‘I seem to have heard that programme before,’ said Lockhart.
‘Me too,’ said Vincent. ‘I wonder how that fierce old character at Ardnacraish is getting on.’
‘Who is that?’ asked Scott-Brown.
‘The Admiral in charge of working up all the escort ships. He’s done a terrific job, right through the war, but he’s not exactly an angel of compassion.’
‘The position doesn’t really call for one . . .’ Ericson pondered the prospect of the future. ‘How about a farewell party, before we leave here?’
‘It’s provisionally arranged, sir,’ said Lockhart. ‘At the end of next week, if that’s all right with you. Chief is going to rig up a bit of fancy lighting for us, and we thought of having drinks and then some sort of supper afterwards.’
‘Do we know enough people for a big party?’
Scott-Brown laughed. ‘The present invitation list is about sixty.’
‘Sixty?’ Ericson raised his eyebrows. ‘What have you all been doing while I’ve been away?’
‘You know how wardroom visitors add up, sir,’ said Johnson, with the morose air of a man with a small bank balance and no social ambitions at all. ‘This place has been a proper hotel, sometimes.’
‘Oh, there are quite a lot of deserving characters as well,’ said Scott-Brown. ‘We owe a good deal of hospitality, really. There are officers from the two other ships in the yard. And the builders. And people from the Base. And lots of Wrens. I’ve got a rough list here.’
He dug it out of his pocket, and passed it over to Ericson.
‘Will the Admiral come?’ asked Ericson, looking at the name at the top of the paper.
‘His flag lieutenant says, yes, he loves parties and wouldn’t miss this one for the world.’
‘Good.’ Ericson went further down the list. ‘I suppose all these mysterious men with Scottish names are from the shipyard . . . Who’s Second Officer Hallam?’
‘A glamour-pants from Ops,’ said Holt.
‘A what?’ asked Ericson, startled.
The midshipman blushed. ‘Er – she’s a Wren from Operations, sir. The First Lieutenant asked her.’
‘Pretty?’
‘Absolute smash hit, sir.’
Ericson looked quizzically at Lockhart, who to his own surprise was conscious of a shade of embarrassment. ‘I hope you’re not weakening, Number One.’
‘In no sense, sir,’ answered Lockhart. ‘I thought we ought to have as many people as possible from the Base. They’ve been rather good to us.’
‘Is Second Officer Hallam in that category?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘She hasn’t been good to me,’ murmured the midshipman, not quite under his breath.
‘Holt!’ said Lockhart, in a voice accustomed to command.
‘Sir?’ said Holt.
‘That will just about do.’
‘Sorry, sir,’ said Holt, not in the least put out. ‘I thought you’d be glad to know.’
Lockhart opened his mouth to speak, and then wisely decided to leave it. Ericson looked at him again. Well, well, he thought: so that’s how it is. About time, too. I hope she’s nice.
Lockhart had not really expected Julie Hallam to accept the invitation to their party; and watching her installed in one corner of the rapidly filling wardroom, he was not sure that it was a good idea, for his own peace of mind. She really was alarmingly attractive: he had not seen her since their first meeting, and everything about her – her hair, the shape of her face, her clear skin and large grey eyes – came as a new and delicious shock. He had met her at the head of the gangway, and taken her down to the wardroom, almost in silence; and there he had had to surrender her – there were still plenty of minor things for him to see to, and he wanted to be on hand to greet the Admiral. When he returned to the wardroom, he knew at once that he would never get close to her, in any effective sense.
She was sitting on the arm of a chair, and her corner of the room seemed to be everyone’s favourite choice. At her side, Scott-Brown was exerting his formidable charm: there were a number of Base officers who had a clear and undeserved priority: Ericson, doing the rounds of his guests, delayed near her for a long time, talking and making her laugh. Holt was constantly attentive: the Admiral’s flag lieutenant hung over her like a decorated cliff: even the stewards, circulating with drinks and oddments to eat, seemed to reduce to Dead Slow when they were within the orbit . . . I can’t blame anyone, thought Lockhart: not with her looking like that. But damn it, all the same . . . The party, crowded and noisy, made him remember Compass Rose’s modest start, with not more than a dozen people in the wardroom, and Bennett walking in with some horrible woman or other. I wonder where Julie Hallam was then, he thought: it’s getting on for four years ago – she must have met lots of people in four years: how does she manage to look lovely, beckoning, and proud at the same time . . . He shook his head, and turned away, and began conscientiously to talk to people.
The Admiral, a genial and popular character, made conversation on the royal pattern: there was a series of adroit questions, two minutes’ exchange of pleasantries, and then a move on to someone else. To Lockhart he said: ‘Is this your first job as First Lieutenant?’
‘No, sir,’ said Lockhart. ‘I was in another ship with Commander Ericson. Compass Rose: ‘Oh, yes.’ The Admiral, who had a royal memory as well, sheered away from what was evidently not a party topic. ‘You’ve been in the Western Approaches all the time, haven’t you?’
‘Yes, sir. Over three years.’
‘A long stretch . . . Is your commissioning going all right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I hope my people are looking after you properly.’
‘They’ve been very helpful, sir.’
‘Good.’ He nodded, and moved away. Presently Lockhart heard him ask Allingham: ‘Is this your first job as Gunnery Officer?’ He caught sight of Johnson standing by himself in one corner of the room, and made his way across.
‘Enjoying yourself, Chief?’
Johnson nodded. Then he said, somewhat hesitatingly: ‘This is all a bit new to me, Number One.’
That was something which Lockhart specially liked about Johnson: a few weeks ago he had been in the petty officers’ mess of a destroyer, and he was entirely honest about the novelty of the promotion. He said: ‘If you get bored, Chief, you can always blow the fuses and finish the party.’
Johnson smiled. ‘I’ll remember that.’
Lockhart took a small tray of food from one of the stewards, and began to go round with it, talking to people on the way. The room was now very crowded: in Julie Hallam’s corner, the attendant circle was thickest of all. Like vultures, he thought ruefully, and then: no, like courtiers, with the best excuse in the world for their royal attendance . . . He had a momentary glimpse of the shapely head, with its crown of dark hair, bending forward to listen to something that Holt was saying: then she vanished, and he went back to work, wishing for the first time in the war that he could be a good-looking seventeen-year-old midshipman without a care in the world.
He talked to a woman in a very large hat, who said: ‘What I don’t understand is, how you know where you’re going when you’re in the middle of the sea.’
He talked to a man in a raincoat, who said: ‘We’ve put a lot of work into this ship. Hope you take care of her.’
He talked to a rather plain Wren who said: ‘I’ve seen you in a restaurant somewhere.’ He talked to the harbour master, and handed round some more food, and saw the Admiral off, and went out on to the upper deck to look at the blackout: then he wrote up the Night Order Book, and had a word with Chief Petty Officer Barnard, and came back and talked to the Deputy Provost of Glasgow. Time passed: there were no signs of the crowd thinning out. Then he found himself next to the First Lieutenant of another new frigate, who said: ‘I’ve just arrived. One of our liberty men fell into the river. Who’s that incredibly good-looking girl over there?’
Lockha
rt’s eyes went round, for the first time for nearly two hours, to Julie Hallam, and by chance she raised her head at the same moment. Across the dozen people between them, across the nodding faces and bent backs that were nearest to her, their eyes met. She smiled directly for him, and he smiled back, and then made a comical grimace of despair, indicating the close containing circle round her. He saw her hesitate: then she said something to the people nearest to her, broke away from them, and came towards him. He moved at the same moment, and they met under the lamp in the middle of the room, a rather hard lamp that made her hair shine and still could not rob her face of an atom of its loveliness. To be close to her suddenly was like a dagger in the heart, a melting dagger that turned on the instant to tender warmth. The smile still lingered round her mouth and eyes when she looked up and said: ‘As my official escort, you haven’t done terribly well for yourself, have you?’
He laughed, liking the word ‘escort’. ‘Such competition . . .’
‘And you’ve been busy, like a good First Lieutenant.’ She glanced down at her watch. ‘I must go soon, I’m afraid. We have to be back at ten.’
‘Oh . . . I haven’t spoken to you at all.’
She smiled once more, letting her eyes move frankly over his face. After a moment she said, with a trace of shyness: ‘You wouldn’t believe how many people have been told that you’re seeing me home.’
In the darkness, their footsteps were slow: spinning out the deserted streets, cherishing the black pavement as if it were a measure of fleeting time itself.
‘That seems a very cheerful sort of wardroom you have there,’ she said presently. ‘I like Allingham, and your doctor too. And of course the midshipman is terribly sweet.’
‘He makes me feel about ninety, sometimes. But it’s good to have someone really young and cheerful about the place.’
‘It can be infectious . . . You must be very fond of Ericson.’
‘I feel I want to finish the war with him, and with no one else. It’s as strong as that.’
The blur of her face turned towards him, and he saw her smile. ‘That’s almost exactly what he said about you.’
‘David and Jonathan,’ he said. ‘Does it sound silly?’
‘I’m jealous.’ He heard her laugh. ‘I don’t mean jealous. I mean that women don’t often have that relationship, and if they do there aren’t many first-rate things it can be applied to, like running a ship or fighting a war.’
‘It’s about the only personal relationship that should be allowed to operate in wartime.’
‘Marriage, surely?’
He shook his head. ‘No. That’s a sidetracking element, a distraction. There was a girl I was talking to tonight, one of your Wrens. Joan something.’
‘Joan Warrender. Yes, she’s getting married quite soon.’
‘To a naval officer. The captain of a destroyer, in fact.’
‘Well?’ She sounded rather puzzled.
‘I wondered how getting married fitted in with being a destroyer captain during a war.’
There was a silence, while they traversed a cross street and came into the shadow of a building again.
‘You’re rather a Puritan, aren’t you?’ she said reflectively.
‘In that respect, yes. War has to be a matter of dedication: anything else gets in the way. You have to be single-minded, free of distraction, tough, untender – all the words that don’t go with marriage. Otherwise you’ll fail, and war will weed you out. It might even do worse: it might take your life, because you’re not attending properly.’
‘How did you get like this?’ she asked after a moment. ‘You’re not a professional – you don’t have to crucify yourself . . . What were you before the war?’
‘Journalist . . . It’s just something that grew. Perhaps it’s only true for me. But there was a man in my last ship who was being torn to bits by a bad marriage – and I think one could be sapped by a good one, in the same way. It’s too dangerous, too much of a hostage to give way. Better to be on your own. You’ve got to reach that professional standard, anyway. Muddling through at half-speed just won’t do.’
Inconsequently she said: ‘You’re very thin.’
‘That was Compass Rose, mostly. And worry, and less sleep than usual for a long time.’ But he did not want to talk about any of that. He said: ‘You’re not thin.’
After a moment she smiled, and said: ‘You might at least qualify that.’
‘I mean, you’re not harassed or overdriven, although you’re doing a harassing job. What were you before the war?’
‘I was on a fashion magazine.’
‘Oh.’ He glanced round at her figure in its austere, unfeminine uniform, and they both laughed, making the dark night a companionable cloak shared between them. He said suddenly: ‘And now you’re S.O.O.2, and you look the way you do. You have everything, really, haven’t you?’
He wondered how she would answer that, or whether she would become, in any degree, coy or disclaiming. He need not have bothered.
‘It’s not a particularly successful combination.’ Once more he was struck by the low clarity, the beauty of her voice in the darkness. Their steps slowed again, willingly matching each other’s, as he listened to it, and to her. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I have this face, and I have a brain, and I can talk. But people don’t really like the arrangement: they prefer things one at a time. Women are afraid of the mixture, men don’t want it – they don’t know what to do with it.’
‘Surely they do. Look at the droves of courtiers tonight.’
‘But what did the courtiers want? Me as a woman, solely, not as an individual.’
‘They enjoy talking to you as well.’
‘And all the time they think: Chat, chat, chat – doesn’t she know that a mouth is for kissing? True?’
He laughed. ‘Maybe true. You wouldn’t want yourself changed though.’
Her head went up, challenging him and the dark night as well. ‘Not I . . . I wouldn’t pretend to change, either. I won’t pretend to be a plain girl with brains, to suit the women, or a pretty one without them, for you people.’
‘Count me out,’ he said. ‘I have a weakness for organised perfection.’
After a moment, she stopped before a tall gloomy building and said: ‘This is where I live.’
He did not know how to say goodbye. He remembered her phrase, ‘a mouth is for kissing’, but the moment was not that moment. He said: ‘The walk made the party. Thank you for it.’
A shaded light falling on her face showed it serious, and heartbreakingly lovely at the same time. Its shape held him in a spell he could have prolonged for ever: its nearness transfixed him. But this was still farewell: the night that had embraced must now divide them.
‘The walk was a good idea,’ she said. ‘Mine, too . . . Would you have asked me?’
He shook his head.
She said: ‘Why? Dedication to war?’
He shook his head again. ‘I just thought the answer would be “No”.’
‘Next time—’ she began and stopped.
There was a long pause, while they eyed each other: she hesitant, even discomposed, he diverted. Finally: ‘I just thought I’d leave you in the air for a moment,’ he said. ‘Next time, I’ll certainly take a chance and stake the earliest possible claim.’
‘It will be very embarrassing if you don’t,’ she answered, restored to her grave serenity. ‘Even with Puritans, one can’t make the running every day of the week.’
‘My turn next,’ he agreed. ‘Goodnight.’
She nodded and was gone, walking quickly up some steps and through a curtained doorway. Lockhart stared for a moment at the place where she had been standing; and then he turned and went slowly down the street again. His footsteps made an endless hollow ring on the lonely pavement, but the man within him had never been further from loneliness.
4
Vice-Admiral Sir Vincent Murray-Forbes, K.C.B., D.S.O. came down to the quay at Ardnacraish as soon as Sa
ltash was signalled, and put off in his barge almost before she was secured to the buoy. Saltash would be the five-hundred-and-twenty-first ship to pass through his hands, and she received exactly the same welcome as the previous five hundred and twenty: if the enormous amount of work which this number entailed weighed heavily on the Admiral, it did not show either in his face, which was alert and attentive as usual, or in his scramble up the ladder, which was as energetic as it had ever been. Tremendous in gold braid, he acknowledged the piping and the salutes of Ericson and his officers, who were drawn up in a respectful semicircle on the quarterdeck; then he walked a pace or two forward, glared round him, turned back to Ericson, and said: ‘She’s bigger than I thought.’
Ericson, working it out rapidly, came to the right answer and put on an expression of interest.
‘Is this the first frigate to arrive here, sir?’
‘Yes. Yours was the first corvette, too, back in 1939. Strange. Long time since then. Introduce me to your officers.’
The Admiral went quickly round the assembled ring. To Lockhart he said: ‘You met me without a cap last time,’ and to Vincent: ‘You were in Trefoil’; the rest of them received a nod and a straight glance from under the bushy eyebrows. After that he toured the ship at a brisk pace, and then descended to Ericson’s cabin, where he sat down, accepted a glass of their best sherry, and said: ‘They seem a good class of ship, these frigates. We want something bigger and tougher in the Atlantic, though the corvettes have done a good job, a first-rate job.’ He looked at Ericson. ‘You lost Compass Rose.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Ericson.
‘It’s a long war,’ said the Admiral, looking as though he were ready to begin the whole thing over again if necessary. ‘A damned long war. But the Huns are running, by God, they’re running! Or they will be soon. This is the beginning of the end of it.’ His manner changed. ‘You’re here for three weeks, Ericson. I needn’t tell you anything about the training course, or what I want you to do. You know the sort of standard I expect.’ He looked out of the porthole. ‘You’ll find it a bit bleak here, as usual. We’ve got a cinema ashore now, and a better canteen, but that’s about all there is.’