Submarine

He looked into her eyes, trying to gauge the depths of her feelings. 'I'm glad you've told me,' he said. 'He'll make you happy, Lorna.'

'Don't tell him, will you, that you know about us? He knows I have a half-brother but he doesn't realize it's you. I'd like to tell him myself.'

'He's a funny chap, is Julian. Keeps things to himself 'It's all been so sudden. No one knows yet. He's told his first lieutenant that he's got friends here, that's all.'

He could see the desperation there, deep in her eyes. 'You can never know what it's like to love someone in submarines,' she whispered. 'Especially…'

'Especially what?'

She shook her head, close to tears. 'I'm going to blub, if you go on.'

'He and I are meeting here for a tot together,' he said. 'I won't give your secret away. I'm glad for you, that's all. You love him very much, don't you?'

Those amber-flecked, hazel eyes were staring straight at him. 'Yes, Kevan. I do.'

They talked a little of their affection for each other in earlier days, of his wife, Trix. 'I would have married you myself, you've always known that, haven't you?'

She touched his hand. 'Mum never wanted it.' She lowered her head and stared at her sensible brogues. 'But whatever happens,' she said, 'I know I can always turn to you if I need help.' Glancing at the clock, she rose from the sofa and kissed him. 'I'll go now. I'll be waiting at the ferry for Julian, so don't keep him too long.!. take care, brother-mine.' He wiped away her tears and walked with her into the hall.

Chapter 11

Skye, 8 May.

The dappled moonlight on the ceiling, crisscrossed by the shadows of the window-bars, awakened Farge. Lorna must have felt him stirring because she called to him from her dreams as she wrapped her arm about his chest. He tightened his hold of her and, crooking his free arm behind his head, watched first light stealing upon the distant, shadowy hills of Skye.

So it had arrived, this Thursday, this moment which for the past week he had hoped would never come. The same moon was hanging now, like a golden dish over the Cuillins, as it must have over Golgotha and that God revered by Lorna. A silvery pathway was shimmering across the dark surface of the sea, a bejewelled motorway leading to the mysterious, magical inland of Skye. When the sun set on this day, he, Farge would be driving Orcus out of the loch, through the Sound, to the north and the unknown. The danger wasn't bothering him much, nor his possible death. What troubled him was the pain he would inflict upon this woman lying by his side if Orcus did not return.

Lorna was turning towards him, suddenly stiffening, half-awake. She crooked her arm round him, moulding him to her, then sighed with reassurance. She was breathing deeply again, heavily asleep, but he. remained awake, his mind too full of confused emotions: his world had been turned upside down during these past twenty-four hours.

He'd considered himself a normal product of his generation: realistic, ostensibly detesting humbug and hypocrisy, frank to the point of brutality when it came to things spiritual. He knew he was moderately intelligent but, as was the fashion, he used his intellect to deride.with cynicism anything smacking of tenderness, with snide contempt any suggestion of that elusive, spiritual world for which he unconsciously hungered. But cynicism, that so-called champion of truth, bred its own falsehood, corroding like acid at the roots of contentment, serenity, happiness…. On Wednesday night, when finally they returned to their Kyleakin hotel, they had slept in their own rooms. He had slipped at dawn to catch the first ferry. The day's trials in the Sound had gone well but, for him, the return to Loch Alsh for the last night's libertymen could not come quickly enough.

And then there had been that strange meeting with Janner Coombes in this Carnburn bar. They had downed a couple of whiskies while they arranged for today's meeting on board Safari. The deception ploys could not be more normal: the submarines — were acting habitually, each independent of the other. Wherever the Soviet agents lurked, perhaps even amongst the bureaucracy of the scientific teams ashore, no one would remark any abnormality from an operational submarine's usual routine. Coombes' and Farge's meeting in the Carnburn merely cemented the normality, but Farge had sensed a strangeness in Coombes' bearing towards him. Those blue eyes flashed, not with their customary amusement, but with a curious sympathy, and he had left promptly for his return boat to Safari. Lorna had been waiting for Julian at the ferry and they had returned immediately to the Carnburn Hotel.

'Lieutenant-Commander and Mrs Farge: yes, sir, room nine,' and the porter had handed Farge the key. After supper they went straight up to their room.