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involved with the Navy, and she’d escaped him to marry his term-mate, Kimister, and on Kimister’s death, had vanished to America – so he understood, to marry an American. He’d never heard from her since, while his own wife, Christina had left him for another naval officer, James Verschoyle.
    He was just pushing the key into the lock when he was surprised to hear a voice calling inside the flat.
    ‘It’s open!’
    Throwing the door back, he was confronted by a young man in grey flannels and tweed jacket.
    ‘Hugh! When did you arrive?’
    ‘This afternoon.’ The boy smiled. ‘The caretaker let me in.’
    Kelly’s face was pink with pleasure. Out of the whole sorry business of his broken marriage, the only worthwhile thing that had come to him had been his stepson, Christina’s son by her first marriage. Twenty now, and on indifferent terms with his mother, he had spent all his time away from school or university with Kelly, visiting his ships with an enthusiasm that led Kelly to hope he might eventually join the Navy himself.
    ‘How long are you here for?’
    ‘I pick up a ship tomorrow for Naples. I’m doing some research at the university there.’
    Kelly grinned and the boy mixed a pink gin for him. ‘Mind if I join you?’
    ‘You’re old enough now. How’d you get here?’
    ‘James Verschoyle brought me. We came by car.’
    Kelly made no comment. Though he and Verschoyle had spent all their youth at loggerheads, the dislike had disappeared in the muddled years of the thirties and had not returned even after Christina’s remarriage. It was curious, but Verschoyle was Verschoyle and nothing could change him.
    ‘What’s Verschoyle doing here?’ he asked.
    ‘Appointment to the admiral’s staff, I understand.’
    ‘Good for him. He might relieve me.’ Kelly finished his drink briskly. ‘Been to Thakeham lately?’
    ‘Yes,’ Hugh said. ‘Everybody sent their regards.’ He passed across a photograph. ‘That’s the house. I thought you’d like to have it.’
    ‘Who’s the sailor in the background?’
    The boy laughed. ‘Your godson. Kelly Rumbelo.’
    ‘In uniform already? God that makes me feel old!’ Kelly paused. ‘How about you, Hugh? Have you ever thought what you’re going to do for a living?’
    ‘Not really. In fact, it seems funny to be thinking of work with a war coming.’
    ‘You think one is?’
    ‘Don’t you?’
    Kelly paused. It was certainly rapidly becoming clear that, despite Russian help, the Nationalist superiority on land was growing decisive, and when it finally did, doubtless the Germans and the Italians would persuade Franco to raise the old cry of ‘Gibraltar for the Spanish!’ as a trigger to start another war in which they could legitimately take part.
    ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I do. In which case you could always join the Navy.’
    Hugh looked faintly guilty. ‘Isn’t the navy a bit out of date?’
    Kelly’s face grew red. But then he hesitated. The politicians had always seemed more concerned with the expediency of party political ends than with long-term national interests and their subservience to the Treasury made them spoil every ship they touched for the necessary extra ha’p’orth of tar.
    He took refuge in indignation. ‘Just let those buggers, Hitler and Mussolini, start something,’ he growled, ‘and you’ll soon see if we’re out of date.’
    Hugh grinned at his expression. ‘I meant, hasn’t the Air Force become more important?’
    The boy had a point, Kelly thought. If a war came, then certainly the Air Force would count for a great deal. Air power was going to be a decisive factor in the next bunfight, and that was something that had never been understood by the clots in Parliament or by the War Office and the Admiralty, probably not even by the bloody Air Ministry, come to that!
    He pushed the thought aside.
    ‘Never mind the Navy for tonight,’ he said. ‘We’ll find somewhere good to eat. How about your mother? Seen her