few giggles and polite laughs. “If you’ll just give me an address?”

Robert, as security demanded, gave him the U.S. naval P.O. box in Glasgow. Overcome by the warmth, especially after he’d been told so much about the reserved British manner, Brentwood almost forgot to take Bing with him.

After tea, there was a pub dinner: pickles, Scotch eggs, and several pints of black Guiness, their brown, creamy heads flowing like velvet down the captain’s dry throat. Another pint later, Brentwood asked, “Mr. Harris — can I ask you a straight question?”

“Fire away, old boy.”

“This gal — young lady, young British lady — was rather upset with me at a party. Said I was ‘worse than Bing Crosby.’ You know what she meant?”

“Hmm,” said Harris, who was swirling the final ration of Guiness. “Weren’t singing, were you?”

“No,” answered Robert. “No, I wasn’t.”

“Romancing then, was it?”

“No — well, I mean, she was kind of annoyed that I wouldn’t—”

“Ah—” Harris leaned over to the barman. “Fred — haven’t any of the rough red left, have you?”

“ ‘Fraid not, Mr.’Arris. I’ve got a liter of Old Espagnol, though.”

“Dry, is it?” Harris inquired about the sherry, Brentwood thinking he’d forgotten completely about his question.

“Mr. ‘Arris,” said the barman, “if this stuff was any drier, it’d make your ‘air fall out — eyebrows, too, most likely.”

“How much?” asked Harris, forehead furrowed, ready for a shock. He got it.

“A century.”

“Oooh—” said Harris, his head coming back from the bar. “Oh dear—”

“Best I can do, Squire,” said the barman. “Rationing and all.”

“Oh, quite, quite. Quite all right, Fred.”

“You’re welcome, Mr. Harris.”

Brentwood Lifted the last of his Guiness and savored it as it went down. “I like that,” he said.

“I think, old man, she was saying you were rather bourgeois.”

“Straitlaced,” cut in the barman, his hand rocking from side to side. “You know—’long the straight and narrow. No ‘anky-panky.”

“Well,” said Harris, “I have to spend a penny. Then I ‘m off, I’m afraid. I’ll take you to the station.”

“Going to the loo,” explained the barman as Harris made off, a little unsteadily, through the gray-blue haze of cigarette smoke, something you saw much more often these days since the war had begun.

“Straitlaced, eh?” Brentwood said to the barman.

“Yeah. ‘Cor, my dad. ‘E loved Crosby. Bit of a crooner himself. Always hummin’ round the ‘ouse. Then I’d be on listenin’ to the Who. Drive me mum nuts. Battle royal over that, I can tell you.”

“Uh-huh,” said Brentwood — it was like listening to a new code.

When Harris returned, they walked out into the chilly night air. They could see the searchlights all around London, in constant crisscrossing, interplaying patterns, reaching thousands of feet and reflecting off the stratus.

“Do no good at all, I’m told,” said Harris, looking up at them. “Is that true?”

“More or less,” agreed Robert, a cold, bracing breeze coming up from the Embankment. “It’s a war of invisible beams,” he explained to Harris. “But I guess searchlights give comfort to a lot of folks. Something you can see.”

Harris had hailed a cab for Waterloo Station, its headlights two yellow slits. “What you think our chances are? Look here— I don’t want to pry — classified stuff or anything like that.”

“I don’t know,” said Brentwood. “Far as I can tell, the experts don’t know either.”

They got into the back of the taxi.

“How long do you think it will last?” pressed Harris.

“ Longer than anyone expected.”

“That’s rather grim.”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence until they entered Waterloo and Robert Brentwood alighted, turning to pay the cabbie. Harris waved the money away.

“All right,” said Brentwood. “You can put off some of the people some of the time, but you can’t put off all of the people all of the time.” And with that he handed the bookshop manager the liter of Old Espagnol that he’d been hiding under his coat.

Harris was agape.

“Thanks for everything, Mr. Harris. I really appreciate—”

Harris cut in, “I’m — really, this is quite — wonderful.”

“Between allies,” said Brentwood, smiling.

“Allies indeed.” Harris put out his hand. He made to say something, hesitated, then dared to go on anyway. “Captain, you might be right. It might last longer than any of us imagined, but if you’ll accept a piece of advice—”

“Certainly.”

Harris lowered his head. “That gal — any port in a storm, old boy.” Then he sat back in the cab, chuckling, shaking his head. “Any port — my God, Captain — don’t you tell anyone I told you that. So banal, they’d have me thrown out of the club.”

“I won’t,” said Brentwood. “Good-bye.”

“Ta-ta.”

When he got to Oxshott, a wind had come up, the oaks and big elms around the station blowing hard, a smell so fresh and clean that despite the distant thudding of antiaircraft guns and the orange scratches against the sky that were the surface-to-air missiles along the coast from East Anglia down, Robert had the sense that he had been to this place before. But not being a superstitious man, and trained in the cold logic of launch mode attack, he decided that it must be the invigorating force of the wind that had cleared the Guiness, heightened his senses, giving him the feeling of déjà vu.

The Spence house, however, looked familiar, too, like the one his parents had in New Jersey — double-storied, semimodern brick. All the lights were out, but flower beds were dimly visible beneath the high silver moon, a dog barking from somewhere behind the house, and a run of big bushes, possibly rhododendrons, giving the whole garden a casually ordered appearance. He rang the bell, realizing that he’d planned this operation badly. But there had been no hotel rooms left in Oxshott, so it was either this or back to the train station to wait until 4:00 a.m. A light came on, then another.