"MacDonnell, J E - 125 - Blind Into Doom UC" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonnell J E)

was looking eastward, mentally seeing the drab, dirty and desirable
port of Liverpool, and thinking of who was waiting there.
He hesitated before speaking. But Duncan's wife, who had left
him just before the war for some reason which Blake was quite unable
to understand had returned to her husband. And that happy event
had happened some months ago. As well, it seemed to Blake that
not talking about her could be construed as a deliberate attempt to
smooth a delicate subject, thus making the thing more obvious.
Indeed, his silence might be taken as evidence that he disliked her.
This was not the case.
Blake said, he hoped not too casually:
"I imagine you still have Celia cooped up in that paradise of dirt
and rubble?"
"Oh yes," Duncan answered at once, and knew he had spoken
too quickly, just as he understood Blake's careful phrasing of his
question. Under different circumstances Blake would have simply
said, "Is Celia still in Liverpool?" but that could carry the implication
that he believed she might have cleared out again.
"We have a room at the Royal" Duncan went on. "It's bigger
than the chart-table there, a little, and the service..." He stopped.
Blake knew where he stayed ashore, for God's sake; every executive
officer did. "Oh damn!" he said suddenly, and turned to look straight
at Blake. "It's all right, now, Slippy. Everything."
Blake very nearly said I wasn't thinking about that. Instead, he
held his friend's gaze and answered:
"I'm glad, Richard, for both of you. Bloody glad."
He was glad, too when the navigating officer called from the
binnacle:
"We've reached our covering position, sir."
"Thank you, Pilot. Put her on the convoy's course."
"Aye aye sir."
When Duncan turned his head back Blake was surprised to see
him quietly smiling. He wondered if the poor devil was relieved to
have it out in the open, at last. God knows he had gone through hell
during her absence. Then Duncan surprised him again. "Can you
- J.E. Macdonnell: Blind Into Doom Page 25 -



guess," he said, "why Celia left me?" Blake snared at him, then:
"I'm damned if I can!" he snorted. "That bloody young
whippersnapper Gerard wasn't fit to lick..."
"Gerard is dead," Duncan broke in on him quietly, "and saved
the ship before he died."
Blake nodded, regretting his outburst. Duncan had spoken the
simple truth. Lieutenant Gerard had taken Celia to Europe just before
Hitler marched, but after that he had joined Warwick as officer of A-
turret; and in a fierce action had died while personally flooding the
magazine, thus preventing the ship's forepart
from being blown off.