Oriental Hotel Page 13

  ‘The trouble is that you haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about,’ she said shortly. ‘ You have never seen active service, you have never been in this part of the world before and you think life comes out of storybooks. It does not! I dare say you mean well, but I would really rather you found someone else to reassure and left me alone.’

  In the moment’s stunned silence that followed, she saw his face change and wished she had been a little more tactful.

  ‘I see! Well, in that case I’ll bid you goodnight, Ma’am!’ He turned, his head high, his back ramrod straight and took a few steps away from her. Then suddenly he faltered. One hand went out to grip the rail, the other covered his face; the straight back bowed and the shoulders hunched. Elise heard him swear and then the oath was choked off by a sob.

  Oh, Lord, what have I done now? she wondered.

  For endless seconds he remained motionless, frozen into that hunched attitude, and she knew he was struggling to control himself.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …’ She broke off. She couldn’t say she hadn’t meant what she had said – she had. But there should have been a kinder and more tactful way of putting it.

  ‘I just think you ought to realise that I’m not the damsel in distress I may appear to you to be,’ she said gently. ‘I’m not sitting up in my ivory tower waiting to be rescued by a knight on a dashing white charger. I’m a married woman, several years older than you, on my way home to see my husband. I’ve even got a little boy, five years old …’

  The control broke and his whole body began to shake violently.

  What do I do now? she wondered. ‘Captain Grimly … John …’ she said tentatively.

  Without turning he raised a hand, shaking it in a dismissive movement, then his head came up and he swallowed convulsively at the tears.

  ‘Sorry! Foolish of me! Seem to make an idiot of myself on all sides.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, you don’t make an idiot of yourself at all.’

  ‘Hah!’ It was half sob, half bitter laugh. ‘You don’t have to be kind. I know what they all think of me. Young ass! But I thought that you …’

  ‘You’re wrong. No one thinks that of you.’

  ‘Oh, they do, they do! And the damnable part about it is that they’re right. What do I do? What have I ever done? Led an Army Cadets unit and pretended to be a soldier. But what will happen when I have to face the real thing, eh? Will I be able to do what my father did – lead men – keep my head – be a fine example? Or will I bloody funk it?’

  His distress was enormous. It communicated itself to Elise so that she felt the same helplessness, the same panicking uncertainty.

  ‘You’ll be all right, I’m sure you will,’ she said. ‘Everyone must have doubts. Even your father did, I expect.’

  ‘But he was all right. When the test came, he was up to it. I might not be. And it scares me, lean tell you – it scares me to bloody death.’

  She touched his arm. ‘ Please don’t! You’ll be fine, I know you will.’

  He jerked his head. ‘Just leave me, eh? Better on my own. You don’t want people seeing us together. Don’t blame you – sorry if I’ve caused you some embarrassment.’

  ‘But …’ She didn’t want to leave him like this, especially feeling responsible as she did.

  ‘It’s OK. Off you go.’ He was not looking at her and she realised this was deliberate.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said softly. ‘And I know you will be a fine soldier.’ She walked off along the deck but at the bulkhead she turned. He was still standing with head bowed, and the sight of him seemed to imprint itself indelibly on her mind, a negative in sharp relief.

  With a quick jerk of her head she turned away, going down the companion way. But in the darkness she could see him still and with a flash of clearsightedness knew it was a memory which would return to haunt her for the rest of her life.

  The Wrens were not in the cabin when Elise returned. They were at one of their mess room gatherings, she supposed, and she revelled in the luxury of privacy as she prepared for bed. She was lying in a narrow bunk, still thinking of John Grimly, when Joyce and Ruth came in, giggling, shushing each other loudly until they were certain she was awake, then making sarcastic apologies that merely provided another opportunity for spiteful remarks.

  Then the lights went out and she could hear them talking. After a while they fell silent and when the cabin door burst open it was enough to shake them all into full wakefulness again.

  ‘Linda! Bloody hell, what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Keep quiet for Christ’s sake! Do you want to waken the whole bloody ship?’

  ‘Shut up, the pair of you.’ Linda Preece sounded upset.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Be quiet and listen. We’ve got trouble.’

  ‘Trouble, what do you mean, trouble?’

  ‘They’ve picked up a distress signal. A merchant ship is on fire after having been attacked by a raider – and the Stranraer is going to assist.’

  ‘Assist?’

  ‘Look for survivors, what d’you think?’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence. Elise tried to sit up, pulling on a bed-jacket with numb fingers. ‘How far away are we?’

  They ignored her. ‘How do you know about it?’

  ‘Somebody told the chap I was with. They had just picked up the message; then they lost contact again. It could be the mast was shot away, he said. Or could be …’ She made a sharp, expressive movement of her hand, accompanied by a soft half whistle to leave them in no doubt as to her meaning.

  ‘How long will it take us to reach them?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘Ten or twelve hours, they said. By the time we get there, there might not be anyone left to save. You know what those bloody raiders are like – they’ll machine-gun survivors in the water, the bastards! And if they leave them, there are sharks and barracuda to do the job for them …’

  ‘Ten to twelve hours? At least it will be light …’

  ‘Light enough for them to see us, too. Have you thought of that?’

  There was a moment’s singing silence while Elise felt the nerve endings prickle all over her body. Then Ruth Marshall asked loudly, ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  Linda was standing between the bunks, arms wrapped around her as if she were cold, shivering with nervous tension.

  ‘Where have you been these last few months, Ruth – cloud cuckoo land? Why should any raider be satisfied with one kill if he can get two?’

  ‘Jesus!’

  ‘There’s a good chance he could be waiting out there. We have maintained radio silence, naturally, but the Germans will know that any British ship in the area will have picked up the signal and be going in to help. And we could be heading straight for it!’

  Elise’s mind was racing now, moving in the same alternating bands as the flushes of ice-cold fear which had set her nerves tingling.

  A few hours ago she had been talking to John Grimly about the war, but it had been like discussing something that would never happen, as removed from sharp reality as that other war in which his father had led his men over the top on the Somme.

  But this … this was not removed. This was here and now. A ship calling to them for help – men waiting and praying for rescue a night’s sailing away. And a raider who might or might not try to ensure they met with the same fate …

  Remembering Gerald Brittain’s warning, she stretched out to make sure her bag containing all her important papers was within reach; the movement reminded all the other girls she was there.

  ‘I suppose if we were sunk, she would be allowed to occupy an entire lifeboat with her luggage!’ Joyce commented. As she spoke the girl swung round in her bunk, moving the blackout at the porthole in order to look out; her words, coupled with the foolish action, proved the last straw for Elise.

  ‘Shut that porthole, you irresponsible child!’ she ordered, her voice razor-sharp.

  She felt rather than saw
their surprised reaction. Joyce dropped the blackout as if it had suddenly become red hot and three pairs of eyes, opened very wide, fixed on her in amazement.

  ‘It’s time you grew up,’ she went on furiously. ‘You’re like a lot of spiteful, nasty little girls. If you had any sense you’d be making sure you had everything ready in case we are attacked or torpedoed – not wasting your energy trying to rile me. Now, for goodness sake get to bed and let us all get some rest – we may need it!’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence in the cabin and Elise could almost feel their shock at her reaction. They had not expected her to bite back.

  ‘Well!’ Ruth muttered, but there was a sullen defiance about her tone which bore out Elise’s accusation of childishness; the others, apart from muted goodnights, said nothing at all.

  Predictably, Elise slept badly. For what seemed like hours she lay staring into the darkness, her whole body sharply awake. The adrenalin of fear and anger was still pumping to nerves and muscles and her seething brain played and replayed snatches of conversation, selecting first one scenario and then another.

  The girls were restless too. She heard them tossing, turning and sighing, but there were no more comments and no more irresponsible lifting of the blackout.

  Eventually she fell into a muzzy, fitful sleep, but by dawn she was awake again. For long, tense minutes she lay, straining her ears for any sounds and wondering what, if anything, had happened during the hours of darkness.

  When the suspense became unbearable she got up, dressing quickly and quietly and going out on deck. Above the deep tranquil blue of the sea the sky was lightening, but apart from the early morning breeze that whispered over her bare arms, there was an eerie stillness in the air. Straining her eyes into the half light, she wondered at the vastness of the ocean. To steam for hours on end and not see another ship was a frightening concept now that she came to think about it. It made her feel very small and insignificant, a tiny part of an immense universe.

  ‘Good morning, Mrs Sanderson.’

  As she rounded the bulkhead she almost collided with a tall figure in RAF uniform. Briefly she felt a lifting of her anxiety, something akin to relief. Gerald Brittain might be a swine, but his presence at a time like this was somehow oddly reassuring. Whether it was his bearing or his background which gave the illusion of security, she did not know – the taut strength like that of a sleeping panther, the strong features without a hint of softness; or was it the undeniable fact that like it or not, the Brittains had survived for generations in Hong Kong, building their empire in spite of the authorities who had clamped down on the illegal opium trade; in spite of the dominance of the Chinese in all commercial dealings; in spite of the efforts of almost every other up-and-coming business in the Colony to usurp the crown at some time or another. Whatever the reason, there was an undeniable power about him which was comforting – a completely irrational belief that while he was here on board nothing terrible could actually happen to her.

  ‘Mr Brittain …’ she began.

  A muscle at the corner of his mouth lifted fractionally. ‘ I thought we agreed that you were going to call me Brit.’

  Her mind returned to the morning when they were docking at Aden. He had made the suggestion – and followed it almost immediately by the scathing attack on her.

  ‘I don’t think I agreed on anything of the sort.’

  ‘Perhaps I put you off by saying that that’s what my friends call me. But my enemies use that name as well – amongst other things.’

  For a moment she had the feeling he might be laughing at her, but before she could be certain he went on, ‘ You’ve heard what’s going on, I take it? There’s a ship out there in trouble and we are going to see what we can do to help.’

  There was no banter in his tone now and suddenly it seemed to her that there was a chill in the morning breeze.

  ‘Yes, I heard. The Wrens I share a cabin with were talking about it last night.’

  ‘And do you also realise that we could be in danger of attack ourselves?’

  ‘They said something about it, yes. But that was twelve hours ago. Surely a raider wouldn’t hang about so long …’

  ‘Why not? There’s no air cover out here. If there are no British battleships in the area, then it has nothing to fear.’

  Again the chill, whispering over her skin.

  ‘This is war, Mrs Sanderson,’ he said. ‘You have to be prepared for the worst.’

  It was almost exactly what she had said to the Wrens last night, and not much different from what he had told her before. But last night she had been so angry with them and so sick of their taunts that the truth had not fully sunk in – her fear being buffered by other emotions – and when he had warned her earlier about the dangers of the voyage, she had somehow felt – however irrationally – that he was exaggerating in order to discomfit her.

  Now, for the first time, the warning struck home. This war was happening not only to others, somewhere beyond the lightening horizons. It was happening to her too.

  At the realisation her stomach lurched with sick fear and for panic-stricken moments imagination ran riot. She heard the explosive thunder of guns, felt the splintering of wood beneath her feet …

  ‘My God!’ she said softly, turning terrified eyes towards the sea. A moment ago it had looked so calm and serene; now, she seemed to see only the threats its purple depths concealed – torpedoes and submarines, sharks and barracuda, death in a dozen different guises. The enormity of it almost swamped her and tears of fright set her throat in spasms.

  Through the blur of panic she felt a hand on her arm. She turned her head slightly, startled by his touch, and at the same moment saw a dark orange flame shoot heavenwards away on the mauve horizon where sea and sky merged.

  The blood seemed to freeze in her veins. ‘What was that?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘It looked like a flare.’

  ‘Whose?’

  ‘The survivors of the attack, I presume. They have seen us and want to make sure we see them. The Bridge will have seen it too.’

  ‘How far away are they?’

  ‘Four – five miles. Difficult to say.’

  For a moment she strained her eyes in the direction of the flare, then twisted impatiently on the rails. Fear had made her taut and edgy; every nerve prickled, so that it was impossible to stay still for more than a minute at a time.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind so much if there was something I could do.’

  He glanced at her. ‘ Have you ever done any nursing? No – stupid question; of course you haven’t.’

  Her chin came up. ‘I learned First Aid at school.’

  ‘Fainting, shock, and how to put a splint on a broken arm that’s really not broken at all, I suppose. Clean, clinical, fit-for-young-ladies First Aid!’

  Her face tightened as indignation began to drive out the all-consuming fear of a moment ago.

  ‘I know your opinion of me is pretty low, Mr Brittain, but I’m not quite as useless as you seem to think. If the survivors are wounded they will need looking after and there aren’t many women on board. There must be something even I can do.’

  She glared at him and was amazed to see something close to laughter in his answering gaze. For a moment it seemed to pierce her angry indignation and her fear, sending a sharp, sword-thrust sensation through her innermost being; then, as conscious thought caught up with unconscious reaction, she turned away furiously.

  ‘All right, if you won’t take me seriously, I shall find someone who will.’

  ‘Mrs Sanderson …’ His voice halted her and she looked back over her shoulder. The laughter had left his face now and in the half light she saw the stern features of a man who is under no illusion about the uncertainty of the future but who nevertheless remains totally in control.

  ‘Don’t bother people who have better things to do. If you’re really sure you want to help, I’ll take you to Surgeon Lieutenant Walker.’ His eyes ran critically over her silk
shin and trousers. ‘You’d better get yourself dressed in something more suitable first though. It could be messy, and you don’t want to be hampered by worrying about your clothes.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry.’

  ‘Maybe not, but others might. I’ll wait here for you, as long as you don’t take too long about it.’

  The fury bubbled. No wonder Gordon hated the Brittains, she thought.

  ‘There’s no need to be so offensive,’ she said.

  ‘I wasn’t aware that I was.’ The tone was faintly mocking and in that half light his teeth looked very white.

  She turned away, glad at least that the moment of panic had passed. But the spiral of resentment towards Gerald Brittain remained.

  ‘Who the hell does he think he is?’ she asked herself.

  In the cabin the Wrens were stirring and they looked at her curiously as she went in and began to sort through her trunk for her simplest dress – short-sleeved, square-shouldered cream cotton.

  ‘Anything going on out there?’ Joyce Lindsell asked and Elise’s eyes narrowed with surprise. As far as she was aware, it was the first time any of them had spoken to her directly and civilly.

  ‘Flares have been sighted. They must have been sent up by the survivors,’ she said coolly.

  ‘So what’s happening? Are we going to pick them up?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  She didn’t bother to turn and look at them even. Once she had wanted them to accept her and would have welcomed any overture towards conversation with open arms. But no more.

  ‘What are you doing, then?’ Ruth Marshall could not contain her curiosity. ‘Why are you getting changed?’

  Elise stepped into the dress, fastening it to the neck.

  ‘I’ve offered to help with the wounded.’

  ‘You?’

  Elise ignored the surprised reaction. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it would hurt you to do the same,’ she commented.

  They were silent, but she could almost hear their incredulity. After a moment, Linda asked, ‘They need nurses, do they?’