Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) (10 page)

Fawcett said, ‘I’m in touch with D.N.I., naturally. Commander Critchley was too – right up his street, I’d have said. I’ll chase them up anyway. About time they did something.’ He waited as a lieutenant appeared around a sandbag barrier. ‘There you are. I thought you’d never get here!’

Masters followed them in silence.
Critchley
. Dead or alive, he was never far away. The rest was all too vague: hold-ups in the Italian campaign, and the unforeseen air-to-surface guided rockets. Fawcett was right about one thing; any invasion in the future would be doomed without full covering fire from the sea.

No heroics, Bumper Fawcett had warned. He thought of the experiments he had watched at
Vernon
, and in deep bunkers which would trap those working on some new time-fuse or suspected booby-trap. Where there were risks men would take them, if they thought it worthwhile. Men like Sewell, and the others he
had known over the months. And Critchley, who had perhaps become careless or over-confident. That was as fatal as the sapper’s boot on the landmine still marked by its weatherworn cross.

Once more he thought of Foley. A man with instinct, that second sense born of experience and danger. Foley was good, unassumingly so. No conceit or bravado. A rare balance.

They walked through a side gate, and more salutes greeted them; they parted to allow the rear-admiral to pass unhindered. Masters hated this part of it. Too much to drink. False bonhomie. The post-mortem over the exercise they had watched might easily be lost in paperwork.

A lieutenant, vaguely familiar, stood his ground and said, ‘Excuse me, sir.’

Fawcett frowned. ‘Laker, isn’t it? Operations?’

The lieutenant looked uncomfortable. ‘Lawson, sir.’

Masters remembered him. He was one of the officers present when he had been describing the incident and Sewell’s death, when Captain Chavasse had been so scathing. He had since changed his tune, according to Fawcett.

‘Well, what is it?’

‘Just had a signal, sir. I was told to inform you personally.’ But he was looking at Masters.

A steward hurried past with a tray of glasses and Fawcett said, ‘Get on with it, man!’

‘Another bomb has been found, sir. Just outside Bridport. The sappers have sealed off the area.’

Masters recalled Sewell’s voice on the intercom, the
young sailor’s supple fingers sketching the device, his private debt to his dead parents.

He said, ‘Bridport. How far is that?’

The lieutenant looked relieved. It was already out of his hands.

‘About twenty miles, sir. I’ve got a fast car and escort. I even brought your rating along.’

Masters looked at the rear-admiral. Any agitation or uncertainty was gone.

‘You deal with it, but keep me informed all the way.’ Fawcett turned to the lieutenant. ‘Now, Mr.
Lawson
, let me see the signals, and be ready to connect me with D.N.I. the moment I tell you.’

He tapped Masters’ arm. ‘Remember what I told you. You’re doing well. Keep it that way.’

Masters nodded.
No heroics.
‘I’ll not be on my own, sir.’

Fawcett watched him leave, and walked purposefully through double doors which opened onto a throng of khaki and blue. He smiled as his cap was taken by a steward, and took a glass from another’s tray as he passed.

One step at a time.

Lieutenant Chris Foley strode out of the Operations building and paused in the pale sunshine to regain his composure. The Operations section looked harmless enough from the outside: it had originally been three small cottages which had been knocked into one, but inside it was like a madhouse. There was a flap on, and everyone seemed to speaking at once. Captain
Chavasse was there; Foley had seen him holding a pair of headphones loosely to one ear, while speaking tersely into another handset at the same time.

When he had eventually found an officer who was senior and interested enough in his problem, he had received no satisfaction. ML366 was at twenty-four hours’ operational stand-by. It was just one of those things. The word came from high up; that was all there was to it.

Except that he had granted his boat’s small company local leave. Not that it presented any real problem; there was only one pub in the village, and no transport unless you hitched a lift to get to anywhere more exciting. Or the wet canteen right here at the base where the NAAFI supplied all the beer any Jack could wish for. Senior rates were to have been given overnight leave, if they had anywhere to go, and there was one, the boat’s Chief, Petty Officer Shannon. If they were under orders to move it was important, and the proposed exercises had taken second place. If the Chief was nowhere to be found . . . He almost collided with the captain’s secretary, Lieutenant-Commander Brayshaw, who was carrying an armful of files.

Brayshaw was always easy to talk to. And that was as far as it went, although he must have been tempted a few times when he heard what some of the more junior officers said and thought about his lord and master Chavasse.

Foley said, ‘A flap on?’

‘Something to do with another device, I understand. All very hush-hush at the moment.’

Foley smiled ruefully. ‘Which means it’s all over the south coast by now!’

‘Anything I can do? I’m told that you’re on operational stand-by. Rather short notice, I thought.’

Foley nodded. Brayshaw missed nothing.

He said, ‘I’ve got my cox’n and a couple of hands rounding up the libertymen. It’s the Chief I’m bothered about.’

Brayshaw pursed his lips. ‘Overnight leave?’ and raised an eyebrow. ‘In
this
place?’

‘I heard there’s another pub somewhere. On the way to Lulworth, I think they said.’ He clenched his fist. ‘It might as well be Scapa Flow for all the chance I’ve got. I wanted to get him working on some new gear – I thought we’d have plenty of time at the rate things are moving here.’

Brayshaw smiled. ‘You do pretty well, from what I hear.’ He was serious again. ‘I think I might help. If it’s the pub I remember, I can take you there myself.’ He paused. ‘If you like, that is.’

They both turned and stared at the Humber staff car, its Royal Marine driver standing beside it, cleaning one of the windows.

Brayshaw said gravely, ‘I have a couple of errands to run. Lulworth may well be on the route. Seven or eight miles, no problem. I’ll leave word with my chief writer.’

He hurried away.

Foley stared towards the anchorage, more crowded than ever now. A flap on . . . Bass had told him some cars with red-painted wings and motor cycle escorts
had been seen speeding away on the Weymouth road. Another device, as Brayshaw had described it, maybe like the one that had killed an officer from Portland, which Masters had been sent to investigate. Brayshaw had been there, too.

He thought of his new Number One, and wondered how long it would take for him to find true confidence. Allison was eager and intelligent, but he knew nothing yet of the total dependency required in a small warship. He could be thrown into command on their first operation. He heard Brayshaw returning and was glad of it.

The marine driver’s eyes moved over his extra passenger, pausing briefly on the D.S.C. It was apparently enough.

The gates opened and Brayshaw spoke to the master-at-arms nearby. Through the open window Foley heard the distant wail of air raid sirens. The balloons would be up, the A.A. guns alerted. Hit-and-run raiders no longer had it all their own way, at least not in daylight; there was a new squadron of fighters a mile or two inland. He recalled the dead pilot officer, the fixed stare. He might have been one of them.

No use going over it again. He concentrated on his new orders, or what he knew of them. Two other MLs would be joining 366, coming round from Poole. The senior officer was Lieutenant-Commander Tony Brock, R.N.V.R. like himself, and said to be in line for a new flotilla all of his own. Foley had come up against Brock several times. Big, like his reputation, a man who had once skippered a luxury yacht for some
rich Greek before the war. A man who had a way with women, if half of what was said of him was true. An old R.N.R. hand had once remarked on that aspect of Brock, ‘Like a rat up a pump! Anything in a skirt!’

But he was brave enough. Perhaps too brave, if that were possible.

He recalled Harry Bryant’s parting comment on Critchley.
I could be wrong about him, too.

He tried to relax and watch the road across the marine’s shoulder.
People look at you and they think it’s easy. Because you don’t appear to worry. Because that’s how they see you.

He recalled his last leave, and the others before that. His father had served in the trenches in the Great War and had been gassed, like so many, when all the rules had been thrown away. He wanted so much to do something to help the war effort, but even the Home Guard had reluctantly turned him down. A civil servant, he now worked for the Ministry of Food, perhaps essential, but not the war as he still saw and remembered it. And Claire, his young sister, and her ‘sinister’ Polish airman, as his mother would have it.

He had always lived near the Thames. It was beyond coincidence, but when he had learned to sail a dinghy it had been at one of the local boatyards above Teddington Lock. ML366 had been built by that same yard, like so many others which had quickly learned to adapt to a new purpose, or go under. Small though she was by naval standards, she must
have seemed like a battleship in that quiet backwater of the river.

Foley saw the driver’s eyes shift to his mirror, his brows tighten with irritation.

Brayshaw half turned. ‘Damned fools, far too fast on this road!’

There were no marks of rank or authority on the Humber, not that it would have made much difference, Foley thought.

It was a three-ton lorry, with barely enough room to overtake as it roared past, dust and straw flying from the sides while its driver gunned the engine for an approaching hill. There were a few faces, khaki uniforms, patches of colour: Italian prisoners of war on their way somewhere. Whoever was in charge obviously did not care, or was past caring.

Foley jerked upright, his mind suddenly clear, ice-cold, like the air from Brayshaw’s window.

He heard Brayshaw exclaim, ‘
Brake
, man!’

The marine was already doing just that, the big car swaying on the rutted road as if fighting back.

Foley had time to see the top of the other vehicle, nothing more, as it was hidden by the hill’s sudden hump. He heard the crash, then another, and imagined that both vehicles had collided head-on.

They braked sharply on the crest, and Foley pulled himself out and on to the road. The marine muttered, ‘Jesus, that poor bastard’s bought it!’

The car must have been struck a glancing blow by the speeding lorry. It had swerved into one of the low stone walls and gone out of control; the impact of the
second crash had smashed it sideways into a tree. One wheel was still moving and there was a stench of petrol. But no fire.

Foley found himself running, the others behind him. He vaguely heard the squeal of brakes somewhere, the lorry stopping at last. But all he could think of was the dead airman being carried ashore, and the Wren standing by the car, this car, holding her cap in her hands. And he had not forgotten it, how she had looked.
For all of them.

‘Let me!’

He dragged open the door. The car was half on its side, the tree forcing the other door inwards; the roof too was folded like wet cardboard. There was glass everywhere.

He heard the marine call, ‘Switch it off, sir!’

Somehow he managed to reach out and lean across the girl’s body to turn the ignition key. The immediate silence was almost worse.

Very carefully he put his arm around her shoulders, between her and the damaged door. There was glass in her hair and near her eyes; one leg was folded under her. She had been hurled aside by the final impact. It was like being someone else, like
watching
someone else. The jacket was half open and he felt inside. A faint heartbeat, or was it imagination? It was like that sometimes . . .

‘I think she’s alive!’ He unbuttoned the rest of her jacket. His hand was wet; she was bleeding. Then he saw the sunlight coming through the door where it had been caved in by the collision. The panel had burst
apart and the glass had splintered through it like long, jagged knives.

‘Bandages,
anything
!’ He heard distant voices, the men off the farm lorry. He wanted to kill them.

He straightened her leg and carefully pulled her skirt up over her knees. A lot of blood. He gripped her thigh, his fingers slipping on the blood-soaked skin, harder and harder, until a hand came over his shoulder, a bandage, a duster . . . he never knew. He felt a muscle contract and looked into her face. Her eyes were wide open, so still that for a moment he imagined it was too late, then she moved her head slightly, but her eyes never left him. Her hand came from somewhere, more glass falling around them, until she had found and gripped his. Understanding what had happened, and what he was doing.

She tightened her grasp.
‘Please.’
He withdrew his hand from her thigh and covered the blood with the makeshift bandage. ‘That’s better!’ She was trying to smile, but the pain was winning. ‘My father’s a doctor, you see?’

She must have seen Brayshaw for the first time, and tried again to cover herself.

Foley heard another vehicle pulling up. Voices, authority. It would be out of his hands soon. Too late . . .

He put his hand over hers and said, ‘I’m Chris, by the way. You’ll be all right now. I’ll make sure of that!’

She nodded, but her eyes were so dark she could have been unconscious once more.

He said, ‘We’re going to move you. Very carefully.’ He felt the marine’s shoulder hard against his, knew the
man had turned to look at him as he persisted, ‘What’s
your
name? I’d like to know. Very much.’

Brayshaw murmured, ‘Ready now, Chris.’

Perhaps it was the use of his name which sparked something.

She tensed against the pain, but held on just long enough. ‘Chris . . . I’m Margot.’ Then she fainted.