Brooks smiled wryly. “It’s not for propaganda, if that’s what you’re implying!”
“Something like that, sir.”
He tried not to think of Beaumont. The symbol. He recalled her words when they had first met. The image-makers. Maybe Beaumont was still the same man inside. The one he had known all those years ago. The one which Sarah’s brother had described in his letters to her. Perhaps he had been unable to resist creating a myth, and in so doing had become just that himself. He chilled, remembering the few moments when he had seen through Beaumont’s guard. Uncertainty or guilt, or had it really been fear at what he was building, and what might in turn destroy him with it?
“Would Captain Beaumont be in overall command of this new one, sir?”
“Fair question. ” Ash fell unheeded on his suit as he snapped, “And, I think, a fair assumption. Afterwards,” he gave a weary shrug, “he will no doubt be asked to accept flag rank, where his talents for rallying enthusiasm will be of great value.” He coughed. “Well?”
“How long have I got, sir?”
Brooks smiled. “A few weeks.” The smile vanished. “Top secret. So watch your words with everyone.” He added sharply, “You’re not married, are you?”
“No, sir.” ~Ve knows about Sarah. It was obvious. Just as it was that Beaumont had been talking about him with Brooks. “But I will be as soon as I manage to arrange certain matters.”
“Splendid.” He looked away. “I’ll not keep you any longer for now.”
As Drummond walked towards the thick iron doors he heard the admiral ask, “Do you ever think about your future?” He smiled and half turned. “Now, I do, sir.”
“It’s nice to be back in Edinburgh.”
They laid side by side looking into the darkness above the bed.
She added, “Going back to London made the war seem more real. Closer.”
Drummond slipped his arm round her shoulders and placed the palm of his hand against her spine. Outside the hotel windows and drawn curtains it was pouring steadily, and the air held the bite of an early winter. He thought of Brooks in his sealed bunker, the activity aboard Warlock when he and the girl had returned to Rosyth that morning.
Warlock’s latest scars had all but disappeared under fresh welding and paint. He had seen some ratings being shown round the ship by Petty Officer Abbott, the way they had fallen silent as he had walked past. New hands to replace the killed and badly wounded. Men who had watched him, their captain, the holder of their destinies perhaps.
She turned on her side, and he could feel her watching him in the darkness. Against his body her limbs felt like cool silk.
She said, “You’ve got a big operation coming off soon?”
He squeezed her shoulders. ‘ ‘I thought you were the one who knew everything that was going on?”
She did not respond to his joke. “I forgot to tell you. When my leave is up I will be doing some other work for Miles Salter. He told me while you were at the Admiralty. Checking back over records for a factual film about convoys.”
Drummond thought about it. “So you’re still with Salter’s department. But you’re not being given the run of information about our flotilla.”
“That’s it.” She raised herself on one elbow. “Why? Is it important?”
He tried to think of an easy way. Then he said flatly, “You mentioned that survivor from the Conqueror. The seaman called Carson. Do you know where he is at the moment?”
He heard her intake of breath. “Yes. At a small hospital at Manchester. There are quite a few like him. Shellshock, loss of memory, that sort of thing.” She added softly, “You think my story was a true one? About Tim being on the raft with Beaumont?”
“There are. several things about Beaumont which are worrying me.”
She wriggled closer as the wind-driven rain slashed against the windows, running her hand across his chest, holding him.
“Tell me, Keith. I love you so much. I can’t bear to see you worried. Things are bad enough as it is.”
“That last operation. It was rougher than anyone knows. ” He felt her body-warmth moving across him, as if she was trying to cover him, protect him from memories. “At one point I thought he would kill the whole lot of us.”
It was out in the open, but he felt no relief.
She said urgently, “I had a feeling about it. Once or twice you’ve tossed and turned in the night. Like a man in fever.”
“Sorry. ” He pressed her spine, feeling her body tremble, the pressure of her breast against his chest.
“Don’t talk about it any more. Try not even to think about it.” In a smaller voice she asked, “How long do we have?”
“Two or three days and Warlock will be ready to take on fuel and stores again.” He hesitated. “And then I’m not certain.”
She hugged him and ran her fingers lightly across his thigh. “I hate the thought of leaving this hotel.”
He smiled. “The manager thinks we’ve taken root!”
She was looking at him now, her hair brushing his mouth. “I want you, my darling.”
“And I you.”
Midshipman Allan Keyes stood on the road opposite the theatre and examined it carefully. It was not quite what he had expected, and was not in the West End of London either. In the middle of a seedy-looking street, flanked on one side by a bombed-out fish-and-chip shop and on the other by a boardedup shoe factory, it bore all the signs of a Victorian relic.
But he crossed the road and thrust his way through the blackout curtain and past a sign which announced “House Full,” where he was confronted by a heavy-jowled man with a cash box.
“And where the hell d’you imagine you’re going, my lad?” Keyes said stiffly, “I am expected.” He held out the little card. “See for yourself.”
The man took it and looked from it to Keyes with apparent surprise. Then he grinned. “Well, I’ll be damned!” He recovered and said, “It’s the interval in a few minutes. I’ll show you round the back to her dressing room.” He looked at the midshipman again and shook his head. “Well, well”
Keyes didn’t care what the man thought or why. He had had a terrible leave, Shunted back and forth between his parents’ friends and relatives, made to recount the story of the action again and again, until he was heartily sick of it. The parts he wanted them to know, he found were too private. Too personal when it came to the moment of telling. His mother usually burst into a fit of sobbing and said. “My poor boy.” His father followed up with, “Must have been a proud moment. ” Or something of the sort.
And every single day of his leave he had telephoned the theatre to speak with Georgina. To begin with, the persons he was able to talk to had seemed doubtful. Then as he had persisted, somebody had looked up some bills and had agreed that Miss Georgina Dare would indeed be coming to this theatre with Forces Frolics in due course, although God alone knew how he had discovered the fact! It restored his faith, made him glow to realise that he knew more than the theatre.
It had not helped his nerves. He had lost his appetite. Got drunk twice, and had mwee his mother remark severely, “I don’t know what they teach you in the Navy, but I don’t like it, Allan!”
His father had, as usual, taken the neutral course. “Don’t harass the lad, Mother! He has to spread his wings a bit.” But he, too, had seemed a bit worried.
And now he was here, at the theatre. He was reminded of the old films he had seen in his boyhood. The “bloods” and stagedoor-johnnies waiting to escort their girls of the chorus to the Cafe Royal, or somewhere like it. But he was visiting one of the stars. Through the sealed doors he heard the thump of an orchestra, the responding chorus of male voices in “Let’s all go down the Strand. ” It could have been Grand Opera to him at that special moment.