The Lieutenant intercepted Smith. “Sir, if you would care to wait —”
“The door was open. I need to see the Commodore.” Smith passed him and met Trist who was walking with rapid, long strides down the room.
Trist said softly, savagely, “What the devil do you want?”
“I’m sorry if I’m interrupting, sir, but there was no one around outside and the door was open. I have to see you.”
Trist looked him up and down, at the salt-stained uniform, crumpled as it had dried on him, the hollow eyes in the unshaven face.
Smith guessed how he must look and was sorry, but: “It is urgent, sir —”
“This is a conference,” Trist started, but Smith’s eyes flicked past him to the group at the end of the room, the stewards and the drinks. Trist followed the direction of that gaze and saw curious glances turned towards himself and Smith. Gunfire sounded beyond the tall windows of the long room, some of it distant and some of it close. A shudder ran through the floor and the windows trembled making a soft rattling in the frames and then there came the far-off muffled crump! of the bomb. Hacker and Eleanor stood a yard inside the room, the Lieutenant hovering uncertainly. They watched the slight, bedraggled but straight figure of Smith standing under Trist’s glare, refusing to be moved.
The Commodore smiled easily at the General across the room but muttered an obscenity under his breath. He said, “Very well. Outside.”
And when they stood in the hallway, “What is it?”
“We’ve talked before about —” Smith hesitated. What to call it? “Schwertträger, whatever it may be.”
Trist raised his eyes to heaven. “Not again!”
Smith said, “This gentleman is Lieutenant-Colonel Hacker of Army Intelligence. This lady is Miss Eleanor Hurst. If you would hear them, sir.”
Hacker looked real, the soldier he was, but Eleanor Hurst still wore the blouse and skirt in which she had been captured and in which she had swum. She had dried them aboard Sparrow but they had not seen an iron. She looked a scarecrow figure and knew it, was aware of Trist’s eyes running over her, amused and patronising.
Hacker told his tale, and Eleanor Hurst went stiff-faced and curtly through hers as Trist watched her with a cynical half-smile.
When they had finished he looked at Smith. “And I suppose you believe this lends weight to your arguments? That two wrongs make a right?” He glanced at the doors behind him and looked at his watch.
Smith said, “Before we only knew the Germans planned something called Schwertträger. We still don’t know what it is or when it will be but we know where and that it is connected with the woods by De Haan.”
“That may be,” Trist admitted grudgingly. “But if Colonel Hacker had sent a more appropriate agent than an untried girl —”
“I was there only as — as part of a disguise!” Eleanor Hurst snapped it at him. “There was an expert with me, he tried all he knew and now he’s dead. He did not die with his bottom stuck in a chair and a drink in his hand!”
Trist glared past her at Hacker. “Are you unable to discipline your assistants?”
The door opened behind Trist as the girl answered him. “He can’t and neither can you! I’m a civilian! Thank God for that and that I don’t have to take orders from a pompous windbag!”
The General and his aides stood in the door, and with them a Royal Navy Captain. Trist spun on his heel, saw them and snapped round again.
Hacker said, “Sir, I’m sorry. Miss Hurst has been under considerable strain and doesn’t know what she’s —”
“I know very well what I’m saying!” She was pale but she spoke very clearly.
Smith said savagely under his breath, “For God’s sake, shut up!”
Her head jerked as if struck and she turned away.
Smith spoke to Trist, tried to retrieve the situation. “I think the Germans have something in those woods, sir. The aircraft patrolling over De Haan, the way they are very secretive about the area, how it is isolated, guarded and now this report that actually links Schwertträger with those woods — they all fit together now. I suggest that we try to reconnoitre that stretch of coast by making a landing, and the fact that Miss Hurst and myself have both landed there shows it can be done. I think we’ve got to make a reconnaissance backed by force and prepared to —”
“No!”
Smith thought he could not have made himself clear. He must try again. “If I could explain, sir —”
“No!” Trist almost shouted it. “You’ve already exceeded your authority in engaging in operations outside the orders I gave you. You’re demanding a reconnaissance while one ship of your force is immobilised and now the other is damaged because of your actions!”
Dunbar. All the time came the sound and shudder of the bombs falling in the port and the constant racketing gunfire. Dunbar.
Smith heard himself saying, “With respect, my actions were dictated by circumstances and in the same circumstances I would act the same. The ship was knocked about and three good men killed, one of them a fine officer, because the orders from this headquarters sent her out alone into waters where she had no right to be and on a task she was unfit to undertake!” He shouted it at Trist.
The other man’s mouth was open. The Army officers stood staring. Smith looked at them all and told himself his temper had wrecked everything.
Finally Trist said, “You — are — insubordinate!”
He was going to relieve Smith of his command. Smith knew it. It would be the first mistake Trist made because it would mean a court martial and though he had engineered matters so that he was covered, nevertheless some mud would stick.
But then the Captain stepped in and the four gold rings around his sleeve were interspersed with scarlet. He was the Fleet Surgeon. He said easily, “I really think, Commodore, that both this officer and the young lady are suffering from overstrain. I see a great deal of it and the signs are there if you know what to look for. I suggest release from all duties for a few days.” He glanced meaningly at Trist. “I’ll authorise that with your permission, sir.” He was breaking it up, getting rid of the troublemakers.
Trist saw the opportunity to avoid a court martial and all it entailed. He hesitated, reluctant, then nodded. To Smith he whispered, “Get out!”
For a second or two Smith did not move. He was trying to find words to try again. And then he realised, slowly, that it was hopeless. Trist did not believe him, did not want to.
Dunbar was dead but Smith remembered his warning about Trist. “He never does anything he doesn’t have to…Mister Cautious himself.” Trist would not authorise any operation out of the ordinary. A bombardment, convoy escort, a sweep of the Belgian coast — all of them were arguably within the brief for Smith’s flotilla. But not a reconnaissance in force off the coast by De Haan where no U-boat would or could have its base.