The newcomer was immaculate in his freshly pressed uniform, his left breast laden with medal and campaign ribbons. He came to attention, removed his heavily gold braided cap and looked to the Prime Minister.
“C-in-C Pacific Fleet reporting as ordered. Sir!”
Edward Heath appraised Julian Christopher. There was a teak hardness in the tall, lean frame of the veteran of the Malta Convoys, the Battle of the Atlantic and the Korean War. His hair was completely grey, his face deeply tanned, lined. The eyes were like blue diamonds, unforgiving. Everybody told him that this man was the best fighting Admiral in the Royal Navy and that the men of the Pacific Fleet were devoted to him. The man had made such an impression on the Americans that they’d asked — well, demanded actually — his removal from his command. They didn’t like his ‘attitude’. The Prime Minister had had Alec Douglas Home stall, asked him to try to convey to their Allies that the removal of a British commander at sea simply wasn’t done and that matters would be best resolved on Admiral Christopher’s return to the United Kingdom. The Americans tended to believe what they wanted to believe and this had kept them happy thus far.
The Prime Minister rose from his seat, smiling broadly.
“Welcome home, Admiral Christopher.” He indicated the vacant chair next to the First Sea Lord. “We won’t stand on ceremony this morning. Take a pew, we’re all eager to hear the latest news of Operation Manna.”
“Elements of the Ark Royal Battle Group will escort the first Operation Manna convoy into British waters within the next forty-eight hours, sir,” Vice-Admiral Julian Wemyss Christopher reported to the Prime Minister. “Once the first parcels have been delivered to UK ports the Ark Royal Battle Group will replenish and return to meet the second convoy. At that time the returning ships of the Pacific Fleet most in need of repair and dockyard time will be replaced with fresh units from Channel Command. This pre-planned redeployment received the green light seventy-two hours ago. Likewise, fixed wing land-based air assets have stepped up patrol activity over the Western Approaches and Biscay. All available submarines, excluding HMS Dreadnought have been stationed so as to screen the western flank of the Hermes Battle Group which is currently moving into position one hundred miles west of the second convoy. HMS Dreadnought has been tasked to shadow the Enterprise Battle Group for several days.”
Edward Heath listened impassively.
He’d never believed that leaving the fate of the British people in the hands of the Kennedy Administration was commensurate with either common sense, or, even had he taken the Americans at their word, in any way prudent. He’d never take anything on trust from any American President after the events of the 27th, 28th and 29th October 1962. That spring he’d faced a very simple dilemma. If he did nothing then the British people would starve and freeze to death in their untold millions in the coming winter. If he placed his trust in the men who’d wrecked half the northern hemisphere, aide and succour might be forthcoming and the worst of the travail in the coming winter might be significantly ameliorated, or not, depending upon how things panned out. Or he could gamble everything on one last, literally do or die, appeal to the Old Country’s real friends and allies in those numerous former dominions where it was not yet de rigour to spit on the Union Jack. He hadn’t hesitated; chosen the latter do or die option. It was both the honourable and the pragmatic thing to do. Had his senior colleagues in Government or in the military rejected his wish he’d have resigned and probably had a short, final conversation with his old service revolver. Then as now there would have been no shortage of former friends and political confederates who’d gladly have handed him the ammunition.
Edward Heath completely understood that Operation Manna would have remained no more than a gesture, one last grand hurrah of the lost Empire but for the grey-haired hawk browed, patrician Vice-Admiral sitting across the table from him. The task had been ludicrously ambitious, vainglorious, but Julian Christopher had turned an optimistic, vague aspiration into a monumental endeavour utilising every man, ship and aircraft at his command. He’d excluded the United States Navy from huge tracts of the Pacific that they’d tacitly assumed were American Seas, collected every British and Dominion registered vessel on those seas, scoured the whole Southern Ocean for merchantmen. Once the word had gone out ships began appearing off Australian and New Zealand ports until harbours were jammed with shipping. Then Christopher had flown to Hong Kong, Singapore, to India and the Persian Gulf. First priority had been tankers, then refrigeration ships, grain carriers. Later, general purpose cargo vessels and liners. The United Kingdom had gold, and a plethora of overseas assets to trade abroad in those countries that hadn’t already appropriated them or illicitly transferred them into the grasping hands of their American proxies. But mostly, what the United Kingdom still had was people, skills, real military clout east of Suez, and a determination to guarantee the continuation of trade in the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific and Atlantic.
The Americans had stood back and watched, not really understanding what was going on, misinterpreting consolidation for hoarding and retrenchment, a sure sign that the Commonwealth was putting a wall about itself. Finally, when the true purpose and magnitude of Operation Manna belatedly became apparent they didn’t believe their eyes.
“There have been no incidents?” Margaret Thatcher’s demanding soprano sang out from diagonally opposite the stern-faced admiral.
“No, Ma’am,” Christopher informed her. “None worthy of the mention.”
“You intrigue me, Admiral,” the Angry Widow smiled a smile to melt the heart of an ogre.
Julian Christopher was no ogre except to his US Navy counterparts.
“Oh, the Yanks buzz our pickets from time to time,” he conceded with a throwing away gesture of his right hand. “They like to let us know they’re around. My own flight from the Ark Royal was intercepted by two Phantoms off the Enterprise. Just a social call.”
“A social call?”
If Julian Christopher noticed, or cared, that several of the men in the room were quickly wearying of what they interpreted as the Minister of Supply’s attempt to hijack the briefing, he betrayed no hint of it. To the contrary, his entire attention was now focused on the woman whom he’d never met until he’d walked into the Situation Room a few minutes ago.
“We try to make sure we don’t come upon each other unawares, Ma’am,” he half-smiled like a wolf licking its lips before the hunt. “We advertise our presence to each other in essentially benign ways. We switch off our targeting radars, for example. We broadcast our IFF — indication friend or foe — as loudly as possible. We don’t creep up on each other. Not ever. In military terms we tend to approach each other with our rifles slung over our shoulders and with open hands. By the same token my Fleet operates under well-publicised rules of engagement.”
“Fascinating. Tell me more, Admiral?”
Iain Macleod groaned out aloud. Alec Douglas-Home chuckled, breaking from his perennial grim-faced brooding. Tom Harding-Grayson exchanged thoughtful looks with Henry Tomlinson. The three Chiefs of Staff sat like poker-faced brass monkeys while the Minister of Defence, James Callaghan, softly drummed the fingers of his left hand on the table.