For Jean Buchanan
a friend indeed
OCTOBER 1938
‘Sir, it’s an emergency.’
The officer of the watch tried again, speaking more loudly and urgently. ‘Sir, Captain, sir, please wake up. It’s an emergency.’
Reginald Sherston, Captain of the SS Gloriana, passenger vessel bound for India, lifted his grizzled head from his starched white pillow.
His eyes opened, the faded blue eyes of a man who had been at sea since he was a boy of fourteen. They looked at the first officer, a capable man, not given to fuss, and across to where his steward was hovering, his uniform in his hand.
‘Tell me about it, Mr Longbourne.’
Minutes later, Captain Sherston was on the bridge.
The officers in their white uniforms went quietly about their duties, the man at the wheel, locked on its course, was alert. They were all intent on what the first officer and captain were saying.
The ship sailed on through the waters of the Red Sea. Above them the sky blazed with the brilliant stars that were the gift of ocean travel, and were reflected in the inky, gentle swell. The throb of the engines was steady, reassuring.
‘This Mrs Hotspur, a passenger to Bombay, she went ashore at Port Said?’
‘Yes, sir. For the day.’
‘Did she go on one of the tours? To the pyramids?’
‘No, sir. She went ashore with friends.’
‘But came back on board.’
‘As far as we know, sir. Her re-embarkation card was handed in.’
‘And her stewardess says her bed wasn’t slept in last night? Who is the stewardess?’
‘Pigeon, sir.’
‘She didn’t report it?’
‘It happens, sir, that a woman might …’ the first officer looked at Captain Sherston’s Presbyterian face, and he swallowed, ‘… spend the night elsewhere, sir.’
‘The dining room stewards say she didn’t take breakfast, lunch or dinner today?’
‘That’s correct sir.’
‘And this ten-year-old boy, Peter Messenger, says he saw her standing by the rail on C-deck at about nine o’clock, one hour and ten minutes after we sailed from Port Said?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Tell me about Mrs Hotspur.’
The first officer consulted his notes. ‘Mrs Verity Hotspur. A widow, I understand. A very charming lady, and a cousin of Lady Claudia Vere, who is also aboard – she joined at Lisbon. It was Lady Claudia who raised the alarm.’
‘Lady Claudia Vere. So this missing passenger, Lady Claudia’s cousin, will turn out to be connected to all kinds of important people?’
‘Bound to be, sir.’
Captain Sherston let out a long sigh. ‘Emergency procedures for man overboard, Mr Longbourne.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Then when the orders had been given, the first officer asked, ‘Not much chance for her, is there?’
‘None whatever. If she missed the propellers, the sharks will have got her. If not, she’ll have drowned.’
Verity came out on deck into one of those pale autumn days that hovers between rain and sunshine; a breath of wind rippling the still waters of the harbour warned that summer was yielding to autumn.
Despite the