WELCOME AGAIN.

CARLOTTA'S DAUGHTER started life as jottings of my early experiences in the Navy. On submitting the manuscript to agents, I realised that there was no chance of gaining a publishing contract. Taking advice I enroled in a writing course. The course exposed so many weaknesses that I almost gave up writing altogether. A year later, after many exercises, short stories and chapters that my tutor tore to pieces, I felt confident enough to re-write the manuscript - so my autobiography became a source of historical events and places, replaced by a novel peopled with imaginary characters and following a fictional plot.

Please be warned that in the interest of reality and to re-create the experience that faced a youth direct from sheltered home-life, the language used in parts of the book is unexpurgated 'lower-deck'.

Extracts from Carlotta's Daughter. The book opens: Quietly, slowly, the unlit motor launch made its way across the dark waters of Malta's Grand Harbour towards the lights of the British warship. The occupants of the small boat, sweating from the lingering and oppressive heat of the departed day, nervously passed missiles amongst each other. Closer now, the rumble of machinery deep within the hull of the looming warship reached their straining ears. With a few yards to go the coxswain signalled to the engineer to cut the engine. To the men in the boat the slap of tiny wavelets sounded too loud as the boat glided towards the alien gangway. Hardly daring to breathe each man stared anxiously up at the grey ship's side to the rail above; to be discovered now, this close, would be curtains. James Davis, dressed only in shorts and sandals, crouched in the well of the boat, sharp and ready to erupt into action. His taught young body, damp in the humidity of a high summer night, glistened from the reflected lights of the fortress all around. Taking his share of missiles he grasped them to his stomach. The stench attacked his nose as his fingers sank into their putifying skins. The bowman, stretching forward with his boat-hook, secured a hold on the gangway as the small vessel entered the light from a lonely lamp suspended above the ladder. Collectively the men held their breath. I don't want to spoil the opening by disclosing the reason for the assault on the British warship so I will jump forward. As the book's category tells, Carlotta's Daughter is more a historical romance, 'boy meats girl far outside his class', concluding with betrayal and set in the abortive Suez conflict. Jamie builds a deep friendship with Derek, a wilful character who, through an indisciplined upbringing, cannot help but buck the entrenched class system that ruled the Royal Navy in the 1950's. Finding themselves isolated when taking part in an earthquake rescue mission, Derek relates to Jamie the reason for his going AWOL:     With no ticket Derek had managed to remain undetected on the non-corridor train from Weymouth. At Romsey he'd mingled with a noisy group of matelots, boarded the London bound train and, using skills honed by adolescent years travelling free around London, he'd arrived at Waterloo. Mixing with the group of noisy, leave-bound sailors he'd slipped through the ticket barrier and headed for a telephone kiosk at the station entrance.     "I knew you would come." Nelly leaned heavily on Derk's arm as they walked a lakeside path through Regent's Park. The girl wore a light-coloured wool coat, its fur collar turned up against the chill of a January evening.     "I shouldn't be here."     "Will they miss you?"     "The firing-squad? They never miss."     "Silly," she laughed. "Will they miss you on your ship?"     "Not until Monday morning - with luck," he said with a Derek smile. "I arranged for my station-card to get itself lost."     "Where will you go tonight? Are you hungry?"     "Home and yes, in that order." He realised that his last meal had been hours ago in a different world, afloat somewhere on the English Channel.     "Come home with me. I have a room away from my aunt. We can get in at the side door. I'll get us some food and no-one will know you're there. It's a big house."     "Where's your father?"     "He works here; in London; at Whitehall." Derek blanched.     "No, no. He's at Portsmouth for something or other, for the rest of the week. Don't worry." Nelly pulled Derek by the sleeve to a bench facing the blackness of the softly lapping lake. Their vaporised breath caught the light from a building across the water on which some disturbed ducks squawked and splashed and fell silent. Derek removed his cap, turned to Nelly and kissed her, a long deep transfer of weeks of missing and longing and waiting. No stirring of loins or swellings or tinglings. This kiss was a joining, a testing, a giving more intense than any sex, more reassuring and more satisfying.     “I’ve missed you,” said Nelly. Derek said nothing and kissed her again. This time their touching lips passed pulsing, urgent signals to strange and secret parts of their bodies, moistening and stirring and hardening.     “Come on, you must be starving,” said Nelly, rising and pulling Derek after her. Her voice was light and happy and oblivious to the cold that threatened to freeze the lake that night.     “What about your Aunty? Aren’t you supposed to be home by now?”     “Don’t worry about Aunt Letty. She’s a treasure. She thinks I’m staying with a friend.”     “Girlfriend, I hope.”     “Silly. Anyway she’ll be asleep by now. Gin you know. She takes a few with dinner. Come on.”     Half running through the park gates they turned towards the bright lights and crossed a wide road into St. Johns Wood high street. Almost immediately they arrived at the side door of a quietly impressive square brick house. The girl unlocked the door and ushered Derek inside. On tiptoe she led him up two flights of stairs and into a large bedroom. Quietly she moved to the tall, Georgian small-paned window and pulled a draw cord that shut out the streetlight and shut out the world.     #     Fragrance and softness conspired to drown Derek’s senses as he woke on Sunday morning. The unfamiliar feel of his own nakedness against the fine cotton and the deepness of the downy pillow told him he was with Nelly; in her bedroom; in her bed. Panic briefly invaded his consciousness, retreating when her golden head, inches from his own, came into focus. Reaching out with his leg he encountered hers, smooth and firm, which he pulled towards him. The deep sleep after the loving of the night had relit his desire....     A little cencorship here as this is unsuitable for younger children who may come across this..     ....Later they stirred and Nolly brought some tea and toast to the room.     “What about your Aunt?”     “She stays in bed Sunday mornings. We’ll go out, just in case but she rarely comes to my room.”     A light covering of snow met them as they left the house. They walked slowly, arm in arm, along the wide pavements of the City. At Marble Arch they crossed the wide thoroughfare into Hyde Park. The snow and frost, unnoticed on the streets, created a wonderland on the greenery. Low winter sunrays sparkled through the branches of the trees and turned the grass to diamonds. A pair of squabbling robins disturbed the peace and caused a shower of glistening stardust to fall in their path.     “You’ll be going back then,” said Nelly in a half question.     “Have to get going. They’ll miss me.”     “You know I might have a baby, after last night.”     “Yes, I know. Do you want one?”     “I would – if we were married.”     “I can’t marry you. Not right now.”     “You could if you didn’t go back.”     Derek stopped. He kicked an imaginary blade of grass from the path, “I have to. They’d catch me and put me away.”     A young couple dressed in shorts and gloves jogged by looking flushed from the cold and the effort. White plumes of breath swirled in their wake. Nelly re-engaged his arm and they continued walking.     “It is possible. Daddy tells me that quite a few go missing and they never see them again. Change their identities or something.”     Wandering out at Hyde Park Corner they listened for a few minutes to the ranting of a Communist speaker who tried to rile Derek as a servant of the Capitalist Government. Conscious of his lack of a leave pass he pulled Nolly away and started up Piccadilly. At the Circus they found a coffee shop and entered. The steamy warmth and heady aroma of fresh coffee was welcome after the cold walk.     “You wouldn’t have anything. We’d have to work.”     “I have some money. And I can type, I can work in an office.”     They watched each other over the rims of their cups, the girl looking for confirmation that her plans could be reality and the boy searching for re-assurance that what he was about to do was going to be alright.     “I’ll have to go home and change. I have twenty five pounds in my bank book.”     “You mean you’ll stay?” She almost spilled her cup in excitement.     “Stay? We can’t stay here. We’ll go up north, away from the Navy. Manchester or somewhere like that. Do you know Manchester?”     “No.”     “Nor I.”     Inured from the weather by their exhilaration the two wandered around London all day, planning the future, each dismissing the doubts and fears that had the temerity to invade their minds.     Separating at Charing Cross they promised to meet at 1100 the following day.     Nelly kept the appointment. For hours after the agreed time she waited at the freezing entrance to the station. For hours she refused to accept that Derek would not come. Darkness compelled her to return home; to sit with her Aunt at dinner; to pretend that the cold had caused the red rims around her lovely blue eyes....     A little taste of the near-end of the book..     The darkening sky formed a backdrop behind the busy lights of Port Said as craft of all kinds loaded and prepared to leave. To the South, tracer bullets scratched trails into the black sky like a gruesome Hadian firework display, following the Allied forces withdrawing along the canal to the harbour.     “Bastards, bastards,” mouthed the Skipper, quietly giving voice to the anger of his crew watching and unable to act except to be there, ready to escort the small vessels, now pouring out to sea and heading West. With lights blazing, the hospital ship nosed out past the breakwater to come under the protection of the waiting destroyers. She passed close on Demon’s port bow, sedate and dignified and unhurried. Jamie, watching from the flag deck, heaved a sigh of relief. Guessing at the position of Derek’s room, he focussed on one of the square window-lights and wondered if his friend was awake yet and watching in return.     With three days to go to Christmas the odds were against a celebration back in Malta's hotspots as the destroyer escorts were forced to match the speed of the slowest craft. By Christmas Eve it was obvious that the Lucky Horseshoe would have to wait a day or two longer for the return of her favourite sons.     Christmas Eve was also the day that Jamie learned ....

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