his shoulder. ‘Now you’re definitely thinking of a pretty lady,’ the Welshman says, his flushed face inches from Charlie’s. Charlie nods, grinning back, and Mole clears his throat and starts one of his songs. Charlie can feel the music vibrate and rumble in his chest as he places his own arm around the observer’s shoulder. Side by side, they are an odd couple: the tall, angular Englishman and the short, dark Welshman. They have been flying together for almost six months, more time than Charlie has ever flown with anyone before. He is called Mole because of his habit of staring at the charts so closely that his nose almost touches them. But of course, his vision is perfect really.
Their shipmates believe the Swordfish are their guardian angels. And Charlie has to admit, they do look like angels up there, floating and weaving through the sky. And Olivia, with her golden hair and her pale blue eyes, is an angel too. The drink warms his belly and the music fills his head as he leans back and gently glides away into the clouds.
It is only a few days later, his hangover barely cleared, that Charlie hears the shocking news that a British aircraft carrier has been torpedoed and sunk off Ireland, with few survivors and more than five hundred dead. The men’s grief is deep and unfathomable, like the ocean they feel cast adrift on. Everyone knows someone who died. The Kid is distraught. He has lost a close friend from his home town. They joined up together. There are boys and men, sailors and pilots, telegraphists and signalmen, photographers and marines, stokers and plumbers, cooks and gunners, mechanics and joiners and sailmakers – all gone, along with two entire squadrons of Fairey Swordfish. It could so easily have been Charlie’s ship.
The Admiralty is nervous. They cannot afford to lose another aircraft carrier: bad for morale, bad for publicity, bad for the coffers. Charlie’s ship has orders to withdraw from submarine patrol. The men are dismayed. They would like nothing better than to avenge their brothers. They hear that the submarine that attacked her has escaped and that the German Kriegsmarine are elated, boasting of their success. The sailors fume and mutter below deck. But orders are orders. When you’re in the Royal Navy, you do what you’re told.
Tonight Charlie’s carrier is returning to the naval base at Scapa Flow. As they approach, Charlie’s eyes take in the gentle peaks of the Orkneys. Waves rush out in front of the ship as the land appears and disappears with the rise and fall of the ship. One minute it’s there, the next all he can see is the sky. They negotiate the trench of Hoxa Sound, the only part deep enough for the aircraft carrier’s draught. The channel leads them to the shelter of Scapa Flow, the natural harbour nestled beneath mainland Orkney and protected by a chain of islands.
Hills rise out of the mist on either side. Ahead, a line of wooden buoys floats along the top of the water: the boom defence. The nets lie like hidden curtains beneath: interlaced circles of metal designed to prevent submarines getting in, and to snag enemy ships. Tugboats pull the booms out of the way, and the aircraft carrier slides in. Everyone breathes a little easier: they are safe.
Another battleship heaves into view, standing out proudly in contrast to the wilderness. A thrill runs through Charlie when he sees her. She is an important part of the Royal Navy’s history, launched in 1914 at the start of the Great War, and, although she is too slow to keep up with the more modern ships in the fleet, she is ideal for training – this is where the boys he escorted up here on the sleeper were headed. The ship holds a special place in Charlie’s heart: his father served on board as first lieutenant towards the end of that Great War.
They drop anchor about seven hundred yards from the older ship. The heavy chain rushes out of the hawsepipe with a rattle and a splash, and plummets to the bottom of the harbour. The men get ready to relax. Some prepare for a night of cards or building models or listening to the radio. Others will go ashore to stretch their legs. Charlie is surprised to find a letter delivered into his hand. Hope leaps in his chest like a fish. He opens the envelope slowly, savouring the rarity. His eyes scan down the page, across the spindly words that fall over each other until they get to the end: Olivia. The girl from the train. He props his back against the wall, stretching out his legs across his bunk as he settles down to read.
The letter makes him smile. He loves the description of her journey from the station to Taigh Mor. He knows that road well. It is one of his favourite journeys, winding its way through the Highlands, passing only the occasional cottage, the tops of the hills almost touching the sky, the burns glimmering in the distance, the sudden smattering of hardy, ragged sheep or a lone red deer. It is a journey back in time.
He is delighted to discover that Nancy has lodged Olivia in the little bothy down by the loch. He wonders whether she knows that her uncle did that bothy up as a wedding present for his then young wife before the last war, and how special it was to the pair of them. He has no doubt that the place will work its magic on her. There is something so charmingly naïve about her letter. She has been cosseted and kept from the real world. He can’t help feeling excited at the prospect of her learning to love Scotland as he does.
What he would give to be there now. To lie in the silence broken only by the murmur of water on shingle and the rustle of the trees, instead of the hollow clanking of his ship and the thoughts and voices of so many men. Ironically it is only a few miles around the coast, but it might as well be a thousand miles away.
Charlie resists the urge to hold the letter to his nose, to breathe her in. Can it really be only ten days since they met? And now she has replied. Things couldn’t be better. He rests his head back against the cabin wall. Life is good. His first goal was to fly, and now that he’s doing it, the rest of his dreams will follow. Suddenly his future is something that is tangible, ready to be plucked in all its shining glory as soon as the war is over.
Night is drawing in and the light is fading. The aircraft carrier’s signal lamp winks its message to ask whether they can join the men on the battleship for a few drinks. Charlie is bursting with energy. He feels as though he could do anything. He joins Paddy and Frank, Mole and some of the other officers who want a closer look at the veteran ship. They motor across the black water of the harbour. The movement of a small boat is completely different to that of the aircraft carrier; the smell of salt water and the sloshing of the waves more powerful. The sea glints where the small light on their launch catches the ripples.
Although the old battleship – like all ships – is in blackout, Charlie can just make her out in the twilight: the pom-pom guns next to the funnel, and the huge fourteen-inch guns at the front trumpeting up to the sky, the lifeboats dangling on their davits like hanging baskets. The sound of the water changes as it slaps ineffectually at her sides.
‘Boat ahoy!’ Someone shines a light down on them. They blink up at it, unable to see anyone behind the brightness. An officer is there to greet them. He grabs Charlie’s hand firmly, gripping his forearm with the other hand. ‘Welcome aboard,’ he says.
It does them good to see new faces. The officers relax into a catch-up, trading stories of German reconnaissance and squeezing each other for news of home and where they might be sent next. Charlie wonders whether his father ever sat in this same wardroom, among the chink of glasses and the hum of men.
‘Any on-shore entertainment here?’ asks Frank.
‘Not unless you like sheep,’ says one of the officers, a man with a long, narrow nose.
All the men laugh, but Charlie says, ‘I love it up here. Think I might buy a place one day.’
Mole grunts. ‘Not on a sub-lieutenant’s pay, you won’t,’ he says.
‘I won’t be a sub-lieutenant for ever,’ says Charlie.
‘No,’ says Mole. ‘Knowing you, you won’t.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ says one of the older officers, with a wry smile, ‘you’ve got it all mapped out: captain, commodore, admiral?’
Charlie looks down at his drink. The liquid sloshes against the glass. ‘Doesn’t everyone want to progress?’ he says quietly.
‘Life