The Skylark's Secret(55)
‘Perhaps they’re at the Urquharts’,’ Alec commented. ‘Come on, let’s light the fire in the library and see what we can forage in the larder.’
Half an hour later the logs were blazing cheerfully in the hearth and they’d spread out a makeshift picnic before it. The atmosphere in the house was completely different when Sir Charles wasn’t there. Flora eased off her shoes and knelt on the rug to toast some slightly stale bread on the flames, wriggling her toes in their thick stockings as she luxuriated in the warmth. Once each slice had browned, she removed it from the toasting fork and passed it to Alec to spread with butter while she made the next piece. They ate it with slices of ham and washed it down with a couple of bottles of ale that they’d found lurking in a forgotten corner of the larder.
‘Best meal I’ve had in ages,’ Alec grinned. ‘But that may have as much to do with the company as it does the menu.’ He stretched out contentedly in front of the fire and rested his head in her lap.
‘So what was it like? Out there?’
She stroked his hair, watching the firelight dance across his face as he gazed into the flames and told her about the journey. He described the mixture of fear and excitement as they’d set off, which had soon turned into a kind of dull dread as they faced the monotony of the grey Arctic waters, day in, day out, never knowing whether they were being watched and what might be lurking below the waves.
A storm had blown up a few nights in, sending towering waves of icy green water crashing over the deck of the ship. In the bitter temperatures, the water had frozen, forming a thick shell of ice on the windward side of the ship. They’d taken it in turns to tie on a lifeline and brave the treacherously slippery, listing deck as it pitched and rolled, taking an axe to the ice to prevent the build-up of weight from capsizing the ship.
Radio silence had to be maintained so that the German listening stations didn’t pick up the convoy’s presence, so although they travelled as a group with each ship holding its position in the line, there was a sense of isolation that was only amplified by the sight of the Arctic ice floes in the distance. That winter ice narrowed the channel available to them, forcing them to navigate a fine line between icebergs to the north and the German-occupied Norwegian coast to the south. But the short winter days brought fog as well, which covered the sea in a lowlying blanket – so thick, Alec said, that you could hardly see the jackstaff from the bridge of the Isla. Ordinarily they’d have cursed it as another hazard to be negotiated, but in those dangerous waters they’d given thanks for the white shroud that concealed them and allowed them to slip past the north cape undetected. Finally, with relief, they’d turned their bows to the south-east, hugging the Russian shore as they entered the Kola Inlet which led to the port of Murmansk.
Flora passed Alec her glass and he raised himself up on one elbow as he replenished it from the bottle. Then he reached across and fished another log from the basket, throwing it on to the fire where it settled in a cascade of sparks as tongues of flame licked around it.
‘What’s Russia like?’ she asked.
‘Cold. Dark. Vast. But with a terrible sort of beauty as well. We were met by a pilot vessel to guide us in and were pretty pleased to see it, I can tell you. It’s a deep fjord but the channel’s so narrow there you need to keep your wits about you. We had steep mountains to starboard and were jolly glad to think that they stood between us and the Germans. And the most extraordinary thing happened as we neared Murmansk . . . All the upper works of the ships, the masts and the yards, suddenly started to glow with a white flickering light. I’d heard of it before – they call it St Elmo’s fire – but that’s the first time I’ve ever seen it. In the mist, everything becomes charged with static and it discharges from anything that has a point. It was like our own personal lightning show. We were mightily relieved that it hadn’t happened off Norway, I can tell you. We’d have been lit up for the Jerries like Christmas trees!’
‘The Russians must have been glad to see you, with all that equipment for them.’
‘I suppose so.’ He paused to take a sip of beer. ‘Russian dockers are not exactly effusive. In fact, once the cargo was offloaded, one of them said, “Is that all you’ve brought us?” But it’s a tough life for them away up there in the Arctic Circle. At this time of year they only get an hour or two of daylight and the weather is brutal. I think they pretty much survive on vodka to get them through. The war’s brought awful suffering to their country as well. Ever since the German advance last year there’s been bitter fighting in the south and some of the men working on the dockside had seen action there. They’re hard as nails.’
‘Well, thank goodness you all got back safely.’
He nodded. ‘We were lucky. We picked up a German weather plane on our radar once, thought they might have spotted us, too. But we got away with it this time.’
The words ‘this time’ made Flora flinch. ‘Do you know when you’ll next be sailing?’
He shook his head. ‘Not yet. It’ll take a bit of time to muster the next convoy. Could be a month or so, I imagine. At least the weather should be improving by then. And as the ice retreats we’ll be able to give the north cape a wider berth.’
Flora was silent. She knew he was putting a brave face on it, because the hours of daylight would be lengthening, too, and the convoys would be at sea for longer if they were sailing that much further north. It was a double-edged sword: the changing of the seasons would simply bring different risks, making the journey no less perilous. She tried not to think about that tonight, though. He was here, and she was safe in his arms beside the warmth of the fire. She knew that this was a memory they’d both treasure and so she leaned down to kiss away the lines of tension from his brow, her red-gold hair catching the dancing reflections of the firelight in its depths.