'I've got to go home to collect my gear, sir.'
'I've booked your RAF flight for Tuesday.' Hawke paused, then asked casually: ' Your wife… is she happy about your appointment?'
'She's a normal woman, sir.' Trevellion was regarding him squarely: ' I expect you remember, sir, we've got Benjamin.'
'Oh yes.' The Second Sea Lord rose briskly: ' Give my regards to your wife.' He glanced at his watch. ' You'd better hurry, if you want to catch your weekend.'
3
'How long have you been awake?'
'A little while…' It was no use deceiving Rowena. After eighteen years of marriage and all that they had suffered together, they knew each other too well. Her arms were encircling him.
'What time is it?' she asked softly.
'Just after five.'
'You're going to be all right, Ro?' He asked the question, knowing it to be foolish. Rowena had always coped, even after the accident — and, as always, the stab of remorse pierced him as the nightmare of those few, terrible seconds flashed again across his mind. His five days' leave had for once coincided with Benjamin's and Rebecca's holidays; the weather had been perfect. Time might eventually heal the bitterness — though, God, he had tried not to feel sorry for himself. It was the intimate interludes which always threw him, some phrase, some slight cast of her head, when the scar across her face was at its worst. On some days, however hard she tried to conceal it, the livid weal would stand out, an angry slash across her forehead, above her eyes and the bridge of her nose. In spite of the skill of the plastic surgeons, the parchment mask that was now her face, remained a constant condemnation of his rashness when he overtook the juggernaut.
So Becky was dead, hurled through the door which had flown open on impact. Ben's temporary blindness; his irreparable brain damage; his paralysed legs — in Pascoe's bad moments he had cursed God for allowing Ben to survive. Rowena and he could have started again, slowly re-building their lives: she was still young enough to start another family. She had Ben to care for now, for the remainder of the boy's natural life.
Ro had been rock-like: that disfigurement would have broken many women. Dear God, he loved her, possibly now, more than ever.
'You'll be all right, Ro?' He repeated his question in the darkness. ' I'll be at home more often this time: Icarus is a Plymouth ship.'
'I'm getting no younger, Pascoe,' she murmured, rubbing the stubble on his chin. He had never heard her complain before. 'But we can't always rely on the Butlers to take Ben when you've got a few days leave.' Her arms tightened about him as she picked her words:
'I'll think about Ben's future,' she murmured. ' I promise.'
He pulled her to him, felt her snuggling close: they had no need to talk…. The Butlers had suggested acclimatizing Ben to the idea of spending periods away in one of the new establishments for the handicapped, if one could be found. If either, or both, of the parents suddenly died Ben would have become used to living without them. Rowena and he had already visited such a place, not far from Truro and within week-end visiting. ' There'll be a place for him soon,' he said gently. ' With help, we can just afford it.'
She clung to him fiercely, trying to hold on to time.
'It's only just five…' he said.
'Tonight's been so perfect,' she whispered. 'Let's keep the memory.'
So they dressed in the dawn and while she threw the breakfast together, he packed the car. Ben was at his most loving and pathetically trying to help.
'You'll take care of Mum for me?'
Ben hovered in the background, grunting and laughing in his chair.
And so, in the cold of a December morning, Rowena at the wheel, they drove to Plymouth. The wind was whistling through the platform.
'Write a lot,' she said, gazing down the tracks to the west.
'You too,' he said. He could not continue: the partings grew worse as the years passed.
He put his arms around his son, tried to meet the eager smile. He felt Ro's hand on his sleeve. He turned from her and boarded the train, fumbling about with his baggage in the carriage until the jolt of departure. He could not speak, but he went into the corridor to wave at the diminishing figures on the platform. Ro was fluttering her scarf. Ben sat in his chair, holding her hand. His head was jerking from side to side, as each carriage clattered past.
4
Three days later Captain Trevellion landed on schedule at Bermuda. Waiting in the Customs lounge was a short, sturdy officer in blues:
'Lieutenant Lochead, sir,' he said, saluting. ' The compliments of the first lieutenant, welcome to Bermuda. The Land-Rover's outside,' and he led the way into the bright sunlight.
'Thank you. Where's Icarus?' 'She's in Malabar. The dockyard's closed down, but there's berthing room for STANAVFORLANT: it's pleasant there, away from the big ships.' Lochead smiled hesitantly as he held open the vehicle door. He looked flabby and pale, so presumably had not been out here long. His shoes needed cleaning and his ' sirs' were a bit sparse. The driver, a Leading Radio Operator, wearing the Icarus cap ribbon, was saluting by the side of the Land-Rover. He climbed into the driver's seat.
'What's your name?' Captain Trevellion asked.
'Leading Radio Operator Osgood, sir. Thursday is the duty day for the Land-Rover, sir.'
'How does an L/RO get the job?'
'Volunteered, sir — gets me out of the office.'
Trevellion sat in the front with the driver. The Land-Rover bumped along the narrow road leading to the north-eastern tip of Ireland Island where the dockyard lay, the ex-stone frigate, HMS Malabar, with its ghosts of the pre-war American and West Indies Squadron.
Captain Trevellion watched the turquoise blue of the Hamilton approaches sliding behind the pink oleander hedges. The glare of the white, low-pitched roofs dazzled him hi the sunlight; hibiscus rambled in profusion across gateways and walls, while bougainvillaea draped its purple togas over every available space. Ignoring all speed limits the Land-Rover thrashed onwards, shaving the walls of the poorer cottages which bounded the narrow road.
'Somerset Bridge,' Lochead was shouting above the din of the engine.' The road narrows here, sir — and that's the old American base which Glorious is using.'
Between the gaps in the hedges, Trevellion glimpsed the aircraft carrier swinging to her anchor in the sheltered waters of the coral bay. It was good to see her, the white ensign fluttering proudly from the round-down of her flight deck. She and Furious were the last of Britain's carriers, two ancient hulls filling the gap while the navy waited for the through-deck carriers being built so agonizingly slowly. But these splendid old ships, serving in their stop-gap role as combined commando and anti-submarine aircraft carriers, were playing a vital part at the moment, not the least being a continuation of carrier expertise which had been learnt at such cost over the past fifty years.
Submarine hunting was their primary role now, for which Glorious bore a full squadron of Sea King helicopters — and Trevellion felt a twinge of pride: his raison d'etre as captain of HMS Icarus, was to become part of STANAVFORLANT (Standing Naval Force, Atlantic), the team whose function was to track Russian submarines in peacetime, hunt them during periods of tension, and destroy them in wartime — and those Sea Kings which he could glimpse ranged on Glorious's flight deck were the cutting edge of the weapon which the Royal Navy wielded in exercising seapower through NATO.