Polly's Angel (34 page)

‘You want to put her right,' Sunny suggested. ‘Poor gal, she'd be rare ashamed if she knew what your life was really like. I mean, I reckon the Navy's the hardest of all the services, don't you?'

‘Yup,' Martin said briefly. ‘Monica's all right, really – I shouldn't have criticised her to you, it wasn't fair. It's – it's just that she's got no relatives in the Navy, no uncles or brothers or anything like that and her daddy wasn't in the last lot so she's got no idea of what it's all about and I suppose I – I underplayed it a bit, so's not to worry her. Given time, she'll work it out and mebbe, when I'm home next, I'll tell her a bit more.'

‘Right,' Sunny said equably. ‘G'night, Mart. See you in the morning.'

It took several days for the convoy to assemble and during that time Martin and Sunny found that it was comforting to have a pal aboard. They talked a good deal about Polly, the O'Brady family and Sunny's parents and by the time the convoy finally went to sea they were good friends.

‘Me dad encouraged me to go to sea,' Sunny told Martin as they prepared dinner for their mess, chopping vegetables and dried beef. ‘I joined in '38, so he saw me in me uniform before war was declared. But I can't write to him or anything like that. Or perhaps I could, if I posted the letter when we are in port for refuelling,' he added thoughtfully.

The early part of their voyage was fairly uneventful, apart from a practice attack by the RAF during the course of which bags of flour were dropped on the ships by the attacking 'planes, putting ‘out of action' a large number of the escort.

‘Good thing it wasn't for real,' Sunny grumbled to Martin. ‘The trouble is, Mart, that you couldn't tell if any of your guns hit an aircraft, so it was all a bit one-sided.'

‘You say that because you got a flour bag right on the flag-deck,' Martin grinned. ‘Did you know we're stopping at Gibraltar? It might give us the chance of an hour or so ashore.'

‘It'll give me the chance,' Sunny said smugly. ‘I'm the buffer's assistant that day. Of course they might let us all go ashore, but somehow I doubt it. Tell you what, Mart, if I get a chance, shall I get some material for your old woman? You can pay me in “sippers”, or in fags if you'd rather.'

All men over twenty got a rum ration each day and it was a common practice to swap goods for either ‘sippers' or ‘gulpers' of your rum, if you didn't mind losing just about all your ration.

‘I'll pay you for the service in fags and for the stuff itself in money,' Martin said promptly. ‘Would you really buy it for me, Sunny? It would be kind of you so it would. And just how did you get a cushy job like that, come to think?'

‘Oh, I heard the bo'sun sayin' he was going ashore to get fruit and that,' Sunny said airily. ‘He said he'd not been ashore in Gib for years, and would like to go again. So I said I knew just the place for fruit and vegetables, good alright, but cheap, too. So he said I could come along if I liked to give him a hand.'

‘How come you know the Rock so well?' Martin asked suspiciously. ‘The bo'sun's been on the andrew for years.'

‘Yes, but not on the med. runs,' Sunny said. ‘As for knowing Gibraltar, I've only been there a couple of times meself. But mostly, it's one long street that winds up from the foot of the rock itself to near enough the top of the town, so I reckon we'll find a shop selling fruit along there somewhere.'

‘You're a bit of a skate, aren't you?' Martin said, half-admiringly. ‘Telling the bo'sun a load of tosh to get yourself a trip ashore. And anyway, we may all get shore leave; you never know.'

‘That's true enough, la'. Wi' the Navy you never do know,' Sunny said. ‘And I wasn't taking no chances, so do you want me to buy you some silk for your missus or don't you?'

‘I'd be grateful, so I would,' Martin said promptly. ‘She's not a bad girl, my Monica, just a bit thoughtless. And . . . and I daresay I've not been much of a husband to her in some ways. Will you be able to get some silk, d'you think?'

‘Sure to,' Sunny said. He remembered the wonderful, colourful shops on Main Street, with the delicate embroidery, the fashionable gowns and the brilliant jewellery displayed in the shop windows. ‘If you knew her size you could get her a dress, come to that. Would she rather have a dress, d'you suppose?'

But Martin, after only a second's thought, shook his head. ‘No, she'd rather have material to make one up for herself. She's good wit' her needle, and if I can get enough stuff it'll keep her busy for a night or two.'

Sunny grinned. ‘Right you are, ole pal,' he said cheerfully. ‘A bolt o' silk it shall be!'

By the time Sunny and the Bo'sun set off on their expedition, Sunny had collected little commissions from a good half of his companions, for their stay in Gibraltar was to be a short one, and most people wanted something which they could not get aboard the
Felix.
On his own account, he decided he would buy a pair of pretty earrings for Polly, or perhaps a necklace; something pretty but inexpensive.

So it was with a light heart that Sunny set off with the Bo'sun, walking up through Irish Town towards the main shopping centre. It was a brilliant day and very hot in the narrow street, however, and presently Sunny began to realise that he felt rather odd. The money in his pockets seemed to be weighing him down, and when he glanced up at the whitewashed buildings, they seemed to dazzle and change shape before his eyes.

However, he said nothing until they entered Main Street and began their shopping, and even then he only told the Bo'sun that he thought he ought to walk on the shady rather than the sunny side of the street, since he was beginning to feel very hot indeed.

The Bo'sun made some joking remark about how odd it was that a feller known as Sunny should want to keep out of the sun and then they went into a shop selling the most marvellous materials, and Sunny began the serious task of choosing, for his pal, something that would both keep his wife indoors and before her sewing machine whilst at the same time making her think of her absent husband with warmth and affection.

In the end he chose a very beautiful creamcoloured silk covered with bronze poppies, which took up almost all Martin's money, and then the two of them went back into the hot and dusty street once more.

Out there, Sunny realised that he felt very peculiar indeed. Now, the buildings did not merely dazzle, they swooped up and down, seeming immense one moment and tiny the next. What was more, his skin felt as though he were being roasted, and also as though he had been attacked by a thousand fleas – his skin actually
crawled.
He had heard people say their skin crawled often enough but had never understood what they meant until this moment.

He turned to the Bo'sun with the intention of suggesting they went into a pub for a drink, but realised he did not even feel capable of speech, so merely continued to trail in the older man's wake, the steepness of the street seeming suddenly like Mount Everest, though the stifling heat gave the lie to this fancy.

Afterwards, Sunny could not remember what they bought or how they arranged things, but he realised they must have done most of their shopping when the Bo'sun steered him into what he dimly realised must be some sort of graveyard, right at the top of the town, and sat him down on a bench beneath a shady tree.

‘You're not lookin' so good, young feller-me-lad,' the Bo'sun said. His voice sounded concerned, but not only concerned; it sounded hollow and echoing, and very strange indeed. ‘If you don't buck up in the next half-hour I'm thinkin' I'd best get you back . . . Whoa up, hold up, young feller!'

Sunny wondered what on earth the other man was on about, but just then his mind was taken off the Bo'sun and his behaviour by the even odder behaviour of the land around him. It seemed to tip, tilt and slide sideways, so that though he was unaware of moving himself, he presently found that the burning blue sky was above him, and that he was seeing it through what appeared to be large, dark bars.

And then, as he tried to struggle up, to tell the Bo'sun that he would be all right in a minute, he found that everything was rushing away from him very fast, getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared into very unpleasant, roaring blackness.

Sunny came round, groggily, to find himself being carted over the cobblestones of what appeared to be a courtyard. He groaned and the Bo'sun's voice said breathlessly, close to his ear: ‘All righty, young feller, soon have you where you belong.'

‘Back . . . the ship?' Sunny asked dizzily. He was suddenly aware that he had not bought Polly's earrings – or had he been going to get a necklace? He tried to struggle free, to say he was all right, it was just the heat, and found that his arms were apparently tied to something, that he could scarcely move. He gave a squawk of alarm and forced his eyes open and realised that he was between two sturdy men – the Bo'sun was one, the other was unknown to him – being carried along with his feet trailing, his arms across their shoulders.

‘We're takin' you up to the horspital, mate,' someone said. ‘You'll be awright there – you seem to 'ave got yourself a touch of fever, you're burnin' hot, so y'are.'

Another sailor, Sunny thought. It's another sailor, from another ship, and he's helping the Bo'sun to carry me . . . where? A hospital? But I don't need a hospital, all I need is – is a nice cool bath and then my own hammock. I'll be fine after a sleep.

He tried to say this but found it was simply too much trouble, and, without remembering how he got there, he found himself being divested of his clothing by what sounded like a couple of girls, dressed in some sort of nightgown, and thrust, gently but firmly, between snowy sheets whose brilliance was so extremely painful to his burning eyes that he shut them with great determination and kept them closed. He was horribly thirsty now, though, and said so in a cracked, painful voice, and presently the soft-voiced girls brought a cup with a sort of pipe thing which they put between his lips and lovely cool liquid trickled across his parched tongue and down his burning throat.

He had barely finished the drink before a man came to the bed and addressed him in a voice of determined cheerfulness whilst heaving Sunny into a sitting position and beginning to fiddle with whatever garment – if felt like a large shirt – he was now wearing.

‘Sorry to maul you about, old fellow,' the man said heartily. ‘Dear me! Nurse, have you seen his chest?'

‘He's covered in it, doctor,' a girl's voice said. ‘His eyes hurt . . . Is it – can it be measles?'

‘My own diagnosis exactly,' the doctor said. ‘Here's one little rating who won't be sailing with his ship later today.' He turned back to Sunny, gently lowering him down the bed once more. ‘Been in contact with any sick children lately, lad? Got younger brothers and sisters, have you?'

Sunny groaned. ‘Oh my Gawd,' he mumbled disgustedly. ‘I took me girl up to the Strawb, doc, and one of the kids were all over me. I said to me pal she were burning hot – the little gal – and somehow I never did get the measles, as a sprog.'

‘Well, you've got 'em now,' the doctor said cheerfully. ‘And you'll be in quarantine for two weeks, so you can forget sailing with . . . what is it? Oh yes, the
Felix.
She'll be going on without you, if she hasn't already gone, but the captain sent a message up to say she'd call for you on her way back, when she's taken the convoy to its destination.'

‘Gone without me? Oh, but I were buyin' stuff for me pals, the fellers aboard,' Sunny said, trying to struggle up the bed once more. ‘I don't remember much . . . I'd not gorra pair of earrings for my girl . . . there was silk for me pal Martin . . .'

‘Don't you worry about a thing, or you'll be here a lot longer than a fortnight,' the doctor said reassuringly. Sunny risked a peep and found that he was a large, cheerful-looking man with very short gingery hair and a pair of amused, grey-green eyes. ‘You're going to feel pretty bad for a couple of days – measles once you're fully grown is no light matter – but you'll get excellent nursing and be up and about after a week, you mark my words. You're in a room by yourself because we've no one else with a contagious disease in at present, so make the most of the quiet to have plenty of sleep. Nurse Whitaker had measles when she was young so she will take good care of you, and mind you do what she says. Take your medicine – it's only aspirin dissolved in water, there isn't a great deal else we can give you at this stage – and you'll be fighting fit by the time your ship returns. Good day to you.'

Sunny risked another peep out of his sore and aching eyes. Nurse Whitaker was young, fair-skinned, freckled. Definitely pretty. He tried to smile at her and found, to his own astonishment, that he was tired, really tired. Seconds later, he slept.

The doctor was soon proved right. Sunny thought afterwards that he must have slept a good deal that first week, but at the end of it he was taking notice, eating whatever food was put before him and probably driving the nurses crazy by trying to persuade someone to let him go outside.

‘We've no gardens, unfortunately, space being at a premium on the Rock,' Sister told him when he fretted and fumed over being shut up indoors in his small private room all day. ‘And you're still infectious, so we can't let you go wandering about the town or the dockyards. Just be a little patient, young man. And anyway, since you spend your life cooped up on board your ship . . .'

‘That's different,' Sunny said, and was then unable to explain why. But the nurses provided him with jigsaws, copies of the English papers several days, or even weeks, old, and as much fruit as he could eat, and at last the doctor pronounced him free from infection and told him he could go to the Royal Naval Barracks and sling his hammock there until the
Felix
came back for him.