It showed her sitting at an easel, her knees drawn up and displaying those familiar paint stains. She had put Barracuda in the background – remarkably accurately, considering the boat had been under canvas for so long.
On the reverse of the painting she had written, ‘To the dearest of men.’
It had not been the only message she had given him. The last one had been in a sealed envelope; she had handed it to him just before the naval car had driven him away, before he had had time to open it. She had called, ‘Read it later on!’ Then as the car had gathered speed she had shouted, 7 love you!’ And she had turned away. He had known it was because of her tears.
She must have selected the sonnet with great care. It had reminded him of his schooldays, but she had somehow brought it up to date, to their dangerous world, in her own handwriting. Like a calm pool in a forest.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove…
There was more, but in those first lines he could hear her speaking to him, reassuring him. As if she were here beside him.
Ransome recrossed the bridge, knowing that Morgan wanted to talk, but had been respecting these remaining moments of privacy.
He peered at the shaded compass repeater and felt his ship rolling heavily in the troughs. With an opposing current, and the heavy sweep trailing astern, Rob Roy was barely making seven knots.
He stamped his old leather seaboots on the deck and felt the restless strain thrusting into him again. Was it fear? Or was it fear of failure, of overlooking some small but vital point?
Directly below his feet Ordinary Seaman Boyes heard the thuds and glanced up at the wheelhouse deckhead. Beside him, the new midshipman, Piers, stared at him wide-eyed.
‘What was that?’
Beckett lounged easily behind the wheel, his eyes on the gyro tape.
‘No sweat. Just the skipper lettin’ off steam.’ He did not even bother to add sir. It didn’t seem to matter, he thought, as he watched the ticking lubber’s line.
There had been some cheeky comment when he had taken over the wheel. He would be on it until they’d done what they’d come for. Beckett was dressed in his best Number One jacket, with the shining gold-wire badges on each lapel.
He had rasped at the quartermaster, ‘An’ why not? This is the big ’un. It’s got to be done right – look proper, see?’
Nobody argued with the coxswain.
He still felt the scar on his thigh where the red-hot splinter had torn into him; but what the hell. You lose something, and you fetch up gaining something. He had been awarded a bar to his Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, which he had got when the Old Man had got his gong from the King. Made ’em all sit up at home, although his dad had been enjoying His Majesty’s pleasure in a different style.
The door opened and closed and the Buffer, carrying a heavy torch, glanced in as he made a final check on damage-control.
Beckett gave a lazy grin. ‘I ’ope you’ve got a tin – ’at for yer weddin’ tackle, Buffer! Wouldn’t like nuffin to get shot off!’
The Buffer snapped back, ‘I thought you’d be wearin’ yer brown trousers this time, Swain!’
Boyes watched the Buffer bustle away. He drew comfort from their casual banter, their warm hostility toward each other.
He tried to push Connie from his thoughts, but she kept returning. He saw her on the bed, then wrapped in his arms; felt his face flush as he recalled what they had done, and how she had guided him to that overwhelming climax.
He had tried to telephone her several times, a difficult and expensive exercise. The battery guardroom had been unable or unwilling to help him, but on the third occasion, with a queue of impatient and fuming sailors outside the only telephone box, her friend Sheila had been brought to speak to him.
‘You’re a nice bloke, Gerry, but in some ways just a kid. You’re not like Connie – you’re like chalk and cheese. She’s my best friend. I know more about her than most.’
‘But I must speak to her!’ A sailor had rapped with his coins on the glass.
She had said, ‘Connie’s fond of you, ’course she is. But it’s not the real thing.’ She had hesitated, balancing Boyes’ despair against her own betrayal. ‘She was in love once, with a bloke from this battery. He treated her badly, then he pushed off to North Africa, God rot him! Well, now he’s back, and Connie’s making a fool of herself all over again. So just forget it. Wouldn’t work anyway. You’ll be an officer soon. Then what?’
Boyes had left the box as if he was in a trance. He loved her. They would have managed.
On the messdeck it had been the tough A.B. Jardine who had asked, ‘Wot the hell’s up with you, Gerry? You got a face like a wet Sunday in Liverpool!’
The mess had been deserted at the time and Boyes had found himself spilling it out to Jardine, expecting him to mock him for his juvenile behaviour.
Jardine had regarded him thoughtfully. ‘She sounds a right little raver.’ Then he had relented. ‘See ’ere, Wings, she’s not for you. ‘Er mate was right. She’s not your sort, no more than I am. When you’ve got a bit o’ gold on yer sleeve, you’ll remember us, an’ wot you’ve gained – least I ’ope you do.’
Boyes had stared at him. ‘You knew?’
Jardine had laughed. ‘Course! The ’ole bloody ship knows. But it’s different now, see? Maybe they was right to turn you down for your wavy stripe, but not no more they ain’t. Even if you are going to be one o’ them, you’re all right, Wings. So just remember this lass as experience.’ Then he had shaken his head. ‘Love? Gawd, Gerry-lad, she’d ’ave you fer breakfast!’
Boyes was still unconvinced.
The midshipman whispered, ‘Do you think we’ll be going into action?’
Boyes smiled, it’s hard to tell.’ He pointed at the vibrating plot-table. ‘Now look at this—’
They all stared up as Sherwood’s voice came across the bridge intercom.
‘The float’s no longer watching, sir!’
Midshipman Piers forgot his authority and seized Boyes’ arm.
‘What’s he talking about?’
Boyes swallowed hard. ‘It means that the Oropesa float has disappeared, gone below the surface. We must have snared something.’ He looked for understanding, but there was none. He remembered Jardine’s words. Maybe they had been right to turn him down for the chance of a commission: but not any longer. In the face of Piers’s anxiety, he thought he knew what the tough seaman meant.
Beckett interrupted, ‘Stand by, my beauties. Time to earn yer pay!’
Lieutenant Sherwood gripped a davit and watched the sea boiling up beneath the stern from the racing screws. They were making slow progress, but down aft, with the water rising almost level with the deck as Rob Roy pushed into the oncoming crests, they got an impression of speed.
He saw Ranger’s murky silhouette riding out on the quarter, the spray bursting above her stem as she held station on the leader. The remainder of the sweepers were already lost in early darkness. Sherwocjd buttoned the neck of his oilskin. Inside the heavy coat he was sweating badly, but without it he knew he would soon be drenched to the skin and shivering. You couldn’t win.
Stoker Petty Officer Nobby Clarke crouched on his little steel seat while he controlled the winch, spray dripping off the peak of his cap as he squinted into the criss-cross of foam from the ship’s wake. Sherwood found he was able to accept all that was happening, what he could see around him, and that which he could only imagine from reading the intelligence packs.