Free The Best of Our Spies by Alex Gerlis Page B

Towards the end of that summer, he allowed his arm to brush against hers and on some nights she would move hers away only slowly. If only, he thought, she was French.
    Owen Quinn was close to his grandfather, who had moved down from Yorkshire in search of work. He did not share the middle-class reserve as the rest of Quinn’s family. He remembered the scandalised silence in the family when his grandfather had announced that he was no longer going to church every Sunday. When his parents had asked him why he was no longer going, his grandfather asked them to give him one good reason why he should. His parents exchanged low glances, but could not come up with a satisfactory reason. Owen decided then that when it was up to him, he would not go to church either.
    He was someone who the young Owen could talk openly to, so when he was moved into hospital that July, Owen had visited him most days. Owen’s grandmother and mother and aunt visited every day, but their visits comprised them sitting still by the bed, handbags tightly clutched on their laps, punctuating the silence with frequent ‘How are you feeling, Arthur?’ or ‘Is there anything that we can get you?’ They would huddle together in the corridor outside his room, whispering and hoping that Owen would not see them dab their eyes.
    He took to visiting his grandfather on his own and they would talk openly, though his grandfather was losing the ability to talk for any length of time. One day he had remarked to his grandfather that it didn’t seem like he was getting better. He immediately regretted saying this, but his grandfather placed his hand on top of Owen’s hand. He told him he was the first person to acknowledge this and how much he appreciated it. They sat there, hand in hand, until his mother and grandmother arrived.
    On a baking Thursday at the end of August, when the grass was beginning to turn brown, he again found himself alone with his grandfather, who was having trouble breathing now and barely ate. His skin seemed to have changed colour and was pulled tight across his face and arms. It was early afternoon and the sunbeams were darting into the room through the large window, catching a storm of specks of floating dust as they did so.
    His grandfather was drifting in and out of sleep, his uneaten lunch on a tray at the side of the bed, the smell of cabbage, boiled potato and beef stew pervading the room. Owen had moved over to the window, looking down at life going on as normal below and wondering how that could be. His grandfather spoke and Owen moved over to the bed.
    ‘Tell me, Owen. What do you want to do when you are older?’
    ‘Play cricket for England, I suppose.’
    They both smiled.
    ‘I’d probably like to do something with my geography or my French. In fact, I think I would even like to marry a beautiful Frenchwoman!’
    Owen smiled as he had expected his grandfather to do, which he did, but only very briefly. He held Owen’s hand tight. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
    He fell asleep, so he would have to ask him what he meant by that later. But then his grandmother arrived with his parents and his uncle and his aunt and Owen was ushered out of the room. He went home on his own. His grandfather died that night. He could never get out of his mind his grandfather’s last words to him.
    ‘Be careful what you wish for.’
    ooo000ooo
    Crete, 22 May 1941
    The German attack on Crete had been raging for days and it was evident that the Allied grip on the island was slipping. The night before, the Germans had captured Maleme airfield. They were now able to land troops and all the supplies they needed, as well as having a base for their Stuka dive-bombers. It was these planes that launched wave after wave of attack on the British naval ships that had been helping to defend the island. The fall of Crete was now just a matter of time.
    The eight hundred man crew of HMS Gloucester were exhausted. Alongside HMS Fiji they were trying to rescue