The White Guns (1989) (12 page)

Fairfax said awkwardly, 'I read somewhere in orders that sub-lieutenants attached to naval parties in Germany can apply to be upgraded, sir.'

'I'm sure you're right.' Marriott, in all his six years of war, had never been able to become interested in the endless stream of AFOs, KRs and Admiralty Instructions which sometimes seemed more vital than the fight itself.

'Only–'

Marriott smiled. The edges had been knocked off the young Fairfax and he had come through better than expected. But at times like these his open face gave it all away.

Marriott said, 'You'd like to put up your second ring, right? Acting-temporary-lieutenant as suits their lordships? Forget it.' He saw the hope die and return just as immediately as he added, 'I've already made a request on your behalf.' He watched a staff car rocking and labouring over the rubble as it headed pointedly towards the pier. 'You deserve it anyway.' His face was expressionless as he saw the gold-leafed caps emerging from the car. 'Unlike some.'

He ran his eye once more over his command. 'Man the side, Number One.' The formality helped at times like these. Fairfax was about to share something with him. Not here, not yet. A voice seemed to whisper,
not ever, is that what you want?

He said, 'Keep the upper deck cleared until the commodore is settled aboard.' He heard the discreet clink of glasses. 'That shouldn't take too long.'

The calls trilled, and Commodore Lionel Paget-Orme, a fine black walking stick in one hand, stepped across the small brow and returned their salutes.

Meikle, the bearded RNR harbourmaster, two army officers and the indispensable Leading Writer Lavender completed the party.

Paget-Orme nodded and gave a tight-mouthed smile of approval. 'Fine little craft, eh, Meikle? The eyes of the fleet, what?'

Marriott glanced quickly at a point above Meikle's shoulder. The commodore's description reminded him of the
Boy's Own Paper
or the
Hotspur,
which had once been his favourite at school.

They climbed on to the bridge and Paget-Orme clambered carefully into the tall chair which Marriott or the O.O.W. used at sea. He noticed that the coxswain and Long John Silver, Able Seaman Rae and one other figure somehow managed to find and keep their places for leaving harbour. Paget-Orme put on some dark glasses and handed his black stick to Rae, who after a moment's hesitation slid it behind the voicepipes where it would not be trodden on.

'Start up, Pilot.' The bridge quivered to an immediate burst of power and acrid vapour rose on either side and made the commodore dab his mouth with his handkerchief.

'Single up! Back spring and sternrope!' He saw Fairfax wave an acknowledgement from the forecastle; the immediate intake of mooring wires, rope and fenders, a tangled mass to any landsman, but within minutes it had been secured and vanquished by the forecastle hands. Occasionally as Marriott moved through the throng on the small bridge he glanced at the plump commodore. He was enjoying every moment. As if he had never been to sea before in his life. He smiled to himself. Certainly not as a commodore anyway.

He cupped his hands. 'Slack off forrard!' To the seaman at the voicepipes he called, 'Slow ahead starboard outer.' He caught the man as he lowered his head.
'Dead
slow.'

The gunboat edged forward against the rope fenders beneath her great flared bow while the stern rope was paid out to allow for the hull to angle away from the pier. With luck they would receive a better berth when they returned.

'Stop engine – let go forrard – let go aft!' He collided with an apologetic major of the Royal Engineers and saw the bearded harbourmaster grin at him in sympathy.

The motor gunboat slewed round and waited, rocking gently in a welter of froth from her vents, although the bubbles were like black glass. It was a wonder that Lowes's youthful intruder had not died of poisoning long before he reached the pier, he thought.

'Slow ahead together. Port fifteen.' The RNR officer stood beside him, his hands thrust into his reefer pockets. Everyone was dressed up today, Marriott thought.

'Follow the buoys, Cox'n.'

Marriott stared at the curving lines of green marker buoys, not full-sized but easy to see in the pale sunlight. To the harbourmaster he said softly, 'You've been busy.'

The man nodded, reached for his pipe, then glanced at the commodore's rounded shoulders and changed his mind.

'There's the
Sea Harvester.'
His eyes were troubled as the tall salvage ship loomed up on the starboard bow. She was surrounded by small craft and diving pontoons, while derricks swung out from her superstructure so that she seemed to be all arms and legs like a mechanical spider. He dropped his voice. 'Her people have got over two hundred corpses up already.'

His voice was not low enough. Meikle rapped, 'There'll be more too. We're only scraping at the job at the moment.'

The harbourmaster nodded with approval as the coxswain's hands moved gently on the wheel so that a puffing dredger passed well clear on an opposite course.

Then he pointed across the glass screen to two lolling wrecks, their battered superstructures locked in a clawing embrace. 'We're moving those first. Eventually we'll shift all the unusable wrecks to the shallows up yonder, sir.' The last remark was addressed to the commodore.

Paget-Orme straightened his back and yawned. 'There will be more help arriving each day. Some serviceable vessels for accommodation and headquarters work too.' He showed his small teeth. 'A floating cinema no less!' He shook with laughter. 'We don't want poor Jack to lose all the comforts of home, do we?'

Marriott happened to turn and saw Rae making a gesture at the commodore's back. It was hardly surprising.

Past the half-submerged hull of the
New York
once again, the smoking goliath of the heavy cruiser
Hipper,
wrecks, pieces of wrecks, and God only knew what else underneath.

Meikle said, 'Some of the docks which contain vessels beyond repair are to be filled in, sir. It will get rid of a lot of rubble from the sheds and workshops.'

The harbourmaster said sharply, 'Starboard a bit, Swain.'

But Evans only nodded. He had already seen the warning flags. Somewhere beyond them men were working on the sea-bed in thick, clinging blackness.

'Minimum revs.' Marriott stood on a grating and watched two of the divers in their traditional red stocking-caps, sitting on one of the moored pontoons, their helmets beside them while their working party plied them with mugs of tea.

'I wouldn't have their job if –'

There was a dull explosion and the surface boiled momentarily before falling flat again. Neither of the resting divers even turned to look.

Lowes gasped, 'Oh my God.' He turned away, his eyes shocked as the sea yielded up some more fragments. It must have been one of the very last air attacks, Marriott thought. He gripped the rail and then forced himself to relax his grip while he watched the pathetic remains swirl slowly in the disturbance. Corpses, unreal gaping faces, almost transparent in the sunlight. Two motor boats were already moving towards the gruesome remains and Marriott saw some Germans in overalls and wearing protective masks standing in the bows with nets and scoops. Marriott made himself watch, knowing that, with strangers around, his men would look to him. God, he thought, how much worse for those divers working down there, cutting and blasting, feeling their way, praying they would not lose touch with their companions. To be amongst death at such close quarters –

He heard Paget-Orme say loudly, 'Get a grip on yourself, Sub! There'll be far worse than this, y'know!'

Lowes did not answer; he was retching helplessly into a handkerchief.

Marriott looked at the commodore.
It was bravado. A lie.

As if to confirm his thoughts Paget-Orme said brightly, 'Time for a gin, what? Take a break!'

The bridge was suddenly empty again. Except for the white-faced Lowes and the grim harbourmaster.

Marriott pulled out his pouch. 'Here, light up and I'll join you.'

The RNR officer smiled. 'No gin, then?'

'No. Not yet anyway.' He leaned over the chart.
If I start now I'll never be able to stop.

I should have been ready.
Next time he might not be able to contain it. But for those few moments he had been back to Normandy, his mind and body cringing to the roar of gunfire and the insane clatter of automatic weapons.

And then the explosion. His life gone, as if he was abandoned with the bloody pieces with their obscene mutilations.
His own men.

The harbourmaster blew a stream of smoke and wagged the pipestem in the air.

'Good stuff.' Then he added quietly, cutting out Evans and Silver, 'Have you thought about seeing someone about it?'

Marriott clenched his fists. 'You think I'm over the hill?'

The man shook his head. 'I think you owe it to yourself, that's all.' He cocked his head to listen as laughter floated up from the wardroom hatch. 'They're not worried. Why should you?'

'Because I
care!'
He wanted to remain silent. He still did not even know this man's name, and yet – he blurted out, 'And because there is nobody to share it with.'

Voices came up the ladder and the harbourmaster exclaimed, 'Oh, shit!'

Paget-Orme climbed into the chair once more and dabbed his mouth.

'Excellent, excellent.'

Marriott noticed that he did not look over the side at the water. He moved to the opposite side of the bridge. When he got some home leave would nothing change?

'A
word,
Marriott.'

He turned and saw Meikle watching him; he was without his fine cap but curiously it made him less approachable.

'Something I wanted to ask you.' He studied Marriott's expression, as if to give him time.

Marriott could feel the anger running through him like fire. Just say one word more about
what it was like
and
leaving people to die. Do that, and the next time we meet will be at my court martial.

'Sir?'
The edge in his voice made the commodore stiffen, but he did not appear to be listening.

'Could you use a few days at home? Nothing much of course, I shall want you for –'

Marriott nodded, dazed and off balance. 'I'd like that, sir.'

The eyes were unblinking. 'Good. I need some documents taken across to Dover. You could use some spares for the boat, I expect?'

Marriott stared at the passing shoreline as Meikle joined the others in another discussion about wrecks and restoration.

The harbourmaster tapped out his pipe carefully in one cal-lused palm. He had heard some of it and guessed the rest.

Afterwards he thought it had been rather like seeing someone come back to life.

Spring in England.
Marriott paused in the sunlight and watched the train pulling out of the station, letting it all wash over him, calm him like gentle waves on a perfect beach. How green everything was, the trees almost meeting across the familiar road along which he had walked countless times from his home to the same station. On his way to school, to his first job, to his grandfather's funeral, that fine old soldier from Victoria's army with the straight back and twinkling eye. Then to his first ship.

Marriott put down the small case and slowly refilled his pipe while he listened to the birds. It was a place he had thought about so often in the long years. His had not been an adventurous upbringing when compared to some he had met in the navy. An ordinary, safe, middle-class existence; places and events, like Oxshott Woods, the racecourse at Esher, and the local village cricket team at Thames Ditton sometimes more important than the outside world.

It was fifteen minutes' walk from home to this spot, if you took it easily. Many were the times he had had to run all the way, his breakfast half-eaten, his school homework incomplete until he could meet his classmates in the cycle shed to compare their efforts and help one another to outwit the masters.

He picked up his case and walked beneath the trees. At the little green where Penny had learned to ride her pony and had taken her first fall from it, the long humps of the air-raid shelters were already overgrown with long grass and dead daffodils. He had often thought of people running for such shelters when the sirens had wailed night after night. Now they were just as suddenly meaningless and without menace.

The road was strangely deserted; even the local pub looked asleep in the afternoon sunshine as he walked past. More memories. He had been there with Stephen before ... He shut his mind tightly and thought instead of Dover when he had arrived the previous day.

An armed escort had collected Meikle's top-secret steel containers, and he had been surprised at the amount of shipping which filled the harbour and the roadstead. He had seen it too many times almost deserted, a daily target of the German cross-Channel guns. A battered, defiant place which had symbolised Britain almost as much as the White Cliffs.

He had left Fairfax in charge and had given him his telephone number. Surely nothing could go wrong in the two days leave left to him? There was local leave for some of the company, but none for those who lived in faraway places like Scotland and the North.
But just to be here.
He stopped again and eased his shoulders in the warm air. It was strange not to feel the pull of the gas-mask haversack on his shoulder. He kept thinking he had left it somewhere by mistake. So many things to get used to. He had phoned the house from Dover. His father had answered and he had the feeling he had been deeply moved by his unexpected arrival. He had not explained that it was for two days only.

His father was not a strong man and suffered more and more from arthritis, something he had deliberately suppressed in order to remain in the Home Guard. That could have done little to help, Marriott thought. By day getting to London where he worked in the offices of the Southern Railway, no matter what had happened in the overnight raids on the capital. Then, at night, patrolling with his platoon, or guarding the local reservoirs, manning roadblocks in case of a parachute attack. Like the rest of his companions he was a veteran of the Great War.

Marriott often thought it was a wonder that he had wanted so desperately to get into the Home Guard after what he must have seen and done on the Somme. He had never discussed it very much. But after Stephen had been killed at sea, he had opened up a few times. As if their common loss made them equals in some way.

A postman cycled past and waved to him. 'Nice to have you back!'

Marriott smiled at him and watched him cycle around the back of the Harrow. Outwardly closed, it always found a pint for Ted the postman. God, he must have carried a few heartbreaks in his bag. People he knew or had heard about. Dead, missing, captured, crippled.

That part at least was over. There was still Japan, but surely the Axis collapse would make even them have second thoughts?

Marriott felt something like apprehension as he reached the end of the road. Even this 'safe' place had not missed the war. A huge gap had been gnawed out of the road and the one adjoining it when a buzz-bomb had fallen from the sky. Other houses had been damaged by near-misses or had lost their rooftops to incendiary raids.

All the same, it looked better than expected. As he quickened his pace he saw familiar pictures of Churchill and his V-sign in some of the windows, others of the King and Queen. A few sported flags, a gentle acknowledgement of victory.

A cat sitting on a windowsill stared, his eyes like grapes in the sunlight, to watch him pass. At another house with the Air Raid Warden's badge and a couple of stirrup-pumps propped outside, an old dog dozed, unimpressed by the change.

Even the windows looked different, he thought, stripped of their dusty blackout curtains and screens, the glass shining where before it had been criss-crossed with sticky tape. It was supposed to prevent the glass from changing into flying knives when the blast blew them out.

He stopped and looked at his house. Tidy but shabby like all the others. The creeper already budding, the path neatly weeded, as he had known it would be.

The door opened before he could reach it and then he was holding his mother in his arms.

She said, 'This is a real surprise, Vere.' She slipped from his arms and closed the door behind him.

Looking back, Marriott had long realised that his mother had never been able to show much warmth, or perhaps had not wanted to. Afraid of her own feelings ?
Perhaps that's where I got it from?

He heard voices and then he was in the living room. The last time he had been here there had still been the steel shelter in the centre of the room, like a giant table with bedding underneath, and wire mesh around to preserve the inmates if the house collapsed on top of it. But the proper table was back. The window was open and he caught the smell of the garden. Half of it was planted for vegetables. Digging for Victory. But the smell was exactly as he had always remembered.

His father wrung his hand, his eyes shining with pleasure.

But Marriott was staring at the complete stranger who had just risen from the old armchair beside the wireless.

His mother said, 'This is Chris.'

Marriott waited. The man was about his own age, round-faced with heavy-rimmed spectacles. Despite the warmth from the sunshine and the garden he wore a heavy green pullover and a tie.

His mother explained, 'Chris is with the Ministry.' Then with something like defiance she added, 'He's got Stephen's old room.'

Marriott took the outstretched hand. The ministry of what? Not that it mattered. He was here, in this house.
Their home.

The stranger said, 'It's a pleasure to meet you at last. I can't tell you how often I've envied you your exploits.'

His father said, 'We had the room, you see, Vere.' It sounded like pleading. 'With Penny still away and ...'

His mother was watching all of them. 'I'll make some tea.'

The stranger beamed. 'I'll give you a hand, Mrs Marriott!'

They stood for what seemed a long while without speaking.

Then Marriott said, 'I've brought some duty-frees, Dad.'

His father sat down and eased his bad leg. 'Don't take it so hard. He's a decent chap. Helps your mother when he's not at his office.'

Marriott felt his eyes prick and turned away. 'I've only got two days. I – I think I'd like to wash before we have tea.' He almost added,
if my old room is still mine?
But his father's quiet anxiety was enough.

He said, 'It's good to be home, Dad.'

'You've hardly touched your tea!'

Marriott looked at the tinned peaches on his plate. She must have been saving them specially.
Like the brandy in Kiel.

His father said, 'Easy now, I expect he's pretty tired. How is it over there?'

Marriott shrugged. Suddenly he needed a drink. Really needed it.

'We're getting on with the job. It's an enormous one.'

He had peered into his brother's room and had felt his mind in a vice. Only the wallpaper was the same. The books, the funny table he had brought back from his first-ever RNVR training, the one which had made Marriott sick with envy, everything had gone.

The times they had sat here. Sharing secrets, growing up, fighting off Penny's constant begging for loans to increase her pocket money.

I
should have stayed with the boat.

Chris, whose other name was Pooley, said suddenly, 'Is Hitler
really
dead, that's what I'd like to know. A lot will depend on the truth. There'll be a general election pretty soon.' He looked around the table and nodded to emphasise its importance. 'The people will want to know!'

'What people?' Marriott watched him calmly. Even the name Pooley suited him.

'Well, the ones who have to decide.'

His mother leaned over with her teapot. 'Chris is with the Ministry of Education, you know.' She smiled at him, sharing it. 'A job like that will mean everything. I can remember the last time. All those poor men on the streets, no work, nothing.'

Marriott locked his hands together beneath the spotless cloth.

'I work with people too. I dare say they will get the chance to speak out when the time comes. In case you've not noticed it, there's still a war going on in the Far East!'

His father exclaimed, 'You're not getting posted there, surely? Not after all you've been through?'

Marriott eyed him sadly. His father was doing it again. Mending the holes. Protecting his wife from trouble. From reality.

Marriott replied, 'Not yet anyway.'

Chris persisted, 'The war must be seen from two aspects –'

Marriott said flatly, 'One was enough for me.' He was being unfair, rude too, but he could not help it.

Mercifully the telephone rang and Marriott said, 'I'll take it, if I may?' It was probably Fairfax. Marriott was sickened to discover that he hoped it was. A recall. Like all those other times. But it was a girl's voice, almost breaking with excitement and pleasure.

'Vere? It's
me,
you idiot, Penny! You're home!'

Marriott gripped the telephone until the pain in his hand helped to steady him. 'How did you know?' He could feel the others watching and listening.

She said in her breathless fashion, 'Heard it from a pal in the Wrens at Dover. Said you were –' She sniffed and tried again, Said you were there! Oh, dear, lovely Vere. I shall be with you in an hour. I need to see you, to talk –' The line went dead.

And I need you.

He faced the room, his voice controlled again.

'That was Penny. She's coming.'

His mother moved two plates and looked at the clock.

'Never tells you anything. I just don't know about that girl!'

She bustled out of the room and, after some hesitation, Marriott's father followed. He hung back by the door, looking somewhere between them.

'Your mother will be planning where everyone's going to sleep, what she's going to give you to eat, I expect!' His gaze lingered on his son. It said,
don't spoil things. Not now.

But he smiled and added, 'A family again. Like old times.'