The Horizon (1993) Read Online Free Page A

another and as Jonathan walked away he heard the sergeant shout, ‘Now once again! When I says “fix”, you don’t fix! But when I says “bayonets” you whips it out an’ you whops it on, see?’
    ‘Ah, there you are, sir!’ Jonathan’s Marine Officer’s Attendant, Harry Payne, who had once presented himself to a recruiting party in Winchester, fell into step beside him. They had been together for three years and the arrangement worked well. Payne was a chirpy, sharp-witted marine who could do most things from polishing boots to reloading Jonathan’s revolver faster than any man he had known. He thought suddenly of poor Swan at Hawks Hill, soon to be surrounded by the medical staff, the wounded, and the reminders of what he had lost.
    ‘There’s some packing to be done. We’re joining the
Reliant
.’
    ‘All done,’ Payne replied cheerfully. ‘Got your sun-helmet too. Must be going to the Arctic, I thought – you know what the quartermaster’s department is like!’
    Payne glanced contemptuously at the marching figures, back and forth across the square, while here and there small pillars of authority, the N.C.O.’s, stood and bawled out their commands.
    ‘Good to be back, eh, sir?’
    Jonathan stared down at him. Payne was quite short for a marine. ‘Is it?’ Then he said, as if in response to a whispered word, ‘Yes, I suppose it is.’
    It came as a surprise. After what he had seen in France perhaps he had believed he would be too sickened to overcome it.
    But as he had heard David say:
It is what I am. What I do
.
    ‘After all, sir,’ Payne reflected, ‘you an’ me’ll be sort of passengers.’
    Jonathan smiled and saluted the sentry by the gates.
    Payne had never served in a flagship before. It would certainly not be a pleasure cruise.
    Payne glanced at him quickly. That was a bit more like it. He had seen that stupid sod Sergeant Fox stop the captain to speak with him and could guess what he said. He had already had more to put up with than most. New start, that was what he needed now. And a bloody great battle-cruiser should be safe enough.

Two
    Lieutenant-Colonel Jack Waring R.M.L.I. nodded curtly to Jonathan as he entered the Royal Marines’ office and said, ‘You must be Blackwood. Sit down and we’ll get on with it.’ Jonathan glanced at the other two officers, Captain Bruce Seddon who commanded
Reliant
’s own detachment, and a major he had already met in the busy days since leaving Portsmouth Harbour, whose name was Livesay, the hastily-embarked B Company’s commander. He looked fed up, while Seddon was careful to show no expression at all.
    Jonathan had seen the lieutenant-colonel several times, jabbing the air with an ebony walking-stick as he pointed out something or other to the ship’s commander. He seemed to be very friendly with the new flag officer, Rear-Admiral Purves, who was rarely seen in contact with anyone else. Jonathan had only once seen his cap on the upper bridge, set at a rakish angle, its double line of oak leaves gleaming like pure gold. He turned hisattention to Waring and hid a smile. He was not called ‘Beaky’ for nothing behind his back. His nose was hooked and high-bridged, so that his eyes appeared to be set in his cheeks.
    Some plates crashed in a passageway and someone shouted out with alarm as
Reliant
tilted her flank almost contemptuously into a deep trough. The sea was heavy, the Atlantic crests curling and booming along the great hull with the noise of wild drums. It said much for her builders, John Brown of Clydebank, that even in the worst seas
Reliant
’s decks were rarely awash.
    The battle-cruiser was standing well out to sea, a wise precaution with one of her two destroyer escorts already gone back to harbour with half of her bridge stove in.
    The second destroyer was somewhere abeam, her low silhouette rarely in sight except from the bridge.
    To know that the destroyer’s small company was suffering the discomfort of the heavy seas