Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) (14 page)

Foley walked to a window. How long did it take for a building to start feeling and smelling like a hospital, he wondered. He plucked at his shirt, the same one he had been wearing when 366 made fast. The cuffs were soiled, and he knew he stank of high-octane.

It was better not to weigh the risks and set them against the possible gains. Like the blazing bomber crashing into the sea with the sound of thunder. Like their own solitary airman. It was stupid to measure the cost . . .

The sister had arrived. Very neat and clean, not a hair out of place around her little white cap.

‘It was good of you to telephone first, Lieutenant. We don’t have many visitors here.’

‘How is she, Sister?’

She did not reply directly. ‘It was a bad accident, I understand. She was very fortunate, I would say lucky, under the circumstances.’

Foley thought of the wrecked car, a wheel still spinning, the engine running, her face so pale and still. And the blood.

He said, ‘I thought there would be a fire, you see.’ He was not making sense. ‘What we always fear the most.’

‘Are you feeling quite well, Lieutenant? Can I fetch you a cup of something?’

Foley pinched the bridge of his nose between finger and thumb. Maybe she had said that she didn’t want to see him. That made it all the more important.

‘I would like to see Miss Lovatt, Sister.’ The lie came easily. ‘I am under orders at present.’

‘This way, then. The doctor will be along on his rounds shortly. Then, I’m afraid . . .’ She did not finish it. Foley remembered that about hospitals, too. They never needed to explain.

The room was small and completely square. It had no windows, and might have been part of an outbuilding, with a skylight in the middle of the ceiling. There were two beds facing one another, and the one nearest the door was empty, but in use.

The sister said, ‘Your visitor is here. I can’t say how long you can have.’

She was only in her twenties; perhaps the severity was her own form of defence.

Foley did not even hear the door close behind him. He had only seen her in uniform before and it was almost like meeting someone else, a total stranger. She was wearing a nightdress of some kind, with a blue dressing gown over her shoulders, and she lay half propped on a rank of pillows, with a newspaper opened across her knees. She adjusted the dressing gown to cover her bare arms and he saw a bandage on her wrist.

But she was smiling at him, pleased, but shyly, as if she was still unprepared.

He said, ‘How is it?’ and looked around. ‘I wanted to bring something – I don’t know – flowers maybe, to cheer you up.’

‘Tell me.’ She reached out with the bandaged arm. ‘
Tell
me, Chris,’ and hesitated. ‘There, I said it.’

He took her hand and turned it over very carefully. ‘I was worried about you.’

She repeated, ‘No, Chris,
tell
me. I’ve been thinking about you since the pile-up. You see, I knew you were on some operation, a sudden decision. Otherwise . . .’

He returned the pressure of her hand. Like that moment together in the wrecked Wolseley.

‘Otherwise I would have stayed with you. All the time. No matter what.’

He felt her dark eyes watching him, her grip as firm as ever.

‘It was bad, wasn’t it?’

He shook his head. ‘You’re the one in hospital, Margot!’ He sensed her flinch. Her name. ‘It’s just
been a bit busy, that’s all.’ They looked at one another, and he said, ‘Have you been up and about much?’

‘They say I’m on the mend. In fact, they’re talking of sick leave. I’m black and blue all over, but the gash in my . . .’ Her free hand moved as if to touch her thigh but stopped against her hip, ‘is healing well.’ She waited for him to look at her again. ‘All thanks to you.’

Another door opened, which he had not noticed before, and a girl in a similar blue dressing gown crossed the room and climbed into the other bed.

She glanced over and said, ‘I’m Mary,’ then she lay down and placed a damp cloth across her eyes.

Somewhere a bell was ringing urgently, and there were voices, authority.

Foley said, ‘Are you going home when you get leave?’ He saw her nod and hurried on, ‘And afterwards, will you be returning to the base, or moving somewhere else?’

She had both her hands over his now and had leaned forward slightly, so that the gown had dropped completely from one shoulder. From below the armpit was the beginning of one huge, black bruise where she had been hurled sideways by the impact. She was gazing into his face, from which he knew he could no longer hide the strain.

‘What is it? Please tell me.’

‘I want to see you after this, Margot.’ He was shivering, and yet his hands were quite steady in hers. Like being two people, one in control, the other wanting to touch her bare shoulder. Until she understood.

‘I’d love to see you again, Chris. Do you think I could ever forget what you did?’

More voices, closer now.

He said, ‘I meant to bring your cap with me.’

She stared at him, her mouth softening. ‘So
you
have it? It must be the only part of my uniform that stayed in one piece!’

Foley stood up carefully and smoothed the edge of the bed. He saw the opened newspaper, the headlines screaming at him, a photograph of a battleship at anchor.
ITALIAN FLAGSHIP SURRENDERS UNDER THE GUNS OF THE ROYAL NAVY.

The ‘other war’, which they discussed endlessly whenever time permitted. Ships and faces they knew or had known, subjects of argument and speculation. But the other war. The real war.

Not the war he had come to know and expect. Wooden hulls of the little ships: punctured, splintered, bloodstained. Men living in one another’s pockets, sharing everything. You soon understood what really counted when you were less than twenty yards from the muzzles of the enemy’s guns.

‘I’ll have to be leaving soon. It seems a bit frantic.’

She said quickly, ‘Not yet. I so hoped you would come. Find the time––’

He took her hand again. ‘You
knew
I’d come. But you know what they say about getting too close in wartime . . . I . . . I’m not sure . . . for your sake.’

She did not look away as he lifted the gown to cover her bare shoulder, his fingers brushing her skin. ‘I want to protect you, Margot . . . and now it seems like the
other way round.’ He tried to smile. ‘I must see you again.
Soon.
I’ll call the hospital . . .’

‘Ah, I see you’re just leaving, Lieutenant!’

A white coat, a fixed, tired smile, a stethoscope, the sister close behind him. It was over.

Foley touched her hair and felt her press against his hand.

‘Sorry to be such a mess,’ he said.

The sister was moving a screen towards the bed. They would examine her, pull her about. The anger was irrational, but he could barely contain it.

She lifted her chin and regarded him steadily. ‘If I’m moved from here I shall send word.’ She moved as if to extend her hand again, but instead put it to her breast. ‘Take good care of yourself, Chris. As you did of me.’

The doctor said, ‘There, now––’

Foley was outside the door without knowing he had moved. Like saying goodbye at a railway station, too common a sight these days: so much longing, but never the right words. Until the train begins to move. Until it is too late.

He strode back through the room where the soldiers were sitting, waiting for something to happen. One was rolling a cigarette, expertly moistening the paper with his tongue. He had only one hand. Another, who appeared to have lost a leg and an arm, was slowly turning the pages of a tattered magazine. Someone should tell
them
, he thought. They’re the real heroes in this war.

He caught sight of himself in a wall mirror as he
was leaving and shook his head. It was a wonder he hadn’t scared her to death. He ran his fingers through his tousled hair and jammed on his cap.

It was absurd. He hardly knew her. He had acted out of instinct and had shared her pain, her need.

The redcap was grinning at him, and there was a car of some sort waiting by the door.

But Chris Foley knew he had never been closer to anyone in his life.

‘Try that chair over there, old chap. Take the weight off your feet. You deserve it after that little lot.’

David Masters smiled and loosened his jacket. His first meeting with the Naval Intelligence people and a few other privileged parties had been long and surprisingly demanding. Like being in the spotlight, more so because of the brightly illuminated screen of diagrams, statistics, and photographs.

The senior present had been a vice-admiral on the First Sea Lord’s personal staff, a haughty-faced officer with hooded eyes and a petulant, unsmiling mouth. It was hard to believe, let alone remember, Masters had thought. The vice-admiral had been the commander in his first ship, an old training cruiser, when he had still been a midshipman. The commander, the Bloke, as he was always known, was second only to the captain, but in many ways had more contact and influence in any large ship, especially where the ‘young gentlemen’ were concerned. As far as he could recall, they had all liked him. Keen on team activities, boatwork and sailing, even sports ashore when time and opportunity
allowed, he was always there. Ready to advise, and often to demonstrate.

Sitting in that underground room, one hand tapping occasionally on an unopened folder, it was impossible to see him as the same person.

Perhaps the navy was a little like the Church, the step from wardroom to flag rank much like country parson to a bishop’s palace.

He looked at his host. Captain James Wykes of the D.N.I.’s department was thin, wiry, and never still. He was dressed in a pale grey suit which looked well-worn, if not actually shabby, but Masters guessed it had been both expensive and tailored to fit a then sturdier figure. His hair was the same colour as the suit, and there were deep shadows beneath his eyes.

Wykes exclaimed, ‘Stuffy lot for the most part, but you mustn’t mind them!’ He lit a cigarette and fanned the smoke aside, turning his head away to control a spasm of coughing. Masters had noticed that he smoked a lot. Coughed a lot, too. It had roused the vice-admiral’s irritation, and he had given the ashtray a significant glance.

But Wykes had looked after him from the beginning. Guiding him, and fending off what he considered to be pointless or time-wasting interruptions, quick to jump to his feet and emphasize a point, or to snap his fingers at the screen operator to flash back to an earlier item of interest.

He thought of the others who had been there. A commander from H.M.S.
Vernon
he had once worked alongside; there had only been time for a handshake and
a brief greeting. There were men in civilian clothes who arrived and departed together, but were not introduced, nor did they appear to speak to one another throughout the entire session.

And two officers of the Free French navy, somehow alien in their original pre-war uniforms. One held the same rank as his own,
Capitaine de Corvette,
the other was his superior, a full captain with a neat beard; you would have known him to be French had he been wearing a boiler suit. He had an interpreter sitting at his elbow, a woman in a dark suit or dress who occasionally leaned over to murmur something, or to jot a few notes on a pad. There had been other women present, but she had been the only one out of uniform. Whenever she had looked up she had shaded her eyes with one hand against the glare, and he had seen a brooch of some kind when she had moved, the only adornment against her shadowy outline. He had also noticed that the French officer appeared to be following the progress of the meeting without much need for an interpreter.

Wykes was saying, ‘I expect a drink wouldn’t come amiss, old chap? Sun’s well over the yardarm, I’d say. What’ll it be, Horse’s Neck? Scotch, if you like?’ He chuckled. ‘R.H.I.P., you know!’

Masters took out his pipe and pouch.
Rank Hath Its Privileges.
The vice-admiral who had once been the training cruiser’s ‘Bloke’ had probably said that too. But it was difficult to believe now.

Wykes was opening a cupboard and slopping drinks into a pair of finely cut tumblers. Masters looked at the clock. It was six in the evening but it could have been
any time, any place. Impossible to imagine London’s traffic still roaring somewhere high above this maze of rooms and offices. The main bunker of command, or was there always another one, even more influential? No wonder Bumper Fawcett made a point of appearing here.

Wykes studied him through the smoke while he filled and tamped down his pipe.

He said, ‘Your people are having good results. But as the pace hots up, as it must and will as we draw nearer to invading, forcing that second front all the newspaper experts are demanding, the enemy’s strategy and tactics will be preparing to meet it. From the start Germany was in the lead with pattern and then strategic bombing. Factories, docklands, road and railway systems a year or so back, and they nearly succeeded. The country was almost at a standstill, production at an all-time low, convoys unable to fight their way across the Pond to fill the gaps.’

Masters watched the smoke. ‘A lot of men died trying to combat the enemy’s skill where bombs and mines were concerned. Army Bomb Disposal lost so many officers in those first couple of years that it was looked on as a suicide job.’ He shrugged. ‘And now we’re playing our part. I’ve seen some good chaps set off for that last beast. Not knowing it
was
their last.’

Wykes put down his tumbler. ‘That lieutenant of yours from Portland, the one who worked on the crashed Junkers, he discovered a lot more than he realized, poor chap.’ His eyes moved very quickly. ‘And you, much to the fury of your rear-admiral, “Bumper”, you call
him? You stumbled on a second device in Bridport. The people at
Vernon
have discovered similarities. Smaller devices, mines if you like, which can be dropped at short notice, and timed to explode after a given period or be set off by magnetic fields of their own.’

‘I would have expected that our section would have been told first, sir.’ It came out more curtly than he had intended. ‘We
are
on the sharp end of it.’