I grimaced: "Yesterday I was simply a submarine commander who felt he'd done a job of work. I hadn't had a bath for three weeks. Now I feel unclean with all this limelight focused on me. I felt better on the bridge of the Trout. In the light of all this," I burst out, "it's a pity the Ities didn't get Trout — to hell with ' utmost priority! '
The C.O. said harshly: "You can keep that sort of maudlin talk for somewhere else. Those boys of yours are a damn fine bunch, and I wouldn't like to think of them at the bottom of the sea just because you're facing something you don't know." He stood up and eyed me unrelentingly. "You'd better get a good night's rest. We'll try and get you out of here sometime to-morrow if the raids are not too heavy."
I suppose that at that time there were fewer drearier places than the huts grouped round Malta's much-bombed airfield. For the hundredth time I changed my position on the scuffed, hard chair and pulled up my greatcoat collar, not only to keep out the chill, but the unrelieved glare of the unshaded lights. The place looked stark, kicked about; indeed it was. It was no fitting portal of glory for the men who, day after day, set their faces against the impossible odds of the great bombing squadrons which sought to destroy not only the airfield, but Malta itself. Blacklock had been hovering around, but his main concern was chivvying the weary workers filling in bomb craters from the last raid of the day, and trying to get a few precious extra yards of runway to help the heavy Lancaster bomber off the field. I could see he was inwardly dubious. Gibraltar had given us a short signal about five hours ago that the plane had left there; we weren't likely to have any more news until she arrived after the long 1,000-mile haul from the Rock.
The pulsing of heavy engines cut the thick silence of the early hours.
Blacklock joined me. "I hope to God they don't pile that monster up on my runways," he said. "It's bad enough having to give them our precious petrol, but it would be hell if they chewed up what's left of the airfield. Besides," he added, "after these top priority signals, I've got to swaddle you in cottonwool. If they don't get that bloody great thing off the deck again, I feel they'll court martial me. You'll probably be beyond the powers of court martial if she doesn't lift." He grinned, but he was nervous.
The flarepath came on.
"All in your honour," said Blacklock. "I wouldn't dare unless it were vital. As it is, it might bring the Stukas in post-haste." He glanced anxiously round, a man naked In his enemies.
The cumbersome shape teetered down on the extremity of the runway. It ran on and on. I thought it would never stop. Blacklock drew the breath between his teeth. The giant slowed, creaked, and turned towards the apron, the propellers cutting arcs of pale light.
"Bloody fine landing!" exclaimed Blacklock. "Bloody fine! Fine being the operative word. They've sent you a good pilot, laddie, if that landing means anything. Get those lights out," he shouted to someone in the darkness above in the control tower.
Before the great bomber had stopped rolling the airfield in total darkness. Blacklock and I went forward while he shone his torch on the crew's entrance. Four men emerged, walking with that stiff, uneasy gait a man has after a long flight.
Then fifth pair of legs emerged and an Australian voice "Malta he jewel of the sterling area! Holiday in suns Malta! See Malta and the worst bloody airfield I've ever seen! Push it over the Cliff!"
"That's what the jerries are trying to do. I Blacklock." He turned to the ground crew. "Get her fuelled up. Anything else needed?"
The Australian looked at him in astonishment.
"What do you mean fuel her up? I'm getting fuelled up myself before I take this cow back. I want a bath and a night's rest." With heavy sarcasm he wheeled on Blacklock. "We've been flying chum, remember? Fifteen hundred miles to Gibraltar way out to sea, and another thousand here. See?"
I admired Blacklock then, and saw what had got him to the top.
"You're taking that bloody great thing out of here just as soon as I can get her filled up. Two hours, maybe."
The Australian turned away truculently. "Bugger you," he said.
Blacklock didn't argue. "See here," he said evenly. "If you are not fit, or your crew is not fit, I'll put another crew aboard, but that Lancaster is going to be on its way back to Gibraltar before daylight. Out of the way of the Jerry bases on Sicily and the mainland. Make up your mind."
The Australian faced about, and in the stronger light I could see the lines of fatigue round his mouth. But he changed his tune in the face of Blacklock's stiff line.
"What's the hurry?" he demanded. "Who's this bastard we've got to get back without so much as an hour's rest? Churchill's younger brother? Why can't the bomber stay here for tomorrow at least?"
Blacklock was fast losing patience. "First, because I say so. Second, because that plane will be bombed to pieces in the first raid tomorrow morning. Third, I don't want more of a mess made of my runways than necessary. Fourth, because this is the man you're taking back. Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Peace. ' Utmost priority,' that's why they sent you in the first place."
The Australian looked round with his eyes narrowed with weariness. "OK." he said. "Fill her up. Call me when it's done. She's OK. otherwise. I suppose we have time for a cup of coffee?" Then his manner changed. "Don't let those bastards of a ground crew into the plane before we get stuff out of her."
"What stuff?" asked Blacklock suspiciously.
"There are three crates of whisky and three of gin in the bomb-bay," he grinned. "And about the same number of tinned food. I figured you miserable bastards would need something to cheer you up." 'Utmost priority' he mimicked.
Blacklock slapped him on the shoulder. "Sorry about this, Aussie. We could have had a party."
"Ah, well," sighed the Australian.
Two and a half-hours later the big bomber stood quivering at the end of the runway, brakes hard on with the great Rolls-Royce engines roaring defiantly. Spurts of blue flame flickered over the cowlings as the Australian revved them up to almost full boost against the brakes. Then the flarepath came on momentarily, the brakes were released, and we catapulted forward. Had it not been for my strap, I would have been thrown from the metal-backed seat on to the mattresses the crew had slept on on the floor. The great machine bucked and roared as the pilot fought to get her off I he tiny runway. The tail came up but it seemed an eternity. Then it slowly lifted and with the Rolls-Royce engines bellowing we lifted clear and swept out to sea. Even as I looked back, the flare path went out, and we were alone over the sea for all the long flight back to England.
V
"The third man is dead," said the Flag Officer (S)., "You'll take his place. The list is short. The others are beyond telling the Germans."
An old submariner himself, the Flag Officer (S) did not waste his words — or his time. The Admiralty looked bleak and cold in the late London spring; chill it seemed to me after being used to the friendly bite of the Mediterranean sun. Bleaker still looked those eyes over the top of the desk. They reminded me somehow of Rockall, the lonely isle in the Atlantic — they only changed their shade of greyness, sometime* stormy, sometimes still, but always grey and bleak with the chill of the near Arctic.
I did not reply. The sudden transition by air from one place to another has always left me feeling as if a part of me had been left behind; it requires time to catch up again.