An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War Page 16

  “But I knew what time to expect you, so, and I have the kettle on and it’ll only take a shmall-little minute to toast and butter the barmbrack. I only baked it this morning. If himself gets finished soon you might still see him, but there’ll be a Belfast train in about forty minutes so if he’s not back you could catch that.”

  And be back at the Midland Hotel with Deirdre all to myself before high teatime, Fingal thought. “That would be wonderful, Kinky,” he said, and hesitated. It was not customary for servants to dine with guests of the master, but in the months Fingal had worked here he’d come to know big, motherly Kinky Kincaid as much as a friend as the housekeeper. “Will you sit down with us, Kinky?” he asked. “We’d really love to hear what’s been going on in the village since I left.”

  She frowned and said, “I would like that, so, but only if I could entertain you in my kitchen, sir. It does not be my place to dine in the master’s quarters.”

  “That would be lovely, Kinky,” Deirdre said.

  “Lead on,” said Fingal, and took Deirdre’s hand.

  Past the surgery, the waiting room, and into the big warm kitchen where amazing cooking smells were coming from a pot bubbling on a black cast-iron range and a kettle was coming to the boil.

  Kinky pulled out three chairs from her wooden table and said, “Please sit down.” Fingal held Deirdre’s chair. He was aware of her faint perfume and longed to have her to himself. As he took his own seat he noticed a needlework frame over which was stretched mesh canvas. Already the hull of a Spanish galleon had been completed in coloured wools which must have come from a nearby box of threads and needles.

  Deirdre must have noticed it too. “That’s a beautiful tapestry you’re stitching, Mrs. Kincaid,” she said.

  “Thank you, Miss Deirdre.” Kinky finished making the tea. “I intend it for a fire screen that’ll sit in front of the hearth in my quarters when the fire’s not lit. It does be of the Falco Blanco from the Spanish Armada. She went aground in Galway Bay.”

  “In 1588, I believe,” Fingal said. “Eight years before the first Warspite was built. The finished tapestry is going to be lovely.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Kinky said, setting the teapot, sugar, milk, and three cups on the table.

  “I usually work on it in my room, but sometimes on a cold day like today the warmth of the range in here saves me from having to light my own fire.” She turned to Deirdre. “Now, Miss Deirdre, would you pour, please, while I get the ’brack out of the oven?”

  Fingal spent the next thirty minutes munching warm wedges of the buttered dark spicy loaf, sipping his tea, listening, and questioning.

  Kinky was the font of all knowledge about the village. Young Bertie Bishop’s building company had secured a contract to erect Nissen huts for the army, so he was coining money hand over fist and he was already a junior office holder in the local Orange Lodge. Talk was that in a year or two he might run for the Council. His wife Flo was, with Kinky and Cissie Sloan, active in the Women’s Guild. Two months ago Declan Finnegan had volunteered for the Tank Regiment. Mrs. Doreen Donnelly had had a miscarriage, but she and her husband Michael wanted a wee boy and were going to try again and if they succeeded were going to call the lad Donal. The Ballybucklebo Highlanders had been given new sets of pipes and drums by Laura, Marchioness of Ballybucklebo.

  “… and,” Kinky said, “t’was very sad, so, but Willie Dunleavy’s father took a stroke, and him only sixty-six, and passed away last December and now son Willie’s owner and landlord of the Mucky Duck.”

  Fingal realised how much he missed village life and was certain that he wanted to come back here once the war was over. He glanced at Deirdre. She was a country girl. He knew she’d love it here too. He glanced at his watch. It would take only five minutes to walk to the station, but it was time they were moving. He rose. “Kinky, thank you for the tea and ’brack. I’m sorry we missed Doctor Flanagan. Please give him our best.”

  “I will, sir.” Kinky rose. “I’ll show you out.”

  And to Fingal’s delight the gale had blown over. “Take care of yourself, Kinky,” he said. “The Lord knows when, but I will be back—one day.”

  “And I know, Miss Deirdre, you’ll be by his side.”

  Kinky had been one of the first people Fingal had told of his engagement last year.

  “I would have dearly loved to come to your wedding here, but I’m sure you’ll not have to wait for the war to end.” She fixed Fingal with an eye-to-eye gaze that lasted a moment too long and he felt the back of his neck tingle. Kinky Kincaid had the sight. And he recalled Ma’s parting words. “Remember what I just said. Don’t waste time. There’s a war on.”

  * * *

  Fingal acknowledged the head-bobbing from one of the Midland Hotel’s uniformed chambermaids, straightened his tie, and knocked on the door of Deirdre’s room. “I’ll come and get you in twenty minutes for high tea,” he’d said after the taxi from Queen’s Quay Railway Station had left them at their hotel. He’d only managed to wait for seventeen. He inhaled and smelt the aged fustiness that must have been an aroma common to hotel corridors worldwide.

  The door opened an inch. “I’m not quite ready, darling, but please come in.”

  He did and closed the door behind him. She’d left an aura of faint musk behind her as she walked back to sit on a backless stool in front of an Art Deco dressing table topped with a huge semicircular mirror. “Won’t be a minute,” she said, and began brushing her hair that had been cut to have a wave on the crown and fall to curve up at shoulder height.

  “You’ll remember our code for letters?” Fingal said. “I want you to know where I am and not be fretting about it.”

  “I will. ‘Can you buy Ma a present’ means you’re in the Med. ‘Speak to Kinky’ means the Far East. I have it all written down. Now stop worrying and let me finish getting ready.”

  He watched her. She was wearing a black dress, belted at the waist. The shoulders were padded and the back cut low across her shoulder blades. He noticed that the upper buttons were undone. In the mirror he could see that the bodice was of a dark material cut in a V. On top of it, from waist to neck, was transparent stuff, chiffon perhaps or maybe this synthetic material newly invented by DuPont that was being made into women’s stockings as well as parachutes. Whatever it was, the effect of showing, but as through a glass darkly, her cleavage and the upper swelling of her breasts was hellishly erotic. Fingal took a deep breath and swallowed.

  “I’m sorry I’m not on time,” she said, her breasts rising and falling with each brush stroke.

  “I’m early,” he said.

  “Be a pet and button me up.”

  Just, he thought as he crossed the floor, like an old married couple. He had to squat behind her to reach and began to fumble for the lowest button. As he did his fingers touched the warm skin of her back and she made a throaty noise.

  To his surprise, she stood, walked round the stool, and waited for him to rise. “Fingal O’Reilly,” she said, and he heard the huskiness, “I love you very dearly.” Before he could speak she kissed him. Long, tongue tinglingly, and hard. She stepped back.

  He was breathless. Tongue-tied.

  She turned her back and said, “My buttons.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Undo them.”

  “What?”

  “Undo them.” She half-turned and smiled, before saying, “Undo them, Fingal darling. I want you to make love to me, just like your mother hinted. I’ve been thinking about it all afternoon. I want to own you and you to own me, and I need that before you go back to this hateful war.”

  His fingers shook as first one then another button slipped from its hole.

  * * *

  It was only because he’d asked that both rooms be given an early morning call that they managed to get to breakfast.

  And after they’d eaten, Surgeon Lieutenant Fingal O’Reilly RNR chastely kissed Nurse Deirdre Mawhinney good-bye, still trembling with the taste of
her, the warmth, and the softness of her. The unreserved love of her. Surgeon Lieutenant Fingal O’Reilly, hugging the memories to himself, boarded the morning boat train for the Larne to Stranraer Ferry and for the second time went to war.

  19

  He Smelleth the Battle Afar

  “Best as I can tell, people, all hell’s going to break loose in about two hours.” Surgeon Commander Wilcoxson was sitting at his desk in the sick bay surrounded by his staff—two medical and one dental officer and eight SBAs. “The executive officer, Commander R. A. Currie, has briefed me fully and I’ve to pass the word to you about the upcoming action.” He frowned and looked CPO Paddy O’Rourke straight in the eye. “The ships’ boys have been instructed to bathe and put on clean underwear and overalls. We assume the rest of the crew know to do that and you are all well aware of what it means.”

  Paddy nodded and pursed his lips.

  Lord, Fingal thought, since the days of Nelson’s navy, those instructions had been given before an action, because bits of dirty clothes, if driven into a wound by a projectile or splinters, increased the risk of infection. The instructions were an indication that those in charge expected there to be casualties aboard Warspite.

  Fingal shuddered. Since rejoining the ship after his leave in March, he’d not been faced with treating any wounds, but things in the wider world had been moving rapidly, and it was unlikely that he could avoid doing so for much longer. He had it all in his ruled notebook diary and would have more to add today. Germany had invaded Denmark and Norway on the night of April 9, 1940, four days ago. Today the big ship, for reasons that were not clear to Fingal, was going to be in the thick of things in a Norwegian fjord called Westfjord that led to the harbour of Narvik. He paid close attention to what his senior officer was saying. Some of this would be worth recording too.

  “To bring you up to date tactically,” Wilcoxson continued, “Vice Admiral Whitworth was at sea on HMS Renown with the Twentieth Destroyer Flotilla chasing the Germans’ Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. Unfortunately, they didn’t catch the two battlecruisers. Meanwhile the Nazis, as part of their invasion plans, sent ten destroyers and we don’t know how many U-boats to attack Narvik and to land troops to occupy the place. I’m told that strategically they want the port so they can export Swedish iron ore to the Fatherland, but that’s not really our concern. Our job is simply to stop the buggers. The admiral detached the Twentieth Destroyer Flotilla under the command of Captain Bernard Warburton-Lee. By the end of the day, April 10, he and his ships had carried out a brilliant attack in Westfjord in a snowstorm, but the Germans fought back. Two of our ships were sunk and one was badly damaged. A shell hit the bridge of his destroyer, HMS Hardy, and Warburton-Lee was killed.”

  “He was a Welshman,” Davy Jones said with pride in his voice.

  Fingal wondered how many more men had died. Men on both sides.

  “The Germans lost three destroyers sunk and four seriously damaged—”

  “Sounds like our side out-scored the Jerries,” Davy Jones said.

  “God Almighty, Jones, it’s not a bloody rugby match,” Wilcoxson said.

  “Sorry, sir.” Davy studied the toecaps of his shoes.

  “Be that as it may,” Wilcoxson said, “as far as we know the Germans have managed to land two thousand troops, and it’s going to be our job to clear out the rest of the Kriegsmarine ships still in there so our army can land and get the Huns out. The Germans have had three days to effect what repairs they can to their damaged ships so there may be a lot of trouble. The whole of the Westfjord has smaller fjords entering it from both sides. Even a damaged, moored destroyer, hiding in one of them, can fire torpedoes at short range. We can’t manoeuvre in here to avoid the bloody things. It’s too narrow. So our guns’ crews are going to have to be on their toes to knock out any enemy ships first. This is going to be an all-out effort.”

  “And is dat why Vice Admiral Whitworth came aboard at sea from Renown yesterday, sir?” Paddy O’Rourke asked.

  “It is,” Wilcoxson said. “He’s taken overall command of Warspite and nine destroyers. We’re his flagship. Apparently Renown’s too valuable to risk in the narrow waters of a Norwegian fjord. At the moment, we’re about one hundred miles from Narvik. Shortly we will start our run in.”

  “What’s the screen like, sir?” Petty Officer Barker asked.

  “There’ll be three destroyers in line astern leading up the middle of the fjord. They’ll have mine-sweeping gear rigged out. Next, we’ll have six destroyers divided between two lines of three, one out to port, one out to starboard. They’ll be looking for U-boats and taking on any German surface ships. We’ll be sending up a Swordfish spotter plane soon too. Our smaller ships’ disposition will look like a giant tuning fork proceeding handle first. And we, good old Warspite, we’ll be smack in the middle between the tips of the tines at the arse end of everything. Our job’s to back up the destroyers, and pulverise any shore batteries.”

  “And we’re going today, sir?” an SBA asked. “Because if anyone’s superstitious, it’s Friday the thirteenth.”

  “Och sure,” said Paddy O’Rourke, “pay no heed. With Lieutenant O’Reilly and me on board and Mister Laverty from Bangor and Mister Wallace from Portstewart, aren’t we sure to have the luck of the Irish?”

  The laughter, Fingal thought, was forced, but he felt the men were in good spirits.

  “All right,” said Wilcoxson, “settle down. I have a rough timetable. By twelve thirty we should have passed the island of Baroy to starboard and be entering Westfjord proper. We should get to Narvik, the Lord and the Nazis willing, or shoved aside if they are unwilling, at between four and five P.M.” Wilcoxson scratched his chin. “We all know where our battle stations are in the for’ard and aft medical distributing stations. I don’t think we need rush there just yet. There’s to be an early lunch and then we’ll probably close up for action stations once we’re well into the fjord.”

  Fingal overheard Paddy O’Rourke mutter to Petty Officer Fletcher, “Lunch? More bloody bully beef and hard-boiled eggs. Always the same if it looks like we’re going to have to fight.” He was probably right, and with the constipating effects of the eggs there’d usually be a lineup at the dispensary the next day asking for laxatives.

  “Now, two more things,” Wilcoxson said. “One, it has been arranged, for the sake of most of us in the ship’s crew who won’t be able to see what’s going on, that an officer up on the bridge, who’s privy to reports from aircraft and destroyers, will give a running commentary over the Tannoy system.”

  Bloody good idea, Fingal thought. Good psychology to keep the crew informed.

  “And two, I want to thank you all. I know that since we received orders to sail with the prospect of imminent surface action I have been completely satisfied that everything that can be prepared in the medical department has been, by your efforts. Well done.”

  There was a general muttering of assent and Fingal, who had been thinking about how much Richard Wilcoxson’s leadership was responsible for that, suddenly became aware of a sudden change in the sounds around him. The whine of the fans in the lobby outside became higher pitched as they increased their speed. The constant thundering of the ship’s turbines grew louder. The Tannoy announced, “HMS Warspite and her destroyer escort are now proceeding into Westfjord to seek out and engage the enemy. Vice Admiral Whitworth is confident that, with God’s help, we will achieve a great victory.” Barely had the speaker stopped than the roar of the ship’s turbines grew louder yet and even in the sick bay the forward motion was obvious.

  There was a cheer from the assembled men.

  Fingal felt a stab of impatience, now that things were under way. He wanted to see where they were going, watch how the destroyers deployed, try to get a sense of time and place. “Permission to go on deck, sir?”

  “Don’t see why not, O’Reilly,” said Wilcoxson, “but the second they sound action stations, make a beeline for the for’ard medical distributing centre
. I’ll be there.”

  “I will.” Fingal, who had hoped for such an opportunity and so had brought his duffle coat, slipped it on, as usual reaching in the pocket for Deirdre’s green silk scarf to wrap round his neck, hiding the gossamer fabric beneath the rough wool of the duffle’s collar. He was grateful she’d not know and so not have to worry that he might soon be under fire. He left the sick bay and made his way aloft.

  The open forecastle deck was covered in snow, and two groups of sailors were having a snowball fight among the flurries. Fingal assumed by their white asbestos antiflash hoods and gauntlets that the men were the crews of A and B turrets. He glanced up. Those long rifles above his head might be bellowing very soon. Certainly their tompions, with their green woodpecker crests, had been removed.

  He was distracted by the roaring to full power of an aeroplane engine. Warspite carried two spotter aircraft in hangars on her decks aft of the funnel trunking. They were launched by a steam catapult that ran across the ship from side to side, athwartships. There was a hissing of steam from the catapult and a loud thud as it reached the end of its run. The biplane contraption of wings, struts, and canvas-covered fuselage lumbered into the grey lowering sky bearing its crew of three in open cockpits. Rather them than me, Fingal thought. It’s bloody well cold enough down here and they’re not exactly in a wingèd chariot. The plane, a Fairey Swordfish torpedo-bomber, affectionately known as the “Stringbag,” had a maximum speed of 129 miles per hour and only two machine guns. The design had been obsolete before it came into service, but such was the need for a torpedo bomber that the navy had accepted it anyway pending delivery of a more modern type. Yet today she was the eyes of the little fleet and for good measure carried a full load of antisubmarine bombs. “Godspeed,” Fingal said, saluted, and whispered, “Come home safely.”

  As he watched the biplane move ahead and into the fjord, it cleared the rearmost destroyer of the centre column, HMS Hero. Ahead of her, the funnel smoke of her two companions was streaming off to the side. Long wakes churned the grey sea’s surface behind the sterns of the rearmost ships, HMS Eskimo and Forester. All around, the leaden sky bore down on the snow-covered hills and cliffs of the fjord. They had been torn into the Earth by the last ice age and today hung scowling as if bent on the destruction of the ships that dared to invade this domain of ogres and trolls.