Won't Get Fooled Again by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-04-27T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 34

Monday 10th June, 1968

Headquarters, Royal Navy Portsmouth

Captain Dermot O’Reilly, DSO, until forty-eight hours ago, Captain (D) of HMS Campbeltown and the 7th Destroyer Squadron, paused for a moment at the half-open door on the first floor of the C-in-C Channel Fleet’s building, suddenly intensely conscious of the quiet, unfussy activity of the office around him. Through a nearby window he could see the masts of HMS Victory – still nominally the flagship of the Royal Navy two-hundred-and-three years after her oaken keel first touched the water – and grey superstructures of the ships in the inner basin. In one sense he felt oddly disconnected with things, as if he was at a little bit of a loose end which, of course, was nonsense. He might be going ashore for a spell but he knew it would only be a matter of time before he was back at sea.

However, all that lay in the future.

Today, he had – for the first time in years – purely personal business to attend to; business he ought, by rights to have given his full attention to long before now.

The small stencilled sign, more a neatly trimmed piece of thin plywood, perfectly squared off at eye-level, read: First Officer C. Richards [Fleet Logistics].

Dermot O’Reilly shrugged his shoulders, stood tall, wondering if he ought to have re-trimmed his beard that morning and if his crisply pressed best No. 3, day uniform, was as immaculate as he fervently hoped it was.

He knocked lightly at the door.

And again, a second time, unable to stop himself in his state of gathering indecision. He had had everything worked out in his head before he walked into Fleet HQ that morning.

And forgotten his carefully laid plans in a split second.

“Come in!”

The quietly authoritative, friendly voice of the woman whom most people at Portsmouth, or at least, those in the know, acknowledged was very nearly solely responsible for keeping the Channel Fleet victualled, fuelled and its magazines stocked, rang out clearly.

O’Reilly was suddenly uncomfortably aware that every eye in the outer office must, at that moment, be trained on his back.

Serendipitously, it was the imagined pressure of those watching eyes which probably perturbed his nervous inertia sufficiently to propel him through the doorway into the orderly, well-lit office of the Principal Assistant to Captain (L), Channel Fleet.

First Officer Charlotte ‘Lottie’ Richards’s uniform jacket hung on a hanger in the corner, it’s blue one-and-a-half cuff rings a little faded, rather like the blue of her patient eyes. Her white shirt and dark tie, and her short, straw-blond hair all contributed to the air of unruffled, confident competency with which she discharged her duties.

The newcomer jammed his cap under his arm and with a tight-lipped smile softly shut the door at his back.

The woman behind the desk rose to her feet, making no pretence that she was anything other than pleased to see the famous Canadian former Captain (D), of what was – without qualification - the most illustrious destroyer squadron in the modern Royal Navy.

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