The Breaking Wave by Nevil Shute

Author:Nevil Shute [Shute, Nevil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, General Fiction, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9780307477354
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 1954-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

SIX

WHEN I went back to Oxford in 1948 I spent much of my time in trying to trace Janet Prentice. I soon discovered that her mother had died in the year 1946 and that Janet had left Oxford. The house in Crick Road had been sold and there had been a sale of furniture; everything seemed to have been converted into ready cash. I managed to trace the agent who had sold the house but he had no address for the girl, though he told me the bank into which he had paid his cheque. I went and saw the bank manager and he confirmed what I had already learned, but the account had been closed and he had no address. The balance had not been a large one, for the house had been mortgaged and large houses in those days had sold badly. He said that he had an idea that Miss Prentice had gone abroad.

When I found May Spikins, then May Cunningham, she remembered the name Mr. Grimston as Professor Prentice’s companion when he had joined the Seaborne Observer Corps, and Viola Dawson confirmed that name shortly afterwards when I mentioned it to her, though she could not recall the name till she was prompted. I went to the headquarters of the Royal Observer Corps in Oxford and I found that Mr. Grimston was still a leading member in the local organisation, much looked up to for his maritime war experience. I went to see him one afternoon at the chain store grocery that he manages in Cowley, and he made me stay until the store closed and then he took me round to his small house for tea.

He remembered the visit of Janet Prentice to the Royal Bath Hotel, but he was unable to tell me where she went to after she left Oxford on her mother’s death; he did not know the family and had only met Janet on that one occasion. He was able to give me a full account of the Professor’s death, however, and what he said was this.

Dr. Prentice had been drafted to a ship called the Elsie Davidson, one of the Davidson line of coastal cargo steamers. She was a vessel of about four thousand tons, chartered for the invasion of Normandy and loaded with motor transport in the London Docks. She sailed in convoy from Southend on June the 5th and reached the coast of Normandy off Courseulles about midday on D-day, June the 6th. She anchored still in convoy well off shore and remained there for the afternoon and evening, being in no great danger because already the Germans in that sector had retreated well inland.

It had been the original intention that these motor transport ships should unload their cargo on to Rhino Ferries. The vehicles that they carried, with their army crews, were loaded principally with gun ammunition for the tanks and priests in the front line and were, of course, most urgently required on shore. The Rhino

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