Knife Edge (2004) (29 page)

He dialled slowly, his free hand clenched into a fist on the desk. He saw that Souter had left his papers behind, and that he had pencilled something next to several vague jottings, the sketch of a sailing vessel and the words,
England Expects!

He realized that she had answered, and he said, “Sharon, it’s me.”

“I was just going out. I heard the phone ringing.” A pause, and he thought he could hear her breathing. “Are you
all right, Ross? You don’t usually call me at this time of day. Tell me.”

“I’m here, in London. At Number Thirty-One.” He watched the drawer and the secret instrument, expecting the metallic click, or the voice.
This is a restricted line. It is forbidden . . .

Her voice, closer. Anxious. “Ross, are you sure everything’s all right?”

“I’m here for a few days, I think. I’m sorry. I’m a bit mixed up.” He was speaking too fast, but he could not help it. “I’ve got to send for some things. I didn’t know, you see.” He unclenched his fist very slowly, watching it, as if it belonged to some one else.

She said quietly, “I know what you mean. I understand.” She might have stifled a cough, or a sob. “Just write this down. Then call a taxi.” She repeated the address more slowly. “We can arrange things from here. I’ll be waiting, Ross. It’s about twenty minutes away by taxi. Oh, this is
wonderful.
”

She was crying now, and he said, “Are you sure, Sharon?” A tiny red light had started to flicker by the telephone rest, Souter’s private warning, perhaps. “I love you!”

The line went dead; even the traffic beyond the window had started again.

He stared at the address scribbled in his pocket book. Twenty minutes away. It could have been on the moon.

He looked around the empty room, and knew it was a moment he would never forget. Or want to.

He called, “I’m leaving now. Thank you!”

But the colour sergeant named Pike was already downstairs at the main entrance, and so was a taxi.

“Thought you was in a ’urry, sir.” He was trying to hide a grin now. “Otherwise I’d ’ave found you an ’orse!”

Ross touched his arm. “No wonder the Colonel leaves you to run this place!”

One of the doormen sauntered across to watch Ross climb into the taxi.

“What’s so special about him, then?”

Pike glanced at him. An ex-soldier, with a few medal ribbons on his uniform to show for it. But what would a pongo understand about the Corps?

“I’d watch yer step, mate.” He tapped the side of his nose. “I’ve ’eard ’e’s on the way to th’ top!”

He turned to see the taxi drive off, and smiled to himself.

One of us, he thought.

The taxi pulled up and stopped, the engine ticking over with that indescribable sound only London cabs seemed to make. He had taken taxis almost everywhere else in the world, but only here was that familiar sound, part of memory.

It was a quiet street, and the houses were large, probably Victorian, most of them converted into flats or large apartments. As the cabby summed it up, “For them what can scrape up the asking price!”

South of the Thames, and twenty minutes from Whitehall. Exactly.

The cabby was saying, “Number Two – that’ll be upstairs, left ’and side.” He watched Ross take out his wallet. “Tough luck about that officer who nearly caught it yesterday. Dropped a few fares around that address in me time, I can tell you. One of your lot, too.” He peered at the uniform. “Don’t know what the bloody world is comin’ to!” The notes disappeared into his gloved hand. “Thanks, squire. You’re a sport!”

Ross waved an acknowledgment and turned toward the building. The taxi was already out of sight, and he felt
suddenly at a loss. Dazed. Yesterday . . . Was it only that? And this morning he had been down in Dorset, handing over to his second-incommand, Captain Forester.
Like that writer I used to read.
He gripped his small case more firmly. It was Souter’s fault: brandy and not much ginger ale. He had not eaten today, except the half bar of chocolate he had shared with his marine driver.
I should have waited. Done something.

He heard a window open and looked up.

“I’m here! Come straight up!” She was waving, her hair shining against the old bricks. “This is lovely!”

A man walking his dog turned to look up, and smiled at them. Somebody else called, “Very nice, too!”

Ross saw and heard neither of them.

He was standing there, looking up, a few drops of rain touching his face, and then the next moment, or so it seemed, he was in the doorway, holding her away from him, his hands on her shoulders, long enough to see her, to look and only look, unable to find the words.

Then she was pressed against him, and somewhere a door was closing behind them.

“I’m such a mess . . .” He was vaguely aware of the room, some letters on an antique table waiting to be opened or posted. Music coming from somewhere; the smell of coffee.

She was holding him, very tightly. “When I heard the phone I was outside. I nearly kept going.” She was kissing him, her hair against his eyes, his mouth. “I could have missed you!”

He said again, “I’m such a mess.”

She was trying not to laugh. Or cry. “I’ve got a nice ironing board, darling!”

She looked down, and he could not see her expression.

“How long, Ross?”

“Three days.” He felt her trembling as he touched her. “I want you.”

Then she raised her head, and her eyes were filling her face.

“And I want you. Let’s not waste a minute of it!”

A whistle shrilled yet again. Most of the marines had lost count of the times it had urged them on to yet another first-degree exercise. Fit though they were, some of them were ready to drop. And it was raining heavily, the trampled ground more like a bog than ever.

One of the warrant officers yelled, “Stand easy, sir?” He swore under his breath. He already knew the response.

Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Parsons waved his hand. “Once again, Mr. Todd! They’re like a lot of old men this morning!
Move it!
”

Ross Blackwood wiped his face with a sodden handkerchief, and looked at the crude pontoon bridge which had been thrown together across a fast-moving stream, faster than ever now in the torrential downpour. He heard Parsons calling out to one of the ‘umpires’ in his quiet, curt voice. He was not even out of breath, although he had kept pace with everybody else. Ross was impressed by the miles they had travelled, days of it at first, then weeks. Boatwork and field exercises, from Portland Bill to Lympstone, from Dartmoor to Poole; communications, a must with Parsons, and weapon handling under all conditions, at any time of day and in every sort of weather.

Roger F. Parsons . . . Ross had checked him out in the List. The ‘F’ stood for Francis, but he guessed that almost every marine in this commando unit had a very different suggestion.

Souter had been emphatic. “He’ll want to see every aspect of Special Operations. So show him. Keep with him
all the way.” He had added forcefully, “And that’s an order, from the top.”

Did that mean that Souter was looking over his own shoulder? Maybe his own place on the ladder was no longer secure.

All this time, living almost shoulder to shoulder, and still Ross did not know him. Parsons was slim, neat, and obviously very fit, with a watchful, intelligent face and deepset, questioning eyes. Ross had felt himself under scrutiny from the beginning, and had tried not to resent it. If Parsons mentioned some incident from his past service, in Northern Ireland for instance, Ross had the feeling that his response was being recorded somewhere, as if he were being tested. Parsons had a free hand at the moment; that was all there was to it. He felt the rain exploring his neck. But you did not have to like it.

He should be used to it, more so than most of the marines around him. He was thirty-seven years old, as of Trafalgar Day. It had been their last day together. He had reported to A.C.H.Q. as ordered, and Sharon had left for Paris on some errand for Clive Tobin. She had been holding him in a tight embrace, with a car waiting to take her to Heathrow. Again.

“I’ll be free after this job, Ross.”

Three days together. And then, suddenly, there was no time left, even to find the right words. Was there ever any time?

They had been up to the West End, and together they had chosen the ring. She had let him put it on her finger before that last night together.

Ross heard one of the marines guffaw. Wet, mud-stained and bedraggled, and they could still manage a laugh. What had somebody said about his service in Ulster?
More laughs than tears.
That said it all.

And after this?

He thought of her hands in his, the ring flashing in the solitary light beside the bed.

“What about Easter?” She had rolled over, her stomach muscles tightening as he touched her again. “A new start?”

Easter. It would be perfect, no matter what the next appointment proved to be.

Souter had said, “The young blood in our commando units needs somebody who’s seen and done it the hard way. It could be a step up the ladder, if I have any say in the matter.” The ‘ladder’ was always in the background.

“Time to get moving again.” Parsons did not consult his watch; he seemed to have an inbuilt system of timekeeping. “We’ll do that exercise once more. Tell the section leaders I want it done from the signal to
go
. And no moaning and dragging of feet this time.”

He did not point, but seemed to indicate with his chin. “That lieutenant, Hamlyn, isn’t it? Seems a cut above the others.” It was a question.

Ross smiled. “He’s good, sir. Keen to stay with this company.”

“Looks up to you. No bad thing, up to a point.”

They both turned as the senior warrant officer, one of the ‘umpires’, shouted, “What? Call yourself a man? Look at
me
, lad.
I’m
a man! See the difference?”

Ross thought of Pike, the Colonel’s right-hand man. It was good to know that a few of the old Royals were still in harness.

Parsons remarked, “A word in some one’s direction, I think.”

He changed tack just as swiftly. “I understand that you were closely involved with the Clive Tobin documentary? Quite good in parts, I thought.”

It was another question.

Ross watched the marines falling into squads and
sections, their camouflaged combat gear soaked with mud. Like the pictures in the museum at Portsmouth. His mind seemed to hesitate. Or on the walls at Hawks Hill . . . The faces did not seem very different. Trafalgar, or ‘where no birds sing’; only the uniforms had changed.

“Leadership is part of it. Trust carries all the weight.”

Parsons gave him a thin smile.

“Muskets to rockets. But you have a point. In the end it’s obeying the right orders, at the right time.”

Ross saw Lieutenant Hamlyn saying something to his sergeant. He would never forget that moment by the river in Londonderry, when a civilian had been gunned down in cold blood. There were two sides to obeying orders, but rarely time to make a choice.

He thought of Steve, the other Blackwood. They had met again during the assault exercises at Portland Bill, and Ross had also met the girl Steve was going to marry. All the legal complications caused by her husband’s desertion had been cleared up, and they were getting married as soon as possible: “full steam ahead”, as Steve had put it. Very different, and yet so right for each other. Ross did not know if she knew about his work with explosives.

“
Right! In position!
Mr. Hamlyn,
you
are in command. All the other officers have been killed!”

Ross saw a young marine grin and murmur something ripely sarcastic to his mate.

Only the uniforms had changed.

In early December the combined manoeuvres were finally called to a halt, and there was more speculation about Christmas leave than the verdict on their many exercises ashore and afloat. It was hard to know what Lieutenant-Colonel Roger Parsons thought of the results. Satisfied or bored, he gave very little away.

Once he had remarked, after a particularly gruelling cliff-scaling effort, “They hate my guts. So it must be working!”

They had been given some makeshift living quarters, once again on the fringe of Dartmoor, where they had been working with and alongside some crack S.A.S. troops, rivals who were always attempting to display their superiority. Nobody could accuse Parsons of sparing himself at the expense of others. Even at the end of a long, hard day Ross had seen him on the telephone to one section or another, demanding, pleading, sometimes threatening, to obtain what he required for his various schemes.

On the last night before Parsons was due to leave for London, he asked Ross to join him in his temporary quarters, an old Nissen hut left over from the war, and boasting battered furniture and some cartoons drawn by past occupants, insulting, funny and, occasionally, strangely sad. Luggage was strewn across the floor, and Parsons’ greatcoat lay over a chair, a sheaf of scribbled notes beside it. Ross had wondered why he had not left earlier, or delayed his departure until he had had a good night’s sleep. His driver would have plenty to moan about: it would be a long haul to London, especially on some of the local roads.

“Just thought I’d put you in the picture.” Parsons jerked his chin at a canvas chair. “Not worked you too hard, have I?”

Ross felt himself tense. Would the past never leave him? He had been asked to drop in on the P.M.O., “a routine check-up, old chap”. They often said that. And the scars always looked so much worse under the probing medical lights. Bringing back the same memory. Parsons had said nothing in so many words. His casual remark was enough.

He said, “I hope it’s all been useful.”

There was music coming from a cassette player in a corner by some camp beds, a pure, woman’s voice. Opera, somehow familiar.

Parsons bent over and switched it off. He said mildly, “New tape. My wife sent it to me. I’m not sure . . .” He did not finish it.

The merest glimpse of the man behind the authority, and the driving impatience.

He said, “I’m glad you’re on stand by for the leave period. Never had time to have a good punt around Poole, but I suppose . . .” He looked at Ross directly. “You’re getting married, I hear. Maybe she could come and see you?”