Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

Any secret weapon Jerry can create we must master before it drops in our laps.’

‘I’d like to be there with him.’

Bliss’s expression softened I expect you would. But I need you here. I shall go with him I know he hates my guts – better that than you worrying about him, eh?’ He relaxed and smiled. ‘Besides which, our vice-admiral, who, like the sick and needy, is always with us’will expect it.’ He stood up and seized his cap. ‘I’ll go and rouse the driver.’

Ransome followed him out to the darkened deck. The first full day. What a way to end it. so bliss had known all along that Sherwood would go; he had even laid on a car for the fast drive to Weymouth and Portland They paused by the quartermaster’s lobby and Bliss observed.

‘It’ll look good for the flotilla too, think of it that way!’ Then he was gone.

Sherwood arrived eventually carrying a small bag. He had changed into old blue battledress and rubber boots, which Ransome knew he always wore on these dangerous assignments.

Sherwood glanced up at the sky. ‘No more snow then. That’s good.’ He sounded very cool. Almost disinterested. He faced Ransome and added quietly, ‘Thanks for trying to put a spanner in the works.’ He shrugged, it’ll all be the same in a thousand years, I expect.’

They heard steps on the steel deck and Leading Writer Wakeford hurried into view.

‘He agreed then.’

Sherwood smiled for the first time. ‘Glad to go. You work him too hard, sir.’

Wakeford peered at Ransome and said, ‘Sorry about this, sir, short notice, but I’ve done all the files you needed for the dockyard and—’

Ransome gripped his arm. It felt like a bone through his raincoat sleeve.

‘Just take care of yourself. I can’t manage without you.’ He stood away. ‘That goes for you both.’ He saluted. ‘I want you back as soon as possible.’

Sub-Lieutenant Morgan, who was staying aboard as O.O.D., watched them go and said, ‘Your writer left some letters, sir. It’s as if he knew.’

Ransome shivered. There was no point in asking about Sherwood. He had nobody to write to. He doubted if he would anyway. There had been grief enough in his young life.

He said, it looks as if your promotion may be delayed a while.’

Morgan stared into the darkness but the two figures had vanished.

‘Suddenly it doesn’t seem that important, see?’ He shook his head, it’s always just around the next corner, isn’t it, sir?’

He did not explain but Ransome knew exactly what he meant.

The Reverend Canon Simon Warwick stood with one hand resting on the huge stone fireplace and stared thoughtfully into the flames of a cheerful log fire. It gave only an illusion of warmth however, for this room, like all the others in Codrington House, were too vast to heat easily. Once away from the fireplace and the winter intruded like a chill breath.

He glanced at his wife, who was sitting with a local lady dressed in the uniform of the Women’s Voluntary Service, of which Betty had been the most active member until the bombing.

Sometimes it was difficult to pick up the threads of God’s reasons and reasoning, he thought.

The two women were checking their lists of promised gifts offered by local shopkeepers and farmers for the Christmas raffle.

Warwick was already thinking of Christmas, of how hard it would be to decorate this rambling house and brighten things up for the ebb and flow of evacuees and homeless people who stayed here.

But he was finding it hard to concentrate. He could hear the clatter of plates and cutlery from the dining-room where two evacuee volunteers were laying the table for dinner. He hoped the W.V.S. lady would leave before any of his guests arrived. He knew it was an uncharitable thought, just as he knew the reason for his inability to concentrate on Christmas.

But for the sound of cheerful chatter and clink of crockery, he knew he would hear Eve’s voice from the draughty hallway, where the private telephone was situated.

He frowned. Seeing her face in his mind, the young lieutenant-commander, so self-assured, who seemed to think of little but his ship and the war. He had said a lot, but their eyes when they met across the table had told another story. Warwick had felt it then, something akin to jealousy, more like a suitor than a father.

She had answered the telephone herself. Warwick shied away from the thought which touched his mind like a raw nerve. Would he have summoned her, had he answered Ransome’s call first? Or might he had made some excuse? It would only postpone, rather than prevent it. But the thought remained, unanswered.

The W.V.S. lady stood up and snapped her handbag shut. She was a square, competent woman, a local magistrate, and the widow of an old major-general who had died in the neighbouring village.

She thrust out her hand and said, ‘Goodbye, Canon.’ Her handshake was like her heavy shoes, firm, sensible.

Betty played uncertainly with her necklace.

‘Well, er, – I’ll see you to your car.’

Warwick bit his lip. They were old friends, but he knew Betty had nearly revealed that she had forgotten her name.

The door opened and Eve walked in. She wore her heavy fisherman’s jersey, and her favourite trousers with the paint smears.

She hugged her arms across her body and shivered. ‘I’m like ice!’

Betty smiled at her. ‘How is he, dear?’

Eve looked fondly at her mother. ‘He’s all right, Mummy.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘I – I think he’s had a bad time.’

The W.V.S. lady exclaimed, ‘What’s this, Betty? A secret love? I must say, I’m not surprised, what?’

Warwick said, ‘He’s someone we used to see when we were on holidays, before—’ He did not go on.

The woman said knowingly, ‘I see. Well, well!’

She crossed the room and put her hands on the girl’s shoulders. ‘He’s a lucky boy!’

She replied, ‘He’s a man, not a boy. He commands a minesweeper.’ It sounded like defiance, a defence against the trite summing-up and her father’s constant refusal to accept that she had feelings.

Once her mother would have helped and understood. Now she seemed to wander, lost in her own thoughts, which nobody could share any more.

She said, ‘I’m going up to have a bath and—’ She looked down at her daubed trousers and remembered his smile when he had seen them, how he had recalled those other times in the boatyard, reminded her without making her relive them as a young girl, but as an equal. ‘And change, I suppose.’

Warwick tucked his hands into his cassock. ‘Good idea. Don’t be long. Early supper tonight. In case there’s a raid on Plymouth.’

The W.V.S. lady was still watching Eve, her flashing eyes when she had spoken out. Such a quiet girl, who rarely mixed. But something had changed her. It would make a new topic at the bridge party on Saturday, she thought.

Eve closed the door behind her and leaned against it, hoping that the heavy fisherman’s jersey had hidden the thrust of her breasts and her breathing, which had still not settled after speaking with him. A bad line, but they often were nowadays. She had sensed the change in his voice, the careful way he spoke, as if each word was precious to him.

But nothing could take the real happiness away. He was back, liter all the months and the days, and the hours; his ship was in the dockyard. It might have been anywhere, in Scotland or in the North of England, but Rob Roy had come to Plymouth. He had not told her in so many words, and she had had the feeling that many ears were on the line, fingers waiting to snatch away the hissing, noisy connection. By mentioning the gardens around this old house, he had made her realise where he was.

He could not say when he would see her. There were ‘things’ which had to be done. Again, she had felt the same sense of anxiety, that someone he cared about was in danger.