The Lion at Sea (32 page)

Kelly thought of the boozy middle-aged man who had seemed to be lolling about the house throughout his entire youth and found he could feel remarkably little emotion. Uncle Paddy seemed to have redeemed a lot of his former lack of effort, however, and perhaps he had made a better wartime soldier than a peacetime one.

‘It’s quite a place, this,’ his father was saying. ‘We have so much to do and find it damned hard to do it because the wogs don’t help much.’

‘Don’t use that word, Father!’

The admiral’s head jerked up as his son barked at him. ‘What word?’

‘“Wog.” If it hadn’t been for the wogs, I wouldn’t be here now. They deserve a bit more dignity than a name like that.’

The admiral’s eyes widened. ‘But everybody calls them–’ he stopped. ‘If it weren’t for the – I mean – oh, my God, boy, you can’t stop calling them wogs just because–’ he stopped again, at a loss. He didn’t know another word and he didn’t know what to say.

The Arab Bureau was in a vast shabby old palace that was full of jangling bells and bustle, and the smart men in neat uniforms irritated Kelly.

He was still seething from his father’s lack of sensitivity. They had tried hard to behave warmly to each other but it had remained an uncomfortable interview with neither of them able to touch anything in the other’s affections. The admiral was obviously enjoying his war and, with Kelly still bitter at his imprisonment and shocked by Ayesha’s death, their conversation had limped to an uncomfortable halt and they had both been glad to say goodbye.

The hallway of the Arab Bureau was filled with military policemen in starched shirts and shorts, who clearly didn’t approve of Kelly’s ill-fitting suit. One of them stepped abruptly in front of him with the smack of boots on the floor.

‘Whom do you wish to see, sir?’

Kelly explained his identity and his errand and they stared at each other, baffled. Obviously no one there had ever thought much about helping the Arabs to wage war.

‘Better show him into
him
,’ one of them said.

Following the military policeman down a long shadowed corridor, Kelly found himself in a dusty room full of maps and papers, where a fan revolving in the ceiling stirred up the stale air. A small, fair-haired staff captain with a long jaw was sitting behind the table and as Kelly appeared he got up and approached to shake hands.

‘Well, a new factor’s certainly needed here in the Middle East,’ he admitted as he listened to Kelly. ‘Gallipoli was a disaster, thanks to lack of interest at home, and the Indian Army’s made a hopeless mess of Mesopotamia.’ He gave a curiously effeminate shrug. ‘We need something that will outweigh the Turks in numbers, output and mental activity.’

Standing with his feet together, he rested his heavy jaw in his right hand and put his right elbow in the palm of his left hand as if he were hugging himself. Yet there was a curious tension about him and a strange burning quality of leadership.

‘There’s been no encouragement from history to think that those qualities can be supplied ready-made from Europe, however,’ he went on cheerfully. ‘The efforts of the European powers to keep a footing in the Levant have always been uniformly disastrous.’

He seemed clear-headed and incisive and Kelly broke in, driven more by emotion than anything else. ‘You’ve got to do something for these people,’ he said.

The staff captain shrugged. ‘Well, the solution would have to be local, but fortunately the standard of efficiency need only be local, too, because the competition’s Turkey and Turkey’s rotten. Personally, I think you’re quite right and that there’s enough latent power among the Arabs to do the job. After all, they’ve served a term of five hundred years under the Turks and if
they
don’t know them, no one does. What had you in mind?’

‘I was told that the Sherif of Mecca’s with us.’

‘I’ve been told that, too. In fact we had his son, the Amir Abdulla, down here to sound us out.’

‘And are you going to do anything?’

‘Things have a habit of moving slowly in Cairo.’

Kelly could hear a proud voice pleading for understanding. ‘There’s a whole nation of allies here,’ he said earnestly. ‘Only wanting to help us by helping themselves. Can’t you bloody idiots in Cairo give them guns and rifles?’

The staff captain laughed, a curiously shrill laugh, then his face became grave again. ‘Well, military thinking’s somewhat atrophied out here, I have to admit, but we do have a few clever chaps in Intelligence. We had hopes of Mesopotamia because the Arab independence movement had its beginnings there, but I think we can forget it now since Kut, and unfortunately the Indian government’s none too keen on pledges to Arab nationalists which might limit their own ambitions.’

‘Do bloody politics have to come into it?’ Kelly snapped.

The staff captain pulled a face. ‘Unhappily, yes. Nevertheless, conditions are suitable for an Arab movement. Perhaps we should get in touch with them.’

Kelly decided that the staff captain was laughing at him. He seemed too much of an intellectual to be involved in the war, and his own thoughts concerned only a dying girl and a set of promises he’d given.

‘I’d like to know how it goes,’ he said icily. ‘My name’s Maguire. Kelly Maguire. Lieutenant, RN. I’ve no idea what my ship is because I’ve had two sunk under me and God alone knows what will happen now. But you can get me through the Admiralty.’

The little staff captain twisted round, moving his hand in a delicate gesture as he reached for a pen. ‘I’ll not forget,’ he promised. ‘And so that you can be reassured of my good intentions, I’ll give you my name, too.’ He wrote quickly and passed the paper across. ‘Lawrence,’ he said. ‘Thomas Edward Lawrence.’

‘You’re different, Kelly.’

Charley’s eyes rested on Kelly’s face, puzzled and troubled by the grimness she saw there. ‘You seem older.’

Kelly shrugged. ‘Marines and pongos can be made up in boxes of a dozen,’ he said. ‘Sailors are always different. And I’m older because it’s eight months since I saw you and a lot’s happened in that time.’

They were alone in the house at Bessborough Terrace because Mrs Upfold had disappeared to see
Chu
Chin Chow
with Mabel. With them were a highly-decorated young man from the Royal Flying Corps on leave from France, and the young man’s mother. The young man’s father, like General Upfold and Uncle Paddy, had disappeared to France in the early days of the war and, like them, had vanished in the first awful clash of gigantic armies. Half the country seemed to have been bereaved already by the ill-prepared offensives of 1915 and only the almost hysterical certainty of victory with a big new push said to be coming on the Somme enabled everybody to go on believing in the future.

At last, however, Mrs Upfold seemed to be regarding Kelly as a possible future husband for her younger daughter and he had noticed that, despite the young airman, even Mabel had eyed him with a renewed interest.

‘I have to trust you, Mr Maguire,’ Mrs Upfold had said archly as she had disappeared. ‘Especially with my baby.’

‘Your baby’s safe with me, Mrs Upfold,’ Kelly said coldly ‘She always has been.’

‘She thought you were dead at first,’ Charley pointed out with a chuckle as the party disappeared. ‘And I think it worried her a bit because she’d begun to think that someone who could get a medal as quickly as you got yours might possibly have a future, after all.’ She stared at him. ‘Everybody went into mourning,’ she ended.

‘Did
you
?’

‘I didn’t think you were dead.’

‘Why not?’

‘It didn’t seem like you.’

‘What? To be dead?’

‘Yes. You’re the most alive boy I know.’

‘I’m not such a boy now, Charley. I’m twenty-three and a half. Time’s running out for me.’

As they talked, they heard a low wailing in the distance and Charley put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, dear,’ she said. ‘It’s an air raid. The zeppelins are such a nuisance these days.’ She gave a little giggle. ‘At least, it’ll keep Mother out a bit longer. They’ll have to go to a shelter. I don’t think she’ll ever get used to it.’

Certainly London was different. The streets were full of Australians, New Zealanders, Indians, Canadians, Montenegrins, Portuguese, Belgians in tall forage caps, and a few lost Russians in blue. At every alley-end shysters sold iron crosses and spiked helmets won in France by better men, and all the smart women seemed to be on the arm of a wounded officer. Despite the vitality of the young men, however, there was a lot of gloom such as Kelly had never noticed in the services, a great deal more military punctilio – especially from fat little men in officers’ uniforms who were running remount parks, stores depots and maintenance units – and more prostitutes than he’d ever seen before.

He became aware of Charley studying him. ‘You
have
changed, you know,’ she said. ‘You’re harder, somehow, more commanding.’

Kelly gestured. ‘Perhaps I am,’ he agreed. ‘Having a ship sunk under you makes a chap grow up, and I’ve had two.’

He had been well aware for some time that things which had once interested him no longer did, and on his first day at home he had cleared his room of the belongings that had been in it all his life, his books, the remains of his childhood toys, even the picture of ‘When Did You Last See Your Father’ which had graced the walls from the first day he’d been aware of things.

He was different. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he was a man. Until now, he’d still been a youth, an efficient naval officer but still only a youth. Now for the first time he was thinking as a man and was beginning seriously to consider his career. He’d had a tremendous start and he could well imagine Verschoyle with his forked tongue talking about influence. But there hadn’t been an ounce of influence anywhere. His father had pulled no strings and on the only occasion when he’d offered to, Kelly had rejected his offer.

‘They’re recommending me for another gong,’ he said sharply.

‘Another one?’

‘They always give one to you if you escape. Sort of consolation prize for being captured, I suppose.’

Charley’s eyes glowed with pride. ‘I say, how marvellous, Kelly. You will be a swell. But I know you deserve it. Bringing all those men back, too. Especially Rumbelo with his wound. He thinks you’re God.’

‘Just his half-brother.’

‘He’s hoping you’ll ask for him again. He thinks you bring him luck.’

Kelly smiled. ‘You can bet your last bob I shall,’ he said. ‘Rumbelo’s a handy man to have alongside you and I think
he
brings
me
luck.’

The air raid sirens had stopped now but they could hear policemen cycling past in the street outside blowing whistles. There were a few screams from women hurrying for the shelters and a little shouting. Being bombed was still a new experience to people who so far hadn’t even been touched by the war.

‘Do you get the zeppelins over here much?’ he asked.

Charley smiled. ‘More than I enjoy. You can always tell when they’re close. There’s a battery of guns in the park down the road and when they start they almost lift the roof off.’ She jerked the curtains tighter across the windows for safety and turned again to Kelly. ‘Was it awful being sunk in a submarine?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Kelly said honestly. ‘I was on the bridge.’

‘Aren’t you worried about going back in them?’

‘I’m not going back in submarines. They’ve slung me out. That pneumonia I had in Afion Kara Hissar. They won’t touch anybody who might have anything wrong with his lungs.’

She looked concerned. ‘Is there anything wrong?’

‘Not now. But it’s the policy. They can’t take a chance. Perhaps it’s as well, anyway. There’s not much of an opening in Heaven for submariners. Because they go down, I suspect they all go to the other place and it’s the Flying Corps who’ll have all their own way upwards. They’re putting me in a destroyer.’

‘As captain?’

‘Good God, no! First Lieutenant. As soon as I’ve done a short refresher navigation and gunnery officer’s course. Without those I’ll be about as much use as a blind bunting tosser. Or at least, that’s what they think.
Mordant
’s
about the oldest they’ve got in the North Sea, anyway. I expect they think if I get sunk again they won’t have lost much.’

She looked worried. ‘Don’t you want to be captain?’

‘Of course I do!’ Kelly stared at her in amazement. ‘Every naval officer wants to command his own ship.’

‘I think they
should
make you a captain. After all, they’re giving you another medal.’

‘Doesn’t cut much ice with the Admiralty. If I suggested that, they’d soon send me away with a naval flea in my ear.’

‘Will you stay in this country?’

Kelly smiled. It was slowly becoming easier to smile. The pain was fading and the anger was dying. ‘If you can call Scapa Flow in this country,’ he said. ‘As far as I can make out, it’s about as far into nowhere as you can get. James Verschoyle’s up there.’

‘He’ll go green with envy when he sees you with yet another ribbon.’

Kelly smiled. ‘I suspect Verschoyle will look after himself. I hear from Kimister that he did well at the Falklands with Sturdee. I expect he’s let it be known in the right quarters.’

‘Will there be a battle, Kelly?’

‘In the North Sea? Perhaps. I don’t know. The Germans seem to prefer to avoid one. With Tyrwhitt in the Channel and Jellicoe sitting off the north of Scotland, they know damn well that they can never get out. And after all this time, I wonder if
we
’re all that keen to see ’em. After all, we’re doing exactly what we wish to do without even putting to sea. Principle of the fleet in being.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Exactly what it says. Simply existing there as a permanent threat. If the fleet were scattered the threat would disappear and the Germans could come out.’

‘It seems an awfully negative way of fighting a war.’

‘It’s a good way of avoiding casualties. Besides–’ Kelly leaned over and kissed her gently on the cheek ‘–sometimes, when I see people like my father, I tremble to think what might happen if they did meet.’