“What was your brother’s name?” Michael asked slowly, with a terrible inkling.
“Ted Maconochie. Did you know him?”
“He was in my term.”
“
Was
he. Then you know what happened?”
“Honestly, Anne . . .”
“Michael please! We had a telegram from the Admiralty and the Captain of the ship wrote to Daddy and then we had a sweet letter from someone called Lieutenant Commander Badger and then nothing more.”
“Oh, I remember this,” Stephen said. “We had a picture of the capsized boat on the middle page and ...”
“Shut up Stephen! “ Mary said fiercely.
Michael was surprised to discover that he was still able, after so long a time, to be shocked by the memory of Ted Maconochie’s death. He remembered now the dark sky, the waves crashing in their faces, Paul Vincent counting the heads, Tom Bowles’s face, and the Australian Cartwright staying underwater longer than any of them and coming up without Maconochie. He described for Anne her brother’s death.
“. . The boat just capsized and he didn’t come up with the rest of us,” he ended lamely. He was horrified to see the tears in Anne’s eyes.
“He was so keen on the Navy,” Anne said. “He was going to do so well. When his Uniform came ... I thought Mummy was going to die of pride.”
“Yes, well. . . Matters were now beyond Michael’s control. He thrust his hand through his hair and looked distractedly round the room. The couple by the gramophone had broken away from each other.
“Excuse me,” Michael said. “I think there’s someone over there I know.”
“Michael!” Mary put her hand on his arm. “You’re not going?”
“Be back in a minute.”
Michael pushed through to the gramophone.
“Hullo Paul.”
“Michael! You old son of a gun! How are you? How’s the great romance going? It’s good to see you again, Mike.” Paul Vincent was older and more handsome. His hair was greying and he had lines by his mouth and at the corners of his eyes. He was the only man present not wearing a lounge suit. He wore a red sweater, grey slacks and a black scarf. He reminded Michael of the leader of a French underground resistance cell.
“Never mind anything just now, Paul. You see that girl over there talking to Mary? She’s Ted Maconochie’s sister and I’m in trouble talking about that damn boat.”
“She’s very good-looking.”
“For God’s sake, Paul, come and help me out.” Recognizing an emergency, Paul dropped his partner and crossed the room with Michael.
“Anne, I’d like you to meet a good friend of mine, Paul Vincent. He’s also in the Navy and he was, in fact, in that boat too. He plays cricket for the Navy as well and . . . um Paul, this is Anne.”
Accelerating swiftly from Michael’s rather clumsy start, Paul took charge. He changed the subject and quickly changed Anne’s tears to smiles.
“Thank God for that,” Michael breathed. “Trust him to notice her perfume. I wish I had half his finesse.”
Mary brushed a lock of hair from Michael’s forehead. “Never mind darling. I love you just as you are. You couldn’t help that just now. It was very bad luck. And at least Paul’s got rid of Stephen.”
Paul appeared beside them carrying a couple of drinks. “My!” he said, “Fancy old Ted having a sister. I would have thought she would have been some little horror who accused respectable men in court of having raped her and had crushes on the games mistress.”
“I had a crush on my games mistress,” Mary said. “I was absolutely sponk on her.”
“You were
what
?”
“Sponk!”
“Oh, did you have that word at your school too, Mary?”
“Yes!”
Mary and Anne together fell into a fit of giggling. “You’d better have this drink, Mike,” Paul said. “The distaff side appear to be getting their intoxication by mutual support. Now tell me, what have you been doing with yourself since I last saw you?”
“Nothing wildly exciting. I thought of being a submariner but they were over-subscribed so I went as Pilot of
Octopus
doing Portland running for a year. Then I went to a coastal minesweeper and now I’m waiting for a new job. I hope to do a long ‘N’ course sometime.”
“And what about all the others? I’ve been tucked away so long learning about engineering that I’ve got completely out of touch. I haven't seen a CW. List for two years.”
“Tom Bowles and Ike Smith are both pilots. Tom’s at Lee and I think Ike’s just gone out to the Med. Raymond Ball’s a submariner in Australia. Freddie Spink is somebody’s assistant secretary in Hong Kong and George Dewberry is in Japan. What he’s doing there I can’t imagine. Colin Stacforth is Flags to C.-in-C. Rockall and Malin Approaches and Pete Cleghorn is Pilot in
Vertigo
. He’s engaged now.”
“Not to that barmaid?”
“You heard about that? No, some admiral’s offspring, I heard.”
“That’s more like Pete. Incidentally, this is something I do know hot from the press. Have you heard about The Bodger?”
“No? What about him?”
“Passed over!”
“What!”
“It’s a fact. Someone told me it was the report he got from
Barsetshire
that did it.”
“But I thought he was the blue-eyed boy there! “
“So he was, but you remember what a mad-house that ship was. The Bodger was getting on a stinker until one day about a year after we left when old Gregson suddenly announced that he wanted all cadets to be taught how to breed red setters as part of their syllabus.”
“Name of a
name
!”
“Precisely. The Bodger gave a merry laugh and then suddenly realized that the Old Man was deadly serious. It was just after a mess dinner, The Bodger had just listened to Dickie Gilpin sounding off about the Yellow Peril, he had a few grogs under his belt, so The Bodger ups and tells old Gregson that he had no objection whatsoever to cadets being taught how to breed red setters, he wondered nobody had thought of it before, they could breed red setters, white setters and sky blue pink setters for all he cared but until the appropriate B.R.s arrived he was going to stick to the syllabus as laid down.”
“Cor, the Old Man wouldn’t like that.”
“Man, that’s the understatement of the year. Gregson retired in a huff and when he came to write up The Bodger’s confidential report he not only underlined it in red he wrote the whole damn lot in red ink. So that was that.
There
was a Caesar, when comes such another? I saw in the C.W. List yesterday that he’s been appointed Resident Naval Officer in Nassau.”
“Well, that should suit The Bodger.”
“Not that Nassau. The one in the Cook Islands. In the South Pacific.”
“God.”
“It’s rugged luck all right. You know, Mike, the more I look at it the more I’m convinced that to succeed in the Service you’ve got to humour madmen. Now if The Bodger had said ‘Certainly sir, and as you’re our only expert at the moment on breeding red setters, would you mind giving the first lectures until the official books arrive and the rest of us get into the routine?’ or words to that effect, the old boy would have been tickled pink and instead of being passed over The Bodger would probably be a Captain himself by now.”
“By the way,” Michael said, “did you see that our old friend Dickie Gilpin got promoted to Captain?”
“Yes, and from what I hear he’s all set to go through for Fleet Board for Admiral, and heaven help anyone who stands in his way. All set to be First Sea Lord when the time comes. They already call him The Dauphin up at the Admiralty, I gather. My name is Richard St Clair Gilpin, what’s
your
hobby, just about describes him.”
“Someone told me he got married recently.”
“Yes, guess who to? Seamus Dogpit’s daughter. You remember Seamus, the old buffer at the Interview. Dickie never misses a trick.”
“Something tells me we’re being a bit catty. As bad as women in fact.”
“Have you two quite finished talking shop?” Mary asked.
“Quite finished, my dear Mary,” Paul said, “and as this is a deadly party, I can’t think what’s happened to Sonia since she teamed up with that fellow in the Fusiliers, her parties always used to be good for at least one rape and a couple of unnatural offences to speak of nothing better, she’s quite gone to the dogs, I think we’ll all say our tender good-byes and hop round to the Grenadier for a pint with the proletariat. Coming, Anne?”
“But Paul, I came with Stephen.”
“So?”
“I can’t just go off and leave him.”
“Why ever not? That’s what boy-friends are for. No self-respecting girl ever expects to be taken away from a party by the man who brought her. No girl except Mary, that is. You are self-respecting, aren’t you, Mary? She always comes with Michael and wherever they go they sit and make eyes at each other and tell each other it’s too good to last and a very good line it is too. Breaks the shock when it comes.” Paul took Anne firmly by the hand and forced his way over to the door. Michael and Mary caught him up as he was saying his tender good-byes.
“Dear Sonia,” he was saying, “if you must live in sin with the brutal and licentious Fusiliery you might at least preserve the decencies and make him take his shaving soap out of your wash-cabinet. Of course I looked. I always look. Good-bye all.”
“Is he always like this?” Anne asked Michael.
“Never mind, he’s not serious.”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
Michael groaned.
“Come on,” Paul said. “Stop dithering and we might have time for what my old friend Raymond Ball used to call a little bit of
je ne sais quoi
.’’
“What’s that, Paul?” Anne asked.
“Never you mind. Ask and it shall be given unto you, seek and ye shall find.”
Michael groaned again.
Inside the Admiralty, big wheels moved, small wheels spun and tiny wheels made tea. The mighty organism gave a shiver and a heave and belched forth a buff envelope which dropped through the Hobbes’s front door and expired on the door mat.
The envelope contained a loose folder of papers which gave Michael Hobbes some diverting reading.
The first sheet informed Michael that he should already have been inoculated, vaccinated or otherwise safeguarded against cholera, typhoid, typhus, yellow fever, tetanus and dysentery. The reverse side of the sheet listed times and places in Newcastle where injections were given. Across the bottom of the page a rubber stamp asked of Michael: “Has your baby been immunized?”
Next was a memo from A.D. of A.M.R.O.B. (C) to Ass. P. Sec. CINC EASTMED STRIKLANTNORD. It was handwritten in green ink and enquired--”What time does Mugsy usually get back from lunch?”
The third and fourth sheets were cuttings from The Sporting Times giving the runners, jockeys and ante-post prices at Bogside, Lingfield and Pontefract.
The contents of the folder were completed by a copy of the Highway Code, an F.A. Cup Final programme, a packet of Jescot Jim dahlia seeds and a coloured picture of St Stephen the Martyr being stoned.
The whole collection of papers gave the impression that it had been compiled by a civil servant about to go on holiday who had thought it an excellent opportunity to clear out his trays.
The last and smallest piece of paper, which had been left behind when Michael tipped out the rest, informed Michael that he was appointed Lieutenant, Royal Navy, to H.M.S.
Carousel
, additional for passage and vice Rowlands, to join H.M.T.
Astrakhan
in uniform at Southampton catching the boat train leaving Waterloo at noon. He was to acknowledge receipt of these instructions
forthwith
to the Director of Movements, Admiralty, and to the Commanding Officer, H.M.S.
Carousel
, taking care to furnish his address.
Michael rang up Mary.
“Hullo, is that you?” Michael sometimes wished he was more fluent at starting telephone conversations.
“Yes, it’s me, darling, how are you?”
“I’m fine, how are you?”
“You don’t sound fine. Has something happened?”
“My thing from the Admiralty has come.”
“Oh Michael. What is it?”
“It’s
Carousel
. A cruiser. At least, I suppose you could call it a cruiser.”
“Where is she? In the Home Fleet?”
“No, she’s gone out to the Far East.”
“The Far East! Michael!”
“I know. . .
“When do you have to go?”
“Now don’t get all worked up about it. . .
“
When
, Michael?”
“The seventeenth. A week on Friday.”
“A
week!
“
“Yes. Honestly Mary, there’s no need to get all steamed up just because. . .
Michael at last hung up quickly, knowing that Mary was about to burst into tears. He felt vaguely piqued by her attitude; anyone would think he was going on a suicide mission of no return instead of taking up a perfectly normal appointment in a perfectly normal ship which happened to be at the other end of nowhere. Michael went away to look up Hong Kong in the atlas.
Paul Vincent received his appointment by the afternoon post. His had no gay portfolio attachments but consisted of a single sheet of paper: Paul was appointed Lieutenant (E), Royal Navy, to H.M.S.
Carousel
, additional for passage and vice Cardew. The appointment was written in stern handwriting, with hard vicious strokes of the pen, as though it had been written by a civil servant just returned from holiday.
Paul read the appointment watched by his mother and Cedric, her stockbroker. Mrs Vincent was not pleased when she was told.
“Far East!”
she said. “They must be mad! The Van Baxters will be furious. I promised them we would all be at Sandra’s wedding. I’m going to give Seamus a ring and tell him not to be such an idiot! What was the name of the ship that stupid man at the Admiralty promised you, darling? Now, I wonder what Seamus’s number is? I used to know them all. . .
“Mother,” Paul said firmly, “you’ll telephone your boyfriends at the Admiralty over my dead body.”
“And over mine,” said Cedric heartily.
“Cedric!”
“I’m sorry Louise, but for once I entirely agree with your son. It would be most bad policy to approach anyone at the Admiralty over this. It would smack of nepotism, and rightly so. In any case, it will do Paul a power of good to serve in the Far East. Put the fear of God into the Chinks too, I’ve no doubt.”