Chapter 6.

McNEIL was very busy in the next few days, and I was not idle myself. He got the flame equipment down to Kingswear in forty-eight hours from our meeting with the admiral, and installation started in the shipyard. I went down there to organize accommodation about that time. I saw the Naval Officer in Command, an elderly retired commander, much puzzled by the unorthodox and secret nature of the party that had been established on his doorstep, but willing to help in any way he could. After a short talk with him, I decided to put the party up the river, at Dittisham, three miles above the town. It was a quiet, isolated country district for one thing; for another, there were a few empty houses there. I got a couple of modern villas standing side by side; one was already empty and we requisitioned the other at twenty-four hours' notice. Messing had then to be arranged, and finally transport.

Sitting in N.O.I.C.'s office I came to this one. "Transport," I said. "While they are out at Dittisham, say for two months, they'd better have a light ten-horse-power truck with a Wren driver. That should make them independent of your organization." I made a note. "I'll get an extra driver and a truck appointed to you right away," I said. "In the meantime, for the next few days, can you help them out?"

He said: "Of course. I've got an Austin van that they can have the use of. It's usually pretty busy; we shall want another."

The old commander played a typical old-stager's trick over that van. Up at the Admiralty next day I thought it out and came to the conclusion that the lightest sort of truck might not do all they wanted in the way of transporting all the various stores and ammunition that they might require. I went one size larger, and sent them down a new, fifteen-horse-power truck with a very efficient young woman as a driver. This outfit was attached to N.O.I.C. for administration, of course; when the old commander saw it it appeared to him to be a gift from heaven. He put it straight on to his routine work, and attached the little old Austin van with Leading Wren Barbara Wright as driver to work for Captain Simon's party.

Colvin knew all the details of the exchange within twenty minutes. He went to Simon in great indignation. "What d'you think?" he exclaimed. "That bohunk up there in the office went and pinched our truck! Commander Martin sent us down a dandy truck from London, a new one, bigger'n this. I just seen it in the garage. What say, we go and have a showdown with the old bastard?"

Simon said: "It is very wrong, and we are very much misused, but we will not make a quarrel over it. If we have too big loads for this one, or if this one breaks, then we will ask for our own truck again. But N.O.I.C. is helping us in many ways; we will now let him get away with this."

Colvin grumbled. "I wouldn't let him get away with it."

Simon smiled. "Think of the junior officers, and do not spoil the fun. That other woman with the big truck, she has a face like a boot."

They were on deck, with shipyard men all around them; the old truck stood on the quay. A gang of men were unloading cans of cooper's grease and drums of tar from it. Rhodes, newly promoted to a lieutenant, was standing talking to the driver.

She said: "I put some cow parsley inside the gate last night, sir. Did you find it?"

He said: "Oh, yes-it was frightfully good of you to bother. I gave him half last night, and the other half this morning." He hesitated, and then said: "I was away at Honiton the day before yesterday, with Captain Simon. Somebody fed him while I was away. Was that you?"

She said: "I wasn't sure if you were coming back that night, so I thought I'd better. Mrs. Harding isn't allowed in there, is she?"

"No. It was very kind of you to think about him."

She flushed a little, and said: "Oh, that's all right. I let him out for a little run, but I was scared of him getting under that heap of depth charges, so I didn't let him out for long."

He was immensely grateful to her. He had been very worried on that trip to Honiton that they would not get back in time for him to take Geoffrey out for his daily constitutional, and now, it seemed, he need not have worried at all. Miss Wright, as a naval rating, had access to the net defence store at any time, and she was willing to look after Geoffrey in emergency, it seemed.

He said: "He can't get under the depth charges if you put the plank up across the ends. Didn't you see the plank?"

She shook her head.

He said diffidently: "If you like to come down there this evening when I'm feeding him, about seven o'clock, I could show you how it goes. Then if you want to have him out again, you can."

She said: "All right. I've got to go over to Brixham this afternoon, so I'll be able to get some more cow parsley. I'll bring that along with me."

"Fine-I'll be there."

There was a little pause.

"You've got another stripe," she said. "That makes you a full lieutenant."

He smiled self-consciously. "I get a bit more money now."

"Did you get it because of this show?" She inclined her head towards the vessel at the quay.

"I was about due for it anyway," he said. He hesitated, and then said: "Are you going to be attached to us now? I mean, we're going to have a truck with a Wren driver."

"I think I am. It was to be the new truck with the Wren who drove it down from London-Miss Roberts, I think she's called. But they seem to have switched things round."

He said a little shyly: "It'll be fun if they keep it like that." And then he said quickly: "I mean, it'll be interesting for you, seeing the whole thing right through from the start."

She said: "I'd like to see it all, I mean, having seen it at the very beginning." She coloured slightly. "I must go now, or I'll be late."

He stood back from the van. "If you're not doing anything, I'll be down there about seven."

He was there before her, standing over the rabbit as it hopped about the little yard of the net defence store, eating the dandelions. She found him there cleaning out the hutch.

"Good evening," she said. "I see you're busy."

He straightened up, pan and brush in hand. "I do this in the evenings," he said, "because then the ratings aren't about."

She said: "Is this the hay you gave him?"

"That's right," he said. "That goes in his sleeping quarters."

"I'll do that," she said.

They worked together for ten minutes, making a boudoir for the rabbit between the Oropesa floats and the depth charges. He showed her the plank that he had set up across the ends of the depth charges to prevent the rabbit getting in between them and eluding capture.

She said, half laughing: "You aren't afraid that any of these will go off?"

"They're not fused," he said. "We couldn't keep them stacked like this if they had pistols in."

"Does that mean that they're quite safe?"

"I think so," he replied. "Just how safe they are, I'm not quite sure."

They stooped down together to the rabbit, and began feeding it young carrots. Geoffrey nibbled them seriously right to their fingers; he was very tame. "He is fun," said the girl. "Have you ever kept rabbits before?"

Rhodes said: "No, I've never had a rabbit." And then he said: "I had a dog once, but he died..."

She said: "You seem to know all about rabbits."

"Well, they're decent little beasts," he said. "I mean, it's something ordinary to have, to look after. He isn't really mine, of course," he said. "He belongs to Mrs. Harding."

"But you look after him, don't you?"

"Oh, yes," he said. "She hardly ever sees him."

The girl turned to him. "I do think you're funny," she said.

He was immediately on the defensive, and a little hurt. "Because I like rabbits?" he said. " 'Pansy' is the word you want."

She said quickly: "Not like that. But things like flamethrowers-and rabbits-r-they don't seem to go together."

He shrugged his shoulders. "I can't help that. If that's the way you are you can't help it."

"No," she said, "I suppose that's so."

They fed Geoffrey the remainder of the carrots. "Was that the flame-thrower that they were putting in this afternoon?" she asked. "All those tanks and things?"

He nodded. "We're going to move up to Dittisham the day after tomorrow, to finish off the job up there."

"Is that because it's more secret up there?"

"That's right," he said. "We don't want this equipment in the shipyard for too long."

She indicated the rabbit. "Will you be able to come down here and look after him from there?"

He said: "I've been thinking about that. I can get the trot boat down each evening, or else come in with you in the van."

She said: "You don't need to worry about him. I shall be living in the Wrennery and coming out to Dittisham every day, so I can always do him if you can't."

He said warmly: "I say, that's awfully nice of you."

They moved up to Dittisham one Thursday, and went on a mooring two or three hundred yards above the landing. The four officers moved into one of the houses requisitioned for them, the other being held in reserve for the crew. Simon spent most of his time away in London at Free French Headquarters during these days, interviewing and picking his crew. The bulk of the work of getting the ship fit for sea fell inevitably upon Colvin and Boden, and they worked solidly from dawn to dusk each day.

Colvin found Boden to be unlike any R.N.V.R. officer that he had met in this war or the last. Most of these amateur seamen had definite shore interests, seldom shared by the R.N.R. Boden, it seemed, had no such interests. He never seemed to want to go on shore; he had no correspondence to speak of. He never seemed to want any relaxation; he seldom read a paper or a magazine. Colvin himself was no great reader, but he liked the Daily Mirror and he liked looking over the pages of Picture Post in the evening. The other officers very soon discovered that what this handsome, grey-haired merchant seaman really liked was pictures of bathing girls. Sometimes he would find one in a periodical and hold it up for their inspection. "Say..." he would breathe, "just get a load of this! Ain't she a dandy?"

"I knew a girl one time that used to sit for them pictures," he said once. "Miss Oregon, she was. Her real name was Susie Collins."

Rhodes said curiously: "How did you get to know her?"

"I was one of the judges," Colvin said simply. "A guy what knows his way around can always get to be one of the judges in a beauty contest. Ankle competitions, too."

Simon laughed. "And then you can take your pick!"

Colvin was a little offended. "You don't want to talk that way," he said. "This was all regular. I used to go visiting with her folks."

They tried to get more detail out of him, but he was put off by their ribaldry, and would tell them nothing more.

The man who got to know him best was Boden. Boden had very few interests outside the ship, and in the ship his duty lay continually with Colvin. He grew to admire the middle-aged merchant officer immensely; he was the first really competent and efficient commanding officer that Boden had served under. He learned continuously from Colvin. If they had had much paper work on board the defects of the older officer would have become apparent, but their constitution was such that there was practically no paper work of any sort to do. What little there was in the way of requisitions and indents, Colvin was content to leave in Boden's hands.

On his side, Colvin had never had a junior officer so hardworking as Boden, or one with so few shore interests. After a week or so it seemed to him that there was something almost queer about the lad. Rhodes he could understand: Rhodes was running after the Wren in the truck, a reasonable occupation for any young chap in Colvin's opinion. Boden, it seemed, had no such inclinations.

Ten days after they began it was a Saturday. Three or four Breton lads had joined them under the command of a petty officer called Andre, who spoke a little English; Colvin arranged that they should knock off work at five and that Andre should take these lads on shore. Rhodes, they knew, would be in Dartmouth; Simon was in London.

Colvin turned to Boden. "Let's you and I go into Torquay ' an' see what's to be found," he said.

"I don't know about me," said Boden. "Think I'll stay on board."

The older man looked at him, puzzled. "Say," he said. "You'll get enough of sticking around here before we're through. Come on into Torquay, an' make a break. I don't want to go alone."

The last remark bore weight with Boden. "If you like," he said.

He would genuinely rather have stayed on board. Six little long green boxes had arrived on board that day, containing six Thompson guns; other crates and boxes had arrived with them full of drums and ammunition. Boden had never handled any weapon of that sort; to prepare for it he had bought a book about the Thompson gun. He would rather have sat all evening in the cuddy with his book and with the gun and with a handful of clean rag, learning, assimilating. Still, Colvin wanted to go to Torquay, and didn't want to go alone. In his loneliness he was becoming fond of Colvin.

They got to Torquay at about six o'clock. Boden had no particular wish to go anywhere or do anything; he was content to let Colvin take the lead. He suspected that Colvin was on the look-out for a bathing beauty, for Miss Torquay. If he achieved his end, thought Boden, he would make off and leave him to it; he could get back to the ship and have an hour with the sub-machine-gun before bed.

They strolled from the station down the front towards the town. There were young women by the score there, sunning themselves; most of them turned and glanced at the two naval officers. The white-faced, red-haired young R.N.V.R. was commonplace, but they looked very long at the tall bronzed officer beside him, with the ribbons on his shoulder and the iron-grey hair.

"Get anything you want to here," said Boden presently.

The other gave a little snort. "I don't go in for them kind," he said. "All giggles an' silliness, and in the end you get what you don't want, as like as not."

Boden was surprised. "I couldn't agree with you more," he said. He had never picked a girl up on the beach and didn't want to start; it warmed him to find that Colvin held the same views.

The R.N.R. officer said presently: "What say, we find the best hotel and have a drink or two, an' then a durned good dinner-oysters and that?"

"Suits me," said Boden. "What about the Metropole?"

"Is that where you get the best food?"

"The food's supposed to be better at the Royal Bristol, and that's got a garden. But it's full of old ladies."

"They won't hurt us any."

They found their way to the Royal Bristol Hotel, and had a couple of pink gins on the terrace overlooking the garden and the sea. It was a quiet, pleasant place. The service was unobtrusive and efficient; the sun was warm, the garden bright with flowers. As Boden had foretold, it was full of well-to-do elderly people.

"I call this a dandy place," said Colvin. "It must cost a raft of money to live here, like all these old Buddies do."

Boden knew something about that. "I had an aunt who came here once. They took eight guineas a week off her."

"Sure. Was that with a bathroom and a sitting-room, and that?"

"Not on your life. She had just a bedroom."

"Nice business, if you can get it."

They sat in silence for a minute or two. Then Boden said: "Have you ever fired one of those Thompson guns?"

"Not against anyone. I fired them once or twice at barrels and that."

"What's the muzzle velocity?"

"Oh, shucks, I dunno. Fifty to a hundred yards, that's all you want to use them at. It's only a little bullet, like an automatic has."

His mind was evidently not on the subject. Presently he indicated a couple of chairs in the lounge over to their right. "I bet that Jane don't see much life," he said.

Boden glanced over and took in the scene. A very old lady dressed in black was sitting primly in a chair, knitting. A girl, or woman, perhaps thirty years of age was sitting by her reading the evening paper aloud in a low tone. She wore no rings. She had a blonde, fair head and a resigned, bored expression. Once she must have been a beautiful girl; now she was growing old before her time.