Subtlety, my dear boy, subtlety. Philip can practically hear Mountbatten’s voice.
Fortunately, Elizabeth seems to realise he is teasing, though the faint colour that tinges her cheeks suggests she might have been a little taken aback at his forthright reference to why he was there.
‘They’re cattle dogs,’ she says, shifting her stole up onto one shoulder. It promptly slithers down her other arm. ‘They like to herd people up and nip at ankles, and they can be a bit naughty. Consider yourself fortunate that they’re shut away tonight.’
‘Lucky for me,’ Philip murmurs, but he is distracted by the slippery stole that is dragging his attention to her bare arms. He wonders what it would be like to draw the stole up into place for her. Her skin would be warm, the fur would be soft. His fingers twitch with the urge to touch and his mouth dries so abruptly that he takes a slug of his whisky.
It is unexpectedly intriguing, the way she swings between shyness and sensible conversation, the way she turns aside compliments and talks of dogs and knitting, apparently unaware of the lures at her disposal: the creamy skin, the enticing figure, the curve of her mouth.
‘I’m glad you’re coming back for Christmas,’ she says abruptly and Philip smiles.
‘So am I.’
Chapter 7
They eat in the State Dining Room. With the velvet curtains drawn against the winter night, it could almost be as it was before the war, Elizabeth thinks. The log fire may be meagre in the magnificent fireplace and the elaborate gilding on the walls and ceiling dulled, but the light is so dim one can hardly tell. The great mirrors on either side of the fireplace are warm with the wavering candlelight; the silver gilt gleams, while the mahogany table is polished to such a high shine that one can see the immaculately set crystal glasses reflected in it.
The meal itself is hardly a match for the setting, but her parents pride themselves on being rationed like everyone else, and at least they have access to game from the royal estates. Some pheasants have been sent down from Sandringham and are served roasted with vegetables grown in the castle gardens. Like everyone else in the country, the cook does his best with what he can get.
For Elizabeth, it is a change from the usual nursery suppers. She is content to sit and let the conversation flow around her. She wants to think about Philip. What was it he had said about the dogs? I was expecting to fight my way through them to get at you. She still doesn’t know quite what to think of that. A part of her is affronted: Philip sounded as if he assumed he could just walk into a room and claim her like a parcel. Elizabeth is not someone who can be ‘got at’. She expects to be treated with the deference due to her as heir to the throne.
Another part of her, she reluctantly admits to herself, felt an unwilling thrill at his arrogance.
Philip isn’t like the other men. Listen to him now, telling Papa about his ship being dive-bombed somewhere off Sicily.
‘There were three of the blighters coming for Wallace,’ he is saying, and she is not the only one listening. His expression is alert, amused, his gestures expansive. Compared to the deferential courtiers whose every movement is discreet, he is overwhelming, but her father doesn’t seem to mind.
‘We all dived for cover at first,’ Philip goes on, ‘but the first Stuka missed us completely. We thought that was a lucky escape and we kept our heads down as the second one came in low.’ His hand swoops over his plate in demonstration. His smile glimmers. ‘But he missed, too, and then blow me down if the third pilot didn’t strike out as well! They were at it for about half an hour and they didn’t get a single hit!’
The King is laughing. He likes Philip, Elizabeth notes with relief.
‘We ended up standing on the deck jeering at them,’ says Philip. ‘Eventually they gave up or ran out of ammunition. I don’t think they can have been the Luftwaffe’s finest. I can only think they must have been flying with shocking hangovers.’
‘No one was hurt?’ Elizabeth asks and Philip turns to her.
‘Not a scratch on any of us. I can’t say the same about the pilots’ feelings! They must have had a boll— A dressing down,’ he amends, ‘when they got back to base.’
‘You didn’t have such an easy time of it later, I hear,’ her father says.
Philip picks up his knife and fork. ‘No, there were some hairy moments.’
‘Dickie was telling me some story about a raft,’ the King prompts.
‘Oh, that … Just a lucky ruse.’
Elizabeth can see he is trying to shrug off any attempt to cast himself in a heroic light. ‘What happened?’ she asks.
Philip hesitates, but at her father’s urging he tells the story. ‘Wallace was covering the Canadian landings on Sicily,’ he begins. ‘As you can imagine, the Germans weren’t very happy with that, and their Stukas were on us the whole time, so we were at action stations pretty continuously.
‘That particular night, it was still and very bright. A beautiful night at any other time, but the worst possible conditions for us then. The moon lit up our wake and turned it into one long, shimmering trail. We might as well have had a flaming sign pointing towards us for a pilot to follow. A German bomber found us, of course – he could hardly miss us! – and we took a hit to the side of the ship. He took off then, but we knew it was only a matter of time before he came back with reinforcements. At that point we’d be sitting ducks.
‘There was no way of knowing where they would come from. In the dark, they could see us on the water, but we couldn’t see them. It’s like being blindfolded and knowing someone is coming to get you.’
Elizabeth lays down her knife and fork. She is picturing the men silent on the ship, their shoulders hunched in anticipation of the next attack, straining their eyes at the night sky, listening for the sound of aircraft while the sea slaps unperturbed against the hull.
Conversation around the rest of the table has fallen silent and they are all listening to Philip’s story. ‘What did you do?’ the Queen asks.
‘We got the men to knock up a wooden raft,’ Philip goes on. ‘We knew we didn’t have long. It took them a matter of minutes until we could haul it over the side and set fire to it. Then we hightailed it out of there, full steam for a good five minutes before we felt safe enough to cut the engines.’
‘So that the wake subsided?’ The King nods. He was a naval officer in his time, too.
‘Yes, sir. Or we might as well have taken out a sign saying “Look, we’re over here”.’ Philip takes a sip of wine. ‘We lay there in the darkness. I remember the ship rocking gently, and the silence. Nobody said a word. We were all waiting for the Germans to come back. I don’t know how we long waited,’ he says. ‘It felt like hours and hours but it can’t have been. And then we heard the aircraft.’
He pauses and Elizabeth realises she is holding her breath.
‘I don’t mind telling you I was terrified to breathe in case the pilot noticed us,’ he says with a ghost of a grin, almost as if he had read her mind. ‘Not that it would have made any difference! The next thing we knew a bomb was screaming down … but it wasn’t anywhere near us, thank God. The pilot must have seen the flaming debris and thought he had done for us the first time, so he was finishing off all that was left of Wallace.’