Dust On the Sea (3 page)

She walked over to him and touched his face. Her fingers were cold.

‘Remembering, Mike?' She tossed the hair from her eyes, as he had seen her do a million times. ‘It's so good to have you here. That you could come. Otherwise . . .'

‘It always gets me. When I'm away I can't wait to see it . . .'

‘And now you're here, you can't wait to leave!' She smiled, but it only made her look sad. ‘Dear Mike. I worried about how you'd take the news. We all did. Aunt May came at once – she's been a real brick.'

He said hesitantly, ‘There'll be a few of his old chums there tomorrow.'

‘I thought there would be. It's Armistice Day too, do you realise that? The war to end all wars.' She spread her hands as if to embrace him and the whole house. ‘And here we are!'

He put his arm round her and felt her tremble. He had never thought of her like this, as an attractive, vulnerable woman, albeit a young one, who would soon have to cope alone. She was his sister, someone taken for granted. Like his father. Like this house.

She said suddenly, ‘You're not to worry. You're so precious to me . . . I want you to be careful all the time. I heard about some of the things you had to do in Burma, covering the withdrawal.'

‘Withdrawal? It was nearly a bloody rout, believe me!' Then he took her arm. ‘Sorry. It gets to me sometimes. And coming back here like this . . .' He could not go on.

‘See? You're still the little rebel, despite the uniform!'

They laughed at one another, and for an instant life came back to the house.

Captain Mike Blackwood thrust his hands deeper into his greatcoat pockets and tried to settle more comfortably in
one corner of the compartment. The train, with extra carriages attached, was packed, mostly with servicemen returning from leave, and others, noticeably noisier, about to begin theirs.

And it was slow, so slow. He half-listened to the wheels on the track,
clack-clack
 . . . 
clack-clack.
It sounded like a walking pace. The compartment was illuminated by a faint blue light, only strong enough to reveal his breath in the cold air, and it was full, mostly with army officers who were either feigning sleep or genuinely too weary to talk to one another. One woman sat directly opposite him, a young W.A.A.F. officer, her legs pale in the darkness, her eyes shut, although she occasionally consulted her watch or glanced at the door. She probably needed to go to the toilet, but could not face clambering over the bodies squatting in the corridor or sitting on kit bags and suitcases. It might even be occupied when she got there: a small card game, going on in rare privacy.

It was too dark to see out of the window, even if there had been no netting glued across it. He had seen it when he had boarded the train, and the little printed notice explaining that the netting was there to protect passengers from flying glass in the event of an air attack, and apologising for any inconvenience.

Nevertheless, someone had cut away part of it with a knife, and had written neatly underneath,
Thank you for your information/ But I can't see the fucking station!
Good handwriting, too. He half-smiled. But then, this was a First Class compartment, for officers only!

His head lolled against the damp headrest as he thought of his leave. Shorter than he had expected, and yet with
moments, incidents standing out, as if he had been a spectator. Someone else.

Clack-clack
 . . . 
clack-clack.

The sounds changed, and he guessed they were dragging through yet another station.

Everything had seemed so different. Even when he had seen himself for the first time with his new rank, the three pips on either shoulder, it had been like a stranger's reflection. He could feel nothing, give nothing, only a numbness, an emptiness, which had made him seem even more like an onlooker.

Old Harry Payne had been there. Payne was his father's attendant, orderly and friend; he had been with Jonathan Blackwood throughout that other war, had been with him when he had been so grievously wounded, and had watched over him ever since. He and his wife had a cottage on the estate. Odd job man, manager, like most marines he could do almost everything. Older now, but still straight-backed, as he had been that day in the church, his eyes far away as others had read and spoken of the man they had all known.

Blackwood recalled how his father had resisted the use of a walking stick for as long as he could; he had hated it. A constant reminder, a taunt. The wounds to his back and leg had weakened the muscles, but he had always squared his shoulders and smiled a greeting, even when his eyes bared the lie.

That was the cruel irony of it, he thought, after all he had given and done. Out of the blue, he had received an offer of a posting.
Out of the blue.
With his own rank, back in the life he had yearned for. It had not been much, an appointment to the Royal Marines Department of Recruiting. Not much . . . but when Harry Payne had
described it Blackwood could have been there with him. His father had been in Plymouth to accept the job. Fate had decided otherwise, in the form of a stick of bombs, a common enough occurence in that battered naval port. There had been people trapped in a burning house and Colonel Jonathan, ‘Jono', Blackwood had acted without hesitation. Then the building had collapsed. There had been nothing anyone could have done. They said.

He thought again of the funeral. Every pew in the small church filled, the vicar grave-faced in the presence of so many visitors, senior officers, and grey-haired veterans from another war. Listening, remembering. Sharing.

Vaughan had been there also, although no one had seen him arrive or leave. It was his way of showing what their friendship had meant to him.

A lot of quiet condolences and firm handshakes . . . a few of the local women sobbing, if not for the man then for the name, the family which had been part of their lives for so long. . . .

One old boy wearing a poppy above his medals had said, ‘A hard path to follow, Captain Blackwood!'

Hard? It was impossible. Like the sermon, it was for the family, not the man. Two Victoria Crosses, and God knew how many other decorations. Africa, China, the North Sea and the Atlantic, wherever the world's greatest navy had shown its flag.
Impossible.

Someone had reached the window and lowered it slightly, and the cold air was refreshing.

The anonymous shape muttered, ‘Another bloody raid, by the look of it!'

Before he pulled at the strap again Blackwood saw the distant flashes in the sky, like tiny stars. Flak. Probably a
solitary hit-and-run raider, without much chance of hitting anything.

The W.A.A.F. officer stood up suddenly, and then staggered as the train gathered speed again. She fell with one hand on Blackwood's knee, and he could smell her nearness, perhaps only soap, but in these dull, damp surroundings it was like perfume. She stammered something in apology and then he heard her dragging the corridor door open. There were a few sleepy remarks and nothing more, but she would know what they were thinking. For her sake, he hoped that the card school had broken up.

He tried to think clearly. London, then. Why not Eastney Barracks, or Stonehouse at Plymouth? He wondered if the general public understood, the ordinary people who faced the rigours of rationing and shortages every day, and the unending dread of receiving one of those hated telegrams.
We regret to inform you that your husband, son, lover
 . . . It never stopped, even in small places like Alresford. They clung to optimistic reports in the newspapers or on the cinema newsreels, grinning soldiers giving a thumbs-up to the camera, Spitfires performing a Victory Roll after another clash over southern England. Propaganda, part of the myth? It was all they had.

He considered the navy as it had been when he had joined his first ship, all the great names, as familiar to the public as to the men who served and later died in them.
Royal Oak
and
Courageous
, and the world's largest warship in her day,
Hood
, the nation's darling;
Repulse
and
Prince of Wales
, trusted symbols of power and invincibility. Now gone, wiped out as if they had never been. Even the aircraft carrier
Ark Royal
, the luckiest ship
in the fleet, claimed as a prize so many times by the German propaganda machine, had finally been torpedoed and sunk by a U-Boat off Gibraltar. Her famous luck had, at last, run out.

Such awesome losses set against the smaller, little-known operations of the commandos and other special services, the ‘cloak-and-dagger brigade', might have broken the morale of the nation. But it had not broken.

There were groans and protests as the door slid open again. It was the ticket inspector, a torch in one hand.

‘Waterloo in 'alf an 'our, gents!'

Blackwood leaned back as the W.A.A.F. officer returned to her seat. She murmured, ‘Thank you.' She sounded relieved, he thought.

The door banged shut again. He remembered leaning from this carriage window, and looked at it now. He had leaned out to touch his sister's face, and to kiss her. He had been aware of her anxiety, for him, not for herself. Some hurrying soldiers had whistled.
Lucky sod. Bloody officer
–
it's all right for some.
And so on.

The last running figures, the final good-byes; so much to say in so short a time, and no words to offer.

She had held him, staring up at him. ‘I didn't want to worry you, Mike. Spoil things.'

There had been the shrill of a whistle. The train, this train, had given a jerk.

She had clung to him, keeping pace with the carriage. ‘I passed my medical. My papers came through.'

‘Medical? Papers?' He must have sounded stupid.

She had been dragged away from him, her eyes filling her face.

‘I'm joining up, Mike!'

Even then, at the moment of separation, he had known its importance to her.

He had shouted, ‘I love you, Diane!
We'll show them!
'

The rest had been lost in the din and the smoke from a passing goods train. Show whom? Did she really understand?

He had sat down, and had seen his fellow passengers avert their faces. Only the W.A.A.F. officer had looked at him, with what he thought was a reminiscent pain in her eyes.

Maybe he was not feeling the full effect of it yet, like the funeral service, and the two Royal Marine buglers who had sounded the Last Post afterwards. Part of something else. Something he could never be.

It was exactly eight o'clock in the morning when Blackwood found himself at the appointed building. The air was still damp and cold, and the sky so dull it was barely possible to distinguish the buildings in and around Trafalgar Square; even the little admiral was lost from view on the top of his column.

He still could not believe he had done so much in so short a time since stumbling from the overloaded train at Waterloo Station. A petty officer with a Naval Patrol armlet had met him at the barrier and had guided him to a waiting car without hesitation, no easy thing amid the stampede of uniforms pushing through the gates, either to avoid losing their tickets, which might be used again if the collectors were too busy to notice, or to dodge the hard-faced line of redcaps and R.A.F. police, the enemies of all servicemen anywhere.

Then a quick drive to a private room, where he had been given just a few moments to shave and change into a
clean shirt and down a cup of awful tea before being whisked away by the same petty officer.

It had been too much after the lengthy, uncomfortable journey, and he felt like death. He also knew the services well enough to accept that it was probably a complete waste of time. As Major-General Vaughan had said in Scotland, others could do it. They probably had.

The building was not what he had expected; it was more like an old shop, with sandbagged barriers and wire grills to protect the windows.

The petty officer watched him without curiosity. It was obviously better not to ponder on the fate of the officers he collected and ferried to this rendezvous.

He did say, almost apologetically, ‘Used to be a big wine merchant's place, sir. So they tells me.' It was enough. He guided him through the doors and past two steel-helmeted policemen, either guarding the entrance or merely sheltering from the drizzle outside. Then there was a counter, and another petty officer standing behind it.

He glanced at Blackwood's identity card, and said, ‘I'll take you down, sir.' He almost smiled, but not quite. ‘They doesn't like to be kept waitin'!'

Blackwood turned to thank his driver, but he had gone without further word.

He was led to an ornate lift that looked like something from his schooldays; the gates were closed, the button pressed. The big lift gave a jerk and started to descend. For some reason, he had expected it to be going upwards.

It was unreal, going down, past another floor where he caught a glimpse of two civilians having a quick smoke, before the lift came to a shuddering halt and the gates opened automatically.

After the dull sky over London, and the dank air, it was another surprise: white walls and hard lighting, the clatter of teleprinters, and several telephones ringing. Wrens in shirts hurried past with their arms filled with signal folders and files; even the air was different, warm, but moving like some secret breeze.

A tall Wren greeted him. ‘Good morning, Captain Blackwood.' She smiled. ‘Traffic bad up top?'

He saw a clock on the wall. It was three minutes past the hour.

She seemed to sense his resentment, and added, ‘I've been here in the Pit for so long I've almost forgotten what it's like up there!'

He forced a smile. Her casual question had jarred him, like a criticism. Greeting the new boy . . .

She said, ‘I'll take you straight in. Commander Diamond is expecting you.'

They walked past several other rooms, she setting a brisk pace, and he noticed how solid the dividing walls were; they must have stored a few million bottles here in happier times. It was a good choice; London could fall on top of it, and you wouldn't feel a thing.