“Number One? Number One, what are those Lewis gun mounts still doing there?” Hardy said. “I ordered them cut off a year ago. Why hasn’t it been done?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Land said. Hardy had ordered no such thing.
“Don’t know? Don’t know? Well, by God, you’d better find out.” Several of the seamen present on the bridge slid as far away as they could. “Can’t leave this ship for a moment, Number One. Not a moment. And here,” Hardy moved quickly to the binnacle. “Look at this. Filthy. Have it cleaned. Bloody shame if we got lost because I couldn’t see through the grime covering this thing.”
“Indeed it would, sir,” Land said calmly, catching a yeoman’s eye. The exchange was simple enough — have someone see to it. “By the way, sir,” Land said. “The engines are in top form. Number Two hasn’t given us a bit of problem. I think we could run her out a bit without a worry.” Land waited for the explosion, but Hardy was lost in thought.
“What? Fine, fine. We’ll run her out and toss Courtney over the side if the bloody thing fouls.” Hardy looked around surreptitiously and nodded at Land to join him at the windscreen. “Now, see here, Number One,” Hardy said. “I need a bit of discretion on your part.”
“Discretion, sir?” Land asked. He couldn’t resist the urge to torment Hardy.
“Yes!” Hardy said, biting the word off. He dropped his voice and said: “The truth of the matter is, I’ve been keeping company with a young lady.”
“Indeed, sir?”
“Yes. Quite a respectable lady. We’ve…” Hardy arranged the words carefully. “We’ve reached a sort of understanding.”
“Why, that’s splendid, sir,” Land said, generating what he felt was sufficient emotion to deceive Hardy into thinking the situation was a total surprise. It was not. First the men knew that Old Georgie was escorting a lady about town, and then the officers learned from the men that apparently their captain was quite smitten with Miss Schiffer; that was her name, and she owned a dry-goods store or some such establishment, with her brother Topper, a right fine fellow. Old Georgie and Miss Schiffer were seen at the cinema and once at the play, and Hardy had looked uncomfortable at both places, but he was most solicitous of Miss Schiffer. Maybe it wasn’t a dry-goods store, the W/T finally conceded, but that wasn’t important.
The important thing was the Captain’s Lady Lottery. It started in the gunnery division, from someone at B turret everyone agreed, and swept above decks, getting down to the black gang who felt somewhat irritated that they hadn’t been in on it in the beginning. The officers knew about it but declined to let the men know that they knew about it because it would appear unseemly if they were involved.
That is why they created The Hardy Steeplechase. It worked much the same as the lottery, but instead of wagering on the day that Old Georgie would pop the question, it rather pessimistically suggested that Hardy’s lady would toss him after a proscribed number of jumps — each jump being a certain number of days into the relationship. The first jump was called The Hat, after the famous bowler that Hardy donned when Firedancer went into action. That was just one week. A sub-lieutenant and an ensign quickly chose the second jump, The Dartmouth Tumble, and Courtney down in engineering, after wrapping himself in a cloak of calm deliberation, finally chose the third jump, Their Lordships Two-Step — named after the manner in which their Lordships of the Admiralty cagily avoided giving Hardy command of a destroyer squadron. The whole romantic interlude was calculated by the crew of Firedancer to last no more than a month, with the jumps strategically placed, but those who settled on early dates regretted their lack of faith in Hardy.
Land, who had known Hardy for some time, smiled when he was asked his opinion of the captain’s domestic turn and what jump he thought that Hardy would be bumped off. He never spoke of it, and a simple glance from him would change the subject in the Ward Room, but he knew something that the others did not. George Hardy was deeply in love. He saw it when Hardy lost his train of thought in mid-statement and regained it only when his brow wrinkled over his own confusion. Land saw it as Hardy stood on the bridge, his stance strong and unyielding, but with a natural ease that came from contentment.
George Hardy was in love.
“Yes,” Hardy agreed with Land’s comment. “Yes. I think it quite splendid as well.”
A yeoman of signals cleared his throat behind them. “Beg pardon, sir,” he said, holding out an envelope. “But this just came straight over from base.”
Land took it without Hardy having to tell him to do so, and dismissed the yeoman. He opened the envelope and read the single sheet of paper. “It appears as if our running out has been advanced a bit, sir,” Land said, handing the message to Hardy. “They’ve got us on escort duty again, Convoy D-4. Some Yanks are planning a landing drill at Lyme Bay. It’s to be called Operation Sunset.”
“Well, easy enough,” Hardy said. “Good way to get those engines warmed up.” He read the message. “Nine LSTs,” he said, “and the Huston, a Hunt Class. Shouldn’t be too difficult to handle, should it, Number One?”
“No, sir,” Land said. “I doubt we’d see any mischief in Lyme Bay.”
Chapter 18
“We will go hunting,” Reubold said in response to Kapitanleutnant Mueller’s question. Mad Mueller, irrational, quick-tempered; he was built like a boxer: compact and resolute, his fists battered and scarred. Not all of his fights were successful, but all of them were fought with joyful enthusiasm. Kapitanleutnant Fritz, silent, thoughtful, sat next to him in the classroom of the former museum, once a château, now the headquarters of Flotilla 11. Kapitanleutnant Draheim nudged Fritz for a cigarette, and Fritz grudgingly handed one over. Fritz was notoriously tight — the other officers constantly badgered him for cigarettes, socks, anything that they knew he was loath to give out, just to see him boil silently. Draheim, “Musikmaat,” was a fellow who could scare up a piano, guitar, and once a trombone; and seemed capable of playing each with remarkable skill. He liked American jazz the best, he explained to those who gathered to hear him play. It was the music of colored people, he admitted, but exciting and original. He’d seen Negroes playing in a small club in Paris, before the war, and from the moment he saw sweat glistening off their broad foreheads and heard the wild, sensational music pulsating with decadence, he was captured by it.
What’s wrong with good German music? Kapitanleutnant Peters had demanded one night, in the midst of one of Draheim’s impromptu concerts. Peters was an ardent Nazi and a burden to the other officers of Flotilla 11. His father was some high official in the Party, at least Peters claimed that he was, and the others reluctantly were forced to agree that someone with power shielded Peters from official sanctions. He was a competent enough boat handler and his crew seemed reasonably happy, but Peters came down with a variety of mysterious illnesses just before every patrol. Then it fell to Oberleutnant zur see Waymann, Peters’s executive officer, to take S-492 out. The crew of Peters’s boat said little about their commanding officer’s strange malady, chalking it up to good luck instead. Waymann was calm and very serious for such a young man, and he sat in the back of the classroom at Reubold’s invitation, over the objections of Peters.
“What will the others think?” Peters had pleaded with Reubold, the specter of shame standing just behind him.