Barracuda had been his dream. She was a big motor-sailer of some forty-six feet, one he would cruise in, and if necessary live aboard when the time came.
When not working on plans for his father and learning more about the craft of boat-building, Ransome had spent his spare time and the long summer evenings working on his boat. The hull had been overhauled, and some of the inside accommodation completed when Ransome had been called to make use of all the training he had done with the peacetime RNVR. She had stood here ever since, and Weese had indeed fended off the greedy approaches of Admiralty agents who toured the ports and harbours around Britain in search of vessels which might be thrown into naval service. A sort of press-gang, as Weese put it; not to be tolerated in Fowey.
The agents had insisted on taking Barracuda’s two diesel engines for war service in some harbour-launch or other, but the hull was still safe.
Weese watched as he crouched under the canvas awning, reliving all those dreamy days when he had come here. Ransome ran his hands along the curved planking. Old, but a proper boat, a thoroughbred. The girl had come here to watch, to sit with him, or just to sketch. He straightened his back, and looked across the harbour to the village of Polruan on the opposite side. The little houses banked street upon street, the pub by the jetty where the tiny ferry chugged back and forth. He had taken her to the pub once. She had been too young to go inside, but they chatted together on the benches near the jetty. A slim, sprite-like girl with long hair who had put away a Cornish pasty from the pub as if it was a mere crumb. He remembered her eyes while she had listened to him; her bare knees had usually been scratched or grubby from exploring the water’s edge and this same boatyard, ‘Memories, Mr Ian?’
‘A few, Jack.’
Weese waited for him to re-tie the tarpaulin. ‘When are you going back?’
Ransome grinned. Everyone said that, as soon as you came on leave. ‘A week. I can spare that.’ His inner voice said, I need it.
Weese said, ‘Mr Ted’s over in Looe Bay today. He’ll be here before dusk.’ He watched Ransome’s profile. ‘A freighter was torpedoed off the Knight Errant Patch a week back. There’s some quite good timber washed ashore. Pity to waste it.’
Ransome slapped his shoulder. ‘Years ago you would have been a wrecker!’
He hesitated, then asked suddenly, ‘You remember the kid who used to come here in the school holidays? She sketched things – pretty good too.’
Weese nodded. ‘I remember her. Her dad turned out to be a Holy Joe, didn’t he?’ His eyes became distant. ‘She did come here again.’ He was trying to fit it into place, so he did not see the sudden anxiety in Ransome’s grey eyes. ‘Same cottage as the other times.’ He bobbed his cap towards Polruan. ‘Your brother, Mr Tony would know. I think they went to a dance together over at St Blazey when he joined up.’
Ransome replaced his cap with care and tried to stifle his disappointment. What is the matter with me? Eve would be Tony’s age. But it hurt him all the same.
‘I’ll go up the house and see my mother.’ He groped in his gas mask haversack, which contained several items but no respirator, and handed a tin of pipe-tobacco to him. ‘Duty-free, Jack. Have a good cough on me!’
Weese took it but watched him uncertainly. He had known him all his life, first on the Thames, then here in Cornwall.
Some of the lads had commented on it at the time. Cradle-snatching, that kind of remark. Weese had not realised that it had gone any deeper.
And now this. He studied Ransome as if for the first time. He was the same person underneath. Friendly but reserved; he had been quite shy as a boy compared with his young brother. ’
Now look at him, he thought. Fighting the bloody war, a captain of his own ship, but still just the same uncertain kid who had wanted his own boat.
He said, ‘I reckon Vicar’ll know. They were as thick as thieves during that last visit.’
‘Thanks, Jack.’ He turned towards the houses. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Weese shook his head. ‘By the old Barracuda, no doubt!’
Ransome clipped the haversack shut and wished he had brought Eve’s drawing with him. It was all he had, all he was ever likely to.
As he walked slowly past the familiar houses bathed in the afternoon sunshine he thought about the torpedoed freighter, the casual way Weese had mentioned it. So even here, the war was never far away. Right now some U-boat commander might be picking his way through a minefield, his periscope’s eye watching this green sweep of land. Thinking perhaps of his own home, wherever that was.
His mother looked older, he thought, but hugged him with her same vigour.
‘You’ve no meat on your bones, son! They don’t feed you enough!’
Ransome smiled. Another misunderstanding, he thought. It was said that the cooks in Chatham Barracks threw away more spoiled food every day than the whole town got in rations.
She was bustling about, happy to have him home. ‘I’ll soon take care of that!’
Ransome saw the two photographs on the mantelpiece above the old fireplace where they burned logs in the winter, and his father had told unlikely ghost stories.
‘Heard from Tony, Mum?’
She did not turn but he saw her shoulders stiffen. ‘A few letters, but we did hear from one of his friends that his flotilla… whatever you call it, has gone to the Mediterranean.’
Ransome tried to remain calm. So much for security.
She was saying, ‘I thank God the war’s nearly over out there.’
Ransome groped for his pipe. The Mediterranean was about to erupt all over again. How could he even hint that Rob Roy would soon be going there too?
She turned and studied him. ‘How is it, dear? As bad as they say? I think of you both all the time—’ She bowed her head, and he took her in his arms to comfort her as her bravery collapsed.
Later that evening as Ransome sat at the table and faced an enormous dinner with his parents, the war intruded once again.
His father had switched on the wireless to hear the news. It was all much the same as Ransome had heard before he had left the ship. Until the very end when the urbane tones of the BBC announcer made the brief announcement.
‘The Secretary of the Admiralty regrets to announce the loss of His Majesty’s Minesweeper Fawn. Next of kin have been informed.’
It was a long time before anyone spoke. Then his father said flatly, ‘She was one of yours, Ian? I’m so sorry.’
As night closed in over the little harbour Ransome mounted the stairs to his room and stared at the fresh curtains, which his mother must have made for his visit so that it would always look as if he had not really been away.
He had changed from his uniform into his oldest shirt and flannel trousers and lay on the bed for a long time, the window open to listen to the breeze, the querulous muttering of some gulls who slept on the roof.
He thought about the Faivn, of another gathering somewhere with more women in black to mark that curt announcement.
Perhaps he would sleep again and dream of the sun across his back while he worked on the boat’s hull. Maybe in the dream she would come once again.
Lieutenant Trevor Hargrave sat at Ransome’s little desk and leafed half-heartedly through the latest batch of signals and A.F.O.’s. Wrecks and minefields to be re-checked or inserted on the charts, new regulations about the issue of Wrens’ clothing, revised designs for ship-camouflage, instructions for firing parties at service funerals. It was endless.