Free For Valour by Douglas Reeman Page B

Second Officer.” She looked at his hand on her rain-spotted sleeve. “I’m in Operations.” She pulled her arm away as the porter appeared in the doorway. “It’s the car.”
    He said, “The photograph?”
    Her eyes were distant again. “Oh, that. Had it done a long time ago, when I was at U of T.” She seemed to realize what she had said, and added, “University of Toronto. A hundred years ago!”
    She moved away, and said, “I hope everything goes well for you this time.” She shook her head again. “That’s not how I meant it. Sorry.”
    He said, “And I wish you better luck, too. I mean it.”
    She gave him that direct look, and then, like the girl in the photograph, she reached out impetuously and touched the crimson ribbon.
    â€œFor both of us.”
    He said, “I must be going, too.” He saw her turn as he signalled to the waiter and picked up his cap and raincoat.
    She said, “I can’t offer you a lift, I’m afraid.”
    They stood together outside the club. It was pitch dark, and still raining. A solitary searchlight beam played back and forth across the clouds, and true to form the air raid sirens began to wail.
    He saw the car. Like the one in which he had been driven to Harwich, the engine throbbing impatiently.
    The girl in the photograph. And Fairfax had known nothing about her. He had too open a face to conceal a lie. And she was going.
    He said, “If we meet again . . .”
    She might have smiled. “Better leave it right there, sir. ”
    He opened the car door for her, felt her brush against him as she climbed into the rear seat.
    She wound down the window and said, “Goodbye. And thanks for being so nice about it.” She said something to the driver and the car jerked into gear. She called, “Anna. The name’s Anna, by the way.” The car’s dark shape merged with the night and he was alone once more.
    When she had recovered from her obvious distress at the death of someone who must have been more than just a friend, although he had been careful to conceal it from his subordinates, then she might share it with her comrades.
    But somehow he knew she would not.
    The name’s Anna, by the way.
    It was little enough. But to Graham Martineau, it was like a lifeline.
    The Turk’s Head pub was packed and the air thick with unmoving smoke. Bob Forward found a corner and took a swallow of beer. He had stopped at several pubs on this run ashore, moving on whenever he had spotted someone he knew. He peered around the bar. Sailors for the most part, trying to drink as much as they could before they returned to their ships. In another corner there was a group of red-faced chiefs, probably “stanchions” from the barracks at Devonport nearby. They never went to sea, living happily on bribes obtained from those willing or desperate enough to pay to avoid an uncomfortable draft-chit, or to wangle more leave ashore than they were entitled. He smiled. It was the world he knew and understood.
    There were a few soldiers too, in their scruffy battledress, and two or three W.A.A.F.s in air force blue from one of the airstrips around Plymouth, outnumbered and yet strangely safe in this all-male bedlam. The landlord shouted something, shrugged when unable to make himself heard, and held up a much-handled board with Air Raid Warning painted on it. It was greeted by laughter and jeers by those still steady enough on their feet to notice it.
    A blackout curtain billowed inward and another sailor pushed through the street door.
    It was the youngster, Wishart. More at sea than ever in a dump like this. After several attempts to reach the bar he called, “Could I have a beer, please?”
    The perspiring barman regarded him grimly. “’Ow much? ’Alf a pint or ’alf a gallon?”
    A big three-badgeman beside Forward shouted, “You old enough to drink, sonny? What