“But I reckon you had an exciting one, cobber,” Pete said. His voice was level.
O’Reilly frowned. “Oh?”
Peter pointed to a blue, white, and blue medal ribbon on O’Reilly’s jacket to the extreme right of the ones for the Africa Star, the Atlantic Star, the 1939–45 Star, and the War Medal. “No need to talk about it, but the Pommies didn’t hand out Distinguished Service Crosses for collecting cigarette cards or winning the egg-and-spoon races.” His glance fell on O’Reilly’s rank insignia, then Peter held out his big hand, which O’Reilly took. “I’m proud to meet you, Commander O’Reilly. Very proud.”
O’Reilly lowered his head, and while he should have been flattered, he could only nod while in his mind whirled pictures of those still-vivid war years, some memories faded to pallid shadows, others indelible, his for life.
And for all of them he had this old uniform with its little pieces of coloured ribbon to indicate where his bronze stars and a silver cross should hang. And, when he let them surface, memories, a host of memories, memories of a journey that had begun on a British battleship in Alexandria Harbour in late 1940. But those were not for tonight. Tonight was for fun, but—O’Reilly took a deep breath—Kitty wasn’t alone in having a ghost from those years. His, like hers, would always be there.
2
Mighty Things from Small Beginnings Grow
There were naval uniforms everywhere when Fingal opened the door of the second-class compartment and climbed down from the Southern Railways train in Portsmouth Harbour Station. He felt weary, travel-stained, and pale-faced—his Mediterranean tan long faded on the more than two months it had taken his troopship to reach Liverpool from Egypt by way of the Cape of Good Hope.
Apart from three U-boat scares, the voyage had been uneventful until the crossing of the Bay of Biscay in the midst of an equinoctial gale. The ship had pitched and rolled for days and he had yet to regain his land legs.
He adjusted the sling of his gas mask holder and lugged his suitcase along the platform. It was crowded with cap-wearing petty officers and naval ratings, their circular hat ribbons bearing the motto HMS but not the names of their ships. They were heading for the vast Portsmouth naval base. Fingal was on his way to the Royal Naval Hospital Haslar in Gosport across the narrow strip of water to the west that connected Fareham Lake with the Solent.
Hardly anyone in the station was in civvies. Wartime travel, he knew, was discouraged. The platforms had been dotted with “Is Your Journey Really Necessary?” posters. Despite his tiredness, he smiled. There was one trip he hoped would be necessary. No. Bloody well vital. If he could arrange it, and she was willing, his fiancée, Deirdre Mawhinney, was going to be facing the rigours of getting from Belfast to Gosport. Because while Fingal might be going to study anaesthesia at Haslar hospital, he had another important reason for being here. Marriage to the most wonderful girl in the world. For that opportunity he’d have crossed Biscay in a canoe—without a life jacket.
He passed the locomotive, still leaking steam from its pistons, the coal smoke from its funnel stinking the crisp late-September air. According to a Daily Mail he’d picked up en route, today was Thursday, the 26th.
His railway journey of nearly three hundred miles had been interminable. He’d changed trains twice, once in London’s Waterloo Station and then at Woking, and waited none too patiently as his train was rerouted around bombed tracks. He’d found the blackout unnerving too, after the bright lights of Alexandria. What Winston Churchill was calling “The Battle of Britain” for control of the air over southern England was in full swing in the autumn of 1940. As the train approached London, Fingal had seen some of the devastation.
Fleeting images of a bedroom with neat floral wallpaper, fully furnished and not a piece out of place—but with the front wall missing. Whole streets of terrace houses flattened and charred with some gables left standing like carious teeth jutting from infected gums. A lonely spire—all that was left of a church—pointing an accusing finger at the uncaring sky from whence the destruction had come. A double-decker bus upended with its rear wheels leaning on an upstairs windowsill. A geyser erupting from a shattered water main and a tattered teddy bear floating along a gutter.
Everyone was in this war now, not just the troops. And it was getting worse. Already he had read the slogan “London can take it,” and been proud of the British. And it wasn’t all a one-way street. On the nights of September 21 and 22 the RAF had bombed Berlin and on the 24th and 25th Berlin and Hamburg. He knew the news had cheered the civilians, but he could not bring himself to feel that it “served the bastards right”; he only felt pity for the innocents on both sides.
Judging by a pall of smoke over Portsmouth, the city and its massive naval dockyards had not escaped unscathed. Under a lowering sky, a northeasterly wind carried a stink of burning very like the one he’d smelled after the second battle of Narvik, back in April. A worry he’d had since the fall of France in June resurfaced. Would it be right asking Deirdre to come to this place?
“Give you a hand with that, sir?” A uniformed porter touched the peak of his cap. The man looked about sixty-five, but then all the young men would have been either called up or working in industries vital to the war effort, like coal mining and steelmaking. Even now, unmarried women were being encouraged to work at what had been traditionally men’s jobs, in shipyards, on the land, in munitions factories.
Fingal stopped and set his case down. “I’m going to Haslar hospital,” he said. “Can you direct me?”
“I certainly can, sir, but let me take your case and get you through the ticket barrier and down to the pontoon for the ferry. I’ll give you directions for when you get to the other side.”
“Carry on,” Fingal said, happy to be relieved of the weight, but feeling guilty that an old man should be burdened.
Once on the quay, the porter said, “Right, sir. The boat won’t be long. It’s a steam chain ferry and takes about fifteen minutes to get across. When you get to the other side you’ll get off on High Street. You can get a taxi, ’cos the bus takes forever, but you’ll have to go all the way round Haslar Creek through Alverstoke and back along the creek. It used to be a short walk across the bridge, but the navy took the middle section out so motor torpedo boats could go further up the creek to the repair facilities.”
“Thank you.” He slipped the man half a crown, far too much, and settled down to wait.
* * *
The ferry had deposited Fingal, a few civilians, and a couple of sailors on the Gosport pontoon. He yawned and his stomach gurgled. The last thing he’d had to eat had been a stale cheese sandwich in Woking station, washed down by something masquerading as tea.
On the short ferry ride he’d seen a number of submarines moored at their base at HMS Dolphin and more of the bomb damage to the dockyards and the city of Portsmouth. Barrage balloons hovered over the dockyards like a school of dead fish with distended swim bladders. And once again he’d wondered. Was it wise to bring Deirdre here? Would it be less selfish to ask her to stay in Ireland, try to get leave, tie the knot there, and be satisfied with a short honeymoon before going back to this bloody war?
The wind bowled dry brown leaves along the gutters. A grey destroyer butted through the Solent, heading for Portsmouth. Gulls screeched above and the smell of the sea that had been a constant in his nostrils for months was no less strong back on the shores of home waters. At least there was no trace of the all-pervasive stink of fuel oil that had been one of the hallmarks of the battleship HMS Warspite, his last ship.
A vehicle came around a corner and Fingal wondered if it was a taxi. He’d never seen anything like it. The chassis and body were those of an ordinary motorcar, but on top a deep, open, rectangular box projected a foot from the edge of the roof in every direction and was filled with an enormous inflated balloon held down by a network of ropes. He stepped into the road and held up a hand.
The thing pulled up and its driver dismounted. He was an older m
an with a massive Old Bill moustache—probably, Fingal thought, a survivor of the trenches of the First World War.
“Need a cab, guv?”
“I do, but what in the name of the wee man is that yoke?”
The driver laughed. “Petrol’s rationed, sir. Very hard to come by.”
And Fingal knew why. He’d seen tankers torpedoed in the mid-Atlantic, knew the cost in the lives of merchant seamen of getting fuel to England.
“But you can run motorcars on coal gas.” He sniffed. “You can get a niff of it now.”
Fingal inhaled. The smell took him back three years to the Aungier Place Dispensary and the tenements of Dublin, where much cooking had been done on coal gas ranges. “Ingenious. But does it work?” he said.
“Like a charm,” he said. “Just don’t be lighting no cigarettes. Gas can go ‘Whooom.’ Not nice.”
Fingal chuckled. “Fair enough. Royal Naval Hospital Haslar, please.”
“Right, guv.”
Fingal subsided into the backseat, too bloody tired to care about the smell of gas, the stubble on his chin, his travel-stained uniform. “Cabby?”
“Yes, guv?”
“What’s the Blitz been like here?”
“Well, sir, early on in August, the Jerries hit the Portsmouth dockyards and knocked out the Chain Home station in Ventnor on the Isle of Wight in one big raid.”
“Chain Home?”
The driver held his index finger along the side of his nose. “Very hush-hush. Part of an early warning system that lets us send up our fighters before the Jerries get here, and our fighter boys’ve been kicking the living daylights out of the Hun. Our lot got Ventnor fixed in no time, too.
“The poor sods in the naval base and Portsmouth have been hit hard. But so have civilians. On the twenty-fourth of August, Princess Lake Road Cinema in Portsmouth was hit during a matinée. Eight kiddies were killed. Poor little blighters.”
Fingal gritted his teeth. Deirdre here? He blew out his breath.
“Ain’t been so bad on the Gosport side, though,” the driver said. “We’re going through Alverstoke now.”
Fingal watched as the cab drove along a street where one side was a long curved row of white terrace houses.
“That’s the Crescent, sir. Officers from Haslar have quarters and married quarters there.”
Do they, by God? Fingal thought, and the driver had said Gosport hadn’t been too badly bombed. He must find out more. “What about the bombing here in Gosport since August?”
“Sirens go off now and then, but it’s usually another raid heading inland or for Portsmouth proper. Sometimes a bomb or two falls on Gosport, but compared to places like London or Liverpool we get off pretty lightly.” He chuckled. “I don’t often admit to any good feeling about the Jerries, but I will say this. Three days after the Luftwaffe lost a hundred and eighty-two planes at the hands of our RAF, they sent a bunch of Stukas to attack HMS Siskin, the naval air station here in Gosport. Took guts, but it was bloody silly. The RAF have a fighter station at Tangmere about twenty-five miles away. Not all the Stukas went home, believe me, sir, and they didn’t do much hurt on the ground. I reckon the worst is over. The Luftwaffe haven’t seemed so keen to come our way since then. And anyway, guv, if His Majesty and the queen and the two princesses are refusing to leave Buckingham Palace even though the bloody Boche bombed it when the royal family was at home, I reckon we can stick it out too.”
Fingal nodded. It did sound as if Gosport was relatively safe and that the worst of the bombing was over.
If Deirdre was willing to risk it, he would send for her. She could be here in a few days. Damn the Germans. That “London can take it” attitude resonated. Why should he and Deirdre, why should anyone, surrender to any man or any nation? He’d just have to find somewhere in the country for her to live, or maybe in quarters in Alverstoke. And in not many weeks she’d be Mrs. Fingal O’Reilly. He relaxed now the decision was taken.
“This bit’s called Dead Man’s Mile,” the driver said as the cab passed a high redbrick wall, “’cos the funeral processions used to go along here from the hospital to the cemetery.”
That’s a cheerful idea, Fingal thought.
“We’re here, guv.” The taxi stopped outside a gateway in a high iron railing, the impressive redbrick gateposts covered in a creeper.
Fingal peered ahead. Through the gateway he could see the front of a massive redbrick building which faced Haslar Creek behind him. He dismounted and walked to the back of the cab where the cabby was unloading Fingal’s suitcase.
The man pointed to a pair of iron tramway tracks leading from a jetty, through the gateway, and under an arch in the main building. “Used to land patients from Portsmouth at the Haslar Jetty and trundle them in wheeled carts along those lines, all the way to the hospital. Back in the 1850s a bunch of sailors from a Turkish ship in harbour were treated for cholera in Haslar. That’s why folks from Gosport are called ‘Turkers’ and the town ‘Turktown.’”
“Really? Thanks. I’ll remember that.”
“Lots of history here, sir. That’ll be one and six.”
Fingal gave the man a florin.
The taxi spluttered off, leaving behind a cloud of noisome fumes, and Fingal stared at the immensity of the three-storey wings stretching away from either side of the central four-storey block.
What the hell did the future hold once he’d passed through that gateway and into Royal Naval Hospital Haslar? He shrugged and picked up his suitcase.
He knew he didn’t look much like, to use a term belovèd by the navy, an “efficient” naval officer. In fact, the dim mirror in the train’s lavatory had confirmed that he was a mess, or as they’d say back home, like something the cat dragged in. He’d done his best to shake as many creases out of his uniform as possible, dabbed the stains from his tie, and set his cap on straight, but his shoes needed polishing and his chin felt like a stubble field.
Now that he was finally here, Fingal knew he must make a good first impression when he reported for his new posting. It might be quite a while before a humble lieutenant got another chance to speak with the commanding admiral, and Fingal wanted to ask what he’d have to do, if anything, to get the navy’s permission to marry.
He was stopped by a Metropolitan policeman who’d said, “Identification, if you please, sir.”
Once the officer was satisfied, Fingal had followed the tramlines running from the front gate between two rows of deciduous trees, their leaves turning to autumnal brown. He now paused before an archway that pierced the central building, a four-storey affair with three oversized windows spanning the middle two floors. A further set of three small windows were crowned by a massive, triangular pediment of pale stone bearing a coat of arms and ornately carved heraldic figures.
A five-foot wall of sandbags surrounded the entire structure, presumably so that if caught in the open during an air raid, staff could at least try to shelter from splinters and blast.
He set his suitcase down and fumbled in his inside pocket, withdrew an envelope containing his orders and a sealed confidential report. He reread his orders instructing him to report to the Surgeon Rear Admiral T. Creaser, M.D., KHP (Honorary Physician to the King), RN.
Fingal hefted his case in his left hand, clutched his orders and report in his right, and strode under the arch and into the tunnel. A uniformed sick berth attendant coming the other way came to attention and saluted. Damnation. The compliment must be returned. Fingal stopped, set his case down, and did so.
“Can I help you, sir?”
“Please. I’m looking for the office of the medical officer in charge.”
“Come with me, sir.” The man picked up Fingal’s case and marched along the tunnel, through a doorway on the left, along a short corridor, and halted in front of a closed door. “In there, sir, and the admiral is in.” He returned Fingal’s case.
“Thank you,” he said. “Carry on.” And as the man saluted and left, Fingal knocked on the door.
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A voice from inside said, “Come in.”
Encumbered by his case and the orders, Fingal managed, at the expense of crumpling the envelope and papers inside, to open the door. He stepped over the threshold into a small, simple room. The floor was of polished wooden planks, the walls painted white. A central fireplace was surmounted by a massive coat of arms flanked by wooden plaques embellished with rows of names in gold lettering. He guessed they were the previous commanding officers.
A middle-aged man, on his cuffs a broad gold stripe surmounted by a narrow one with a curl, sat behind a kneehole desk positioned sideways to a window. He frowned as he scrutinised Fingal, then shook his head. The expression on the man’s face was one of sadness, resignation.
Fingal could practically hear the admiral thinking to himself, Oh well, there is a war on, and whoever this is he’s Royal Navy Reserve, not regular navy. We must make allowances.
Fingal came to attention—the navy does not salute indoors—and leant forward to proffer his orders. “Surgeon Lieutenant O’Reilly reporting for—” He got no further. A small rug under his feet slid on the polished wooden floor and Fingal pitched forward, ramming the envelope at the admiral as a fencer might deliver a lethal epée thrust to the heart.
Admiral Creaser rapidly moved his head and upper body to one side to avoid the blow.
By the time Fingal had grabbed the desk, arrested his forward movement, and managed to be standing at some semblance of attention, the admiral was once more sitting upright, not a hair out of place. “Now, Lieutenant O’Reilly,” he said, holding out his right hand, “shall we try this again?” Not the faintest of smiles played on his lips, and his voice was stern.
Fingal handed over the envelope and orders.
“Hmm,” said the admiral after he’d read both the sealed and the unsealed documents. “Hmm. Interesting.” The senior man looked up. “Stand at ease.”
Fingal did.
“There’s a chair. Be seated and take off your cap. You should have before you came in.”
“Thank you, sir.” Fingal sat and took off his cap, well aware that he needed a haircut.