Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Fallows smiled gently. ‘Don’t crawl, man, it doesn’t impress me!’

Parsons licked his lips. ‘There’s ten quid to cover, sir.’

’What?’ Even Fallows lost his practiced calm. ‘At duty-free prices, how the hell could that happen?’

Parsons persisted; it was all or nothing now. ‘It was the night when young Tinker came down to see you, sir, when you told him—’ He did not go on. There was no need to.

Fallows stood up and dragged at his short-sleeved shirt as if it was clinging to his body.

‘I told him what?’

Parsons watched him. Just for an instant he had thought he had gone too far, chosen the wrong moment. But now… He said, ‘Tinker asked to go ashore, sir, because of what had happened.’

Fallows sat down heavily on the club fender and pinched the crown of his nose between finger and thumb as he tried to remember, to make the picture form in his mind.

It was like a terrible nightmare. You knew it was bad, and yet you could never make any sort of form or sense out of it. He had been plagued by some vague, distorted memory about Tinker.

Parsons added, ‘You shouted at him, sir.’

Fallows looked up. ‘Did I?’ The admission seemed to stun him. ‘Then what happened?’

Parsons could scarcely believe it, but the old in-built caution flashed its warning. Like the drunk in the bar who takes one too many, who picks up a bottle, thirsting for blood.

‘You were worn out, sir, like I told you. You shouldn’t have been on duty that time.’

Fallows nodded like a puppet. ‘That’s right. I do remember. Number One—’ He checked himself just in time, and asked curtly, ‘What did I say to Tinker?’

Parsons took a deep breath. ‘You told him he was not going ashore, that he was a disgrace to the ship and his uniform. Things like that.’

Fallows eyed him like a man who has suddenly lost his memory, afraid of what he might be or do. ‘There’s more?’

‘You told him that his mother was an effing whore, sir, that it was the best thing that could have happened to her.’

Fallows stood up and walked to the side and back again. He felt sick, trapped by the nightmare he could still not recognise or break.

He said, ‘I have to do Rounds in a moment.’ He looked vaguely at the letter-rack. ‘First I must go to my cabin.’

‘About the money, sir.’

Fallows fumbled with his wallet. ‘How much was it, ten pounds?’

Parsons took the notes. They were damp from the officer’s sweat.

‘Thank you, sir. We’ve all got to stick together in some things.’

But Fallows had thrust open the door of the officers’ heads and Parsons heard him vomiting helplessly.

He folded the notes inside his paybook and smiled.

‘Bloody little bastard!’ He poured himself a tall measure of brandy and swallowed it in one gulp. As he topped the bottle up carefully with water he added savagely, ‘Now you’ll know what it’s like to bloody well crawl, Mr Bunny!’

Unexpectedly, Vice-Admiral Hargrave stepped from the brow which crossed to Ranger’s deck and touched his cap to the ramrod stiff side-party. He paused to listen to the music, the muted buzz of voices from the wardroom skylight, and said, ‘Sounds like a good party, Ransome.’

Ransome said, ‘Sorry about the reception, sir. You caught us all on the hop, I’m afraid.’

The admiral smiled. ‘I didn’t expect a guard and Royal Marines band – I happen to enjoy informality!’

Ransome looked at the slender figure who followed the admiral across the brow. Like the admiral, she was all in white, the only touch of colour being the blue of her shoulder-straps; a second officer in the W.R.N.S.

‘This is Second Officer Rosalind Pearce, by the way, my flag lieutenant and guardian angel.’ He laughed loudly.

How like his son he was, Ransome thought. A bit heavier, but the same good looks, and the added confidence of age.

He looked at the girl. She was tall, almost the same height as her admiral, with dark hair showing beneath her neat tricorn hat, and serious eyes which were probably blue.

The vice-admiral added, ‘She wanted to see all you rough, sea-going types anyway – another experience, eh?’

They glanced at each other. Ransome could detect a closer relationship, the sense of understanding.

He said, ‘I’ll lead the way, sir.’

The wardroom was packed, and the guests overflowed into the passageway and at least one neighbouring cabin.

Hargrave pushed through the throng and then saw his father. ‘Welcome aboard, sir!’

Ransome saw his eyes shift to the girl.

Vice-Admiral Hargrave made the same introduction and again they looked at one another. Ransome suspected that the admiral said the same thing quite often. Explanation, or defence, he wondered?

Hargrave beckoned to a perspiring messman with a loaded tray.

‘A bit of a mixture.’

She said,’That one looks nice,’ but her eyes were on Hargrave.

Comparing, perhaps?

Ransome turned as a messman took the admiral’s heavily oak-leaved cap from him. There was the true difference. The thinning hair, the deeper lines around his mouth and eyes. His immaculate white-drill uniform with its double row of decorations did not hide the slight belly either.

The vice-admiral nodded to the officers nearest him and said, ‘At last we’re shifting my H.Q. to Malta, Ransome. Exciting, eh? After all the disappointments and the blockades, we’ll be back where we belong.’

The girl remarked, ‘I’ll not be sorry to leave that cavern under the Rock they loosely describe as our present H.Q.’

The vice-admiral grinned hugely. ‘You wait till you get to Malta, my girl! That dismal tunnel at Lascaris may be bombproof, but it’s like living in a sewer, believe me!’

Hargrave asked, ‘How long have you served with my, er – with the admiral?’

She regarded him thoughtfully. In the hard deckhead lights her eyes were violet, very relaxed, like a cat’s.

‘Six or seven months, I think.’ She had a low, well-modulated voice. Very self-assured.

A boatswain’s mate appeared in the door and gestured to the first lieutenant.

‘What is it?’ Hargrave was irritated at the interruption, just as he was confused. His father had never mentioned the girl before. She was quite stunning, with the looks of an actress, and, he guessed, an intelligence as sharp as anyone he had ever met.

The seamdh called above the din, ‘’Nother guest, sir! A civvy!’

The vice-admiral chuckled. ‘Good old Jack, never changes, thank God.’ He added, as he reached for a passing drink, ‘My guest actually – you’ll like him. He’s Richard Wakely. Heard of him?’

Who hadn’t? Right from the early days, the Phoney War as it was called by those who did not have to fight it, Richard Wakely had been a household name. As a BBC roaming journalist he had brought every aspect of the war to Britain’s firesides. When England had stood quite alone he had rallied every heart with his stirring words. Even before Dunkirk he had toured the front lines of the British Expeditionary Force, and visited the unbreachable Maginot Line, where he had enthralled his massive audience when he had described the nearness of the enemy in the Siegfried Line; the Huns as he had called them. He had disappeared after Dunkirk for a time, and had carried on his broadcasts in the USA.

Then when Britain stood firm and her friends and allies rallied from all parts of the world, Richard Wakely came back. From a Lancaster bomber above Berlin, or in the Western Desert even within range of German snipers there, he had told his listeners what it was like, regardless of the risk to himself.

It seemed strange that such a famous figure was about to enter their tiny, private world in Rob Roy.