Sunset Read Online Free

and jammed on his cap. If they stayed in Scapa much longer they would certainly need the NAAFI boat.
    He reached the quarterdeck and the hard sunshine even as the boat came expertly alongside the accommodation ladder, while Barrington-Purvis screamed, ‘Not
here
, damn you!’
    Kerr strode to the guard-rail. In one glance he saw the luggage in the cockpit, the officer in the plain raincoat, and the way the boatmen were watching with unconcealed delight.
    He snapped to the startled quartermaster,
‘Pipe!’
    He strode in front of the sub-lieutenant and raised his hand to his cap. The newcomer ran lightly up the ladder and returned his salute, while a solitary boatswain’s call made every face peer aft.
    â€˜Welcome aboard, sir.’
    Brooke looked at him gravely, sensing the tension. ‘My fault. Couldn’t wait any longer.’ He glanced at the sub-lieutenant and added in the same calm tone, ‘Barrington-Purvis, I presume?’
    It was the first time Kerr had seen the subbie wilt, as if the new captain had shouted some terrible obscenity at him.
    Brooke walked a few paces and saw the duty part of the watch falling into two ranks. His mind was crammed with details about this ship, her state of readiness and her immediate past record, like a history of the war itself. Narvik, Dunkirk, the Atlantic, one disaster after another. The men he would have to discover for himself. If he was to know them, they too must know him.
    One square figure was facing aft, his hand to his cap in salute. It was the coxswain, next to the first lieutenant the most vital man in the ship. This one was shorter than he appeared but built like a tank. The familiar crossed torpedoes on his lapels, the chief petty officer’s cap badge: he was someone you would not forget. The coxswain was the man who took the helm for all the difficult tasks, entering and leaving harbour, anchoring or picking up a mooring-buoy in a force eight gale. Above all, in action, he was the core of the ship. He was also father-confessor, guardian of the company’s welfare, policeman at the defaulters’ table, feared if necessary, but above all respected.
    Kerr saw the exchange of glances, and was surprised. George Pike, the coxswain, rarely showed emotion. He always seemed to be above it.
    He said, ‘This is the Cox’n, sir.’
    Pike shambled towards them. ‘I’m sorry about this, sir.’ A deep throaty voice, once from London, Brooke thought, but not for many years. ‘I wasn’t sure till you come aboard, sir, otherwise I’d have bin there.’
    Kerr watched them. The sudden resolution on Pike’s reddened features, the wariness on the new captain’s face.
    â€˜You know me, then?’
    Pike said, ‘This was my first ship, sir. I was a rookie torpedoman when she first commissioned.’ His eyes clouded. ‘When your father took command. I saw him just now when you come over the side.’
    Brooke smiled. It was hard to regard himself as the image of the man he had last seen a few days ago. Broken in health . . . He tried to accept it.
Dying
.
    Kerr said awkwardly, ‘I – I didn’t realise, sir.’
    Brooke turned and gave a casual wave to the NAAFI boat as it moved astern, pouring out even more diesel fumes.
    Kerr said, ‘I’ll show you your quarters, and lay on some breakfast, if you like.’ He watched his profile. Good, even features but deep lines at the mouth, and shadows beneath the steady, tawny eyes. A man with a past. And only George Pike had known and understood.
    Brooke said, ‘I’d like that.’ He followed Kerr through the quartermaster’s lobby with its little desk and the officers’ name board with its slides labelled
Ashore
or
Aboard.
He turned to glance at a rack of cutlasses and a stand of rifles. Last resort, perhaps.
    Kerr was saying, ‘I’m afraid Petty Officer Kingsmill, our wardroom steward, is still ashore,