HMS Talavera’s Supply Officer did not immediately realise as much.
“I probably bent a few Regs, sir. Sorry, I…”
Both his Commander-in-Chief and Captain ‘D’ exploded with laughter.
“Ah, I see,” Alan Hannay mouthed, feeling even more idiotic than before.
Captain Nicholas Davey waved at the two battered destroyers moored alongside Parlatorio Wharf.
“I suspect that your particular acquisitive skills will come in very handy over the next few weeks, Lieutenant Hannay. But be a good chap; try not to be so bloody obvious in your circumvention of the Regs in future.”
Alan Hannay finally caught the mood of the small gathering.
“Right ho, sir. We wouldn’t want any word of any irregularities coming to the ears of the Commander-in-Chief?”
Julian Christopher, the Captain of HMS Scorpion and the newly designated Medical Director of the nascent Malta Defence Force watched the younger man hurry back to his ship.
“I still don’t understand why you let that boy go?” Margo queried in the descending quietness of the late afternoon. “He might only have been your Flag Lieutenant for a couple of months but he was already a legend?”
The three of them had focussed on the great, brooding hulk of the USS Enterprise being made secure ahead of the Cunard liner RMS Sylvannia at what had been the old passenger terminal on the Floriana — Valletta side of the Grand Harbour.
“If I hadn’t let him go he had only have stowed away on Talavera,” Julian Christopher chortled.
“I hear things will speed up a gear or two in the dockyards now the first batch of chaps from the old country has arrived?” Nick Davey asked idly.
“Assuming the locals can be persuaded not to down tools tomorrow morning!”
“Is that likely, Julian?”
Margo Seiffert was struck by the easy informality of the two men when they were out of earshot of strangers, interlopers. Two old friends reunited in a good war, just like old times.
“We shall see, Nick. We shall see.”
Margo decided it was time to take a professional interest in Captain ‘D’.
“How soon do you plan to have your injuries properly assessed, Captain Davey?”
“I’m fine. The old collar bone is a bit creaky on the left wing. Oh, and I got a tad scorched when a limp of helicopter dropped onto the side of the bridge. Think I might have knocked my ribs in all the commotion. But I’m fine, dear lady. I’ve had much worse knocks playing rugger for the Navy…”
“Dear lady?”
“Forgive me, a lapse of the tongue. Forgive any discourtesy, none was intended…”
Margo gave him a hard, unblinking look.
“Er,” Nick Davey sighed, knowing when he had met his match. “Perhaps, the knock on the head was harder than it seemed at the time.” He forced a grimace. “I shall get myself a jolly good looking over in the morning. Just as soon as the old girl,” he flicked a look over his shoulder at his ship, “is safely tied up in dry dock.”
Realising this was the best offer she was going to get Margo relented, made her excuses and departed.
“My, what an extraordinary woman!” Nick Davey whistled.
“Yes, indeed,” his old friend concurred.
The two men were silent awhile.
“Will you come on board for a snifter, Julian?”
“Another time, Nick.”
There was another pause, a silence that threatened to linger.
“I thought it was all up for us last week,” the shorter, plumper man admitted. “Taking Scorpion and Talavera under the Enterprise’s stern was the only thing I could think of to take everybody’s minds off what was probably coming next. Goodness knows what it must have been like being here watching the mushroom clouds in the distance. Do we have any idea why there wasn’t a second strike?”
“None at all.”
“And we’re,” Captain ‘D’ of the 7th Destroyer Squadron suspected he was overstepping the bounds of his old, and hugely valued friendship with his Commander-in-Chief. He went on, trying not to push the boundaries of long acquaintance beyond breaking point. “And we’re, keeping our powder dry on the Arc Light front for the time being?”
“Yes,” Julian Christopher retorted flatly. “Bone dry, old man.”
Chapter 7
Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, and Defender of the Faith rose to her feet when her guests were ushered into the East Library. There were the normal understated bows and then everybody sat down in the Queen Ann chairs arranged around the low gilded table placed slightly off centre towards the rear of the room where, if she cared so to do, the Queen could easily gaze out across the drab, wintery landscaped Oxfordshire countryside.
Margaret Thatcher recollected how nervously awed she had been the first time she had made her monarch’s acquaintance. That had been the strangest day of her life, the day she discovered her true infatuation with Julian Christopher, the day of the murderous bombing attack on Balmoral Castle and its surreal aftermath in which she, her friend from that day onwards, Pat — now Lady Patricia — Harding-Grayson, the wife of the Foreign Secretary, and the Queen had organised an emergency field casualty clearing station while the late, genuinely lamented in her heart, Edward Heath had taken personal command of the surviving members of Her Majesty’s bodyguard…
“I shall be mother today,” the Queen announced.
“How is Prince Philip, Ma’am?”
His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, had very nearly lost his legs in the attack on Balmoral. His recovery from his injuries was slow and fraught with complications.
“Some days better than others. They say it will be at least another month before we can risk flying him south. The children are still in Scotland, of course, and they visit him most days. It will be marvellous when we are all together again here at Blenheim Palace.”
The thing that struck a person the first time one met Queen Elizabeth II was not how small she was; but that after that first face to face encounter one never again really noticed her lack of stature. Perhaps, it was because she was innately regal, something in her bloodline? Margaret Thatcher did not think it was that simple. The better she got to know her sovereign the more she recognised the iron resolution of the woman, and understood that duty and service ran through her veins like seams of gold through ancient bedrock.
Cups and saucers were passed to William Whitelaw, the Defence Secretary, and James Callaghan, the Deputy Prime Minister. In a situation in which the exigencies of government were inevitably compromised by questions raised about the legitimacy of those holding the reins of power, it had been the Queen’s suggestion that until there was a return to ‘politics as normal’ that both the major parties ruling in coalition as the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom should be represented at audiences with her Prime Minister. The protocol recommended itself on two grounds to Queen Elizabeth II. It was a public nicety designed to silence possible accusations of Royal ‘partiality’ towards one or other of the parties; and it provided her with a wider cross-section of opinion in a crisis. Since there was a crisis most weeks this was doubly important.
“I gather that the situation in the Mediterranean is quiet?” The Queen asked, hoping above hope that her question would turn out to be entirely rhetorical.
“Yes, Ma’am,” her Prime Minister confirmed. “Thank goodness!”