Dust On the Sea (6 page)

He could not see Gaillard, but he could feel him, imagined him watching them together, and enjoying it in some obscure way. He might even have arranged the seating; the R.A.F. transport people were always fairly strict in that respect, it was said so that they could identify the corpses strapped to their seats if a plane brewed up or crashed into the sea. What Sergeant Paget would call ‘a right bunch of comedians!'

They were moving faster now, the fuselage swaying steeply on the crude runway. The control tower seemed so small from here, with an officer observing their progress through his binoculars.

Faster, faster, a cottage or two flashing past, a black dog jumping up and down, barking soundlessly.

He stiffened as he felt her hand on his arm.

She said, ‘I'm
all right.
But I really don't like this part!'

He said nothing, afraid to break the spell, surprised that he could cling to something so frail. Like a thread which would soon be broken.

And suddenly they were off, and he saw their great shadow dashing across fields, and a khaki field ambulance in a narrow lane, the red crosses very bright in the glare. Like blood.

He leaned towards her, and said, ‘We're away. Nice take-off.' He felt her hand withdraw, and thought she
winced as she settled deeper into her seat. ‘Have you injured your back, Miss Gordon?'

She said, ‘No.' It was almost sharp. Then, ‘I'm all right now.
Really.
'

The thread was broken.

The Rock made an inspiring sight as the Dakota levelled off for the final approach. The bay appeared to be packed with shipping, many of them dull grey convoy escorts turning round for the next challenge. There were two fighters circling Gibraltar's craggy outline; no chances in this all-important base, the gateway to the Mediterranean and the desert war.

Throughout the flight she had scarcely spoken, except when one of the crew had appeared with coffee and sandwiches. The pilot had come aft to talk to Gaillard, and Blackwood had heard them laughing about something above the drone of the engines.

He saw that her hand was resting once more on his sleeve.

‘This is where we part. Thank you for taking care of me.'

She was so serious that he was reminded of his sister when she had been about eight. It was exactly what she had been taught to say whenever she was taken out by friends of the family.

‘I had hoped we might meet.' He hesitated, sensing the guard rising again. ‘I don't even know where you're going, do I?'

She tensed as the wheels hit the runway, and he felt the fingers clench on his arm.

Then she said, ‘But I
do
know where you're going,
Captain Blackwood.' She would not look at him. ‘So, please, be careful.'

The aircraft was already slowing down, ground crew and various machines converging on it like predators, but all he could think of was her utter sincerity.

Then Gaillard was beside them, grinning. ‘Time to get off, Mike. I'm going to change into some brown trousers for the next bit of the trip!' He went away, pausing to slap another passenger on the shoulder in passing.

Blackwood smiled; he had forgotten how easily he was embarrassed.

‘Sorry about that.'

She smiled faintly in return.

Then she looked at him with the same direct gaze, and said, ‘It wouldn't work, I'm afraid.' She held out her hand. ‘It was nice meeting you.'

She dragged out a small briefcase and turned towards the open door, and suddenly, ridiculously, he wanted to hold her, to explain. But the words would not form, and he could not move. The aircraft was suddenly empty, and more ground workers were hurrying in to unload some of the cargo.

The passengers had melted away, blurred, unreal, like spectres from some forgotten battlefield.

Someone appeared to guide him to yet another waiting room. This time, there was wine on the table.

Gaillard came through another doorway and stood looking at him in silence. Then he said, ‘I've just been told. It's still on.' His dark eyes gave nothing away, any more than his voice. ‘It's a raid. I'll fill you in while the plane's refuelling.' The grin again. ‘I hope they've taken enough gas on board!' But the eyes were devoid of
humour. ‘We've got to get our hands on some bits of secret equipment. Urgent stuff.'

‘When can we expect the rest of our company?'

‘There are a couple of dozen already at Alex. It's enough. It has to be.' He looked at him calmly. ‘No foul-ups, right?'

Blackwood said only, ‘Right.' And she had known where this raid was planned to take place. How many others knew?

Gaillard watched a white-coated messman pouring the wine. The bottle was misted over, ice-cold.

He said casually, ‘By the way, they're giving me a gong. I put you in for one, you know. Maybe next time.'

Not long afterwards, they were called to board the Dakota again. As they walked out into the hard sunlight, Blackwood glanced back at the huddled white buildings, wondering if she was there.

The same pilot was waiting for them, apparently untroubled by the prospect of the next leg of the flight. He merely remarked, ‘Wizard show, chaps, bang on time!'

Blackwood looked once more over his shoulder.

It was nice meeting you.

He followed Gaillard to their seats and fastened his belt for take-off.
No foul-ups
, Gaillard had said.

He braced himself as the plane rolled forward, knowing that Gibraltar offered one of the most hair-raising departures any passenger would ever experience. He could feel her hand on his sleeve.

They were airborne, the wingtip appearing only inches away from the Rock. Gibraltar, the only battle honour ever displayed on the Royals' cap badge.

It was nice meeting you.

From a window in the small, commandeered house, which had once belonged to a Spanish trader, she watched the Dakota lift hesitantly above the mass of anchored shipping, until the reflected glare made her move back into the shadow of a blind.

She would freshen up and change. She unbuttoned her blouse and allowed it to fall over her bare shoulder, then she looked at her reflection in a mirror and turned her shoulder to the light again, studying the ugly weals on her skin; some would turn into bruises before they healed. She touched the shoulder with her chin, remembering the marine's concern, and her own immediate caution. Always there; it was something still hard to learn, to take for granted.

And yet, for only a few moments, it had been easy to imagine herself with him.

She stared at the marks on her body. The instructors had told her that the impact of landing with a parachute was like jumping from a twelve-foot wall. The top of a house, more likely. They had not told her to expect these injuries left by the harness.

She buttoned her blouse again and crossed to the window. The sky was empty.

She thought suddenly of her brother; his name was Mike, too. Had been . . .

She tried to push it from her mind. And the man who had loved her. So brief, so desperate; it was hard to believe she was that same woman. They were both dead. Both pilots, they had been shot down within four months of one another. Bought it, their friends would have called it, not from indifference, or because they had become too hardened by war to care. They dared not speak otherwise
of death . . . she had seen it in their faces often enough. As she had seen it in the marine officer's face.
Mike.

She held out both hands and studied them. She had almost expected to see them shaking.

Surprisingly, she smiled. No fear, then. That would come. Again, she thought of the young captain called Blackwood. Doing what he must, out of a sense of duty, or because of tradition? She remembered the grey-green eyes, when she had spoken of his father.
We loved him very much.
So simply said.

She shook herself, angry, disturbed that she could be seeking escape, contemplating it, when there was so little time left, for either of them.

She watched as a fighter lifted away from the airstrip, the air cringing to its powerful engine. She followed it until her eyes watered in the glare.

‘Mike.' The sound of her own voice startled her, because she did not know whom she meant.

In the relentless glare of early morning the protected waters of Alexandria harbour shone like blue steel. Like Gibraltar, the place was packed with warships and transports of every size and description, hard-worked destroyers and even some battered corvettes transferred from that other war in the Atlantic, as well as landing craft, cruisers, and behind the long line of floats which revealed the presence of anti-torpedo nets, two powerful battleships.

‘Alex', as it was known, affectionately for the most part, by thousands of servicemen, had been resigned to falling to Rommel's invincible Afrika Korps. Only a little more than fifty miles away, a stone's throw in desert warfare, the Eighth Army, after so many retreats and setbacks, had made a final stand at a little-known place called El Alamein. If the Germans had broken through, they would have had Cairo, Suez and the whole of the Middle East at their mercy. The reappearance in Alexandria of so many ships and military personnel had been a great reassurance to the local people, although cynics still maintained that the patriotic portraits of Churchill and President Roosevelt displayed in most of the cafès and
hotels carried those of Hitler and Mussolini on the reverse.

A little apart from the main cluster of moorings and naval stores was Mahroussa Jetty, the King of Egypt's own yacht base. Now, with sandbagged guard posts and a spotless White Ensign flying from its mast, the base had become H.M.S.
Mosquito
, and was used solely by the navy's light coastal forces, M.T.B.s and motor gunboats. But even here the forces were subdivided, and moored away from the others were two motor gunboats. They displayed no pendant numbers, and their lean, rakish hulls were disguised with garish dazzle paint, which at speed could confuse even the most experienced lookout or air-gunner.

They were small compared with the other vessels nearby, seventy feet long and low in the water, but they were powered by three-shaft Rolls-Royce petrol motors which could move them at almost forty knots when necessary. Their wooden hulls had been worked hard, and there were scars along the diagonal planking which even the paint could not conceal.

A force within a force. These two M.G.B.s were only a part of the Special Boat Squadron, which, in co-operation with the schooners and caiques of the other secret group, probed the enemy coastline in search of ready targets, or to seek information vital to the high command.

Both boats had just refuelled, and the stench of high-octane was still very evident.

They were designed to carry a company of twelve; even that made them crowded. But their new status had increased that complement to fifteen. Tolerance and a sense of humour were essential.

As well as machine guns in quadruple mountings, they
carried a pair of twenty-millimetre Oerlikon cannon, to say nothing of the odds and ends they had picked up along the way, both German and Italian.

In the wardroom of the leading M.G.B., her commanding officer, Lieutenant David Falconer, Distinguished Service Cross, Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, sat at the small table, his briar pipe filled and ready to light once the last fumes had dispersed. His open-necked white shirt was fresh today, a luxury possible in Alex, but it was already getting grubby. Everything did in ‘the boats'. He was twenty-six years old and had been on active service since the outbreak of war without respite, unless it was to attend some course or other. In destroyers on the Atlantic convoy runs, and then in light coastal forces, he had witnessed every sort of danger and the courage which inevitably stayed in company. His face and arms were burned by the sun, but refused to tan, and there were deep crow's-feet at his eyes: the look of an experienced sailor, much older than his years. He found it hard to remember his other life, when he had been a schoolmaster at a small and expensive boarding school in Sussex. To get away from it all he had joined the local R.N.V.R., and had been among the first to be ordered to the nearest naval base. He had never regretted it.

He glanced around the wardroom, and smiled. His own command. The wardroom was little more than a box, situated directly below the small open bridge and beside the W/T office. And close enough to the all-important galley to be able to make bets on the next meal.

He looked up as the M.G.B.'s first lieutenant peered in at him. Sub-Lieutenant John Balfour, wearing a single wavy stripe on his shoulder, was twenty, but in contrast to Falconer he looked extremely young. Before volunteering
for the navy he had been at school, and by any other twist of fate could have been one of Falconer's pupils.

Unlike Falconer, he had tanned very easily in the short time since he had joined the squadron. He was pleasant, willing to learn, but a little over-eager to be popular, rather than respected. Falconer liked him, but still found himself glancing at the bunk on the opposite side, which served as a life-raft if required. It had also been the place where his last Number One had coughed out his life the day the Stuka had dropped out of the clouds near Crete, and had bombed and raked the boat with machine gun fire before climbing away like a triumphant hawk. He hoped Balfour would last longer than his predecessor.

Balfour said, ‘Boat's clear, sir.' He was looking at the package of papers, which he had already seen brought aboard by a messenger from the base operations staff.

Falconer let him stew for a while as he lit his pipe with his usual care. The routine of smoking helped him in many ways, after a raid which had gone badly wrong, or an air attack like the one which had killed his Number One. More than once he had seen his fingers shaking when attempting to hold a light to this same pipe.

Finally he said, ‘We've got a job, Number One. Up amongst the islands again.' He cursed himself inwardly; Balfour had not been with him then. ‘Conference this afternoon. The brass will be thick on the ground, so I'd better not . . .' His eyes moved to the cupboard.
The bar.
‘Still, a gin won't hurt.'