The White Guns (1989) (41 page)

Thornhill nodded as she was hurried away. The Guv'nor was a shrewd old copper. The countess would do anything to stay alive. She would sing like a bird.

He lit a cigarette and saw his hand shaking.

None of it would bring Taff back.

Meikle said, 'And don't take this on your back either, Marriott!'

Sub-Lieutenant Lowes was being escorted down the steps; he was hatless, his eyes wild and desperate as he tugged feebly at the grip of a massive MP.

He saw Meikle and Marriott and shouted, 'It's not my fault! Tell them it wasn't like that!' His voice broke into a shrill scream. 'It was
her!
It was all
her
doing!'

The van door slammed shut but they could still hear his cries as it moved towards the junction where an escort of outriders had lined the road.

'Her
doing?' Meikle said mildly. 'I wonder which one of them he meant?'

He saw Marriott's expression. 'It's nobody's fault. That young man may have missed the war, but he was one of its victims nonetheless.'

He watched Helmut Maybach being carried, still dazed and bleeding, to one of the cars. Slight and harmless enough, until he stared round and you saw his eyes, as so many of his victims had done.

Meikle touched Marriott's arm. 'Quite a day. I suggest you get cleaned up. Then tell your
Nazi
driver to take you out to Eutin.' He beckoned to his own car and it started up. 'If you like, Marriott, you may tell Fräulein Geghin that her brother will be safe.' He nodded to Marriott's strained features. 'I shall see the commodore. I may have to remind him of a few points of law, but I'm certain he'll see it my way in the end.'

Marriott stared from the window as the car glided away. Soldiers smoking and chatting, clearing up. Others carrying boxes and books from the house while a few were to be seen at the upper windows, investigating further corruption.

He watched the ambulance take station behind Meikle's Humber.

Petty Officer Evans would be going home. Even if he had not taken Maybach himself, it had been his finger which had pointed the way. Others would hear what he had done. That revenge if not justice had been carried out.

Lieutenant Mike Fairfax walked slowly through another barbed-wire barrier inside Kiel dockyard and continued towards the slipways.

It was cold, and, but for a swaying line of little electric lamps which were suspended from a single overhead wire, it would have been pitch-dark.

He should have had the duty petty officer with him, but he had sent the man around the other side of the old U-Boat pens to seek out the sentries there and save time.

Doing Rounds in Kiel dockyard was never a welcome duty at night. The place was sinister with memories and tall stories which could make a new recruit throw a fit. There was the story of the U-Boat, now crushed beneath its fallen concrete pen, which had had an extra officer when it had sailed for the Atlantic. The officer was said to be one who had been lost at sea, washed overboard while watchkeeping on the conning-tower. Newly joining officers always swore they had been greeted by his ghost. Now the boat was wrecked down there, but it was bandied about the messes that the same ghost had been seen on the slipways. Watching the harbour, waiting perhaps for the returning U-Boat which would never come.

Fairfax paused by a telephone box and dialled for the correct time. The recorded female voice announced that it was two in the morning. He replaced it.
Had it come to this?
So hungry for a woman's voice that he was dialling the talking clock!

He watched the line of swaying lights. Each one made a small disc of white on the stones, while the darkness isolated one from the next. It would be impossible to walk here without them, he thought.

Fairfax had heard about the big raid in Neumünster, and how Evans had been killed there. All their little company was being scattered, and he knew Marriott felt like that too. Evans dead, their 'hinge' when he had been 801's coxswain. Even his memory would blur in time. Others too would be leaving the navy in the next few months.

He thought suddenly of Third Officer Jill Wheatley. His ideal girl. She was always pleasant to him, and had soon settled down with the others. But whenever he had tried to get closer neither of them seemed to have anything in common. Even she intended to get out of the WRNS at the first opportunity.

If he only knew if or when a Board might summon him to make the only decision he cared about. One more week and he would see Commander Meikle again.

He stiffened as he heard footsteps on the wet stones and stood quite still in the shelter of the telephone box.

He watched the feet move from one circle of light towards the next. When the figure was directly beneath one of the lights he saw it was Cuff Glazebrook, his gait slightly unsteady, but that was nothing unusual. He was heading towards the LCT moorings and Fairfax toyed with the idea of speaking to him, but rejected it immediately. He was probably too drunk to talk reasonably, or was in one of his foul moods. All you could say for him was that
he
certainly did not lack confidence.

Fairfax stared as another pair of feet appeared in the swaying light beam. Khaki trousers. A soldier. He was speaking with Cuff, the two pairs of feet isolated in the solitary disc of light, like shoes on a hotel landing.

Fairfax could hear their voices and thought that Cuff was getting angry; the other man's tone seemed equally sharp.

The voices stopped and Fairfax heard footsteps again.

He felt a chill run down his spine. There was only one pair of feet now. He removed his cap and wiped his forehead. Despite the bitter air he felt the sweat on his fingers. He was going round the bend! He tried to recall how many drinks he had had at dinner and afterwards. Very little. When he was O.O.D. he was very conscientious for all sorts of reasons. Then how –

The petty officer stepped from the gloom and flashed his light. 'All correct at the pens, sir. Both sentries alive an' well! Nippy though, ain't it, sir?'

'Er – yes.' Fairfax fell into step beside him. The PO would probably laugh his head off if he told him. After what he had heard about poor Lowes it would bring further discredit on the lot of them, and Meikle's spies would soon get to hear about it.

'Let's get it over with, PO.' He quickened his pace.
just forget it.

But the next morning at breakfast the news broke over the table as a new topic of disaster.

A lieutenant exclaimed, 'Did you hear about last night? Some army officer fell into a basin in the dockyard!'

Fairfax kept his voice level only with difficulty. 'Oh really? What happened?'

The others looked up from their newspapers, each one propped on a little stand so that an officer could read without being disturbed while he ate his breakfast.

The lieutenant spread his hands. 'Well, for God's sake, Mike, it smashed his skull in! It must be all of a sixty-foot drop there!'

Fairfax turned sharply as Cuff looked over the top of his
Daily Mirror.
'Surprised I didn't hear something. I was aboard one of the LCTs last night.' His eyes moved and then rested coldly on Fairfax. 'Said all along it's a dangerous place if you don't know your way about.'

Fairfax wanted to look away, to break the contact, but it was like being mesmerised.
He knows. He must have seen me.

Cuff folded his paper and stood up. 'A brown job, you say?' He grinned. 'Well, you know what they say about soldiers!'

He walked heavily to the door and tossed his newspaper to one of the German messmen.

Fairfax stared at his plate and the congealing sausages. What should he do? Meikle was bound to question him. After all, he had patrolled the dockyard as O.O.D. And what might the petty officer say?

He thought of Cuff's bleak stare.
They might not even believe me!

As he stood up to leave he knew he would tell nobody. Not yet anyway.

The petty officer of the guard was waiting in the lobby.

'Mornin', Mister Fairfax, sir. Commander's compliments an' he'd like to see you.' He grinned. 'A bit sharpish.'

Fairfax groped for his cap. He could feel his world falling apart.

'Hello, old son!'

Fairfax stared as Marriott's friend Beri-Beri, propped on two sticks and assisted by a messenger from the main gate, lurched through the doors.

'Welcome back!' Fairfax could barely get it out.

Beri-Beri regarded him cheerfully. 'Thought you'd be at
least
an admiral by now!' He ignored Fairfax's anxiety and added, 'I heard Meikle is leaving too. Up the ladder of plenty, it seems!' He balanced himself on his plastered leg and winked at the petty officer. 'This comes off very soon!'

Fairfax slipped away, his mind already busy with Beri-Beri's information. Probably just a rumour, another 'buzz'. But if it were true, there would be nobody to speak up for him at the Board.

So later, when Meikle watched Lavender's busy pen darting across his pad, it was easy to deny that he had seen anything untoward.

Meikle nodded and replied, 'The soldier was apparently an S.I.B. officer. Lavender, get Captain Whitcombe for me, will you? After that, I'd like an appointment with the commodore.' He raised his eyebrows. 'So you're still here, Fairfax?'

There was a huge pile of letters and signals to be dealt with. One letter which he had to send himself was to Lowes's mother and stepfather. Lowes was being sent to a special wing of a naval hospital. With luck he might escape with a mental discharge. Without it, he would face a court martial. Not an easy letter to write.

He faced Fairfax and said severely, 'There are one hundred and twenty junior officers in this command who are seeking the same transfer as yourself. Just do your work and stay out of trouble. The rest is up to their lordships.'

Fairfax left the office. There was still hope after all.

As soon as the door was closed Petty Officer Writer Lavender said, 'Do you expect the commodore to agree, if I might ask, sir?'

Meikle smiled. Outwardly timid, but there was quite a lot to Lavender. He had already asked him to stay with him, and later to join him in chambers in London.

'Oh, about Fräulein Geghin's brother? I think so. Just dig out that confidential file about the commodore's new yacht. This might be an excellent time to remind him.'

He did not speak with Captain Whitcombe very long. Like himself he was always in demand, especially with the enormous task of sorting out the evidence his men had gathered in the raid.

Whitcombe sounded abrupt, tired. 'Yes, sir. One of my team. A Lieutenant Sanders. I had my people there when the body was discovered. All the usual checks.' Meikle heard him sigh. 'But it was a long drop into an empty drydock. Not a lot to go on.'

Meikle stared at the opposite wall. One of the maps was slightly crooked and he gestured at Lavender to straighten it.

'May I ask what your officer was doing there? It is in confidence, but I need not tell you that.'

Whitcombe answered, 'He went to speak with Lieutenant Glazebrook, sir. He had apparently been up late at some party or other.'

'Trouble?'

'Well, no, sir. I just thought he might have some information about a German woman, the one who's employed at the fuel dump. I know he once tried to help her, so I thought he might have heard something.'