Big canvas awnings had been draped across the decks of the destroyer, both to hide her fresh wounds and to keep conditions below deck tolerable. Even at this season the Mediterranean sun beating down on the ship’s superstructure soon elevated temperatures below decks to uncomfortable levels.
“I do apologise for this,” Peter Christopher began. “If we’d known you planned to visit us…”
The tanned, lined, straw-haired small woman in her early sixties sighed, eying the young man with quick, grey eyes.
“The pictures in the Times of Malta add five years to you, Commander,” she said eventually.
“Oh, yes. Do they?” Peter remembered his manners. “Forgive me, should I call your Doctor, or Commander?”
“Margo,” the woman declared, flashing a harassed smile.
HMS Talavera’s acting Captain was painfully aware of the flapping ears in the immediate vicinity.
“Won’t you come below to my day cabin, er, Margo,” he suggested. “I’m sure we can rustle up some refreshments.”
Below deck Margo was impressed by the size of the Captain’s day cabin, where much of the business of the ship was normally conducted. This morning the desk normally occupied by the Captain’s Secretary was empty, its owner in the Royal Naval Hospital at Bighi with abdominal shrapnel wounds.
A wardroom steward looked around the door.
“Tea or coffee?” Peter asked his guest.
“Coffee if you’ve got it. Black.”
There was a couch and two easy chairs beneath the aft porthole.
“I know I should have been ashore before now,” the man apologised, feeling dreadful. “But we took a bit of a beating off Lampedusa and…”
“You don’t have to make excuses to me, Commander.”
“Peter, please,” he stammered in return.
“How is Captain Penberthy?” Margo asked, exploring the cabin, not interested in settling for the moment. Marija’s creased studio posed monochrome portrait was in a battered frame on the cluttered desk.
That was a good sign.
“Not so good. He lost his right foot when the shore battery opened up. Things were a bit of a shambles and he lost a lot of blood before the Surgeon got to him.”
Margo picked up Marija’s framed portrait on the desk. The print had obviously been folded and flattened several times. The photographer had caught the essence of Marija, the serenity and the mischief, and the hope recently half-extinguished.
“That portrait and I have been through a fair bit in the last couple of months,” the handsome young man said self-effacingly.
The steward knocked at the door and entered with a tray.
Presently, the man and woman faced each other, seated in the chairs beneath the open porthole.
“You’ve heard about what happened to Marija’s brother?” Margo asked flatly.
“Only what I read in the Times of Malta this morning. Marija must be horribly upset. It must be unbearable knowing your brother has been used and most likely murdered by terrorists…”
Margo Seiffert was looking at him oddly.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she murmured. “It isn’t that cut and dried. Marija’s father and younger brother were questioned by the Redcaps and virtually placed under house arrest for several days. People Sam Calleja was friendly with were among the terrorist s who committed suicide when the police closed in on their hideouts. The whole family feels,” she shrugged, “tainted by the whole thing. Quite apart from losing Sam. And it isn’t as if they’ve found his body yet.”
“I read that they think he was probably on HMS Torquay?”
“Yes. That’s what they think.”
“How is Marija?”
“She spends a lot of time with Rosa, Sam’s wife. The two of them couldn’t stand each other until this happened and now they are like ‘sisters’. The reason I came to meet you, Peter,” Margo explained feeling increasingly uncomfortable the longer the interview lasted, “was…”
“I should have tried to get ashore earlier,” the man blurted. “Marija must think I’m an absolute idiot!”
“No, she doesn’t think that. I’m sure she understands that you have responsibilities onboard your ship.”
“Oh, then…”
“What happened to Sam, and the death of Lieutenant Siddall,” Margo smiled tight-lipped, “who’d always been sweet on Marija, isn’t quite as simple as the story in the papers. Things aren’t so clear cut, Peter. Marija is, ashamed, I suppose. She’s got this stupid idea that she’s become an embarrassment to you and to you father, who she’s met several times. I’ve tried talking to her but she can be the most stubborn person I’ve ever known. That’s why I’m here and she’s not.”
“I don’t understand, Margo?”
“Whatever you do don’t wait for Marija to come to you, Peter.”
A few minutes later the acting commanding officer of HMS Talavera escorted his guest to the gangway and sent her ashore in the destroyer’s whaler. He stood watching the small boat glide across the hundred yard gap to the ferry quay. His thoughts were tangled and troubled and he was sick at heart. The World had betrayed him and for the moment he was at a loss to know what to do about it.
Unseen on the waterfront Marija stood anonymously in the crowds milling around the ferry bus stops. She saw the tall naval officer shaking Margo’s hand, the side party coming to attention as her friend departed the ship. It almost broke her heart seeing Peter Christopher from afar as he stared after the boat taking Margo to the shore. The lies in the Times of Malta were worse than the truth; at least in the truth there were answers. In those lies there was only despair. If the British had tricked the paper in lying about Samuel’s crimes, what else had they lied about? What had really happened to the terrorists?
She was torn.
She could hardly look at the long deadly, scarred outline of the destroyer moored in the middle of the Creek without flushing with pride. Her Peter commanded that ship. Her Peter was a hero. Except he wasn’t her Peter. If he ever had been he wasn’t now. All her hopes were in ashes.
Hot wet tears ran down her face as she drew her shawl over her hair and turned her back on the destroyer anchored in Sliema Creek, and the man whom she’d never met but had loved for as long as she could remember.
Chapter 32
Vice-Admiral Sir Julian Christopher, Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations and his deputy, Air Vice-Marshall Daniel French waited for the two VIPs to disembark from the RAF Comet 4, and stepped forward to greet the visitors.
The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir David Luce, exchanged salutes and crisp handshakes before turning to the hangdog-faced man in a baggy suit.
“May I introduce you to the Secretary of State for Defence, Mr William Whitelaw, MP.”
“Delighted to finally make your acquaintance, gentlemen,” the politician smiled, speaking in a slowly lugubrious voice that broadcast quiet confidence.
The quartet walked towards the slab-sided control room where cars awaited to carry them to Mdina.
“The Prime Minister most particularly asked to be remembered to you, Sir Julian,” William Whitelaw declared. “She’s dreadfully keen that everybody knows that blighter in Cheltenham Town Hall missed her from point blank range even though she never moved a muscle throughout the whole episode!”
When Julian Christopher had first heard of the assassination attempt he’d almost burst a blood vessel. His high anxiety hadn’t materially decreased in the following twenty-four hours. It was only now that his normal equilibrium was partially restored. He was relieved when the First Sea Lord suggested the Defence Secretary and Daniel French take the first car. He dropped beside his old friend in the back seat of the second vehicle.