‘Sort of,’ she said evasively, touched at his perceptiveness.
When she didn’t expand, he said, ‘What did you think of Guy?’ He tilted his head towards the refreshment queue, where a couple of pretty WAAFs were hanging on the man’s every word.
She smiled. ‘I think you probably know what I thought.’
He smiled too. ‘Beneath all the show, he’s not a bad chap. He has a knack for raising morale within the squadron, and there’s no better pilot. Hope was telling me that her brother now has his pilot’s licence and is due home from Canada very soon. I’d like to meet him; it might be that I can help oil the wheels of getting him properly trained up now.’
‘In that case,’ said Romily, ‘if you’re free, you must come and join in with celebrating his return.’
‘Excellent. I look forward to it.’
Chapter Sixty-Two
Crammed into his bunk, Kit lay on his back listening to the snoring men around him, each one of them seemingly oblivious to the roiling sea they were crossing. What a way to spend his birthday, he thought wryly.
The Arcadia had departed Halifax harbour five days ago as part of a convoy sailing across the Atlantic. The nearer they got to Britain, the worse the weather became and the slower the ship’s progress. Kit did not make for a good sailor and had been sick more times than he cared to remember. Give him an aircraft any day! He’d be only too glad to have this treacherous voyage over with and to be able to stand on terra firma at Liverpool docks.
The weather wasn’t their only problem, of course. The real threat they faced was being hunted down by a U-boat, or being blown up by a mine. God forgive him, but yesterday when he’d vomited for hour after hour, he’d felt so ill, a direct hit by a torpedo would have been a merciful release.
His outward journey had been nothing like this; the crossing then had been as smooth as sailing across the surface of the lily pond at Island House. But whatever hardship he was experiencing now was worth it, for he was returning home with his pilot’s licence. It was the first thing he had achieved for which he felt genuine pride. He sincerely hoped his days of being a reservist might be over, that he’d now be accepted for immediate training.
As the ship heaved and gave the impression of tipping over to one side, he clung onto the sides of his bunk, and prayed fervently that he wouldn’t be sick again. He tried to distract his thoughts to something other than being trapped inside the bowels of this enormous ship with sinister killers lurking beneath the waves. He thought of Island House, and of seeing Evelyn again.
Canada had been fun and he’d enjoyed every minute of his stay, especially when he’d been up in the air. Oh, those endless blue skies, just like being in heaven! He had tried to put his experiences into words in a journal, but his efforts had been less than impressive. He hoped his letters to Evelyn hadn’t bored her too much.
He hadn’t exactly been counting the days before leaving Winnipeg, but uppermost in his thoughts these last few days had been the prospect of seeing Evelyn again. Her letters had given him hope that she might have missed him and would be glad to see him.
When he’d received the news from Hope of his cousin’s death, he’d been stunned. His father’s death had shocked him less, perhaps because of his age and the hostility between them, but Allegra’s passing just seemed unfathomable and damned wrong. And now there was a child left behind. He felt oddly curious about this new member of the family – this child who would continue the Devereux line. All he knew from Hope was that the baby was a girl, and once his shock at Allegra’s death had subsided, he had tried to figure out what his relationship towards the baby was; was he an uncle, or a second cousin?
He preferred to think of himself in the role of avuncular uncle, and at once warmed to the idea of playing a part in the child’s life. A life he hoped would know more love and stability than poor Allegra had ever had. But how that would happen, he couldn’t surmise. Who was going to look after the poor little mite? Would Elijah? Would he really want to take on the responsibility of a child that wasn’t his? It would take a special kind of man to do that.
He closed his eyes, and at last tiredness overwhelmed him and he slept. He dreamt of Island House, not when he’d been a boy, but as his adult self; of lying on the lawn beside Evelyn – something he had never actually done – of leaning over and kissing her, of tasting the sweetness of her soft warm lips and—
The fantasy was rudely shattered by the loudest noise he’d ever heard. An explosion! Another explosion followed, and the ship rocked with such force Kit was catapulted out of his bunk. He landed with a thud on the floor, and after a few seconds of terrifying disorientation, he realised he was lying in water, freezing-cold water that was rushing in from somewhere. Pandemonium was now breaking out. Men were sloshing around in the water, grabbing life vests and shouting that the ship had been torpedoed.
In the ghostly pale-blue emergency lights, Kit strapped on his life vest with fumbling hands, and followed behind the men already heading up the narrow metal staircase. He was halfway up the stairs when there was another explosion and the ship shuddered and lurched. Water gushed down from above him, and he was thrown back down the way he’d just come, banging his head as he fell.
Panic filled him as his breath was sucked from his lungs and he was forced under the icy blackness of the water. Down he went, deeper and deeper, tumbling over and over as if he were in the ocean itself. No longer knowing which way was up, he kicked his legs and clawed with his hands in the hope he would rise to the surface. Somehow he did, and he grabbed hold of a rail and banged his head again, seeing stars.
His chest heaving for air, he gasped and spluttered, registering he was just inches from the ceiling of where he’d been sleeping. With more water flooding in, he knew he had to get out, and quick. Adrenalin pumping through him, he swam with all his strength against the powerful tide and made it up to the next deck, where he staggered to his feet in water that swirled menacingly around his knees, threatening to drag him back the way he’d come. The instinct to survive propelled him through the chaos of twisted metal and bodies strewn like driftwood. He knew that there was no time to lose if he were to escape with his life, but he couldn’t ignore the men who lay injured around him, so he heaved the one nearest to him over his shoulder, staggering beneath the dead weight.
During the course of the voyage, there had been several calm and orderly lifeboat drills, but nothing had prepared him for the real thing, or of the sheer terror of knowing that with the precipitous angle at which the ship was leaning, it would only be minutes before the vessel would go down.
Breathless and shivering, the man over his shoulder groaning, Kit had made it to the lifeboat deck when a volley of shouts rang out.
‘Get back! Get back!’
A massive explosion erupted, sending a fireball shooting high into the air just yards from where he was standing. Thrown off his feet once more, he felt a searing white-hot pain cover him from head to toe. It was inside him too, scorching his lungs. To his horror, he realised he was engulfed in flames. He started to scream, his skin blistering, his hair alight, his nostrils filled with the sickening stench of burning flesh. Writhing in agony, and still screaming, he accepted that this was it: he was going to die on his twenty-fourth birthday in the ocean, never to see his sister, or Evelyn, again.
Chapter Sixty-Three
It was a lovely sun-warmed spring day and Florence was taking the children in her care for a late-afternoon walk before tea.
At one end of the pram Annelise sat happily humming to herself and pointing out things to Isabella, not caring that the baby was fast asleep and not paying the slightest bit of attention. Bobby was with them, and every now and then the dog would scamper off into the thickening fresh green hedgerows, sending birds flying with startled squawks into the air.
It was the kind of day when everything seemed perfect, when it simply didn’t make sense that anyone would want to fight a war. Billy hadn’t written for some time now, and Mrs Partridge reckoned that was because things were getting serious. Florence didn’t want to dwell too much on what it might mean; she just wanted Billy home so they could begin married life properly. Miss Romily had said that maybe she and Billy could move into Winter Cottage when the war was over; that was if Elijah didn’t mind them renting it from him, now that he was the new owner of Allegra’s little house.
The interviews to find a new maid had not gone well yesterday – one girl hadn’t bothered to turn up, and the two that did were not to Miss Romily’s liking. ‘Providence will provide,’ Mrs Partridge had taken to saying, and Florence certainly hoped that was true.
