Hob applied the lift and took her up.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘They won’t tell me,’ the observer said. ‘I suspect it’s a ferry job.’
Hob glanced at the clock on the instrument paneclass="underline" 1107. The VIP spot was ominous— ‘Hey, you guys,’ he passed through the common line. ‘You’d better spruce the old cab up. I reckon we’re booked for the First Sea Lord.’
He did not catch what Hermann said to the observer but “ there was laughter and a great deal of scrabbling going on in the back end.
As they flew to Culdrose each man was silent with his own thoughts, hoping that on arrival at the airfield the news from Treliske might compensate for their efforts. Now Hob could see the grey hangars, the plush buildings of the residential complex. He turned across the tower and took her down towards the VIP spot where a huddle of senior officers was peering upwards.
Chapter 2
Even the platforms of Paddington station had a touch of spring about them this morning where the light of dawn was filtering through the grimy roof. There was zest, too, in the step of the distinguished-looking officer in the bridge coat who strode through the barrier. The ticket collector, impressed by the admiral’s uniform, touched the peak of his cap. He did not often check the ticket of a full admiral, even in these crazy days.
Admiral Sir Anthony Layde, GCB, MVO, carried nothing with him. For him, today was a day for re-charging his cerebral batteries, as well as for encouraging his airmen.
‘Morning, Alan.’
His naval assistant, a captain, held open the door of the first-class carriage.
‘Makes a change to flying, sir.’ He led the way to the compartment and slid back the door. ‘Gives you a bit of slack.’
The First Sea Lord settled himself into the corner seat, idly watched the platform slipping by, and noted the guard yawning as he waved the driver off.
‘You should get some zeds in,’ Layde muttered. ‘It’ll be a long day.’ He smiled briefly at his naval assistant, who had been working all hours during these hectic weeks. ‘I want a few hours’ peace for some solid thinking — that’s why I’m going down to Culdrose by train.’
‘A Jetstream’s lined up to take you back, sir. The captain says his pilots want to fly you back. It’s a good training aeroplane.’
Layde nodded. The Penzance express soon began to pick up speed, rattling through the suburbs and gliding out into the green of the spring countryside around Windsor, where the banks of the Thames were lined with pollarded willows. Dawn in the English countryside still did something to him — and he leaned forwards to follow a brace of snipe, dipping and tripping across the marshes. Alan was already asleep…
The First Sea Lord slipped his diary from his reefer pocket: he needed time to think. He had grown into the habit of acting as the bluff sea dog: he enjoyed playing the part, but it was a pardonable fault in his position as chief of the Royal Navy. Today’s fleet was impersonal enough, with its fetish for replacing leadership by ‘management’ — a fundamental error which he was trying to remedy.
Everything had depended on the summit meeting at Geneva two days ago. He would have been a fool to have expected any other conclusion. He had nearly reached his retirement but the Icarus incident, as the media now termed the affair, had ended any chance of enjoying the serenity of his Herefordshire home. He flicked the pages of his diary backwards…
From time to time Layde moved restlessly — what a woeful indictment of man’s condition were the repeated acts of aggression and counter-aggression catalogued in the last three months of his diary. He felt the train slowing as the first of Reading’s suburbs flashed past the window. The sun was low above the horizon: the wet gutters were glistening pink.
Two days ago, the world summit meeting at Geneva had dissolved in confusion the crisis everyone was dreading. The Americans were at Red Alert, their Sixth Fleet was concentrating south-west of Cyprus. The Governor of Gib must be having sleepless nights.
Yesterday, Friday 11 April, the Americans and Nato had told the Soviets that Europe would be reinforced forthwith along every trade route leading to that continent. Last night, Moscow retorted bluntly that if the convoys sailed, they would be attacked. The sailing of the convoys would be considered by the Soviets as an act of aggression against the Warsaw Pact, which had no intention of attacking across the central plains of Europe — providing Nato’s divisions remained static. The convoys, unmolested but heavily guarded, still lay at anchor from Halifax to Charleston.
As the train slid to a halt at Reading, Layde caught sight of a group of senior railway officials peering at the windows speeding past them. He watched one of them hurrying to the door of the first-class carriage. Layde glanced across at his exhausted assistant:
‘Better see what they want, Alan.’
The naval assistant hurried along the corridor, then returned to poke his head round the door.
‘It’s VCNS, sir,’ he reported. ‘He’s on the phone.’
Layde asked to be left alone in the stationmaster’s office.
‘Yes, Charles.’
‘I thought you’d better know at once, sir, in case you want to return immediately. Director-General of Intelligence has just been through___’ Charles seemed worried by the open line. He was barely audible.
‘What’s up?’
‘At 0515 this morning an unidentified number of Bulgarian divisions crossed the Turkish and Greek frontiers. They’re heading for the Straits and Salonika.’
Layde stood silently for a full five seconds. Then he said: ‘That makes up our minds for us, Charles.’
‘Shall I send a car for you, sir?’
‘Why?’
‘I thought — ‘
‘My airmen are the one hope we’ve got at this moment. I’ll want a sitrep when I reach Culdrose.’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
The First Sea Lord put down the receiver slowly. He stood for a moment, his hands stuffed into his reefer pockets, then strode purposefully back to his carriage.
Salisbury, Exeter, Plymouth — the journey seemed endless. To smother his impatience Layde sharpened his thinking on his naval assistant. Alan was a good companion and no yes-man. Looking back on it all, they agreed that the dangerous days had begun when the West, divided and confused by the Afghanistan fait accompli, had not understood that unity came before self-interest, and the crisis had accelerated from that point. The Soviet leaders had made it abundantly clear that they aimed to destroy the West; they often said so publicly. They could do so by two methods: through subversion in every facet of Western national life-economic, social and defence and, if that failed, by using force to cut Atlantic sea-lanes. During the stalemate since January, they had tacitly accepted that a decision restricted to war at sea was preferable to any other battleground. They had posed their argument with brutal candour.
Assuming that the superpowers were compelled to fight, even at the expense of destroying civilization on this planet, the outcome of a land battle on the central plains of Europe would depend on whether the armies of the West could be reinforced from the American arsenal on the other side of the Atlantic.
If the Soviets were to win the Atlantic, by denying the sea-lanes to Nato reinforcements, it would be pointless for Nato to resist on the central plains.
But if Nato won the Atlantic, it would be illogical for Russia to invade Europe because she would, in the end, be overwhelmed as the American reinforcements began rolling into the European ports.
The corollary was as brutaclass="underline" whichever side won this battle of the Atlantic, Europe could be spared the holocaust of land warfare, a condition which the superpowers preferred: a devastated continent was a liability to both contestants, whoever nominally won. Thus went the Soviet argument, but the unknown factor was the quality of Soviet naval technology: how good were their ships, their men?