The Dangerous Years (34 page)

The opinion of the lower deck was different. Rumbelo put it plainly. ‘Pay cuts for the 1919 men’ll mean 25 per cent less, sir. I’m one and it affects me, but, thanks to you, sir, it won’t hurt too much. But some of ’em have hire purchase commitments they’re not going to be able to keep up, and they’re scared they’ll lose their homes.’

Kelly gave a wry smile. ‘There hasn’t been much security for officers either, Rumbelo, since the war.’

As the month drew to a close, he heard over the wardroom wireless of the sudden death of Lord Clemo. It was a heart attack brought on, the announcer said, by the unexpected collapse of his party. The announcement was repeated in the newspaper the following morning, and as he stared at it propped up on the wardroom table in front of his toast and marmalade, Kelly half-expected there’d be a telegram from Christina.

But nothing came and he could only assume that she preferred to handle things on her own. She was tough-minded and capable of handling her father’s affairs and he assumed she intended to do so without his help.

He was still worried by the uneasiness he felt about him. Somehow in the big ships, the two halves of the navy seemed to have lost touch with each other. In the destroyers there was no sign of the problems, but in
Rebuke
the officers seemed to be too immersed in matériel and were neglecting the human factor, and he was aware of a distinct parallel with the Navy of 1914 when too much thought had been given to ships and not enough to the crews who manned them.

As the month drew to an end, he went to London. There was no sign of Christina and no hint as to where she was. Assuming she was in Norfolk, he simply rang up Vera von Schwerin.

The following day, he met Verschoyle at his club. ‘It’s coming,’ Verschoyle announced grimly. ‘There’s to be a signal to all commanders-in-chief that we’ve got to toe the line and take cuts like everybody else. Men on the 1919 pay scales will also have to accept the 1925 rates. Officers lose eleven per cent. There’ll also be reductions in kit upkeep, grog money and a few other things. The signal’s prepared.’

Kelly scowled at his drink. ‘I think they’re asking too much,’ he said. ‘It’s bloody dangerous. Some of the older chaps were in Russian ports during the Civil War and some have been into Kiel. Somebody on the Board of Admiralty should bear all that in mind.’

Verschoyle lifted a cynical eyebrow. ‘They should indeed,’ he said. ‘But they won’t. There are strong boards and weak boards. This one’s just a bad one.’

London seemed to be recovering from its upset of the spring and even the financial crisis seemed to have settled down a little. Yet there were uneasy stirrings in the air. At the beginning of the month, the Chilean fleet had mutinied and it was now being claimed by the Chilean government that the deep-rooted cause of it was the fact that ships had been refitted at Devonport where the crews had acquired attitudes prevalent in British dockyards.

Travelling by train to Esher, Kelly was conscious of a deep-seated restlessness. He was married yet he never saw his wife. In the Navy this could hardly be called unusual, but most married men were aware of a settled existence somewhere back in the shadows, and they had homes and the blessings of the shore when they went on leave. He seemed to have grown used in the last two years to empty houses and a total absence of family.

To his surprise, the first person he saw when he reached his mother’s cottage was his father. He looked considerably younger than his wife and even seemed to be thriving. He was now almost eighty but he didn’t seem to have changed a scrap.

‘What in God’s name are you up to?’ he snorted. ‘All this talk of unrest in the fleet! We never had anything like that in my day.’

Kelly’s mother tried to keep the peace. ‘Don’t take too much notice of your father, Kelly,’ she advised quietly.

‘I never did,’ Kelly said sharply.

The first thing he saw when he opened the door of the big house was a fur coat belonging to Christina lying across a chair. It was worth a fortune but had been tossed down as indifferently as if it had been rabbit.

‘My wife at home, Biddy?’ he asked.

Bridget shrugged. ‘No, Master Kelly. She came two days ago but she didn’t stay.’

‘Did she say where she was going?’

‘No, Master Kelly. I thought she was going to Norfolk. but I don’t think she did.’

‘Why not?’

‘Well, there were labels on the luggage, Master Kelly. She wouldn’t want labels on the luggage if she were only going to Norfolk, would she?’

Almost the first people he met on the station platform on his return to Portsmouth were Kimister and Charley. Charley greeted him warily. In uniform he seemed to blaze alongside Kimister with his medal ribbons and the gold on his cap. Kimister seemed irritated and restless. He was going bald, Kelly noticed and, alongside Kelly, seemed to diminish rather than increase as he grew more mature. He was worried about his ship and was convinced the Navy’s present troubles could all be laid at the door of the Communists.

As he went to organise his baggage, Kelly found himself alone with Charley. He was ill at ease, but she made no mention of the past and talked cheerfully only of the future.

‘Come and see us, Kelly,’ she suggested. ‘When the exercises are over and we’re home.’

He was not entirely willing because it would remind him too much of what had vanished. ‘I’ll try,’ he promised. ‘In fact, my stepson might enjoy coming with me for tea. He might also enjoy meeting you.’

She was silent for a moment then she raised her eyes to his, clear and honest and forthright.

‘Do you think there’ll be trouble with the fleet, Kelly?’ she asked.

He shook his head but he wasn’t sure. The evening paper had been full of the proposed wages cuts; the teachers, the police, the post office workers and the unemployed were seething with discontent; and there were reports of mass meetings and clashes between police and demonstrators.

Kimister looked pale and harried as he returned and, his stomach knotting in agony as he saw Charley’s unhappiness, Kelly longed to shake him. Kimister was a failure, and she knew it now. He wasn’t even one of those officers who, even if they always appeared at a tragic disadvantage before their senior officers, could at least appear at their best before their men. There was nothing there and never had been.

The following weekend Hugh was free from school and, on an impulse, taking advantage of what Charley had offered, Kelly took him along to where she lived to the east of Portsmouth. The house Kimister had acquired was a typical rented residence, with all the hallmarks of other people’s lives about it. There seemed to be nothing in it of Charley, but she was calm and, although the boy was puzzled by the house’s smallness and the lack of the luxuries he was used to at Thakeham and CarIton Terrace, he was soon at ease. They took him to the beach at Hayling Island where they all swam together. As they left the water, Kelly found himself gazing at Charley. She seemed younger somehow with him than she did with Kimister and still had the same youthful figure she’d always had.

As she saw him staring at her, her smile died and for the rest of the afternoon she was silent. He drove her home and they talked quietly of inconsequentials as Hugh waded through an enormous tea, then, still awkward, they said goodbye and he took the boy back to school.

The following morning’s mail brought him four letters – all from women. One was from his mother thanking him for visiting her; one was from Charley asking him to take Hugh again; one was from Vera von Schwerin asking where he’d got to; and one was from Christina which, he noticed, carried a French stamp and the postmark, ‘Cannes’.

He left it until last, reading the others as he ate his toast and marmalade.

The first lieutenant was complaining from the other side of the table about his egg. ‘If this had come from Russia,’ he was saying, ‘the man who provided it would have been arrested for making bombs. Let’s have a fresh one, steward.’

The steward removed the egg silently but, in his glance, Kelly caught a faint flicker of annoyance and he resolved to have a word with the first lieutenant. Just now didn’t seem to be the time for clever sarcasm.

Finishing his coffee, he took his mail to his cabin to read Christina’s letter. He had a feeling it contained something momentous. He wasn’t disappointed.

‘It’s all grown so silly,’ she wrote with her usual brisk clarity. ‘You with your ridiculous ships living a monastic life afloat and me doing the same in London. I never see you and, when I do, you have no time for what I want to do. Now that my father’s wishes no longer have to be considered, I think it would be better if we just quietly terminated everything in friendly fashion. I shan’t be returning to Thakeham, but I shall not be keeping the house in London. I shall therefore be glad if you’d remove your possessions, as I’ve instructed my solicitors to sell it. I’d also be glad if you’d ask Bridget to pack up my belongings at Thakeham and have them sent to Norfolk.’

He sat back, staring at the letter. Well, he thought, that was short and bloody sweet.

Embarkation of stores for the Atlantic Fleet’s summer cruise started. With the economic situation, there was to be no voyage to the Mediterranean and the plan was to head for Scapa, Rosyth or Invergordon for practice firing.

After the stores, the ammunition was embarked from lighters. Since the missiles for the big guns weighed around a ton each, there was always a danger and signals had to be given with care, and Kelly found himself putting two men on the captain’s report for trying to snatch a quick puff at a cigarette when nobody was looking. It was symbolic of the attitude of the new navy. It would never have happened in the days when loyalty was secure and worked both up and down. But things were different now and he even had to lecture the officers on the importance of their communications with the unseen capstan operators, particularly when cordite was hoisted aboard.

With the storing finished, the ship had to be cleaned. Stages were slung overside and hundreds of brushes, pots and hoists arranged for the application of grey paint. Kelly threw himself into the work, absorbed and occupied, because it stopped him thinking. He didn’t believe in friendly divorces and felt that in something as cataclysmic as a final separation between a man and his wife there ought to be blows, bad temper and a little crockery throwing. But, examining his feelings, he realised he didn’t feel hurt enough for that. Now that she’d inherited her father’s fortune, Christina could do as she wished and, since she clearly wished to be free, he had accepted her decision as a fait accompli. He couldn’t imagine her ever rushing back to him and, taking the view that it would be quite pointless, he had no intention of chasing down to Cannes to fetch her back by the scruff of her neck. Her letter had been closely followed by a second from a solicitor who had set out quite clearly what she wanted and what she had no objection to him retaining. It was all quite cold-blooded.

Pity she didn’t go into politics, he thought. She’d have been perfect on the May Committee.

He found he was quite calm and quite indifferent to what had happened. The whole four years had been a mistake. She was used to getting what she wanted and when he’d fished her out of Wu-Pi where her own intransigence had placed her, she’d wished to have a much-decorated young naval officer first as a lover then as a husband. But the demands of the service had been too strong and she’d found he was not willing, as Withinshawe had been willing, to fall in with her wishes.

He felt no enmity, no hatred, just a sad acceptance that she’d ruined not only his life but probably Charley’s also. Or
he
had. He was not unaware of his own guilt and didn’t back away from it. He’d been too quick to judge, too unwilling to allow for loneliness.

There was a letter from Hugh from the Hotel Majestic in Cannes that was heartbreaking in its simplicity. ‘Dear Uncle Kelly,’ he wrote. ‘Here with Mum. She says I am not going back to schole in Sussex. Mum says I am going to schole in France. I don’t want to. I am sorry I didn’t see your ship. I enjoyed our day out and I like your friend Charlie. Yours truly, Hugh Withinshawe.’

There was also a note of warning from Verschoyle, like Verschoyle clear and to the point. ‘Cuts a fait accompli,’ he wrote. ‘Signal will be sent to all commands. Don’t expect any help from the Board. Those who aren’t on leave aren’t capable of it, anyway.’

Fortunately the crowding in of events took Kelly’s mind off his own troubles. Already the flat outside his cabin, marshalled by Corporal O’Hara, was filled regularly with men wishing to see him. They were always older men who felt themselves the victims of a breach of contract. They had served ever since the war and sometimes before, and it was hopeless trying to explain to them, because there’d been no lead either from the Admiralty or Parliament and, so far, the only comment Kelly had heard from anybody in authority had come from a bored politician who could say only that the two scales of pay were ‘an inconvenience.’

‘Sir–’ Leading Seaman Doncaster’s beefy red face was angry ‘–them people on that committee don’t have any idea how we live! Nobody’s bothered to ask, as far as I know, either. Even on the 1919 rates, with kids there isn’t much between making both ends meet and getting into debt.’

‘I entered hire purchase agreements,’ another man announced, ‘on the understanding I’d be paid the 1919 rates. If I’m not, sir, and they take back me furniture, what’s me wife supposed to do? Rents are hard enough in Pompey at any time – even for the sort of accommodation we’ve got. There are plenty of people glad to make a living out of us, and
they
don’t conform to the cuts.’

It was a hopeless situation. The only way to avoid trouble was to encourage them to bring their difficulties to their officers, but the officers were as well aware as they were that nobody took any notice these days of requests made through the proper channels, because nine times out of ten they were lost in a welter of paperwork presided over by admirals and civil servants in no danger of suffering much themselves.