Douglas Reeman - In Danger's Hour

She put her arm through his. ‘Never mind, Gerry- I’m taking you to a party. It’ll be warm at least, and more important, it’s free.’

As they walked she glanced at him. He had changed in some way. Not matured, that would be too simple; if anything he had seemed more defenceless when he had blurted out about someone who had bought it at Sicily. His face held a kind of desperation, made him look older.

They crossed a street near the riverside of Kingston-on-Thames, with the massive chimneys of the power station standing against the dull sky like abandoned lighthouses. He did not know where she was taking him. He had hoped to be alone with her, and recalled his mother’s tone when he had telephoned the army camp to ask for her.

She had warned, ‘Don’t get into any trouble, that’s all I ask-’ His father had murmured soothingly, ‘Don’t worry, dear. He’s home now, and to all accounts he’s earned a bit of leave.’ He might just as well have saved his breath.

Boyes thought of his visit to Davenport’s home. It was as if the midshipman’s body was still in the house. Everything was so still and deathly quiet.

They had been civil enough, but when he had left he had had the feeling that Davenport’s parents resented his being alive while their son lay fathoms deep in the Mediterranean.

Davenport’s father had asked just once, ‘Did he suffer? Was he able to speak?’

Boyes had replied as truthfully as he could. ‘He didn’t feel very much.’ He thought of Davenport clinging to the talisman of his promotion even as his life had drained away.

Davenport’s mother had asked almost sharply, ‘How could you know that?’

Boyes had got to his feet and had answered without hesitation, ‘Because I was with him. He died in my arms.’ Before, he would have stammered and felt in the wrong. That at least he had left behind.

The girl dragged his arm around a corner, an ordinary street of Victorian houses. It could have been anywhere.

She stopped outside one of them. ‘Here ’tis. Might be fun.’

A gramophone was cranking out dance music, and she led him into the sitting-room where several others were already swapping jokes and making steady headway into crates of bottled beer. The owner of the house was apparently a local butcher, who did quite a bit of business with the army in Home Park. His wife, a lively looking girl with dyed blonde hair and wearing, surprisingly, a bright party dress, was obviously a good bit younger than her husband, but they both made Boyes and the girl called Connie very welcome.

There was Connie’s friend Sheila with a bombardier from the battery, and a massive quartermaster-sergeant whose contacts with the butcher had opened the way for this and perhaps previous parties.

A leading aircraftman and his girl, related in some unexplained way to the host, made up the party.

Connie settled down on a sofa beside him and took two glasses of beer from the table.

‘Cheers, Sarge!’

The quartermaster-sergeant beamed at her and touched his ginger moustache. He nodded to Boyes. ‘Up the navy!’ Then he turned to his host and thrust another full pint into his hands. ‘Come on, my son, drink up! It’ll put hair on your chest!’

Connie giggled. ‘You’d think it was bis beer he’s being so free with!’

Boyes tried to remember how much he was drinking. He did not usually drink, and was too young to draw his tot of rum as Beckett had often reminded him. The thought of the coxswain and his friend the randy Buffer touched him like a hot wire. The shell screaming and ricochetting around the wheelhouse, men dying, Richard Wakely attempting to hide under the table where Davenport lay bleeding.

Connie saw his expression. ‘What is it, Gerry?’

He shook his head, not wanting to spoil anything. ‘Someone walked on my grave, that’s all.’

She did not believe him but said, ‘I’m just going to powder my nose.’ She waited for his eyes to meet hers. ‘Remember the last time, you naughty boy!’ Then she was gone.

Boyes could not remember how long she had been away, and for one awful moment imagined she had become irritated by his mood and had left, perhaps with somebody else.

He stared around the room. All but a table lamp had been switched off; Sheila and her bombardier lay in one another’s arms, her stockinged feet curled over his massive army boots.

The leading aircraftman and his girl were trying to dance without cannoning into the beer crates and empty bottles.

Boyes blinked. Surely they hadn’t drunk all that? Then he saw the butcher and knew that he must have consumed the bulk of it. Their host lay propped in a corner, his mouth open, his shirt and waistcoat sodden with spilled beer. He was out to the world.

The leading aircraftman and his girl left without speaking, so that only the quartermaster-sergeant and the butcher’s wife remained in the centre of the floor, slowly gyrating but barely moving to the beat of the music.

The sergeant had his arm around her waist and was pressing her against him, while she clung to his neck, her body swaying even when the record came to an end.

Boyes noticed that her party dress was caught in the sergeant’s uniform, but when they turned slowly once again he realised why the hostess had her eyes tightly closed. The sergeant’s other hand was thrust up beneath her skirt.

, Connie opened the door softly and quickly turned over the record. She looked at Boyes and held out her hand. ‘Sorry to leave you with this lot, but I had things to do.’ She pulled him to his feet. ‘They won’t miss us.’

She led the way up the stairs to a narrow landing and asked, ‘Home for Christmas, d’you reckon?’

‘Don’t know.’ He noticed that she did not look at him, and had the same bright nervousness as that time in the cinema.

She opened a door and waited for him to enter. He saw her lock it behind them, then turn to watch his reactions.

‘I don’t think they’ll be wanting their bed, do you, Gerry?’

Boyes felt his mind in a whirl. Mixed feelings of uncertainty, even fear, ran through him; he could not even speak.

Connie came towards him and held his blue and white collar with both hands.

She said, ‘You’ll have to help, Gerry. You sailors seem to wrap yourselves up like herrings in a barrel!’

He pulled his jumper over his head and tossed it on to a chair. When he tried to hold her she evaded him. He heard himself say, ‘I’m sorry, Connie. I’ve never—’

She nodded very slowly. ‘I know. That’s why—’ She began to undress until she wore only her underwear and stockings.

She threw herself on the bed and watched him. ‘I should be in pure silk, not army issue, for a moment like this.’ She giggled.

Boyes sat beside her and touched her skin, then her breasts. She moved to make it easy for him, until she lay quite naked, surprised that she could feel shy while he finished undressing.

She rolled down the sheet. ‘Slip in beside me. It’s bloody cold in here.’

But still Boyes waited, without knowing why. A girl all of his own, her curly hair in disarray against the pillows, her breasts full and pink-tipped, as he had known they would be. He tortured his dazed mind a little longer, then climbed into the bed.

At any second someone might come banging at the door, no matter what she believed, but nothing save this moment mattered, nothing but his Connie.

She lay back and felt his hands exploring her breasts, then down into her hair and her smooth thighs.

If he kept this up, neither of them would hold out for long. She reached out and gripped him, felt his body quiver as if he had received a shock.

‘Come, Gerry!’ She murmured against his skin but retained her hold of him. It was his first time, she had always known it would be, but there was no hesitation or disappointment after all.