He stopped and looked around at the puzzled, embarrassed faces. "I hope you gentlemen don't think that I'm presuming on your hospitality," he said. "I know I am, so to speak, a guest in this boat, but I've got a bit of a conscience about your captain, and I want to get this off my chest. Hope you don't mind."
He turned back to the first lieutenant. "The thing is, you aimed to handle it rather differently, didn't you, Cavan? You aimed to play it dead safe on a heads-I-win, tails-Shadde-loses basis.
"So you fixed it that whichever way it broke you'd be O.K. If it had been an exercise, you were O.K. If Symington was caught on the job, you were O.K. If it wasn't an exercise—which it wasn't— you were O.K. What's more, you'd get the kudos for having prevented the worst—so you'd be very O.K. . . ."
Cavan pushed back his chair and stood up, his face as white as a sheet, but Gallagher went on, ". . . which is why you've been polishing your marble so goddam hard in this wardroom for the last ten minutes." Gallagher's hand waved in an airy gesture of contempt. "Protecting Symington . . . protecting Grade . . . protecting Shadde. My eye! The only person you were protecting was Benjamin Cavan. You were at your old game, Cavan, all that matters to you—keeping your yardarm clear. And what you've done is to push Shadde so deep in the manure that, cure or no cure, he's a ruined man."
When Gallagher stopped there wasn't a sound in the wardroom except the hum of the turbines.
''And in case you think what you've done is smart," he went on, "I'd like you to know that at the court of inquiry I'll be saying pretty much what I'm saying now."
Cavan was the bigger of the two men, and for a moment it appeared that he was going to hit the American. Gallagher must have thought so too, because he stood there waiting, tense and wary. But the first lieutenant just looked at him, then shrugged his shoulders and left the wardroom.
After a long silence the others departed in ones and twos. At the end Gallagher was left standing there alone.
Later in the forenoon, Gallagher pushed back the desk chair in his cabin and reread the letter he had just typed.
TOP SECRET
From: Lieutenant Commander Dwight Gallagher, U.S.N. (Nuclear Weapons Control Officer, H.M. Submarine Retaliate).
To: Supreme Commander Atlantic, Norfolk, Virginia, U.S.A.
Subject: Attempted violation, control measures, Polaris missiles.
Enclosure: Report on events May 16/17, while on passage Copenhagen-Portsmouth.
1. In accordance with Navy Department Instructions NWC 18-43/17 (para. 3) enclosure is submitted for information and action.
2. It will be noted that omission from the firing signal of the U.S. Control Group (indicating prefix and six-digit setting for combination dial of firing key) testified to invalidity of the signal and precluded implementation of the instruction by undersigned.
3. Even if the existence of the system of U.S. Control Groups had been known to the commanding officer of Retaliate, he would not have been able to validate the signal, since he did not have access to the Groups.
4. Attention is drawn to the failure of the executive officer, Lieutenant Commander B. W. Cavan, R.N., who had prior knowledge of the attempted violation, to inform the undersigned, as was his clear duty.
5. In terms of subsection iv of para. 3 of the reference instructions, undersigned observes that the control measures worked admirably under circumstances possibly never envisaged: namely, collusion between the commanding officer of the ship and the head of his communications department.
Dwight Gallagher
Just after midnight the doctor went up to the bridge. He couldn't sleep and he longed for fresh air.
Symington was officer of the watch, and O'Shea stood with him in the forepart of the bridge, looking out into the North Sea.
The doctor sighed. "I'm glad this patrol's nearly over."
"So am I," said Symington. "Dreadful about Shadde, isn't it, Doc?"
"Yes . . . another war casualty, really."
They were interrupted by a call on the voice pipe. Symington answered it.
"That was Cavan," he said.
O'Shea broke a long silence. "You know, there's a hell of a lot more to Dwight Gallagher than I realized."
"Good type," said Symington softly. "Very good type."
Beneath them the sea lapped and gurgled, and the fore casing shone wetly in the moonlight.
The room was littered with clothing—and in the middle of it all, a cluster of half-filled suitcases. Elizabeth was determined to take only the essentials, so the pile of things that were to be left behind got steadily bigger. She drew her hand across her forehead and sat on the bed. She had packed often enough, of course, but it had never been so terribly final. You weren't only leaving clothes behind—and England—but your life.
She sighed. She was running away, no denying that. She kept thinking of that letter of his from Stockholm, so proud and yet so urgent, like a small boy who had been too stubborn to say "sorry." And for that matter, why should he say he was sorry? It was probably her fault as much as his. But what was the use of talking about whose fault it was; it was much too late for that.
Of course he would find someone else. Someone who'd give him babies, and that would make all the difference, and they'd be madly happy. How she hoped he would be happy. It was the only thing she felt certain about now: that she wanted him to be happy. It would help her conscience, and it was the least that was necessary [to justify her decision. And apart from anything else, she wanted him to be happy because he'd had so little of it in his life.
The telephone was ringing downstairs and she heard her mother answering it.
"Yes, certainly. I'll call her. . . . Elizabeth! Telephone, dear. It's Portsmouth."
A thrill of excitement surged through her. Could it be John? What would he say? And what could she say? But she must go, even if only to hear his voice once more.
She ran down the stairs and picked up the telephone. For a moment she held it until she got back her breath, then said guardedly, "Elizabeth Shadde speaking." She tried to sound calm, but her heart was pounding.
"Who did you say? ... Oh! Surgeon Lieutenant O'Shea. Yes! Yes! Yes, of course."
She caught her breath sharply. "In Haslar Hospital! Why? What's happened to him?"
As she listened her head started to swim, and from far away she heard O'Shea saying, "It's most important that you see him. He keeps asking for you."
When she put the phone down she felt weak and her body seemed to go limp. For a few moments she sat there in an agony of indecision; then she dialed a number. When they found the clerk she wanted, she was tongue-tied for an instant, terrified that her voice would fail her. But she was surprised at its firmness when she said, "I've had to change my plans. I shan't be needing those tickets after all."
Then she put the telephone down and burst into tears.
About the Author
Antony Trew has lived much of his life at sea. He was born in Pretoria, Transvaal, in 1906, and shipped out on the Union-Castle line when he was fifteen, later becoming a sublieutenant in the South African Naval Service. At twenty-four, he decided to live ashore in Johannesburg, and tried his hand at a wide variety of jobs until in 1932 he went to work for the Automobile Association of South Africa, of which he has been Secretary-General since 1946.