Andrew Wareham - End to Illusion

“Is there word of depth-bombs, sir?”

“Promised for last month. Certain to come next week… or the one after! Believe them when you see them, Sturton. How we are to carry or launch them, I have not the slightest idea. Nor has the Admiralty.”

“Nothing changes then, sir.”

Matthews stood, ending the interview.

“I’ll get a man across to you at soonest, Sturton. Today, I much hope.”

Simon made his thanks and detoured by way of the markets on his return to Sheldrake. His man, Packer, was buying in company with the officer’s mess steward, both hoping to discover something out of the ordinary run of bully beef and fried eggs for their officers.

“Got some soft cheese, sir. Smells like old socks, sir, so it might be the stuff you likes. The old biddy at the stall said it was ewe’s milk cheese. Didn’t know sheep was in the milking line, sir.”

“No more did I, Packer. What’s that ham over there?”

“Looks good, sir, but the old sod selling wants an arm and a leg for it. I watched when ‘e thought I weren’t looking and the bloody old thief sold to a Frenchie for half what ‘e wanted from me.”

“Generous souls, our allies! Do what you can, Packer.”

“I picked up some good chocolate biscuits and stuff, sir, from the place over there.” Packer nodded to the other side of the marketplace. “Belgian, she is, or so she said. Good stuff.”

“Well done.”

Simon made his way across to the confectioner, bought two slabs of thick chocolate to chew during nights on the bridge when something sweet was appreciated.

“From the little ships, captain?”

He wondered how she knew, nodded that he was.

“Busy ships, going out to sea every night, captain.”

It was none of her business and there was no reason to discuss the movements of his ship… Perhaps she was no more than friendly. He smiled and wandered away, all casually. Turning the corner along the quayside, out of her sight, he remembered the spy mania of the early days of the war, the conviction that every movement of every ship was being watched. He laughed – very silly, then made his way another quarter of a mile inland to the Naval Provosts’ building, an old police station made over to their use.

There was a petty officer sat at a desk just inside the door.

“’Morning PO. Who would I speak to about a suspicious conversation with a stallholder at the market?”

“Trying to pump you for information, sir?”

“I think so, PO.”

“One moment, sir.”

The petty officer stepped across to a door behind him, knocked and entered.

“The Commander will see you, sir.”

Simon introduced himself and explained his suspicions.

“Quite right, Mr Sturton. None of her business and no reason for her to ask you what you are doing. The chocolate seller, you say? Third stall from the café on the corner?”

“Yes, sir. You know her?”

“Buy chocolate from her myself at least twice a week. Good stuff, too. You should try her fudge, Sturton! She reports to a gentleman caller who drops into her kitchens every afternoon, soon after she packs up at the market. He sits in the same café every day and writes a brief note which he drops off in a particular shop towards the outskirts of the town and a farmer who delivers milk early in the morning makes a pickup there and takes it to his place about five miles out. The farmer sends pigeons out most days. They head east, over the lines. We are watching and waiting to see how he gets new birds, where they come from. I suspect a small boat along the coast. A dinghy meeting up with a local fishing boat and a quick handover. Easier to discover when the delivery is made to the farm, though we are keeping an eye open at sea. We shall take them all in the same sweep when the pigeons arrive. Well spotted! Say nothing for the while. My name is Samways – good old Hampshire family. I will send you a message when we pick them up.”

Simon returned to the ship, expecting never to hear more. There was post waiting on his desk.

Two letters, one slightly scented, one envelope marked ‘House of Lords’.

He opened the second, suspecting what it would tell him.

His uncle announced that he was now Lord Perceval, the old gentleman having rapidly succumbed in the ‘sanatorium’ to which he had been forcibly retired. The family solicitors would be contacting him on an early day regarding the entail on the Perceval lands. If, as his uncle very much hoped, he was willing, he should sign the appropriate documents to break the entail and enable the agricultural lands to be sold. His uncle also congratulated him on his twenty-first birthday, due in the immediate future.

He wrote a quick note, apologising for its brevity, being under sailing orders, offering formal commiserations on his grandfather’s death and confirming his willingness to cooperate on the entail as soon as he was twenty-one and legally able to sign the documents. The farmland was a nuisance, no more, to the modern family, he said. That done, he sat back and opened the other, thicker, letter.

As he had suspected, his correspondent was Miss Alice Parrett, Polly’s most attractive youngest sister. She apologised for addressing him uninvited, had thought he might be lonely in his cabin and might enjoy a letter from a friend. There was little to say, but she said it at some length, much hoping that he had enjoyed his stay at her parent’s house and might wish to return.

He had not asked her parents’ permission to correspond with her and could not, properly, write a reply. He spoke to Polly later and told him that he had received the friendliest letter from his sister and had much enjoyed reading it.

“I shall tell her when I write home, sir. You are always welcome at our house, of course, sir, having nowhere to go on leave. My mother bade me tell you that she would be happy to see you again.”

Simon laughed and did not explain why. He had suspected that Alice’s mother had noticed her daughter’s feelings and had strongly supported them.

“Next leave, Polly. We must be due a week sometime soon.”

Sailing orders came as they left the oiling berth. The half-section was to set out on a course for Harwich in daylight and then turn up coast when well offshore, out of sight of watchers in the port.

“Packer, go across to the chocolate stall and buy some more for the cabin. You can tell the old biddy that we are ordered back to Harwich, don’t know when we will be back again to get some more. Pick up some fudge while you’re there – it’s supposed to be good.”

A seaman arrived from Zealandia, brought across by a very flash boat, shining bright and much decorated with white ropework. The midshipman in the stern was also bright and shiny; he bumped hard against the side when pulling in, having left his orders to the oarsmen too late.

“All show and no performance, Number One. Says much about the ship.”

“Word is that a lot of the predreadnoughts are to be sent out to the Med, sir, to this business at Gallipoli. Seems to be a complete cock-up, from all I hear.”

“It will only get worse with those ships added to the mix. Not to worry, as long as they don’t send us!”

Eldridge agreed – he had no wish to go to what seemed to be a failing campaign. He wanted promotion and being involved in a defeat was not the obvious way forward.

“I shall see what we have got, sir. Mr Parrett is in process of reaming out the mid in the boat for damaging our paintwork. Enjoying himself, I suspect! I shall speak to the new hand.”

The First Lieutenant was responsible for allocating duty stations to the crew; he needed to know, and remember, the place of every man aboard and to shift them as they gained skill or showed incompetent.