Twelve Seconds to Live (2002) Read Free

the familiar angle, embraced the room.
    ‘Ah, Masters, glad to find
you
up an’ about at least, what?’
    He did not shake hands; he never did unless with some senior officer, when it was unavoidable. Masters hadbecome used to these irregular and unorthodox visits. Resentment was pointless: it was just Fawcett’s way.
    He had in fact been shaving at five-thirty when the blare of Reveille had shattered the silence and sent the gulls screaming up from the parade ground and the roof of
Vernon
’s little church. Across the harbour and the barracks bugles had sounded, and from hundreds of tannoys in ships of all classes and sizes quartermasters had added their own chorus to the squeal of boatswains’ calls.
    Wakey wakey, rise and shine!
And the response of as many curses.
    But the most remarkable thing about Fawcett was his appearance. Until a day ago he had been at the naval base in Portland; this morning he must have been driven straight down the Portsmouth Road either from his quarters in London or the Admiralty bunker itself. There was not a crease in his impeccable doeskin uniform, and his shoes shone as if they had just been polished, and as he laid his cap on the desk and flashed the Wren a smile his hair looked as if it had been recently trimmed; it always did. Not a tall man, and not prone to quick gestures, yet he gave the immediate impression of energy. Now in his fifties, he had an alert, mobile face dominated by clear blue eyes, as if the younger Fawcett were still looking out.
    The door closed behind the harassed lieutenant and Fawcett said, ‘Your people are on their toes, I’m pleased to see. Too much over-confidence in some of the places I’ve been lately.’ Then, ‘Any tea going, Sally?’
    He rarely got a name wrong, and never with women. She picked up another telephone and nodded. ‘Sir.’
    Masters had noticed the admiral’s tan, and felt another unreasonable touch of envy. Fawcett had been sent to Sicily;
the first thrust in the right direction
, he had called it.
    It had once seemed unattainable. After the months, the years, of setbacks and disasters, Dunkirk, the constant bombings and the inability to hit back, the Atlantic and the U-Boats scattering and savaging desperately needed convoys, and even the gallant Eighth Army retreating to the very gates of Cairo. And now everything had changed. The Eighth Army, the Desert Rats as they were known to everyone who could read a newspaper or watch a newsreel, had turned at some unheard of place called El Alamein. Not only had they withstood the full might of the German Afrika Korps, under its equally formidable general Rommel, but they had broken the enemy and sent them into full retreat. Now the only Germans in North Africa were dead or prisoners of war. The invasion of Sicily had been the first step back into Europe. A combined force of British, American and Canadian troops, supported by every available warship, had carried out the landings. It had been decided that July was the most favourable month in the Mediterranean, especially for men in landing craft attacking in deadly earnest for the first time. The weather had turned out to be the worst for that time of year anyone could remember, but in three weeks they had done it. Masters looked over at the admiral. He was leafing through the top file of signals, his rectangleof bright medal ribbons shining in the harsh overhead lighting.
    It would be Italy next. And soon. And this time the enemy would be ready. It would take every skill in the book to win.
    And I shall still be here.
    Fawcett said casually, ‘I’ve been visiting the submariners too, y’know. First Sea Lord’s idea. Wanted a frank report, for the P.M., actually.’ He paused, one neat hand separating the signals, as if expecting an answer. ‘We all laughed at the Italians when they started messing about with their two-man torpedoes and explosive motor boats, what? Until they sank the cruiser
York
a couple of years ago in Crete, and