Free Submariner (2008) by Alexander Fullerton

so there’d
     been time to kill, and Upper Grosvenor Street being just strolling distance from the Dorchester the Hunts Club had been an
     obvious port of call.
    Billy Gorst was by this time a commander, aged about thirty-five, a submarine CO of considerable repute whom Mike had known
     for donkey’s years, and under whom Charles Melhuish had served as fourth hand in one of the old R-class – Charles being then
     a mere sub-lieutenant, presumably. Yes, must have been. And had only been invited to Billy’s wedding – Mike suspected – because
     a couple of years earlier he’d somehow persuaded the older man to attend
his
nuptials – in Edinburgh, where Ann’s parents lived. It had been a fairly low-key affair, apparently – so Billy had intimated,
     in a brief, semi-coded chat at the Dorchester reception. Mike hadn’t been asked to the Melhuish wedding, hadn’t even known
     Charles, who at the time of his marriage had only recently become first lieutenant of an ‘S’, in fact was rather junior in
     the service to have been getting married, had only been able to do so through being personally well-heeled. Unconventional
     background, rather – mother an American who’d divorced his father and gone back to the States, father the owner of a chain
     of hotels; he was based somewhere in the Midlands and obviously rich.
    How had Melhuish managed to get Ann?
    Billy Gorst had touched Mike’s arm, nodded in the direction of a group surrounding her. ‘Knockout, uh?’
    ‘Certainly is.’ Introductions had been made earlier, to her and to her husband, whom Mike hadn’t taken to enormously but envied,
     somewhat. She was
vibrantly
attractive. Changingthe subject slightly, in this chat with Gorst, asking him, ‘Low key, you say – in Edinburgh?’
    ‘Surprisingly so. Her father’s a lawyer of some kind. Boss of some outfit, I don’t remember, but – decidedly pompous, despite
     which definitely
not
splashing the stuff around – you know?’
    ‘The champagne, you mean.’
    ‘No, I meant the bawbees. There was a lot of very good champagne – which Charles had paid for, believe it or not.
And
told me he had! Extraordinary …’ Change of tone: ‘I take it
you
’re not thinking of getting spliced, old boy?’
    ‘No such intention as of this moment.’
    ‘Wise man, too.’The unblushing but radiant bride, returning from some solo mission and latching on to her brand-new husband’s
     arm. Laughing: ‘Crazy to give it even a thought, at this moment.’ Sparkling, like the champagne; but now she’d come back there
     was a crowd closing in around her and Billy, and Mike looking for Chloe saw her in conversation with Melhuish.
    Which putting things in their chronological order was where it had started, he supposed. Charles had taken a bit of a shine
     to Chloe, was the truth of it. Ridiculous, when one thought of Ann, visualised those two side by side. Chloe was quite easy
     on the eye, vivacious and very young – but in comparison with Ann, to whom the bugger was
married
, heaven’s sake …
    He’d finished in the heads. Didn’t need to blow them, after no more than a pee. To blow them, the equivalent in ordinary life
     of pulling a chain, you operated certain valves and a lever like a gear-change, built up a head of air pressure that registered
     on a gauge, then let it go, blasting everything out to sea. OK as long as you kept your mind on the job, and did it right;
     if you put the pressure-charge on the wrong side of it, for instance, you got it all back, violently.
    Undine
was the boat whose name had triggered that conversation in the club. She’d been lost earlier in the year, and a friend of
     Charles Melhuish had been her third or fourth hand.
He
’d attended their wedding, and Ann had liked him; he and Billy Gorst had been the only submariners she’d met until now, other
     than Charles. She’d asked Mike whether he’d known this man – which he hadn’t – and Chloe had asked what on earth