He remained standing, obviously uncomfortable. Halabi had grown used to his inability to look her in the eye. But he was even more distressed by her company than usual. Determined to wait him out, Halabi slowly tapped her pen on the blank writing paper, but it quickly became unbearable. The man seemed totally conflicted. Just as she was about to mouth some inanity, to fill up the dead space between them, he suddenly blurted out an apology.

“Look, I’m terribly sorry,” he said, almost gobbling as he spoke so quickly. “But I feel I’ve been somewhat unfair, and well, I just wished to compliment your crew on the work they did in Singapore. It was a top-rate performance, in the finest traditions of the Royal Navy.”

Halabi couldn’t help it. Her jaw dropped open and she took a little while to snap it closed.

“Well, thank you, Sir Leslie, I shall see to it that your, uhm, kind words are distributed via shipnet.”

She could feel another excruciating silence ballooning as soon as she was finished. Murray was still finding it hard to look her in the eye. His gaze flicked around the small room, and she remembered that it was the first time he’d ever been in her cabin. She wondered if he was uncomfortable being in the small space with a woman.

“Is there something else, Sir Leslie? You look like a man trying to cough up a fish bone.”

He colored deeply. His loose lips flapped once as a retort rose and died, unspoken.

“I . . . I’ve just received word from one of the transports, the Princess Beatrix. My son-in-law is aboard. He was with the colonial office in Singapore. He’s in a quite terrible state . . .”

The rear admiral took in a ragged breath, his shoulders hitching once, involuntarily. Murray seemed to find something fascinating on the highly polished toes of his shoes. Halabi waited for him to continue, but nothing more came. She was suddenly very uncomfortable sitting down while he stood over her, an unstable tower of grief, only just buttressed against total collapse by years of practice at squeezing his emotions into a tight little ball that might somehow be dry swallowed with gritted teeth and a small grimace.

She pushed herself up and fetched a bottle of springwater and a drinking glass from a small refrigerator by her bunk.

“And your daughter?” she asked, as she cracked open the lid on the Evian bottle.

Murray staggered forward and collapsed in the chair she’d just vacated. For a horrible moment she feared it might slide out from beneath him on its wheels, but his large frame butted up hard against the edge of the desk as he dropped his head into his hands. Spasms wracked his whole body as a low moaning sound, more animal than human, emanated from somewhere deep within his chest.