Read Torpedo Run (1981) for Free Online Page A

huskily, ‘Put me down, please.’
    He lowered her to the pavement and she exclaimed, ‘I’ve lost a shoe!’ Then she began to laugh, but no sound came, and Devane had to hold her against him until the paroxysm had stopped.
    She whispered, ‘Thanks. Very much. Near thing.’
    When he picked her up again she put her arm round his neck and peered at him. ‘All my fault.’ She rested her face against his cheek and he felt the dust rub between them like sand. ‘I saw you back there. How you coped.’ Her arm tightened across his neck. ‘Don’t leave me. Not yet.’
    An ambulance flashed past, its gong ringing frantically. Across the river there was a bright glow in the sky, also a solitary column of sparks like a giant firework.
    ‘I won’t.’
    He had to kick the door of the hotel before anyone came to open it.
    The woman he had spoken with at the desk exclaimed, ‘My God! Is she hurt?’
    Someone else switched on a small torch and Devane saw blood on the girl’s leg. But it was unmoving and already drying under a coating of dust.
    Devane said, ‘I’m taking her to her room.’ He met the woman’s stare. ‘If you have no objection?’
    The woman shook her head jerkily, like a puppet. ‘N-no. Number eleven.’
    Devane started up the stairs and realized that several heads had appeared behind the counter which concealed the entrance to the cellar.
    What a sight we must be, he thought, and it was then that his body began to tremble as if he had a fever.
    He clenched his teeth together until the ache steadied him. It was always the same. He had made it. One more time. He looked at the girl’s bowed head. And it
mattered
.
    The room, like the hotel, was old and musty. All different shades of brown. He sat her gently on the edge of the high bed and took her ankle in his hand.
    She said shakily, ‘There’s some Scotch in the cupboard.’
    Devane stood up and paused to collect himself. It had been a near thing.
    He heard himself ask, ‘Scotch? Who do you know in the black market?’
    She was watching him fixedly, her hair plastered to her forehead, her dress stained and crumpled as she tried to match his mood.
    ‘I brought it to bribe someone at the Admiralty.’ She tried to shrug but winced and said, ‘Ouch! I feel as if I’ve been in a rugby scrum!’
    Devane found the whisky but there was only one glass in the room. There would be.
    He filled it carefully, expecting to spill some. But although he felt as if every muscle and fibre were quivering uncontrollably his hands looked quite firm.
    She swallowed and almost choked. ‘Cheers!’
    Then she handed him the glass and he took a long, careful drink. On an empty stomach it was like fire water.
    She pulled up the skirt of her dress and examined her thigh. There was a cut, but it looked clean enough.
    Devane dabbed the dust away from the blood and felt her leg stiffen. He dared not look at her, but the touch of her skin, the feeling that they had somehow come together from pain and near-death was like a living force.
    She said, ‘I’ll just wash it and put a plaster on it. You have a drink. I’ll not be long.’ She took down a dressing gown and paused by the door, her voice pleading. ‘The bathroom is just two doors away. If the bombers come back you’ll. . . .’
    ‘I’ll come and get you.’ He saw her smile, the way she rubbed the back of her leg with a bare foot. ‘No matter what the management thinks!’
    He sat down in the solitary chair and poured another drink. He could not leave her, but he should not stay.
    Another gong went clanging past the hotel. Some poor wretch cut down by flying splinters or dug out from under his house. It made the war at sea seem clean, even practical, he thought.
    The door opened and closed and she moved lightly to a wardrobe and hung her dress on a hanger. She was wearing her robe and her skin looked pink and fresh.
    ‘A drink?’
    She shook her head. ‘Do you want another?’
    Devane stood up and took her