Irony? thought Elizabeth. It was the uselessness of all that courage and endurance and ingenuity which cut so deep. The dummy3
irony was merely an insult added to that injury.
"But cheer up, Miss Loftus." Aske managed to make the smile almost kindly. "Professor Wilder may still be quite wrong, you know. There could be other explanations—dozens of them . . . We don't know who Dr Pike was yet, for a start—
or how he and his amazing box got aboard the Vengeful. . .
And Timms could have been an American agent—a sort of prototype CIA man—and we don't know how he joined the Vengeful either. . . All we know is that we've a lot more work to do. But now at least we know where to start looking."
Professor Wilder reached down to close the lid of the box, replacing the Guardian on it as though to cover up the dark tale he had conjured from it. "And I can probably help you there. I have contacts on both sides of the Atlantic."
They were both trying to jolly her out of her depression, but she couldn't be lifted so easily. There was something malevolent about that box—and about the long-lost Vengeful herself, too. The Vengeful was to blame for everything, it seemed to her suddenly.
"She was an unlucky ship." The words discharged her feelings. "She killed them all—all but two."
"My dear . . . they were all unlucky ships, the Vengefuls," said Wilder softly.
"What?" She looked at him in surprise.
"Didn't your father ever tell you? They had the reputation for being killers. Great fighters too, to be fair—' Storm and dummy3
tempest/fear and foes/ They'll be with her where/ the Vengeful goes' —that's what they used to say about her.
Didn't he tell you?"
She shook her head.
"That was one reason why they re-named the thirteenth Vengeful, my dear. Add unlucky thirteen to a bad-luck name, and that's a sure recipe for disaster." He pointed to the box.
"And the navy's got too much riding on her for anything to be allowed to go wrong this time."
"What d'you mean—this time?" She didn't understand.
"It's in the paper today." He stooped and picked up the Guardian— it had been the newspaper, not the box, at which he had pointed. "' Wonder ship on missile tests' —" he passed the paper to her "—you can read it for yourself."
Elizabeth took the paper automatically. There was a large, slightly blurred picture of one of those ugly modern warships, all top-heavy with modern gadgetry, which were so different from the greyhounds of Father's time.
She read the caption: " HMS Shannon, the Navy's new anti-submarine command vessel, leaving the pier at the Kyle of Lochalsh base for trials with the air-dropped Stingray anti-submarine missile and the new generation heavyweight torpedo" .
And the story was in bold type below the Wondership heading: " High ranking American and NATO naval officers shipped aboard the latest addition to the Royal Navy's anti-dummy3
submarine capability, the command vessel HMS Shannon, yesterday.
"They left the new pier at the Kyle of Lochalsh for a demonstration of anti-submarine warfare in Europe's only offshore range, the British Underwater Test and Evaluation Centre, in 10 square miles of the inner Sound of Raasay, off the west Ross-shire coast of Scotland.
" The 'Shannon' will show off weapons systems which the Government hopes to sell to NATO on the top-secret range, which boasts a multi-million pound installation of sea-bed hydrophones and cable links to a mainland computer ..."
"What wonder ship?" asked Aske.
"The Shannon," said Elizabeth.
" In attendance will be a small fleet of auxiliary ships and one of the navy's nuclear-powered attack submarines, HMS
'Swiftsure', which it is thought will be playing the part of a Soviet intruder ..."
"What's that got to do with us, for heaven's sake?" said Aske a little tetchily.
"See for yourself." Elizabeth handed him the Guardian.
" Wonder ship on missile tests?" Aske wrinkled his nose at the headline, and then studied the text briefly. "Very interesting, I'm sure . . . But, more to the point, Professor—
can you give us the names of those contacts of yours? I think we'll be needing them."
Wilder inclined his head. "In anticipation of just that request, dummy3
Mr Aske, I have prepared a little list for you." He produced a long white envelope from his breast pocket. "For the Americans I have also written brief letters of introduction.
For the English, it will be sufficient to mention my name . . .
And now I must be away, regretfully." He bowed to Elizabeth.
Aske looked at Elizabeth quickly. "But won't you stay, Professor? I'm sure Mrs Audley will expect us to ask you to ...
and we do still need your brains, sir."
"No. I think you'll do very well without me." Wilder spoke with the resolution of a grandee. "Besides which, at my age one becomes a creature of habit, and my housekeeper has a steak-and-kidney pie and a bottle of Beaune waiting for me ... And these August evenings are closing in, and it will be dark soon, and the forecast is for rain . . . and I have an hour's drive ahead of me. So thank you—but no." He turned for a last time to Elizabeth. "Miss Loftus ... it has been a pleasure. And I hope you will regard me as a friend now, and will call on me. I see far too few young women these days."
"Professor . . ." In any other circumstances she would have been nattered by that, and would have reacted to it somehow.
But her mind was bobbing wildly in the Shannon's wake, somewhere between Kyle of Lochalsh and the inner Sound of Raasay.
"I can see that your brain's full of new thoughts!" He smiled impishly. "And that's what makes the historian, Miss Loftus—
the sudden fertilisation of knowledge by intelligence, to dummy3
breed some tiny embryo of truth! Nurture it, Miss Loftus, nurture it and cherish it!" He swung back to Aske. "Now, Mr Aske—?"
Aske gave Elizabeth another of his quick looks. "Yes, Professor . . . Allow me to see you out—"
They went, leaving Elizabeth to her own thoughts, which were carrying her on an irresistible tide past the old Vengeful on the rocks of Les Echoux and the Fortuné on the Horse Sands, towards the Shannon—
The door-latch clattered again eventually.
"That wasn't overwhelmingly civilised, Miss Loftus, if I may say so," Aske chided her. "The old boy expected a more graceful dismissal, after all his trouble, you know."
She heard him, but the words hardly registered; she could think only . . . if I can see it, why can't he see it?
He shook his head. "Maybe he wasn't quite expecting a peck on the cheek. But you could at least have shaken his hand."
Her confidence ebbed. If it meant nothing to him when it was so obvious, then perhaps it was nothing—a thing long since considered and discarded.
"Now the poor old boy believes you still haven't forgiven him for whatever it was he quarrelled over with your father—"
Whatever it was?
"—and we still may need his help, Miss Loftus."
He didn't know! It seemed impossible to her. But then, when dummy3