Read Torpedo Run (1981) for Free Online Page B

carefully in his arms. Her hair was damp, and the smell of her freshness drove away the stain of what had happened.
    How long they stood like that Devane did not know orcare. It was as if the world had stopped spinning for them. The hotel was completely silent, the residents probably down in the cellar again. Some of them were no doubt thinking of the naval officer with the girl in his arms. Like a war film. While they only had the brutal reality to live with, and a medal to sustain them.
    She said unsteadily, ‘I should like you to kiss me.’
    Devane held her more tightly, half afraid he would hurt her or that he might spoil the moment.
    As their mouths met he felt her body lift and press against his, heard her moan as he opened the robe and caressed her until he thought his mind would burst.
    Then she slipped free of his arms and let her robe drop unheeded to the floor. She lay on the bed, her eyes never leaving him as he tore off his clothes, nor did she speak until he was kneeling above her, her body taut under his exploring hands.
    She whispered, ‘Take me now. I don’t care about tomorrow.’
    They made love until they were completely spent, sparing each other nothing in their need and their awareness.
    When the final All Clear wailed across the London river Devane lay with her pressed against him, one of her legs thrown carelessly across his body. He listened to her breathing, slow and gentle, then turned to look at the grey light which filtered around the edges of the shutters.
    Another day for each of them. And they were alive.
Alive
.
    As London reluctantly awoke to another dawn, men and women faced it with what resources they could muster.
    Across the river, a young woman was about early to dress and make up her face with extra care. Her husband, a sergeant in the Eighth Army, was coming home today. It was such a special day. It had to be. For he was coming home with only one arm, and she must show him how much she loved him. That everything was going to be the same.
    A mile or so away, another woman was going through her husband’s things. The police had called during the night to tell her he had been killed in a Chelsea pub during the raid. She had always loathed his drunken outings, every night withhis mates at the pub. And many were the times she had cursed his shaky key in the front door on a Saturday night and wished him gone. But it felt different now, and the house seemed dead, as if
he
had given it life.
    Clerks put aside their Home Guard uniforms and shaved before going to work. A housewife was lifted gently on to a stretcher by the heavy rescue team which had been digging through a flattened street for three days. When they anxiously peered down at her she merely smiled. Her world had gone, but only temporarily. She had survived.
    Beside a camp bed in a concrete bunker a telephone jangled noisily, and Whitcombe yawned as he pressed it to his ear.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘Duty officer, sir.’ He sounded freshly awake and alert. ‘The signal has just come through.
Parthian
has the go ahead.’ The slightest pause. ‘Shall I inform Lieutenant-Commander Devane, sir?’
    Whitcombe stared at the clock, hating it. ‘No. Give him another couple of hours.’ He thought of the girl with the sad, beautiful eyes, and the fact that Devane had only had four days’ leave. ‘It’s the least we can do.’

3
Parthian
    Devane clung to the side of the wildly bucking car and wondered if he had any bones left unbroken. The car, into which he had been bustled with a minimum of formality, was the final link in his bizarre journey from England. Those last two days, spent mostly in London, had been closely supervised either by Whitcombe or Kinross, and at the very least by the taciturn aide who had accompanied him through each phase of the carefully organized trip. Devane seemed to have spent days changing from one military aircraft to the next, being signed for like a piece of registered mail. Small airstrips, or ushered to