Forty

 

The future looked gloomy and Edward took little interest in the boat-yard. Going to the library in Portsmouth, he acquired a medical directory and looked up Ginny’s father, Sir Patrick George Gogarty.

Taking the train back to Porthelt, as he walked from the station, his route took him by the Nankidnos’ cottage. As he passed, the front door flew open.

‘Not so fast, Ted. Where do you think you’re going?’

The two men shook hands, and embraced warmly.

‘Somehow, I didn’t think you’d be here. I’m sorry, Sam.

How are things? My goodness, it’s good to see you.’

Inside the house, Rosina greeted him with a shriek of delight, and old Mrs Nankidno brought out a bottle and then another.

‘So what are we going to do now, Sam? Are you due for demob?’

‘They’ve asked me to stay on. Only for a few months. It’ll mean a bigger demob grant. It’ll pay for Rosina to visit her folks in Naples. It’s the Russians. They’ve been getting very stroppy indeed.’

‘I had a run-in with them – in the Black Sea.’

Sam smiled. ‘There’s a plan to have a go at the buggers in the Baltic.’ Sam looked faintly sheepish. ‘So it’s Riga first stop. I feel I owe the navy something. They made a gentleman of me, Ted. They gave me a commission. I’m not just a bloody fitter any more.’

‘You never were just a bloody fitter, Sam.’

The following day Edward took the train to Waterloo. In the hope of impressing Ginny’s parents, he wore his uniform. Sir Robert and Lady Gogarty were exactly as Ginny had described them, both good-looking, grey-haired, stately and rather formal. But they received him graciously and he was asked to stay for lunch. They had no idea where their daughter was, however, and were as concerned as he was about her.

‘She was always independent-minded,’ Sir Robert said. ‘If you find her,’ he continued, ‘for God’s sake ask her to get in touch with us. I could even arrange to send her supplies. She must need help.’ He paused. ‘That is, of course, if she’s still doing the same job. Or–’ he paused again ‘–if, and I suppose we have to face up to this, if she’s still alive. The last we heard she was in the Balkans.’

There was one hope. The headquarters of Mrs St John Halahan’s Women’s War Convoy was in Jermyn Street in a small down-at-heel building where they occupied the top floor. It appeared that Mrs St John Halahan herself had left the organisation and was now in Ireland, espousing the cause of Irish freedom.

‘They say she wears a revolver,’ the woman behind the desk told Edward. ‘Like Annie Oakley.’

‘What about Virginia Gogarty?’

She shrugged. ‘We’ve heard nothing of her since 1918 when she was in a hospital in Cairo. We think she’s in Latvia. We heard she took a ship from Hamburg to Riga.’