Cold Truth Read online

  Cold Truth

  A Novella

  Richard Woodman

  © Richard Woodman 2020

  Richard Woodman has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2020 by Sharpe Books.

  Table of Contents

  THE ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, MARCH 1943

  THE FIRST EVENING - DADDY’S YACHT

  THE SECOND EVENING - THE SHIP OF FOOLS

  THE THIRD EVENING - THE WHITE ISLAND

  THE FOURTH EVENING - THE SECRET

  LONDON, MAY 1945.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  There are two kinds of Arctic problems, the imaginary and the real. Of the two, the imaginary are the more real.

  Vilhjalmar Steffansson,

  The Arctic in Fact and Fable.

  THE ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, MARCH 1943

  She knew she had found him the instant her eyes adjusted to the light inside the Adelphi Hotel and she could see through the clouds of tobacco smoke that whorled in the thick, hot and heavy air. He was sitting quite alone at the far end of the bar itself.

  ‘ “Call me Ishmael,” ’ she quoted to herself with a small sense of triumph.

  The chill of the night outside and the depressing darkness of the blackout were banished in the main bar. Here the cares of the war had been set aside in favour of a brittle, desperate gaiety which presaged little happiness – howsoever brief – but a good deal of hang-overs, or worse, the following morning.

  She wove her way between the tables, resisting the odd attempt to catch her attention made by the young men lounging in their chairs, most of them wearing the uniform of junior or middle-ranking officers of the two naval reserves, and ignoring the glares from the women who regarded her with deep suspicion and her presence upon their ‘patch’ as a presumption. Only the waiters seemed to afford her the degree of courtesy she might have expected; all of them were old men, beyond the age for military service and the clutches of the state.

  He was staring at the long mirror behind the rows of bottles and their optics, objects that were pretty much the only sign of plenty in Liverpool in March 1943. A first glance suggested a misanthropic alcoholic, but as she drew closer she thought there was rather more to him than that. She knew what he looked like, or rather what he had looked like fifteen or so years earlier when he had worked for her father, for she had seen the photographs in her father’s portfolio. It was only to be expected that he had lost the boyish exuberance that shone through the group picture of the ship’s crew; she knew enough of the trials of the Battle of the Atlantic to know that, notwithstanding the excoriating experiences of the young men raising the raucous hubbub in the Adelphi bar that evening, fifteen years had wrought its own ineluctable transformation. Had either factor reduced him to a misanthropic alcoholic she would not have condemned him, for among the years in question the world had been subjected to the Great Depression and - more recently, she happened to know - the losses of shipping in the North Atlantic convoys had reached a terrifying level.

  As she covered the few yards between the door to the bar-room and the far end of the bar itself, she thought he appeared remarkably detached, and not merely from the fact that he sat alone, with several vacant bar-stools between him and the next drinker. There was no sense that he waiting for anyone, or that he was swallowing the pink gin in front of him with immoderate speed. Indeed, of all the men in that noisy, smoky, over-blown chamber, he seemed entirely self-contained and self-absorbed, and she knew she was going to be breaking into his train of thought. She quailed somewhat at the prospect, an odd sensation for one of her own experience and profession and she seemed borne up alongside him on a wave of enthusiasm that would shortly find itself dragged back into the general mayhem of the bar like a wavelet drawn back into the greater ocean by the undertow upon a beach.

  ‘Good evening, Commander,’ she said as she reached his side in a breathless voice that hoped to make its mark.

  ‘Lieutenant Commander,’ he responded without turning his head, so that she felt the effect of intrusion more keenly than ever.

  ‘I thought it was naval protocol to…’ He broke into her explanation.

  ‘I’m not interested,’ he said curtly, still staring ahead, and the presumption that she was a prostitute touting for business stung her. Suddenly the imminence of the undertow vanished and her professional persistence kicked-in.

  ‘You don’t know why I approached you,’ she protested.

  ‘Don’t I?’ He turned towards her, adding, ‘you’re a bloody reporter and you should know better: “careless talk costs lives”,’ he quoted, nodding at the poster on the wall beyond the end of the bar. It showed a glamorous vamp reclining on a chair surrounded by a bevy of red-faced and obviously inebriated army, naval and air-force officers all bragging about their exploits. She was genuinely surprised and kicked herself when she realised that, far from not looking at her, he had been observing her rather obvious progress across the bar-room in the mirror.

  ‘What is it you want?’

  His tone was curt, dismissive and distinctly unfriendly. She flicked a quick look at herself in the mirror as if to reassure herself that she had not changed, a touch of female vanity that at least told her she was not unattractive. The quick glance did not go unobserved.

  ‘You remind me of my wife,’ he added abruptly, picking a silver cigarette case off a book that she had not noticed lay on the bar in front of him. He opened it, took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth and lit it with a lighter that lay beside the book. The snub in not offering one to her was obvious. ‘As I said, I am not interested.’ As he spoke the cigarette bobbed up and down between his lips and the lighter flame danced under his breath.

  ‘Interested enough to compare me to your wife,’ she interjected quickly, sliding onto the adjacent vacant bar-stool. ‘Did she give you the cigarette case?’

  He cast his eyes down at the silver box and, involuntarily she thought, his fingers touched it, before he turned towards her and blew smoke directly into her face.

  ‘Fuck off,’ he said quietly, finishing the pink gin, pocketing the cigarette case and the lighter, picking up his book and sliding off the bar stool. Ignoring the obscenity, she noticed how tall he was, tall and rangy; that he had not lost from that long-ago photograph.

  ‘I’m sorry if I offended you,’ she said hurriedly, laying her hand on the two and a half rings of inter-twined gold lace on his sleeve in an attempt not to lose her quarry, ‘but how did you know I was a reporter?’

  ‘I said, fuck off. That ought to be clear to a woman of even your apparent insensibility…’

  ‘That’s fucking misogynistic of you!’ she snapped back so sharply that he checked his departure. His mouth, which she thought for a moment would smile at the riposte, suddenly hardened and his eyes flashed something worse, something that she could not define but did not like.

  He arrested his dismissive departure and his eyes narrowed, focussing on her with a disturbing intensity. ‘You do have an uncanny and disturbing likeness to my wife,’ he said with a sudden intensity, ‘so-much-so that for a moment, just one happy bloody moment, I thought you were her - back from the dead.’ He straightened up from this obtrusive and rude scrutiny. ‘There is no misogyny in personal grief, young lady.’ He paused, then went on, indicating the racket around them: ‘All this crapulous nonsense is to be endured, like the war itself, until we either die or get the opportunity to rebuild our broken lives – those of us that have had our lives broken that is. You, I surmise, are rather enjoying it all…’ He ground out his cigarette end in the ashtray.

  She flushed at that.

  ‘I rather thought so.’ He sighed and then surprised her by
resuming his seat on the bar-stool. ‘What would you like to drink?’

  She was fiddling in her hand-bag and he thought she was either about to cry or get her note-book out; instead she produced a packet of cigarettes, opened it and, without a word, offered him one.

  ‘Touché,’ he said with a smile. ‘No, thanks. Now tell me what you want with me and what you want to drink.’

  ‘I’ll have a vermouth, thank you, but first tell me how you knew me for a reporter?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, it’s written all over you…’ she was about to protest that that was nonsense when he added with another sigh, ‘no, when I realised that you weren’t a reincarnation of Moira, I realised who you are. You see Moira was not infrequently taken for your elder sister.’

  ‘Oh!’ was all she could manage.

  He was laughing now. ‘You are Lord Southmoore’s daughter, aren’t you?’ She nodded. ‘And you were at the launching of the S.S. Clytemnestra as a small girl…’

  ‘I was seven!’ she protested.

  Yes, well, since then you have grown up, but I was actually introduced to your father as one of the ship’s apprentices, he and Richard Holt, one of the owners, were great chums. So - your turn - why have you importuned me here tonight?’

  ‘That’s a very Shakespearean turn of phrase,’ she said, relaxing as she sipped the vermouth he had ordered, and dragging the cigarette smoke down into her lungs.

  ‘Oh God, just when I was beginning to get over my prejudice against you, you appear to have imbibed that national notion that merchant seamen in general and especially merchant mates turned naval officer, are ignorant buggers who have got out of their proper station in life because of this war. I sometimes wish it were true. You should go and write an article about the unsung heroes of the Western Approaches who keep this God-forsaken country in the fight against Hitler and forget about the Brylcream Boys in their Spitfires… Sorry, I’m having a rant…’

  ‘But it was a very bad convoy and you emerged at the end of it with a commendation for a DSC…’

  ‘What in God’s name are you talking about? They don’t throw Distinguished Service Crosses around after the debacle to which…’ he checked himself abruptly, biting his lip with anger at his failure to take his own advice.

  For a moment she thought he was about to relapse into his former mood and quickly said, ‘Your corvette, the Nemesia, is in dock, boiler cleaning; you have five day’s grace, having sent your young officers off on leave…’

  ‘Christ! Have you been round to see Uncle Max in Derby House? Or is this all privileged information known only unto the daughter of Lord Southmoore?’

  ‘You met my father again,’ she said, ignoring the remark and stubbing her own cigarette out (he noticed the red lipstick on its filter tip and that she had barely smoked it), ‘some time after Richard Holt presented you to him at the launching of that dreadfully named ship, and no, I have not been round to see Admiral Horton, nor entered the portals of the place you mentioned, though he knows I am in Liverpool.’

  ‘All the privileges of being not merely a red-hot reporter but the actual daughter of the newspaper baron that owns your rag, eh?’ he said sardonically, aware that he had been injudicious in his choice of words.

  ‘That’s right,’ she replied coolly. ‘Daddy got me a job as a War Correspondent on the Home Front…’

  ‘Then what on earth are you doing importuning a poor, half-cut, half-naval officer in this ante-room to hell, eh?’

  ‘Because I didn’t come here to talk about the war, or your part in it…’

  ‘Go on… Is this about my second meeting with your rich daddy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ahh.’

  ‘He has privileged access…’

  ‘I’m sure he has!’

  ‘Stop being so bloody rude and I’ll answer your question,’ she snapped. ‘You can give me one of your cigarettes by way of reparation.’

  ‘Can I?’ he said archly fishing the silver case from his pocket and ordering two more drinks.

  She touched his hand with hers to steady it as he flicked on the lighter as she leaned forward. ‘How did your wife die?’ she asked quietly as he pocketed the lighter and she removed the cigarette from her lips.

  He gave her a level stare and said in a flat voice devoid of any emotion, ‘she was visiting an old school friend in Hendon when one of ours came over and attempted to ditch an over heavy bomb-load in the Welsh Harp. Poor bastard dropped it short and it devastated a large number of houses. She was dragged out, or what was left of her was dragged out of the rubble by a Special Constable. Ironic, eh? Wrong place, wrong time and she gets killed by a…’

  ‘A Handley Page bomber from Hatfield…’

  ‘Yes; something like that. You obviously known all about it; they wouldn’t tell us a bloody thing, though everyone seemed to know it was a cock-up.’ He stopped speaking and she saw his jaw muscles working.

  ‘No wonder you don’t like the Brylcream boys.’

  He turned back towards her. ‘What? Oh, oh no, it’s not due to that. Anyway, that’s all history now.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Thank God for small mercies; we had no children, though she was expecting… Such a bloody pity…’ He coughed, aware that she had got his guard down. ‘But none of this has got anything to do with this, er, interview, so…’ He gestured to her to go on.

  ‘Daddy… my father got wind of your commendation for sinking a U-boat. Not many people have done that.’

  ‘Oh, it’s unconfirmed,’ he said dismissively. ‘Anyone can release a bucket full of galley scraps…’

  ‘You know that’s not true…’

  ‘I don’t know anything. It’s a feature of serving His Majesty in the Western Approaches.’

  ‘Well, the point is my father recognised your name and recalled your earlier association…’

  ‘Association, eh?’ he said drily, raising one eyebrow.

  ‘Will you please stop interrupting me!’

  ‘I’m sorry; go on.’

  ‘Well, he wants the whole story of the voyage he financed to the Arctic…’

  ‘Oh, no! He has all the reports he needed…’

  ‘You’re interrupting again. You found them didn’t you? And you concealed the information from my father who spent over one hundred thousand pounds on what could have been a remarkable scoop…’

  ‘Is that how he saw it? A bad investment? Well, I’m sorry about that, but money isn’t everything, you know – though perhaps you don’t. Anyway, he could afford it. I should think sales of The Courier…’

  She ignored the snide dig and persisted in her quest. ‘You are the last of the officers alive…’

  ‘No I’m not. Nat Gardner…’ he stopped, reading the expression in her eyes. ‘Oh, Christ, no.’

  ‘When were you last in touch with him?’

  ‘We saw each other in Singapore, no Hong Kong, not long before the outbreak of the war. We exchanged letters a couple of times after that and…don’t tell me he is dead…’

  ‘In a lifeboat in the South Atlantic… He was injured abandoning ship, I believe.’

  ‘He must have been,’ he said softly. ‘Nat would have relished a challenge like an open-boat voyage, bless him.’

  His affection touched her as a silence fell between them, broken at last when he sighed, ordered another round and said in a firmer voice, ‘that’s a damned shame. He was among the best, the very, very best.’ After a further pause he rallied to ask: ‘So, what does Daddy want now that he has sent you hot-foot here to Liverpool at a time he knows some of us have other things on our minds? Some form of indemnity for his wasted one hundred thousand? He got a few photographs and a good deal of kudos for his philanthropy, at least at the beginning. It was international philanthropy at that, for it was not at all a jingoistic expedition. No beefing up the jolly old British Empire; I admired him for that. I’d have thought to a chap with everything that would have been consolation enough, or has this got something to do with Madame Blava
tskoya and her communications with “the other side”? God knows a lot of poor devils who lost people in the last bloody war were misled by Madame Blavatskoya and her ilk. If anyone should be harried for compensation it is that perpetrating bitch…’

  ‘You’re ranting again.’

  ‘Maybe I am,’ he said shortly and then, recalling something else he asked. ‘Anyway, the whole world found out the answer to the question not long after we came back. Those Norwegian sealers found them all….’

  ‘That’s not the point. My father knows the voyage he financed found something and that it was not reported to him as it should have been. Moreover, Madame Blavatskoya was right, wasn’t she? They were on the White Island. That information alone would have assuaged him. He did not share your contempt for Blavatskoya and her ilk, not least because he lost his own brother and his eldest son, my brother, on the Western front…’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking, she thought, rather sweet in his mood of genuine apology.

  ‘Anyway, Daddy was never offered a proper explanation as to what exactly happened on the voyage, not even by the doctor whom he had sent along…

  ‘Oh, yes, old Crichton…’ his face darkened. ‘I remember him very well.’

  ‘He died on the expedition which, I believe ended in a bit of a shambles…’

  ‘It most certainly did,’ he snapped, the harsh tone back in his voice. He was going to say more, but bit his lip, allowing her to go on.

  Well, my father knew several things had gone wrong and although the story was spun in the way indicated in the survivors’ reports I think he wants to know all about it now because he is not well and it is troubling him deeply. It has nothing to do with the money.’

  ‘He’s dying?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again, softly now. With a suddenly and unexpected tenderness he reached out and touched her hand. ‘I am truly sorry. I actually rather liked him.’