Free The White Guns (1989) by Douglas Reeman Page B

use.
     
He gasped, 'H-How much did you have to pay for these?' His seasickness had gone completely.
     
Ginger did not reply directly. 'You don't smoke, do you, Mister Lowes? So what d'you do with yer ticklers, yer dutyfrees?'
     
Lowes stared at him, his eyes blank with surprise. 'I save them for my mother. They're hard to get at home.'
     
' 'Arder still 'ere, sir, in fact bloody impossible. The Jerries 'ave no fags nor tobacco, coffee neither, it's their currency now. Money's useless.' He decided not to mention all the other things which could be obtained on the new black market. It was a lucky thing he had found the little army cook.
     
'But – but –' Lowes was further confused. 'I thought it was against the law? No fraternisation, that sort of thing?'
     
Ginger folded the handkerchief. 'Well, of course, sir, if you're not interested –'
     
Lowes licked his lips. When he went home he would go and see Monica. What would she think when he produced an Iron Cross ? Back from the war. The words seemed to shine like the title of a big film.
     
He said hesitatingly, 'Well, we are the ones who are taking all the risks.'
     
Ginger nodded gravely. ' 'Course we are, sir. Fair rations for all, I says.'
     
Lowes was hooked. Ginger had not made a mistake. As an officer, no matter how junior, he had access to other useful stores.
     
Ginger stared around the wardroom. They don't give a toss for us now that we've won the bloody war for them. It'll be good old jack, then off to have a bash at the Nips next.
     
He added, 'Just between us, o' course, Mister Lowes.'
     
But Lowes was miles away. With his friends in the fashionable hotel which was for officers only. An Iron Cross. For a start anyway. When the alarm bells shrilled through the boat Lowes was unable to move. It was like seeing a mirror shiver to fragments even as you were looking at it.
     
Ginger grabbed his arm and shouted, 'Jump about, sir! They ain't bleedin' weddin' bells!'
     
The coxswain strode past, his face like stone as he brushed some crumbs from his jacket. So he had been unable to sleep too? But then he never seemed to.
     
Lowes snatched up his cap and ran for the ladder even as hatches slammed shut and lights vanished as if they had been switched off by a single hand.
     
The engines suddenly roared into full throttle and caught the breathless Lowes off balance. But for Silver's quick hand he would have pitched headlong into the bridge.
     
Marriott said from the darkness, 'Sorry to get you out of your pit, Sub, but it was the quickest way to do it.'
     
Lowes stared round at the dim, crouching figures. The wind was whipping at the halliards as the speed mounted, and he could see the bow-wave spreading back from the stem as it lifted from the sea and made a pale arrowhead on the black water.
     
As always he was the last at his action station even though he had been up and dressed. How did they do it, he wondered?
     
He heard one of the machine gunners wrestling with his gleaming belts of ammunition but whispering a filthy joke to his mate at the same time. Lowes did not know how to react. There was no fresh outbreak of war, after all. He looked at the others. The Skipper standing beside the coxswain, hatless, his hair blowing in the wind across the screen. Fairfax must be down at the chart table, while Long John Silver was calmly untangling some of his signal halliards.
     
No war. But they were still needed. His heart swelled. And he was part of it. One of them. Accepted.
     
He began to dream while he clung to a rail as the hull slammed across the water, throwing up the spray like huge wings.
     
All he had to do was to explain to his mother why there would be fewer duty-free cigarettes from now on .. .
     
 
     
'Dawn'll be up any moment, sir.'
     
Marriott did not answer, his ear pitched to the steady beat of engines, slowed now as they approached their estimated position on the chart. They had stopped engines several times to listen, but had