The Morning Gift

Ruth looked up at the gaunt fierce woman she had nevertheless hoped was her friend. As she pulled her cloak tighter, struck by a deathly cold, the first flakes of snow began to fall.

29

It had been Pilly’s ambition, when she joined the WRNS, to be employed as a cook, but the third-class degree which made so little impression in academic circles secured her a status she did not really seek. She was deployed as a driver and by the end of November was carrying signals to and from the docks and senior naval officers about their business.

But the officer she had been asked to collect from the destroyer Vigilantes at an outlying berth some ten miles from the base was a mere sublieutenant and it was better not to ask why he rated a car or why the ship, supposedly on Atlantic convoys, was being refitted in this obscure and inconveniently sited dock on the South Coast. There were a lot of things one did not ask this first winter of the war.

It was a raw December afternoon; the quay was deserted except for the two sailors guarding the barrier, but Pilly, standing beside her car, waited contentedly. Her instructions were clear; her passenger would come.

But when he did come, a lone figure carrying a duffel bag, and she saluted, the result was unexpected.

‘Good God, Pilly!’ Quin peered, moved closer in the dusk. ‘It is you, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Well, well, this is amazing!’ He threw his bag into the back and climbed into the front seat. ‘I had no idea you were in the same outfit. How do you like it?’

‘I absolutely love it!’

Quin smiled at the enthusiasm in her voice and at the change in the nervous girl who had peered so sadly at her specimens. Pilly was slimmer, the uniform suited her, and as they turned inland, he saw that she handled the big car with confidence and skill.

‘My instructions are to take you to the station,’ she said, ‘but it wouldn’t take a minute to call in at the mess if you wanted to pick up your mail?’

‘No, thanks.’

The mail was of no interest to him now. He had put a moratorium on his past life. In the forty-eight hours before his next assignment, he was going down to a pub in Dorset to walk and eat and sleep. Mostly to sleep.

‘Janet’s in the ATS,’ Pilly said, for she knew she must ask him nothing personal, ‘though she’s getting married soon, and Huw is in the army. And Sam’s going to join the RAF.’

Quin turned his head sharply. ‘He could have got deferment with a Science degree. I told him.’

‘Yes – but he wanted to be part of it. He really hates the Nazis and not just because he was so fond of Ruth.’

She changed down and they began to climb up the slope of the Downs. Well, it was inevitable that the girl who had followed Ruth like a shadow, should mention her name. Impossible, now, not to proceed.

‘Have you heard from Ruth?’

‘Yes, I have. I heard two weeks ago.’

‘And how does she like America?’

No answer. They had reached the top of the hill and she turned left between trees. Thinking she might need to concentrate on the dark stretch of road, he waited, but when she still did not answer, he repeated his question.

Pilly made up her mind. ‘She is not in America,’ she said.

‘You must be mistaken.’ His efforts to keep his voice neutral were only partly successful. ‘She sailed with Heini on the Mauretania at the end of July.’

‘No, she didn’t. Heini sailed, but Ruth didn’t. She told me in her letter.’

‘Where is she, then?’

Another decision to make . . . but this new and confident Pilly made it.

‘She’s somewhere in the North of England working as a mother’s help.’

‘What! No, you must have got that wrong.’

Pilly shook her head. ‘I haven’t. And I’m very worried about her. I don’t understand what’s happening. She keeps saying she’s all right, but she isn’t – I know she isn’t. She’s unhappy and in a mess . . . and I think she’s being silly.’

‘What do you mean?’

Pilly, waiting at a crossroads, tried to explain. ‘I love Ruth,’ she said. ‘I really love her. It’s because of her I got my degree, but that isn’t why. She made life . . . big for me. For all of us. Important, not petty. But sometimes suddenly she’d behave like someone in a book or an opera. Like she did when she was trying to give herself to Heini. All that business about being like La Traviata or that girl with a muff. Love isn’t about operas,’ said Pilly – and smiled for she had met a petty officer who had promised to marry her and take her away from Science for ever.

They had driven for several minutes before Quin spoke again.

‘Do you have her address?’

‘No, I don’t. She didn’t give it in her letter. That’s why I think she’s being someone in a book again. A sort of Victorian heroine going out into the snow.’ She glanced sideways at her passenger. He had been a famous scientist and would, if he survived, most probably be a hero with a medal, but he was still a man and the suspicion that she and Janet had harboured could not be voiced to him. ‘It’s not because she hasn’t gone with Heini that I’m worried. Obviously she didn’t love him and –’