Not Thinking of Death Read online

  George VI had been crowned six weeks earlier. Chalk had been a brother officer’s guest on board a destroyer at Spithead for the Coronation Review of the fleet a week after that event. He raised his glass of malt whisky: ‘Send him victorious.’

  Sir Innes nodded. ‘We are going to have a war, aren’t we. Question is, will we be ready for it?’

  ‘Question of the hour, sir, isn’t it.’ He put the heavy tumbler down. ‘But it depends how long they give us, I suppose.’

  Actually the Navy by and large wasn’t in such bad shape, thanks to the admirals having played their cards skilfully in recent years. But the other Services – well, the Army, for instance – one had heard on ostensibly good authority that infantry battalions were still only allowed two Lewis guns, one for stripping-down drill and one for firing practice. Effectively one machine-gun to each battalion. Barely credible… Glancing at his host, whom he knew from his brother Guy to have been a major in the Seaforths in the last war, he decided that to invite confirmation might be less than tactful. He asked him instead – very tactfully, considering he couldn’t be far short of sixty – ‘Are you on the Reserve, sir?’

  ‘No.’ Fingering his grey moustache. ‘No longer – alas.’ A squarish face softening somewhat into jowls, thinning but still mostly dark hair turning more white than grey at the temples… ‘But tell me now – this submarine you’re building here—’ the pipe-stem jabbed vaguely southward, the direction of Glasgow and the upper reaches of the Clyde – ‘You did say, didn’t you, that you are building it?’

  ‘Standard phraseology, sir. Misleading if you took it literally. Actually one’s appointed to “stand by” the ship while she takes shape – in this instance, in Barlows’ yard.’

  ‘Barlows’, eh. Fellow there I know slightly – Buchanan. He’s been here to shoot. Can’t remember why – someone must have brought him… Financial director, that what he calls himself?’

  ‘I haven’t met him.’ Chalk added, ‘The people I deal with are the yard managers and foremen, mostly. Admiralty officials from time to time. Nothing as rarefied as directors. So far, anyway – I’ve only been on the job a week.’

  ‘We inveigled you out here rather precipitately, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Well – very kind, sir, extremely so—’

  ‘That young brother of yours – blame him. And my wife – almost certainly egged on by our younger daughter…’

  Sir Innes reached for his glass. They were in what was called the smoking-room, in this gaunt old house, Glendarragh, on the Perthshire-Argyll border. The room led off from the cavernous entrance hall: it was comparatively narrow for its length, with a high-ceiling, a tall sash window at the far end and smoke-stained timbers around the fireplace. It could as well have been called the rod-room, judging by the number of fly-rods and associated gear that lay around.

  ‘So how do you spend your days at the shipyard? Does it keep you busy?’

  ‘It does, actually. In the normal course of events I wouldn’t have been appointed yet – my CO would have been first on the scene. Plus an engineer. Then someone like me, and a handful of senior ratings, others as the job progresses. I’m first lieutenant – second-in-command. So happens my skipper-to-be hasn’t yet got home from the China Station, so I’m as it were holding the fort.’

  ‘Keeping a sharp eye over the builders’ shoulders, is that it?’

  Chalk nodded. ‘An eye on progress generally, and watching points of detail. There are always options – practical things based on one’s own experience in other submarines. And of course a mass of paperwork – Admiralty stuff, stores lists and so on. The engineer I have with me was here first, he’s seen her taking shape on the stocks more or less from the word go. She was launched only a few weeks ago, you see.’

  ‘And how long—’

  ‘To completion, best part of a year.’

  ‘As long as that!’

  He nodded. ‘Does seem slow. If war becomes really imminent I’m sure everything’ll move into high gear pretty smartly, but that’s how it is now. Barlows have one other submarine of the same class that was laid down about ten months ahead of mine – Trumpeter, my boat’s name is Threat – and Trumpeter’s completion trials are scheduled for late August.’

  ‘All start with “T”, do they?’

  ‘It’s a new class, sir. In this first batch we’re getting fifteen. They’re being built in a number of different yards – here on the Clyde – two at Scotts – and at Birkenhead, and Chatham – oh, Vickers, at Barrow… Mind you, we’re still building the “S” class, obviously.’

  ‘Nothing obvious about it as far as I’m concerned. Total damn mystery, to me. In fact the very notion of going under water – my boy, wild horses wouldn’t—’

  ‘It’s nothing like you probably imagine sir. I’d guarantee that if you spent half a day at sea with us you’d have a completely different view.’

  ‘I would indeed. I’d have died of fright… All this building, though – other ships as well as submarines, presumably, I’m told all the shipyards are busy now – must amount to a major naval expansion – am I right?’

  ‘Not as “major” as most of us think it should be. Surface ships, for instance, we’re building quite a few destroyers, but nothing like enough. I could try to explain that – if I can without boring you… Well – submarines, since that’s what I know most about – under the terms of the London Treaty we were left with an available tonnage for this new “T” class of 16,500 tons. We need no fewer than fifteen of them, for a start, simply to replace old submarines that really shouldn’t still be in commission. And that’s what’s led to fixing the “T”-class displacement at 1100 tons – 400 tons smaller than some they’re replacing. Better, for sure, better in all respects, but smaller. You see, we stick to our treaty obligations, we don’t cheat. Whereas the Germans, although under the Treaty of Versailles they aren’t allowed any submarines – therefore don’t need crews either – a few years ago they connived with the Finns to have a new German-designed U-boat built there – in Finland, ostensibly for the Finnish navy – and they’ve been using her for an undercover training programme. At Hango, in Finland, every year from late spring up to September when the ice sets in. So by now they’ve a good number of trained U-boat men ready for the “off” – by which time you can bet they’ll have gone into mass-production of the same boat in their own yards.’

  ‘And we’ve been aware of this going on?’

  ‘Since ’35, to my certain knowledge. A man I served under – out in Aden during the Abyssinian crisis, as it happens – actually got the details – including builders’ plans of the U-boat – from some contact he had in Finland, and forwarded it all to the Director of Naval Intelligence. Where it went from there, God knows, but – that much is plain fact, sir.’

  ‘I’d say it’s damned alarming!’

  ‘Oh, Daddy.’ A girl’s voice. ‘Don’t say you’re alarmed…’

  The door from the hall had been opened quietly: and this had to be Suzie, Chalk realized. She was wearing jodhpurs, and a green shirt that hung outside them; dark-brown, unruly-looking hair curled around her ears. It could only be her, and he’d have recognized her anyway from his brother’s ravings – Guy was mad about her – but he also thought the ravings had barely done her justice. Vividly blue eyes under the tumble of dark hair, and wide cheek-bones: mouth open at this moment, laughing – as she staggered, clutching at the door for support, an overweight black Labrador almost knocking her down as it cantered in. She’d told it, ‘You’re supposed to be a dog, not a hippo!’ Sir Innes had turned back to Chalk: ‘I simply cannot understand how or why our people should have kept quiet about such a thing… He allowed the interruption, then: ‘My younger daughter, Susan. Suzie, Lieutenant Rufus Chalk, Royal Navy.’

  She came on in: stepping over the dog, which had flopped down in a heap at Sir Innes’ feet. Guy’s descriptive powers had failed badly, he thought: at close range she was even more strikingly attractive than he’
d thought initially. About eighteen, he guessed – right for Guy, who was twenty-one. Then he remembered – she was seventeen. Certainly no child: the green shirt swung loose but not loosely enough to disguise the fact that it was very adequately filled.

  ‘Heard lots about you.’ Her voice was pleasantly low-pitched. He was on his feet, with her hand in his; she told him, ‘You’re Guy’s hero – I suppose you know?’

  * * *

  They talked about Guy again later, over a quiet family supper – a salmon killed the day before by Sir Innes, followed by summer pudding. There’d been reference to the Cameron-Greens’ son Alastair, who was a subaltern recently out of Sandhurst and currently stationed at Fort George – he’d followed his father into the Seaforth Highlanders – and Sir Innes told Rufus that he suspected Guy was rather wishing now that he’d ‘gone for a soldier’ instead of into land management.

  ‘Never said anything to me about it. But you’ve seen a lot more of him recently than I have, of course.’

  Guy was at the Royal Agricultural College, in Gloucestershire, with about another year to do, and last year he’d spent a period of six months on release from the course for practical experience as a trainee-assistant to the factor on this estate. He’d landed up here through the good offices of his and Rufus’ sister Betty, who’d overlapped with the Cameron-Greens’ elder daughter Patricia at Cambridge. Betty – who was now married, and in fact pregnant – had written to Patricia, who’d done the rest.

  ‘We’re very fond of him.’ Eve Cameron-Green’s ice-blue eyes smiled. She was wearing blue, too: a long, rather tubular dress of some material that shimmered in the lamplight. She had a fine-boned, pretty face: the eyes looked bigger than they were, in that delicate bone-structure. Nose and forehead almost identical to Suzie’s: eyes quite a different blue, though. A pretty woman, must have been very pretty as a girl – but nothing like as – frankly – sensational, as her younger daughter. She was saying – about Guy – ‘And – did I tell you in my note that he’s promised to spend most if not all of his summer holiday here? Anyway, he has – and as you’re so near, any time you have free you’ll be very welcome. Just telephone and say you’re coming. Or don’t bother to telephone, just come!’

  ‘You’re astonishingly kind, Lady Cameron-Green.’

  ‘I don’t know why it should be astonishing,’ she laughed. ‘We’d love it, and you two can make up for having seen so little of each other. Patricia will be here too, of course. I just hope she won’t be a bag of nerves, worrying about her exam results.’

  Patricia was twenty-two and about to graduate from Girton. Guy had described her as ‘awfully nice but a bit of a bluestocking’: and Rufus hoped to goodness – alerted by the apparent bracketing of that invitation with the information that she’d be here too – that there were no ulterior motives which might explain the warmth of his own reception.

  There couldn’t be. Guy must surely have told them that he was engaged. He’d have told Suzie, anyway – having told her practically every other damn thing there was to tell. Mentioning it confidentially, perhaps – since the engagement hadn’t been announced yet; this would explain why none of them had referred to it.

  Sir Innes cleared his throat. ‘Your brother told me when he was here that he was thinking of trying his luck in Kenya – when that college throws him out.’

  ‘Yes, I know. That he’d thought of it, I mean. But I don’t know how far he’d—’

  ‘He was thinking of going to fight in Spain, too.’ Suzie watched Rufus across the table as she interrupted. An elegant Suzie now – in a floor-length, dark-red skirt and a cream blouse, her dark hair swept back and a gold chain bracelet on her wrist. She’d seen his surprise, and nodded. ‘Fact. I told him I thought it would be an idiotic thing to do.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree with you more!’

  ‘Imagine it. Guy of all people – never met a Spaniard in his life, he admitted that – to go rushing out there to a war that’s got nothing to do with him – and as likely as not get killed—’

  ‘Suzie, please…’

  ‘Mummy, boys are being killed – English ones included – and on both sides, too! It’s a fact. Alastair was here when Guy brought up the subject, and he knows quite a lot about it – Alastair does – and he asked him which side he’d join if he did go. Well, Guy was absolutely stunned, the Loyalists – International Brigade, that crowd – was the only side that to his mind anyone might think of joining. Alastair asked him if he realized he’d be fighting alongside communists and Russians, the people who murdered their Tsar and his children and did filthy things to thousands of other people – all right, they aren’t all communists, but the other side aren’t all fascists either, a lot of them are just individuals who loathe communism. In fact, the main reason the Army started the rebellion in the first place was they could see a Russian-type revolution happening in Spain if they didn’t. Well—’ she shrugged – ‘that’s the gospel according to Alastair. And I think Patricia agreed with him. I don’t know the first thing about it, I’m not in the least bit politically minded, but I do see the point – when each side’s doing horrible things to the other, how do you choose?’

  ‘Much better not, I should say!’

  ‘Quite.’ Sir Innes nodded to his wife. ‘Certainly for young Guy.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Suzie looked back at Rufus. ‘Shall I tell you what I think’s behind it?’

  He nodded. With the passing thought that as well as being decorative she had her head screwed on pretty firmly. ‘Please.’

  ‘You. He admires you tremendously, you’re a man of action, authority—’

  ‘Oh…’ He gestured… ‘Anyway, how would that mistaken view of me give him the notion of going to Spain?’

  ‘Because as I said before, you’re his hero, and he feels he’s got to do something to – well, earn your respect, I suppose.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do it that way.’ He added, ‘He’s got as much of my respect as he needs, in any case.’

  Her mother said, frowning at her, ‘This is the first I’ve heard of the Spanish idea, Suzie.’

  ‘Well – it’s Guy’s business – and only talk…’

  ‘Might be part and parcel of what I was saying earlier on.’ Sir Innes nodded at Rufus. ‘An idea he’d rather go soldiering than farming.’ He glanced at his wife. ‘You haven’t heard about that either. No reason you should have, either – only a suspicion I’ve had that he may be rather envious of Alastair.’

  ‘All this war-talk, I suppose. It’s pernicious. Every time one looks at a newspaper or turns on the wireless…’ Eve frowned at her husband: ‘But if he feels like that, why doesn’t he join the Territorials? He could have his cake and eat it – go soldiering, and still finish at his college. Why not suggest it to him, Innes?’

  ‘If they’d give him the time off for it – as they well might. Might be obliged to…’ Staring at his wife: ‘My dear – that’s really a top-hole idea!’

  ‘Well.’ Her eyebrows hooped. ‘Would you believe it. I have had a good idea. Heavens, whatever next?’ Glancing round then, as the elderly manservant came back into the room. ‘We’ll have coffee in the drawing-room please, MacKenzie.’

  * * *

  He’d accepted a glass of brandy and a cigar. Sir Innes meanwhile talking about friends he had in Kenya who might be useful to Guy if he did decide to try his luck out there.

  Guy was the king-pin in all this, obviously. It would be for Suzie’s sake – she, he guessed, being the apple of her parents’ eyes. Even though Guy didn’t have a penny to his name or even any real sense of direction yet. Perhaps they’d decided he’d be worth waiting for?

  Perhaps he would be, too. Despite certain interludes of apparent lunacy in past years – in the light of which this Spanish notion might not be out of character, come to think of it – Rufus had always known he could have done a lot worse, in the draw for a younger brother.

  ‘On the subject of Spain, Chalk—’ Sir Innes had his cigar going prop
erly, at last – ‘I was thinking, when Suzie was talking her head off – the best of all reasons for your brother to stay well clear – at any rate if it’s the government side he’d join – is that the fascists look odds-on to win. Uh?’

  He nodded. ‘Santander yesterday, for example. And Bilbao only last week.’

  ‘Where’d he be then?’

  ‘I know. I’ll talk him out of it. If he’s serious – which I very much hope he isn’t.’

  ‘I read that Mussolini’s got fifty thousand men in Spain now. Fifty thousand!’

  ‘Quantity to make up for lack of quality. The Loyalists smashed a whole army of ’em, didn’t they, two or three months ago, place called – well, begins with “B”? Saved Madrid in the process. Didn’t the Italians break and run?’ He shrugged. ‘I’d say they were in their element using flame-throwers against half-naked Abyssinians, but that’s about their limit.’

  ‘You were in Aden in ’35, you said?’

  ‘In a Home Fleet submarine. One of half a dozen L-class boats sent out there, with a depot-ship. We were praying we’d be given our heads, but of course no such luck. You know, sir, we could have stopped that invasion in its tracks, if we’d been allowed to. The Mediterranean Fleet could have – on its own. Closed the Canal to them, to start with, and then if they wanted a fight – wiped ’em up.’

  ‘Shame we didn’t. Might’ve stopped the rot elsewhere.’ Sir Innes brushed ash off his smoking-jacket. ‘Stopped Mussolini, anyway. Might’ve stopped Hitler last year too, when he re-occupied the Rhineland. Eh?’

  ‘D’you think we could have?’

  ‘You mean you think Baldwin was right. Inadequate forces, and anyway the people wouldn’t have stood for it.’

  Chalk nodded. ‘I’d say he judged the public mood about right, sir. More’s the pity. And as you say, we were hardly in shape – especially as the French weren’t going to back us up?’

  Baldwin had gone now. Retired, three weeks ago, and Neville Chamberlain had taken over as head of a National ministry. Sir Innes was saying – about Baldwin – ‘– judged the mood right on the Abdication, too. Unlike certain others one could name.’