All the Sweet Promises. Elizabeth Elgin
Читать онлайн книгу.
‘It’s just one of those things, so try to remember what it’s like next time there’s a panic on, eh? And there’s no’ a thing you can do about it, lassie, so why don’t you sit back and enjoy it? Or maybe you’d like to watch the boat coming alongside?’
‘Which boat? Is Sparta back from trials?’
‘No. This one’s Taureg, a T-boat. A big one, home from patrol. She’s had a bad time, so the buzz has it. Landed herself in big trouble in the Bay, but managed to get out of it. The skipper and commander are going to be there, so it’ll be caps in the air and three cheers and all that. You might find it interesting. Away with you, now. I’ll let you know when things get going again. Just nip up the steps outside the navigator’s sea cabin. You’ll get a good view from there.’
Reluctantly Jane pushed back her chair. In truth she wasn’t really interested in Taureg’s arrival, but anything that broke the self-imposed purdah of her existence was welcome, she supposed, for she still stood outside the real world, looking in; a part of her still waited in Yeoman’s Lane and none of this strangeness around her was really happening. She wished it were not so. She wanted to come alive again and fall in love again; but that was not possible, for no one but Rob MacDonald would do – and Rob was gone.
‘Okay, Jock. Thanks.’ Smiling, she pulled on her hat. ‘Won’t be long.’
The navigator’s sea cabin was small, wedged between the CCO and the signal deck, and one he seldom used since the depot ship rarely went to sea. Indeed, the whole total of Omega’s movement was a half-swing around her mooring buoy with the incoming tide and a half-swing back again on the ebb. But the view from the coding-office portholes was varied and interesting, a slowly changing panorama for those with time to gaze.
She lifted her face to the sun, half closing her eyes against the silver dazzle that bounced across the water, breathing deeply on the tangle-scented air. The two submarines which had lain alongside Omega at the start of her watch now stood off in the loch, still as two sentries, awaiting Taureg’s arrival, and she wondered how any man could volunteer to serve in such a craft; how he could live in quarters so cramped, with no privacy at all. And that was apart from the danger. So small a boat in so vast a sea. She tried to imagine what it would be like to sink to the sea bed and stay there, calmly, with only a steel hull between a man and the enormous, pressing waters.
I would panic, she thought. My mind would go numb. She who loved the fields and trees and the wideness of the North Riding could not have endured so claustrophobic an existence. She wondered which of the escort vessels would bring Taureg in. She still found it hard to believe that any British ship could be in danger so near to home; even when Jock had explained that unless a submarine was in water deep enough in which to dive, an escort was essential.
‘It’s the Brylcreem boys. Those Coastal Command laddies are inclined to bomb first and ask questions later.’
She hadn’t really believed him, but so much of her new life had still to make sense to her that she had not challenged his statement.
Her eyes swept the broad waters of the loch. Capricious and Lothian, two of the flotilla’s escort frigates, swung at their buoys, which could only mean that the Jan Mayen had gone out to bring the submarine in. She felt a moment of sorrow for the Jan Mayen’s crew: Dutchmen who had brought their little ship to Portsmouth when Holland was overrun by the Nazi armies, choosing to leave their country and fight on with the British Navy rather than give their ship into enemy hands. How sad for those sailors never to receive a letter from home; never to know if the families they had left behind were safe and well and managing to get enough to eat; not even daring to wonder if they were still alive. Yet those people, the fellow countrymen of Jan Mayen’s crew, would put their lives at risk to give help and shelter to British airmen. Foolish, wonderful people.
Tears of pride stung her eyes and she brushed them away with an impatient hand. God, when it’s my turn, please let me be brave, too …
‘Penny for them, Jenny.’
‘Uh? Sorry?’ Startled, Jane’s head jerked up.
‘Tell me what’s making you so miserable. Bad, is it?’
The man at her side wore sea boots and a thick white sweater, and he looked at her with one eyebrow raised, a small, teasing smile lifting the corners of his mouth. And he had called her Jenny.
‘Nothing’s making me miserable.’
‘That’s all right, then. Thought you might be feeling a bit strange. New here, aren’t you. Where do you work?’
‘In the communications office, actually.’ She said it primly, nose tilted.
‘And are you going to like it on Omega, Jenny?’
‘Don’t call me that. My name is not Jenny.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘Then why?’
‘Because all Wrens are Jennies. Got to be, haven’t they? My name’s Tom, by the way. Tom Tavey. What’s yours?’
Grudgingly she told him.
‘Then can we start again? Hullo, Jane Kendal.’
‘Hullo.’ She wished Taureg would come and she wished the sailor would go away. He was trying to pick her up, of course, but any Wren new to the flotilla must expect to be fair game, she acknowledged, especially in a base so isolated, where women were outnumbered by fifty to one.
‘Ever seen a submarine get the full treatment when it’s done a patrol?’
‘Afraid not.’ Until a few days ago she hadn’t even seen a submarine. ‘Is there something special about it?’
‘When a submarine’s had a spectacular patrol, yes. Taureg got depth-charged in the Bay of Biscay. A whole pack of German destroyers were after them. They had it pretty rough, by all accounts.’
‘But they obviously made it.’
‘They deserved to. They’d dived, you see, but eventually they had to surface – the air must’ve been getting bad – and up they came, damn nearly alongside a German destroyer the pack had left behind when they called off the hunt, waiting there, just in case Taureg surfaced. And surface she did; too near for the German to train his guns on her but near enough to get her own gun on them. Pumped one straight into the destroyer’s magazine, then took off, the cheeky sods! Laughing like drains, I shouldn’t wonder.’ He grinned. ‘Bet they couldn’t believe their luck.’
‘It isn’t funny, all that killing.’
‘No, Jane.’ The smile was gone in an instant. ‘Necessary, though. It’s them or us, isn’t it? You don’t hang around to say “Sorry, mate.” That’s what war is all about. Anyway, Taureg survived thirty-eight depth charges so she deserves a bit of a cheer. But we’ll know exactly what she’s been up to when we get a look at her Jolly Roger.’
‘Jolly Roger?’ Jane’s eyebrows shot upward. ‘On one of His Majesty’s ships?’
‘That’s right. The pirate flag. All returning submarines fly one if they’ve had a good patrol.’
‘You’re pulling my leg!’ Did he really expect her to believe such Peter Pan and Wendy nonsense. In the Royal Navy?
‘All right, then. Wait till they come alongside.’
She shrugged and stared unspeaking down the loch, and wished again that he would go away.
‘That’s the skipper arriving, and the submarine commander,’ he said, pointing to the well deck below them. ‘Taureg can’t be long now.’
His Majesty’s submarine Taureg came home to base smoothly and smartly, escorted by a frigate of the Free Netherlands Navy. On her fore and after casing, seamen