A Ship Must Die (1981) Read Free

him.
    ‘You
need
the sea, Vic, as much as I need you.’
    He climbed in beside her and without words they made love, slowly at first, and then with a mounting desperation which left them spent and breathless.
    He lay with her yellow hair across his shoulder, his hand firmly against her spine.
    She said huskily, ‘What do you know about Blake?’
    Fairfax smiled at the darkness. ‘A VC, a hero to all accounts. God, his last action reads like something from a film.’
    ‘That all you know?’
    ‘He’s young for his appointment. Bit of a loner, someone told me. He’s married, but it’s on the rocks.’
    She snuggled against him, her hand exploring his body again.
    ‘Well, watch your tongue, Vic. Don’t put up a blue by asking him about his love life!’
    ‘He’ll be off soon, I expect. Back to the real war.’
    ‘You said that as if you resented it.’
    ‘I do a bit. You’ve seen Sydney. Full of Yanks, all covered with medals, and they’ve not heard a gun fired yet. If we’re not careful we’ll be pushed into the side-lines. I joined the Navy for this day and the one to come. Not to end up in a barracks teaching a lot of damn recruits!’
    She said softly, ‘This Blake. He’s not another death-or-glory boy, is he?’ She hugged him tightly. ‘I don’t want to lose you now!’
    He grinned. ‘Down to earth as usual. You’re quite a girl, did anyone tell you that?’
    Fairfax held her until she had fallen asleep again. He had almost blurted out his real worry to her. It was so easy with Sarah. They were like one person.
    Captain Mark Sellars should have been taking over from Blake. He had seen it in orders. Sellars was a good skipper, probably the best man for the job when you considered thathalf the cruiser’s new company would be as green as grass.
    Now, Sellars had been appointed to another ship which was already serving in the Pacific. No new name had come out of the Navy Office’s hat as far as he had heard. So who was getting the command?
    He closed his eyes, but knew he would not relax until it was time to get up.
    It would be interesting to meet a real hero, he thought. He was still smiling as he fell asleep.
    It was a ten-mile drive from the dockyard to the Navy Office in Melbourne, and as he sat in a fast-moving staff car Blake tried to build up some enthusiasm for what he would have to do. Nobody stayed with any ship for ever. He had served in almost every sort of vessel in his service life, from being a humble and harassed midshipman in a battleship to a sloop, from her to a destroyer, and then on to a cruiser which had been commanded by an aristocrat who had spent more time with his polo ponies than with his responsibilities afloat.
    Blake had learned something from each of them, what to remember and what to discard. The Navy was his world, and with Diana gone there would be nothing else.
    The driver, an Australian seaman, said cheerfully, ‘Bit different from home, I expect, sir?’
    Blake nodded. ‘A bit.’
    The Australian Navy was built on the RN’s traditions and experience, but there it stopped. He could not imagine a British seaman chatting with a four-ringed captain at their first meeting. The man’s casual acceptance was both warming and worrying. The open-handed, outspoken Aussies would have to learn that war was not always that casual. If you knew and understood them it was fair enough. But in Malaya and Singapore the Japanese army had
not
understood and had won every battle.
    The car jerked to a halt in a patch of dusty shadow and the seaman said, ‘Here we are. First right, second left.’ He grinned. ‘Sir.’
    Blake walked into the shadowy interior and showed hisidentity card automatically to a man at a small desk. The man stared at him. ‘Go right in. You’re expected.’
    Blake nodded. There was not much security down-under, he thought. But perhaps he had become too used to it.
    He was shown into a cool office where two Wrens were typing busily and their officer was