Meet me beneath Table Mountain... but there's a spy watching

When finds love - however unexpectedly - one should cherish it... writes David, naval hero of The Girl from Simon's Bay. But what if it's an illicit liaison, and someone sees? Louise hides her face when she meets him in Cape Town during the war. Louise is mixed race, David is white - and her former patient at the Royal Naval Hospital.

As she risks a look about her in the bustling city beneath the mountain, she thinks they are safe, that no-one has noticed. But Piet, Louise's reckless childhood sweetheart, spots them by chance while diverting a consignment of fish from the navy to a private buyer. Piet watches the young couple, sees how easy they are with each other, sees the accidental touch of hands. He resolves to keep quiet, to hoard the secret for a later date. Knowledge, Piet says to himself, is different from fish. It isn't perishable. The longer you hold on to it, the more valuable it becomes.

But then Piet's fishing scam is discovered. He lashes out at the Quartermaster who is in on the conspiracy. "When I go and give the Admiral his fish I'll tell him he only gets second-best, his quartermaster gets the best! And I'll also tell him one of his officers is sleeping with a Coloured nurse at the Royal Naval Hospital!"

The consequences of Piet's words spread far...
"It has come to my knowledge that you have formed an attachment with a patient," says Matron. "If found guilty of this sort of behaviour, you would be dismissed."
Louise cannot afford to lose her job.
And she and her parents cannot afford the shame that will fall upon them.
Yet when one finds love so unexpectedly, how can it be abandoned?