the expression on Sister Morrison’s face was indication enough she and the Bo’sun placed different interpretations on the word ‘small’.
‘Come on, George,’ McKinnon said. ‘This is no place for us.’
Sister Morrison looked faintly surprised. ‘You don’t have to go.’
‘We can’t stand the sight of blood. Or suffering, come to that.’
Ulbricht lowered his glass. ‘You would leave us to the mercy of Flannelfoot?’
‘George, if you wait outside I’ll go and give Trent a spell on the wheel. When you’re ready to go back, Sister, you’ll know where to find me.’
McKinnon would have expected that her ministrations might have taken ten minutes, fifteen at the most. Instead, almost forty minutes elapsed before she put in an appearance on the bridge. McKinnon looked at her sympathetically.
‘More trouble than you expected, Sister? He wasn’t just joking when he said he felt pretty low?’
‘There’s very little the matter with him. Especially not with his tongue. How that man can talk!’
‘He wasn’t talking to an empty bulkhead, was he?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well,’ McKinnon said reasonably, ‘he wouldn’t have kept on talking if you hadn’t kept on listening.’
Sister Morrison seemed to be in no hurry to depart. She was silent for some time, then said with a slight trace of a smile: ‘I find this – well, not infuriating but annoying. Most people would be interested in what we were saying.’
‘I am interested. I’m just not inquisitive. If you wanted to tell me, then you’d tell me. If I asked you to tell me and you didn’t want to, then you wouldn’t tell me. But, fine, I’d like you to tell me.’
‘I don’t know whether that’s infuriating or not.’ She paused. ‘Why did you tell Lieutenant Ulbricht that I’m half German?’
‘It’s not a secret, is it?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re not ashamed of it. You told me so yourself. So why – ah! Why didn’t I tell you that I’d told him? That’s what you’re asking. Just never occurred to me.’
‘You might at least have told me that he was half English.’
‘That didn’t occur to me either. It’s unimportant. I don’t care what nationality a person is. I told you about my brother-in-law. Like the Lieutenant, he’s a pilot. He’s also a lieutenant. If he thought it his duty to drop a bomb on me, he’d do it like a shot. But you couldn’t meet a finer man.’
‘You’re a very forgiving man, Mr McKinnon.’
‘Forgiving?’ He looked at her in surprise. ‘I’ve nothing to forgive. I mean, he hasn’t dropped a bomb on me yet.’
‘I didn’t mean that. Even if he did, it wouldn’t make any difference.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I know.’
McKinnon didn’t pursue the matter. ‘Doesn’t sound like a very interesting conversation to me. Not forty minutes’ worth, anyway.’
‘He also took great pleasure in pointing out that he’s more British than I am. From the point of view of blood, I mean. Fifty per cent British to start with plus two more British pints yesterday.’
McKinnon was polite. ‘Indeed.’
‘All right, so statistics aren’t interesting either. He also says that his father knows mine.’
‘Ah. That is interesting. Wait a minute. He mentioned that his father had been an attaché at the German Embassy in London. He didn’t mention whether he was a commercial or cultural attaché or whatever. He didn’t just happen to mention to you that his father had been the naval attaché there?’
‘He was.’
‘Don’t tell me that his old man is a captain in the German Navy.’
‘He is.’
‘That makes you practically blood brothers. Or brother and sister. Mark my words, Sister,’ McKinnon said solemnly, ‘I see the hand of fate here. Something pre-ordained, you might say?’
‘Pfui!’
‘Are they both on active service?’
‘Yes.’ She sounded forlorn.
‘Don’t you find it funny that your respective parents should be prowling the high seas figuring out ways of doing each other in?’
‘I don’t find it at all funny.’
‘I didn’t mean funny in that sense.’ If anyone had ever suggested to McKinnon that Margaret Morrison would one day strike him as a woebegone figure he would have questioned his sanity: but not any longer. He found her sudden dejection inexplicable. ‘Not to worry, lassie. It’ll never happen.’ He wasn’t at all sure what he meant by that.
‘Of course not.’ Her voice carried a total lack of conviction. She made to speak, hesitated, looked down at the deck, then slowly lifted her head. Her face was in shadow but he felt almost certain that he saw the sheen of tears. ‘I heard things about you, today.’
‘Oh. Nothing to my credit, I’m sure. You can’t believe a word anyone says these days. What things, Sister?’
‘I wish you wouldn’t call me that.’ The irritation was as unaccustomed as the dejection.
McKinnon raised a polite eyebrow. ‘Sister? But you are a sister.’
‘Not the way you make it sound. Sorry, I didn’t mean that, you don’t make it sound different from anyone else. It’s like those cheap American films where the man with the gun goes around calling everyone “sister”.’
He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t like you to confuse me with a hoodlum. Miss Morrison?’
‘You know my name.’
‘Yes. I also know that you started out to say something, changed your mind and are trying to stall.’
‘No. Yes. Well, not really. It’s difficult, I’m not very good at those things. I heard about your family this morning. Just before we came up. I’m sorry, I am terribly sorry.’
‘Janet?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s no secret.’
‘It was a German bomber pilot who killed them.’ She looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. ‘Along comes another German bomber pilot, again attacking innocent civilians, and you’re the first person to come to his defence.’
‘Don’t
