Ship of Force (12 page)

The horse slowed from a trot to a walk and a cab rolled alongside him, keeping pace. He did not notice it until she called “Commander!”

He turned and saw the face of Eleanor Hurst at the pulleddown window of the cab and stared at that face, a pale smudge in the darkness of the cab with the eyes catching the faintest of light. The cab stopped and so did he. She said, “If that’s the only uniform you have then you’d better keep it dry.” She pushed the door open.

He still stared at her but after a moment he stumbled into the cab and sat in a corner and the cab jolted away. He did not say “Thank you”. They sat in silence as the horse alternately trotted and walked eastward through the dimly-lit streets, it seemed for a long time. When the cab stopped for good it was in a street hard by the river, a cobbled street flanked by warehouses, but slotted between two of them was a little house. It looked to have been one of a terrace, the rest torn down on either side to make room for the warehouses. Its front door opened from the pavement without any garden or yard before it. A knocker and handle gleamed brassily and above the door was a fanlight.

Eleanor Hurst was down before he could precede her. The cabbie said, “One and tuppence, sir.” Smith fumbled out his change and handed up three sixpences. “Thank ye, guv. G’night.”

Eleanor had gone and the door stood open. He passed through and found himself in a sitting-room. There was a fire in the grate and before it a guard. In the firelight he saw her standing by the table in the middle of the small room, reaching up. She said, “Close the door.” As he did so there was the snap of a match, then the brief hiss and
plop
! as the gas ignited and lit the room. He saw that at the back of it was a door that led to a kitchen. To his left a flight of stairs ran up out of the sitting-room to the floor above.

She still held the burning match in her fingers and looked at him over its flame until it burned down and she shook it out, dropped it in the fire-place.

“Would you like a drink, Commander?” She nodded to a glass-fronted cabinet that held a row of bottles, a syphon. Her voice was different now, husky. He shook his head, still standing by the door.

At the foot of the stairs she paused, her back to him. “Commander. What’s your name? Your first name?”

“David.”

She nodded and went up the stairs.

He should leave. This was a strange young woman; not bold, nor wild, but too cool. He knew nothing of her. He had got himself into trouble enough. The door was behind him. He was still wondering, hesitating, when she called him.

“David?” A question. Asked of herself? Doubting?

He went up to her.

* * *

In the night she woke and lifted on to one elbow to look down at him. She wondered if he thought she took home every man she met. At home in Dorset some had said that the Hurst girl would come to no good. She looked at him and thought they could be right but he had looked so — lost. Now he slept as if drugged but she was afraid and slid over on top of him, woke him, demanded him.

* * *

He stayed with her for the rest of his leave. On the first day he paid his bill at the hotel and brought back his valise and stood it against the wall close by the door. They took a train into the country and walked. Or they wandered down by the river. They did not go to the West End, to its shows or its restaurants. They went to bed when it suited them and lay late in the mornings. They did not talk much, but enough. He found she was cool and she was wild and she was bold. He thought he learned a great deal about her but in fact he did not.

On the second day of his leave they took a cab to the house of a distant cousin of Eleanor’s. He was in France with the Royal Flying Corps and they borrowed his motor-car. In the cab Eleanor said, “It’s a fourteen-horse Foy Steele two-seater with a double dickey-seat behind.”

Smith said, “Oh.” And: “There’s a chauffeur?”

“A
chauffeur
? No!” She laughed. “Why?”

“Well, I can’t steer one of the things. Never tried.”

“That’s all right. Driving is what I do. I drive a Staff car, carting Generals and what-not all over London. Just at the moment I’m on leave.” She glanced at him, amused but with an edge to her voice now. “Or did you think I spent my time comforting lonely officers?”

“Good God, no!” said Smith, startled at the thought. “To tell you the truth I hadn’t thought about you doing anything — although everybody seems to have a job now.”

She drove him out of London in the Foy Steele and they explored the lanes of Surrey, lunched at a pub and walked in Oxshott woods. In the end she persuaded him to try to drive and it took little persuasion. He was eager. Only the certainty that he would make a fool of himself in front of a girl caused him to hesitate. Then he thought that it didn’t matter if he
did
look a fool in front of this girl. She explained the workings of the clutch, gears and brakes and how to start and to adjust the mixture and he made a terrible bash of it. But finally he got something of the hang of it and took it careering for two or three miles until a near-collision with a farm cart decided Eleanor that it was enough for one day.

They drove back to London and left the car in its garage, ate dinner at a quiet restaurant and walked back to the little house.

That night she was afraid but did not tell him, clung to him.

They woke muzzily to the rumble and clank of the ironwheeled milk cart with its churns and heard the boy come running to take their can, fill it and replace it on the front-door step. Between sleeping and waking he stared through half-open eyes at the ceiling and thought that today he had to go back to the flotilla. He thought about
Sparrow
and
Marshall Marmont
, and the U-boat commander, and young Morris, the airman…He hoped Naval Intelligence would make some sense of his report. He could not. But it haunted him.
Schwertträger
…
Hinterrücks anfallen
…
Springtau
…He mumbled, “Damn silly. Skipping-rope!”

“What?” She turned and rolled into his arms.

“A word. German.
Springtau, springtie
, something like that. Sanders said it meant skipping-rope.”

“
Springtij
isn’t German. I’d have thought you knew that one, being a salty sailor.” She snuggled into him.

“Not German?”

“No. It’s Flemish.”

He stared down at her. “How do you know?”

“Because my grandmother was Belgian and I’ve lived there a lot. I speak Flemish like I speak English. I said so that night at the Savoy but I don’t suppose you heard me with that woman bawling in your ear.
Springtij
is the extra high tide you get once or twice a month.”

“Twice.” He was wide awake now. Flemish.
Springtij
. Spring tide. The exceptionally high twice-monthly tide. He rolled away from her and out of her bed, pulled on his bath-robe over his nakedness and made for the door.

She sat up in the bed. “Where are you going?”

“To make a cup of tea! Breakfast! I’ve thought of something I must tell the Admiralty!” His voice came up from the stairs.

“What have you thought of?”

“Can’t tell you!” Flemish! Of course! The U-boat was out of a Flanders port and her commander had picked up the local term.

Eleanor Hurst said, “Oh!” He was leaving her today but she had known he would. She huddled down in the bed, shivering.

* * *

He told Intelligence about the spring tide because they had asked him to tell them anything he remembered but it did not help. A spring tide — but where? Flanders? Maybe. But then what? They were no nearer solving the puzzle. He left the Admiralty and ran to catch a passing cab. He had to return to Dunkerque — but first he must go to Eleanor Hurst’s house. He was ready to go back to sea but reluctant to say farewell to Eleanor Hurst. He worried at it as the cab rolled eastwards. How deep was her feeling towards him? He did not want to hurt her — and then he told himself coldly that he should have thought of that before. If he’d hurt her, then he was sorry. He had wanted her and taken her but — love? He was not sure, wary of the word.

“Wot ship, Cap’n?”

“Free cheers for the Nivy.”

He was jerked out of his abstraction. The cab had slowed to round a corner and a group of urchins, ragged and dirty and mostly bare-foot ran alongside. He grinned, lifted a hand in salute and they cheered. A tiny girl shrieked, “Touch your collar for luck!” But Smith was no bluejacket with a collar to touch and the cab was trotting on now, leaving them behind.

And his thoughts turned not to Eleanor Hurst but to
Marshall Marmont
and
Sparrow
. His mind was busy with them when the cab pulled up at the door of the little house and he jumped down and threw at the cabbie: “Wait!” He dug into his pocket for the key and opened the door. The house was still, the sitting-room and the kitchen beyond were empty. “Eleanor?” He called her name again as he ran up the stairs, tapped at the bedroom door and went in. She was where he had left her in the bed, curled small, her face turned towards the window.

He said tentatively, “Eleanor? Don’t you feel well?”

“I’m not ill.” The answer was flat and she did not look at him.

He went to sit on the edge of the bed and said awkwardly, “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“All right.” Her voice came muffled.

He was lost for words, knew vaguely what he wanted to say but not how to say it. He was sorry and grateful, fond of her. He picked up the leather case that held his razor, lather-brush and tooth-brush and glanced around but there wasn’t anything else. He looked at her and then down at the case and finally he said inadequately, “Thank you.” He tried again: “I won’t be far away and if I get leave I could come and —”

She said harshly, “No! You’re off to the bloody war and you won’t come back to me. Go away!”

There was a hammering at the door and the hoarse voice of the cabman called, “How long are you goin’ to be, guv? ‘Cos I’m booked for one o’ my regulars an’ I can’t ’ang abaht!”

“Coming!” Smith shouted it. He turned back to the girl but she neither moved nor spoke. He stared at her helplessly. She had known what he was and that he would have to leave her. What had changed her? Only a few short hours ago…He burst out, “What the
hell’s
the matter? What did you expect?”

She twisted in the bed and flung at him, “This! This is what I expected and I asked for it! Now get out!”

He shook his head, bewildered, and as the cabman banged again on the door said unhappily, “Well. Goodbye.”

He walked down the stairs, jammed the leather case into his valise and opened the door to the cabman. “Take the bag out, will you?” The cabman heaved the valise into the cab. Smith put the key on the hall-stand, picked up his cap and closed the door behind him.

He said, “Victoria, please,” and climbed into the cab. It lurched away as the horse broke into a weary trot. Smith ran his hand through his hair and jammed on his cap. He was sorry, and angry because he did not see what he had to be sorry for. It was a hell of a way to part. He glanced at his watch. There was a train he could just catch. If he went back to her now he would miss it. But for Eleanor, though, he would have spent the last two days wandering the city and making polite conversation with strangers because he would not impose on Sanders or the one or two like him. And there was more to it than that.

He shouted up at the driver, “Stop!”

The cabbie hauled on the reins, grumbling.

Smith looked out of the rear window and saw another cab leaving the house. A man stood at the door of the house, an Army officer, cap in hand. The door was opened and he stepped inside and out of sight.

Smith faced his front, staring blankly ahead. He could not believe it. She would not acquire another man, another lover so soon. It had to be coincidence…though she
had
known when Smith would leave because he had told her.

The cabbie complained, “Look ‘ere, guv’nor —”

“All right! Get on!” The violence in the tone jerked the cabbie back in his seat. Smith glared ahead. That was that. Now there were only the ships, his command. But he would not forget her. Besides, he had recognised the officer, the tall young man in the red-tabbed uniform of a Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff: Hacker…

It was only much later, staring out of the window of a train crowded with troops that he thought he was no nearer guessing the meaning of
Schwertträger
. And now a new dimension had been added: Spring tide. If the tide was significant then a time was set. But what time? And what was the threat? It was as if Eleanor Hurst’s casual words had set a clock ticking. And there was nothing he could do about it.

* * *

She had run down the stairs with her robe clutched about her carelessly, thinking the knock at the door meant Smith had returned. Then she said, “You’d better come in.”

Hacker stood by the table and said, “I have to go back to Dunkerque. What is your answer?”

She wondered if Smith had known she was afraid and did not believe so. He had taken what he wanted and what he needed and because she had not summoned up a brave smile to speed him on his way he had gone away miserably certain he had hurt her. She had learned a lot about him, knew that he wanted to be gentle. Well, she just wasn’t feeling very brave, he had been leaving her alone and at the end her nerve cracked and she lashed out at him.

But she wouldn’t crack again. She pulled the robe closer about her, looked up at the tall soldier and nodded. “Yes.”

* * *

For Smith it was back to sea and the grind of patrols.
Marshall Marmont
he used as a floating base as she swung to her anchor in Dunkerque Roads.
Sparrow
always had a sprinkling of men from the monitor aboard her, giving some of
Sparrow
’s crew a comparative rest aboard
Marshall Marmont
. And that was just as well because
Sparrow
did more patrols than any other ship in Trist’s command. And some of the monitor’s men got firsthand experience of patrol work and even tasted the excitement of a U-boat stalk, though it was unsuccessful. But as McGraw told them philosophically as they stood down after the action, weary and deflated, “Still, the bastard didn’t get us, either.” The torpedo had missed
Sparrow
by scant feet.