“Marija is at the fort,” the older man explained.
“She’s been arrested?”
“No. I don’t think so.”
Both men had automatically half-turned to look up towards the bastions of the citadel which housed the Headquarters of the Mediterranean Fleet, the Military Administration of Malta Command, and the offices of the Internal Security Department. The civil administration of the Maltese Archipelago was still based in Valetta and nobody really knew whether the real power lay with the men in the suits or the uniforms. That, Joe Calleja, mused idly, was another oddity of the British way of conducting business. There was a Lieutenant Governor in Valetta, and an Admiral in Fort Phoenicia but who was actually in charge? The Royal Air Force had command bunkers and sprawling barracks at Luqa, the biggest airbase on the main island while the Army had commandeered Fort St Angelo at the seaward end of the Valetta peninsula, and the old World War II war rooms beside and beneath the saluting gallery which overlooked the Grand Harbour. It wasn’t clear if, or how often the three services communicated with each other. Traditionally, it seemed, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet — since he arrived on the island in February to replace his assassinated predecessor, Vice-Admiral Sir Michael Staveley-Pope — was, de facto, the man who ran the show in Malta, which probably explained why those ISD (Internal Security Division) bastards operated out of HMS Phoenicia.
“The fort was called HMS Talbot during the last German war,” Jim Siddall said for no apparent reason. Unlike ninety-nine percent of his fellow servicemen on Malta the big man had been required to attend an intensive two week pre-embarkation familiarization course. Since he was to be attached to the small pre-war Counter-Intelligence Division of the Royal Military Police in Malta, it had been deemed desirable for him to be educated in the ways, and the history of the Maltese. He wasn’t convinced the course had helped him understand the Maltese, or anything in particular, any better than he had before but he’d arrived in the archipelago equipped with a positive mine of useless information.
“Why Talbot?” Joseph Calleja asked.
“The Navy had to call it something, I suppose.”
Manoel Island had originally been called l’Isola del Vescovo or, in Maltese, il-Gżira tal-Isqof which translated roughly as ‘the Bishop’s Island’. And so it had remained until post medieval times when in 1643 Jean Paul Lascaris, Grandmaster of the Knights of Malta, had built a quarantine hospital — a lazaretto — on the island, in response to the periodic waves of plague and cholera brought to Malta by visiting ships. The island hadn’t obtained its modern name until the 18th century, renamed in honour of António Manoel de Vilhena, a Portuguese Grandmaster of the Knights of Malta under whose leadership the original Fort Manoel was built in 1726. At the time the fort was a marvel of 18th century military engineering. Although some uncertainty existed as to the guiding hand behind the original plans for the structure, the general consensus was that the grand plan was the work of one Louis d’Augbigne Tigné, somewhat modified by his friend Charles François de Mondion. The latter was actually buried in a crypt beneath the fort. Somewhat mishandled by the Luftwaffe in the early 1940s Manoel Fort — currently HMS Phoenicia — retained its impressive internal quadrangle parade ground and arcade. The baroque chapel of St. Anthony of Padua within the fort’s walls had been almost totally destroyed by bombing in March 1942 but had subsequently been rebuilt as the base chapel, albeit not quite in the magnificent style of its pre-German war pomp.
Yes, useless information…
“What is Marija doing at the fort if she hasn’t been arrested?”
The question brought Jim Siddall down to earth with a jarring bump.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You’re ISD, you know everything.”
They’d reached the end of the avenue between the tents, turned, and begun to retrace their steps. There were around three hundred men in the camp, few were outside their tents. Idleness was the predominant camp regime. There were no activities, just endless days waiting around when nothing happened. Once a month the British moved detainees in, or out, occasionally a man was taken away for interrogation. Nobody got knocked about. After the ‘incidents’ at the Empire Stadium the British Military Administration had posted a general order to the effect that ‘the physical abuse of prisoners or any other person in custody is absolutely forbidden other than in cases of self-defence’. The order, posted on the gates to the camp and pinned inside every tent went on to specify that ‘violence occasioned in self-defence must at all times be reasonable and proportionate to the degree of force encountered’. Joe hadn’t met any other detainee who’d been interrogated by a Yank since he’d awakened in hospital in January. The British interrogators sometimes yelled and screamed but not often. They’d manhandle anybody stupid enough to be awkward; taking no pleasure in it. The worst of it for the detainees was the boredom and not knowing what was going on outside, having no direct contact apart from infrequent, rarely scheduled visits. There were no letters, in or out of the camp. No access to lawyers, no appeal. Once you were in the system you were trapped. If the British had been nasty about it the whole thing would have been intolerably cruel. As it was, life in the camp was unimaginably tedious, wearying, dispiriting, depressing, dreary. It was as if the British didn’t really have their heart in their work. Joe Calleja already knew Staff Sergeant Siddall didn’t have his heart in it. He might be sweet on his sister, he might not. Either way, like most of his compatriots he didn’t need an excuse to behave like a human being.
“I’m not ISD,” Jim Siddall growled, irritably.
“Oh, I…”
“I’m a Redcap,” the soldier declared as if he was clinging to the idea like a sailor holding onto a broken spar in a shipwreck.
“You were on my case before the war?” Joe Calleja reminded him, expecting to be ignored.
“That was different. That was just routine police work. You worked in the dockyards. You had access to secret equipment. You had associates who were known communists. You turned up at all the wrong demonstrations. Oh, and there was that funny stuff you were involved in with the Union. So we kept an eye on you. But that was all.” Jim Siddall waved at their surroundings. “This?” He asked, speaking to thin air. “This is just wrong.”
The younger man blinked in astonishment.
“But I never said that,” the big man added ruefully.