Among the perks enjoyed by established dockyard workers suddenly threatened because of the recent radical shake up of the Admiralty Dockyards of Malta, the most valued and most closely guarded had always been free or heavily subsidised housing. What the Royal Navy now regarded as disproportionate ‘largesse’ in this respect was the very thing which had under-pinned the status of the dockyard workers of Malta as the blue collar elite of the archipelago’s work force. While the new regime was not intentionally Draconian — or at least it did not seem unduly so to an outside observer — it tackled head on the sanctity of generations-old working practices and customary privileges, and signalled that in future, nothing was sacred. The fact that the wages of equivalent local trades had risen to match the generally higher rates paid to the new men flooding into the docks from England had done little to reduce tensions, and feelings were running high. The rapid and systematic re-allocation of the Admiralty Dockyard property estate primarily designed to help to address the problem of quartering and billeting the ever-growing number of officers and men permanently based on the archipelago, and to accommodate the influx new workers and their families was symptomatic of the unwelcome wind of change blowing through the islands. Inevitably, discontent among the still mainly Maltese skilled labour force in the Admiralty Dockyards was simmering, sparking sudden spasms of industrial unrest. In some corners the anti-British mutterings and protests of the years before the October War had begun to re-surface.
“I’ll get that!” Rosa cried when there was a knock at the front door. She had heard the car in the road and had limped half-way from the kitchen to the door before the visitor had knocked.
Rosa had entertained unworthy mixed emotions when Marija had first suggested that she and Peter might apply to live in her house. Now she hated herself for having had those bad thoughts. Nothing that had happened to her was Marija’s fault, and Peter Christopher and everybody she had met from his ship treated her like some little princess horribly and unjustly vilified in her hour of grief and loss. If HMS Talavera’s crew had enthusiastically taken Marija to its heart, it had rowed to Rosa’s defence no less energetically. An ill-advised disparaging remark about Rosa’s officially ‘missing’ husband in the hearing of a Talavera was likely to result in fisticuffs, treated as a heinous slur on the honour of their ship. The Talaveras — many of them veterans of the Battles of Cape Finisterre, Lampedusa and the ‘saving of the Enterprise’ — were aggressively proud of their ship, their dashing young captain and the two ‘beautiful’ young women who occasionally honoured them with their company. Among the Talaveras Marija and Rosa were very nearly honorary members of the destroyer’s crew.
Rosa had been afraid that her new friendship with her sister would be eclipsed by her marriage and had been rendered briefly speechless when Marija had sat her down and explained, patiently and a little anxiously, that she would be much happier convalescing in surroundings that were familiar to her. It was likely, Marija had told her, that as soon as HMS Talavera was ready to go back to sea, Peter would be away for ‘days and weeks on end’. Marija was not looking forward to this; although she could hardly pretend she had not known what to expect marrying a destroyer captain! In any event, she and Rosa would keep each other company and hopefully, cheer each other up from time to time. Rosa had wondered how the arrangement — by its nature temporary — would work in practice.
No newlyweds needed a chaperone!
However, having got used to the idea that every now and again it was inevitable that she would stumble, literally because of her still healing broken leg, upon the lovebirds with their hands all over each other unselfconsciously practicing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the last fortnight had been among the happiest of Rosa’s life. Perhaps, the happiest. Not least because of the charming, entirely respectful and very proper occasional solicitations of a certain Lieutenant Alan Hannay.
The handsome young officer whose broad smile greeted her when she opened the door had lost only a little of the svelte, perfectly groomed and always on show air of the man who, until a few weeks ago had been Admiral Sir Julian Christopher’s Flag Lieutenant. Rosa still did not know the full story because Marija was very discreet about these things, but it seemed that Alan Hannay, knowing that HMS Talavera had vacancies in her Wardroom after the Battle of Lampedusa had persuaded Peter to put a word in for him, and like magic a few hours later he had become the destroyer’s Purser and Supply Officer. Within days he and everybody else on the Talavera had distinguished themselves in the fight to save the USS Enterprise, and thereafter Alan Hannay had become one of Peter’s loyal band of brothers.
“What a lovely surprise,” the man exclaimed, his face brightening. “I confess I didn’t expect to see you today. What with us having such an early start, what!”
There was the sound of movement upstairs.
“Morning, Alan!” Peter Christopher called down the stairs. “I’ll be with you in a jiffy! Come in and have a cup of tea!”
“Aye, aye, skipper!” The visitor called back jovially and followed Rosa towards the kitchen. “I’m a bit earlier than I thought I’d be,” he told her. “I didn’t sleep a wink last night. It’s jolly good that we’re finally taking the old girl out to sea again today but we’re all a bit miffed we aren’t heading off with the Fleet to Cyprus tomorrow.”
“Everything has gone so quiet,” Rosa replied, cautiously exploring the boundaries of her rapidly blooming friendship with the dashing young naval officer who had first entered her life after her husband’s disappearance and the tragic death of his friend, Lieutenant Jim Siddall. “Perhaps, the terrorists in Northern Cyprus will just surrender when the Fleet arrives?”
“I jolly well hope so!” The man chortled. “Can I help with anything?”
Rosa’s look instantly put him in his place. She poured his tea into a mug. Peter and his officers, who seemed to be in and out of the house and this kitchen all the time, much preferred mugs of tea or cocoa, hardly any of them drank coffee from choice.
Peter Christopher made his entrance.
“I’ve lost my cap,” he explained, stifling a yawn.
“It is on the small table in the front room,” Rosa informed him. She poured a second mug of tea.
“I thought I heard you getting up,” Marija announced, greeting her sister-in-law with a passing half-hug. “Hello, Alan,” she beamed at her husband’s Supply Officer. She was dressed in her pale blue nursing smock. “Rosa has an appointment at Bighi,” she explained. “They are going to x-ray her ankle to see if the plaster can come off today.”
“So soon?” The man asked, looking to Rosa Calleja.
“We shall see,” the woman murmured, dropping her eyes.
“Good luck, anyway.” Alan Hannay had heard that Margo Seiffert, the newly appointed Medical Director of the Malta Defence Force ran a civilian orthopaedic clinic two days a week at Royal Naval Hospital Bighi. “How will you get there?”
“It is not far. We will walk and limp and if that doesn’t work out we’ll get a bus!” Marija gently chided her guest. If she had learned anything from her own experiences, tough love worked much better than molly coddling an invalid.