Coming Home (137 page)

After that, the days slipped past, flowing faster as each succeeded another, so that, in the manner of all pleasurable vacations, before one even had time to notice, the days had turned into a week, and then another week, and another. Now, it was the eighteenth of September. Three more days, and it would be time to start out on the long journey back to Trincomalee; to typing endless reports and having to return to Quarters on time; to no shops and no sophisticated city bustle. No lovely, orderly house to come back to. No Thomas. No Bob. And no Hugo.

He had kept his word.
We mustn't waste a moment,
he had said. Even better, he had betrayed no regret at having promised in the first place. Never bored, he was never boring, and although patently delighted by her company and gratifyingly appreciative of the time Judith spent with him, Hugo had remained endearingly undemanding, so that she was able to feel safe and protected, and never for a moment besieged.

By now, they had become so close and so at ease, that they were even able to talk this through, lying on the deserted, blistering sands of Panadura, and letting the sun dry them off after a swim. ‘…it's not that I don't find you enchantingly attractive, and it's not that I don't want to make love to you. And I think that if I did, it could be deeply pleasurable for both of us. But this isn't the right time. You're too vulnerable. Like a convalescent, you need a bit of peace. Time to lick your wounds, get back on course again. The last thing you need is the trauma of a physical involvement. A thoughtless affair.’

‘It wouldn't be thoughtless, Hugo.’

‘But, perhaps, foolish. It's up to you.’

He was right. The thought of having to make
any
sort of a decision was a bit frightening. She just wanted to sail along on an even keel, drift with the tide. She said, ‘It's not that I'm a virgin, Hugo.’

‘Darling girl, I didn't for a moment imagine that you were.’

‘I've slept with two men. And both of them I loved very much. And both of them I lost. Since them, I've steered clear of loving. It hurt too much. It took too long to heal.’

‘I would try very hard not to hurt you. But I don't want to mess about with your emotions. Not right now. I've become too fond of you.’

‘If I could stay in Colombo…if I didn't have to go back to Trincomalee…if we had more time…’

‘What a lot of ifs. Would it make things so different?’

‘Oh, Hugo, I don't know.’

He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. ‘I don't know either. So let's go and swim again.’

Azid turned the car in through the open gate, past the sentry and around the curve of the drive, to draw up at the front door. He switched off the engine, and before Judith could do it for herself, had leaped out and snatched her door open.

His attentions always made her feel a bit like Royalty.

‘Thank you, Azid.’

It was half past five in the evening. She made her way up the steps and through the front door, and across the cool hall and the empty drawing-room, and so out onto the flower-decked veranda. There she found — as she had known she would — both Bob Somerville and David Beatty, relaxed after a day's work, in long chairs and enjoying their moment of companionable quiet. Between their chairs stood a low table, set with all the traditional paraphernalia of afternoon tea.

David Beatty was deep in one of his enormous scholarly tomes, and Bob read the London
Times,
sent out each week by airmail. He was still in uniform. White shorts, shirt, long white stockings and white shoes. When he had read the paper, he would go and have a shower and shave and change. But first, he liked to pause for his afternoon tea, a daily ritual that he relished, it being a comforting reminder of the simple domestic pleasures of home, England, and a far-away wife.

He looked up, and dropped the paper. ‘There you are! I was wondering what had happened to you. Pull up a chair. Have a cup of tea. Thomas has conjured up some cucumber sandwiches.’

‘How very civilised. Good afternoon, David.’

David Beatty stirred and blinked, saw Judith, lowered his book, snatched off his spectacles and made as if to gather his lanky frame out of his chair and rise. It was a courteous pantomime that took place every time she caught him unawares, and she had become adept at saying, ‘Don't get up,’ just before his shoes hit the floor.

‘Sorry. Reading…didn't hear…’ He smiled, just to show there was no ill feeling, replaced his spectacles, dissolved back onto the cushions and returned to his book. Lost to the world. Idle conversation had never been his strong point.

Bob poured tea into the fine white cup, dropped in a slice of lemon, and handed it over.

‘You've been playing tennis,’ he observed.

‘How could you tell?’

‘My powers of observation and deduction plus the sporty white gear and the racquet.’

‘Brilliant.’

‘Where did you play?’

‘At the club. With Hugo and another couple. Serious stuff.’

‘Who won?’

‘We did, of course.’

‘Are you going out tonight?’

‘No. Hugo's got to go to some Guest Night at the Barracks. Men only.’

‘That means too much drink and dangerous after-dinner horseplay. When you see him next he'll probably have a broken leg. Before I forget, I've fixed that lift to Kandy for you. A car, next Saturday morning. They'll pick you up here, at eight o'clock.’

Judith received this information with mixed emotions. She screwed up her face like a child. ‘I don't want to go.’

‘Don't want you to go. I'll miss you like hell. But there it is. Stiff upper lip. Duty calls. And talking of duty, I have another message. From Chief Officer Wrens, no less. She rang me this afternoon. Asked if you'd be available tomorrow morning, and if so, if she could ask you to help.’

‘Help do what?’ Judith asked cautiously. She had been in the service long enough to know that one never volunteered for anything, until in possession of all the details. She took a cucumber sandwich and bit into its sweet crunchiness.

‘Go and be welcoming to a lot of chaps who deserve it.’

‘I don't understand.’

‘There's a ship, stopping off, en route for England. The
Orion.
A hospital ship. The first batch of prisoners of war from the Bangkok-Burma Railway. They've been in hospital in Rangoon. They're being allowed ashore here for a few hours, their first step back to civilisation. There's going to be some sort of a reception for them at the Fort. Tea and buns, I suppose. Chief Officer's rounding up a few Wrens to act as hostesses, chat the men up and make them feel at home.’

‘What did you say?’

‘Told her I'd have to discuss it with you. I explained that you'd only just been told that your father died in Changi, and perhaps meeting up with a lot of emaciated prisoners would be a bit close to home.’

Judith nodded. She had finished her sandwich, and now, absently, took another. Prisoners of war from the Burma Railway. At the end of the war, when the Army moved in with the medical services, the Red Cross (and Lady Mountbatten) hard on their heels, the railway camps had been opened and their horrors exposed. Reports and photographs in the newspapers had stirred waves of disbelief and revulsion only matched by the reaction of the Western world, a universal lowering of the human spirit, when the Allied Armies, moving east, had uncovered the camps at Auschwitz, Dachau, and Ravensbrück.

On the railway, thousands of men had died, those who survived labouring in the steaming jungle for as long as eighteen hours a day. Brutal guards had kept the sick working, despite weakness from hunger, exhaustion, malaria, and the dysentery brought about by the filthy conditions in which the prisoners had been housed.

But now, they were coming home.

She sighed. ‘I'll
have
to go. If I don't, I shan't be able to look myself in the eye for the rest of my life. It would be dreadfully feeble.’

‘You never know. It might make you feel better about things.’

‘After what they've endured, you'd wonder that
any
of them would be fit enough to even come ashore…’

‘They've had a little time in hospital being cared for, properly fed. And families alerted that they're alive and on their way back…’

‘What do I have to do?’

‘Climb into uniform, and muster at nine o'clock.’

‘Where?’

‘The Galle Road Wrennery. You'll get your orders there.’

‘Right.’

‘You're a good girl. Have another cup of tea. And you'll be dining this evening with David and me? I'll tell Thomas that there will be three of us.’

That morning, having showered and wrapped herself in her thin robe, Judith had breakfasted on her own, because Bob and David Beatty had already left for work. Breakfast was a grapefruit and China tea. No more. For some reason she wasn't feeling particularly hungry. After breakfast, she went back to her room, and found that Thomas had laid out her clean uniform on the freshly made bed, with cap and shoes blancoed to blinding whiteness.

She dressed, and it felt a bit like that last day in Trincomalee when, loaded with apprehension, she had put on clean uniform and walked down the dusty road to keep her appointment with First Officer. Now, into battle again. She did up buttons, laced her shoes, combed her hair, put on her hat, lipstick, and scent. She thought about taking a bag, and then decided against it. No need. She would be home by midday. But, just in case of emergencies, took from her purse a bundle of rupee notes and stuffed them into the pocket of her skirt.

In the hall, she found Thomas, waiting for her by the open door.

‘You would like Azid to drive you?’

‘No, Thomas, thank you, I can walk. It's only a few hundred yards down the road.’

‘It is very good, what you are going to do. Brave men. Those Japanese, by God! I should like you to tell them they have been very brave.’

His dark face was suffused with anguish, and Judith felt much touched by his little outburst.

‘Yes. You're quite right. And I'll tell them.’

She walked out into the glare and the heat, through the gate and down the busy road. Presently the Wrens' Quarters loomed into view, a large Edwardian edifice, white and ornate as a wedding cake, double-storeyed and with a flat roof, crowned by an ornamental balustrade. Once it had been the home of a wealthy merchant, but now had lost a little of its lustre, and the gardens which surrounded it — extensive grounds with walks and lawns — had been built over with palm-thatch bandas, and ablution blocks.

She went in through the gate, and the young sentry gave her an appreciative grin and crack of his head. She saw the lorry parked on the gravel, the able seaman behind the wheel deep in an old copy of
Titbits.
She went up shallow steps, under the shade of an impressive porch and into the lofty hall, which now did duty as a Regulating Office. There were desks, and pigeon-holes for mail, and a number of Wrens already there, standing about, and waiting to be told what to do. A young Third Officer seemed to be in charge, with a Leading Wren at her elbow for moral support. She was having some difficulty with names and numbers.

‘There are meant to be fourteen Wrens. How many have we got…?’ With a pencil in her hand, she endeavoured to count heads. ‘One. Two…’

‘Twelve, ma'm.’ The Leading Wren was clearly the more efficient of the two.