The Restless Sea, page 12
‘It’ll come around soon enough,’ says Gladys, who is always immaculately turned out. She has kind eyes and a genuine smile. Her best friend Maggie is fiery haired and fiery tempered as well as curvaceous: she looks as if she’s about to burst out of her uniform at any moment, the buttons straining at her chest. The three of them are lying on the lawn, soaking up the warm sunshine.
‘We’ve been talking to your aunt,’ says Maggie.
‘You never told us you had a friend in the Fleet Air Arm,’ says Gladys.
‘What squadron is he in?’
‘Eight-five-eight,’ says Olivia. ‘Fairey Swordfish.’
‘Any idea where he is now?’
Olivia shakes her head.
‘I wonder if he was involved in the Taranto raid. That was all Swordfish. Incredible, those old bi-planes … Who’d have thought it?’
‘Wasn’t Taranto the first all-aircraft attack by our Navy?’
Gladys nods. ‘Not only that, they destroyed half of the Italian Navy’s capital ships and gave us the upper hand in the Med …’
‘I don’t think that was Charlie’s squadron,’ says Olivia. ‘Or if it was, I don’t think he was involved. The Fleet Air Arm have been helping out over London.’
Both Wrens grimace. ‘God knows the RAF needed them.’
They are silent for a moment.
‘I take it he wasn’t flying stringbags over London?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. And I’m sure he’d be offended if he knew you were calling them “stringbags” …’
‘It’s what we all call them. Said with much love …’
‘Unless he’s got no sense of humour …?’
‘Actually, he has a great sense of humour.’
‘Don’t tell me he’s handsome too?’
‘Has he got a girlfriend?’ Maggie primps her hair as if styling it in a mirror.
Gladys squints at Olivia. ‘You’re a dark horse,’ she says. ‘You never told us you were sweet on anyone.’
‘I’m not! He’s more like a brother …’
‘That’s a classic hedging line!’
‘It’s true …’
‘Keeping him all to yourself, eh?’ says Maggie.
‘That’s enough from you,’ says Gladys. ‘You’ve got Rob.’
‘And Danny,’ says Olivia.
‘I don’t believe you should focus all your efforts on one man.’
‘We can see that.’
‘And if you really are going to confine yourself to one – then you’ve got to try the goods before you commit. Otherwise you may be in for a lifetime of disappointment.’
Gladys shakes her head, laughing. ‘You’re incorrigible,’ she says, pushing Maggie in the shoulder so that she falls back on to the grass.
‘Don’t you act all innocent with me,’ says Maggie. ‘I know you’ve enjoyed the odd fumble after lights-out.’
‘I’m not quite in your league, though, am I?’
Olivia goes to fetch a jug of water, taking the opportunity to wind up the gramophone again and avoid the conversation. She suddenly feels foolish next to these liberated girls who know so much about relationships and men. Charlie is the closest thing she’s ever had to a boyfriend, and she couldn’t exactly call him that. He really is more like a brother. She enjoys his company, but she could never imagine …
She wanders slowly back out, sipping her drink, watching the others lean back on their elbows and look out across the loch. The swallows flit up and disappear into the eaves of the house. The gramophone scratches to a stop. Peace descends for seconds, but is broken by the drone of a plane. A Junkers 88 appears, a growing dot in the distance. They are such a common sight now that the girls just lie there, watching it approach. The planes usually circle the loch on reconnaissance and then disappear back to Norway again.
Suddenly Gladys jumps up and grabs hold of Olivia’s arm. ‘Inside! Now!’ she yells as she starts dragging Olivia towards the cottage. ‘Kitchen table!’
But Olivia resists, standing motionless, enthralled as she sees the first tiny charge drop towards earth. This is no reconnaissance plane. Maggie pushes her: ‘Come on,’ she says and Olivia starts to run, but can’t help glancing back to watch the tiny bomb float down, down, and then explode among the ships on the loch. The bang of the anti-aircraft guns starts to fill her ears, tracer fire trailing up through the air. But the plane avoids the bullets and carries on. Boom, boom, boom, the heavy anti-aircraft guns go, almost drowning out the sound of the lighter batteries. The sound is deafening: there are guns positioned all around the loch now, and the noise echoes and ricochets around them. The ground shudders. But still the bomber flies on. It drops its next bombs: one near the school, and then one more as it flies on towards the hills.
‘Mac!’ Olivia says, because the last bomb looks as though it has landed smack bang on the farm. And Hans, she is thinking. And although her heart is racing and her legs feel like jelly, she runs back out into the open.
‘Leave it,’ says Gladys, but Olivia ignores her and races away to her bicycle.
As she draws nearer the farm, she meets Mac. ‘We’re all right, lassie. It landed in the east paddock. We’re going up there now to have a look. You’d better go and check on the pony.’
Inside the stable Thistle is sweating and rolling his eyes, pacing around the stall, throwing his head up and down. But Hans is not there. His boots have gone, as have the saved rations and one of Uncle Howard’s coats. All that is left is a word scrawled on a piece of paper – Danke – and his watch, which she later hides deep in a drawer like a guilty secret.
Olivia is glad that she no longer has to lie, but she is downcast too – losing Hans is like losing a friend as well as losing a bit of excitement in her life. For a while she keeps away from everybody, spending her time fixing old lines and hooks, sanding down the rowing boat and repainting it, renewing the clusters of corks she uses for buoyancy and markers in the water, cleaning Thistle’s tack. And then one morning, the grim, flat shape of an aircraft carrier carves its way into the loch, and Olivia drops what she is doing and runs up to the house. Aunt Nancy is already out on the drive, waving at her. ‘It’s Charlie!’ she says. ‘They’re refuelling. They’ll only be here for twenty-four hours, but it’s better than nothing. Do go and meet him! He’d be thrilled.’
Olivia cycles the six miles to Aultbea. At first, it’s hard to make him out among the rest of the men in the launch as it gradually draws closer to the jetty. They are a blur of matching navy uniforms and caps. But then an arm goes up, and she can see Charlie’s smile as he leaps on shore to the ribbing of his shipmates. Most of the men disperse to the hotel for drinks and relaxation. Charlie and Olivia hitch a ride back towards Taigh Mor, but have to walk the last bit from Tournaig, pushing the bicycle between them.
‘Thanks for coming to meet me,’ he says.
‘You’re only here for a short time. Got to make the most of it.’
They walk on in silence, Olivia glancing up at him occasionally. He looks tired, and there are faint lines across his forehead.
The last mile is downhill, and Charlie says, ‘How about I pedal, and you sit on the handlebars?’
‘I’m far too heavy.’
‘Don’t be silly. Come on. I could probably lift you with one arm …’
He makes a move towards her and she backs away, laughing. ‘Don’t even think about it …’
‘Get on the handlebars, and I won’t.’
Olivia arranges herself on the handlebars, giggling as she tries to keep her legs free of the front wheels and leaning some of her weight on Charlie behind her, who almost has to lean on her shoulder to be able to see past. The bicycle wobbles beneath her as Charlie finds his balance. ‘Ready?’ he says.
She giggles again. ‘Ready.’
Olivia trusts Charlie enough to enjoy the rush of the wind catching in her throat, and the glimpse of woodland and rock and flash of water as they descend. She is happy to hear his laugh in her ear and to feel the comforting warmth of his shoulder supporting her back.
Clarkson has pulled out all the stops, and the dining table is laid with a feast. There are three other officers eating with them, and Olivia’s awkwardness returns as she sits at the formal table in her bare feet and tatty clothes. The chink and rattle of cutlery and plates seems old-fashioned and staid. She doesn’t join in the conversation, but watches Charlie instead, noticing that the corner of his eye sometimes flickers. Whenever it happens, he tries to hide it with his hand.
‘Did you hear about those spies that were apprehended at Portgordon station the other day?’ says Aunt Nancy, before handing around the cheese.
‘On the east coast?’ says Charlie.
One of the officers nods. ‘Pretty hopeless spies. Could barely speak a word of English, and their clothes were soaking wet,’ he says.
They all laugh.
‘Actually, we found an empty dinghy along the coast here,’ says another officer.
‘Luftwaffe?’ Charlie asks, his eye starting to twitch again. Olivia passes the board on to her neighbour, suddenly not hungry.
‘Yes. No sign of an occupant, but it does make you wonder how we can police the whole coast.’
‘You don’t think he escaped?’ says Charlie.
The man shakes his head. ‘I should think someone finished him off before he made it to shore – if he ever got into it in the first place.’
‘Just killed a downed pilot in cold blood?’ says Olivia. ‘That’s awful.’
The men go silent and stare at her as if only seeing her for the first time. Her cheeks burn.
‘It’s hardly cold blood,’ says one of them.
‘But I thought there were rules … Geneva …’
Aunt Nancy clears her throat. ‘Time we all got on,’ she says, folding her napkin before putting it on the table. ‘Lunch has dragged, and Charlie must be desperate to stretch his legs.’ She rises, and Charlie rises too, helping to pull her chair back.
On the way down to the bothy, Olivia says, ‘Do you think it’s right? Would you kill a man in a lifeboat?’
‘Of course I don’t think it’s right,’ says Charlie. ‘But the truth is, you don’t know what you’d do until you’re faced with it …’
‘Imagine if it was you in the dinghy?’
‘Let’s hope it never is.’
‘Of course. Sorry. It’s just so horrible.’
‘It’s war,’ says Charlie.
‘But they’re only German, for goodness sakes. We were all being sent to German finishing schools only a couple of years ago.’
‘It’s not the Germans that are the problem. It’s the Nazis that they’re fighting for.’
‘So not all Germans are evil and dangerous?’
He sighs, exasperated. ‘I’m sure they’re not. But the fact is, we are at war with them. They are the enemy. That’s how you have to look at it.’
‘But to them, we are the enemy. Does that make us bad too?’
Charlie’s eye is twitching again. ‘Let’s stop talking about things you don’t understand,’ he says.
‘But I’d like to understand.’
‘There’s no need to concern yourself with such things. Leave that up to us.’
‘Who? The Navy?’
‘All the armed forces who are protecting this country.’
‘And all of us poor, helpless women.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘What did you mean it like?’
‘I’m sad that the world isn’t safe for you.’
‘It’s exciting.’
‘Exciting?’ He shakes his head. ‘Sometimes you do sound very young.’
Cross, Olivia picks a piece of long grass from the side of the track and starts to pull it apart, strip by strip.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. Let’s talk about something else?’
‘You think that you know everything, and you don’t,’ she says, still tearing at the grass.
‘Of course I don’t know everything, but you’re obviously thinking of something specific. What is it?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Don’t tell me you’ve got a German stashed away somewhere?’
‘Of course not.’ She wishes she could stop the blush that is beginning to spread across her cheeks.
‘What, then? What don’t I know? Come on.’
She falters, clutching at straws, anything to throw him off the scent. ‘I think Aunt Nancy could be a spy,’ she says finally.
He throws his head back and laughs.
‘Why is it funny? You should see the sorts of people who come and go. It’s not all uniforms and brigadiers, you know. And she’s so damn secretive sometimes.’
‘Of course she is. She’s working for the SOE.’
Olivia looks blank.
‘You know – Churchill’s Secret Army?’
Olivia still looks blank.
‘The Special Operations Executive.’
‘Doing what?’
‘It wouldn’t be secret if we knew.’
‘I thought she was something to do with the FANYs.’
‘She was. The SOE recruited a handful of FANYs from the last war. She’s quite some woman, your aunt.’
‘But what could she be doing secretly up here?’
‘I assume it’s something to do with getting men in and out of occupied Norway. She has a wide knowledge of this area, and the men who know these waters.’
‘So she is a sort of spy?’
‘I suppose …’
Olivia mulls things over in her head. ‘I wonder if I’d make a good spy?’ she says eventually.
‘I doubt it.’
‘Why?’
‘Far too innocent and easy to read. Just like your letters.’ He smiles at her.
She smiles back, but she looks away, in case he should see an image of Hans walking across the hills in one of Uncle Howard’s overcoats there.
Charlie doesn’t want to do anything for the rest of the afternoon except sit on the lawn in front of the bothy. He doesn’t want to go out on the boat or up into the hills. Instead, they play cards and listen to the gramophone, but conversation is stilted. It is still easier to be familiar in letters than face to face, and Olivia is still aggrieved that he seems to regard her as so young and naïve. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to come up to the rowan pool?’ she says. ‘It’s a lovely day. It might do us both some good.’
Charlie shakes his head, and his eye twitches. ‘There’s no time,’ he says, frowning across the water. ‘I’m going to have to get back to my ship.’
‘Do you know where you’re headed this time?’
He shrugs. ‘Back to the Atlantic, I think. I don’t care. I’m back with my squadron, that’s all that matters.’
‘Was London really horrific?’
He nods.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
He shakes his head.
‘You should, you know. A problem shared …’
‘Will you come and wave me off?’ he says.
‘Of course.’
They scramble to their feet, leaving the crumpled outlines of their bodies on the grass. They hitch a lift to Aultbea in the back of a Bedford truck, lugging Olivia’s bicycle up into it so that she can cycle home later. At the pier, he takes her face in his hands and kisses her forehead, a paternal gesture. ‘Make sure you look after yourself,’ he says. ‘Keep your rifle with you. Don’t go near any strangers. Don’t go into the hills. Don’t go where people can’t see you.’
‘Look around,’ she says. ‘The place is crawling with Wrens and soldiers and sailors … not to mention Aunt Nancy. It’s probably the safest place in the country. I’m much more worried about you.’
‘Don’t worry about me,’ he says, pulling his hat down firmly. ‘I’m invincible.’ It is easy to believe looking at him now, no sign of a twitch. ‘Just keep those letters coming.’
As he makes his way to the launch, Olivia cycles on to the end of the road at Leacan Donna. She drops her bicycle before the checkpoint, avoiding it by climbing up into the hill behind Mellon Charles. Behind her, the loch is pockmarked with ships. Instead of the cries of seabirds, the air is thick with clanking chains and the shouts of men and whir of motors. The tugs open the boom defence to allow Charlie’s ship out into the wide ocean. Minesweepers trail their thick cables in the water as the aircraft carrier ploughs on. Opposite her, on the other side of the mouth of the loch, there is now a battery of anti-aircraft men, hidden in ugly concrete pillboxes cemented into the large boulders that tumble down to the water, where the seals used to sunbathe in the summer. She scans the sea, a crinkled expanse of liquid silver set beneath a granite sky, danger lurking beneath its waves. And suddenly she wishes it would all go away, and that things could go back to how they were, to the peace and quiet of a hidden loch, and an innocence that her family had tried to protect.
CHAPTER 8
Jack
Jack has seen plenty of ships before, but none like this one. She is of a bygone age: her smart black paint is spotless, her three masts are beautifully polished wood reaching up into the mist, ropes and ladders suspended between them like an elaborate spider’s web. There is some kind of figurehead – a woman? It is hard to tell. The ship is so perfectly balanced and elegantly rigged that it looks as though if you snipped one of those ropes, the whole thing would come crashing down. Beneath her vast hull the turgid water of the Gloucester canal seems viscous, like oil. Behind him, the River Severn swirls and veers towards the sea.
The ship is a sea training school, running free three-month courses to turn boys into seamen. Jack and Carl are part of a sorry-looking group staring up at her from the towpath. The selection process did not seem too rigorous – a matter of convincing a man in a white coat that he could read and tell the difference between the colours red, green, and white. Merchant seamen are in much demand. If they pass, they should be guaranteed an apprenticeship on a ship. Jack could be travelling the world in a matter of weeks.
