Peter Christopher could have been killed half-a-dozen times in the last three months. Over fifty percent of the men who’d sailed with HMS Talavera from Portsmouth in November were dead, missing or in hospital. Less than a fortnight ago his captain had had a foot blown off by a solid shot fired by an anti-tank gun off Lampedusa; Peter had assumed command and conned the unarmoured destroyer even closer inshore to assist HMS Puma — hit in the engine room and drifting onto the rocks — and since then he had once again fearlessly steered his command into harm’s way to save the most powerful warship in the World, and in so doing probably re-cemented the ‘special relationship’ between his country and the USA. The boy was a positive combat magnet!
The women watched the two destroyers limp deep into the Grand Harbour, slowing to a halt while big Admiralty tugs churned into position to nudge and prod the warships into French Creek. Normally, any self-respecting destroyer captain would steam confidently towards the quayside; wait until the last possible moment when a disastrous collision with the dock seemed inevitable before reversing his screws so as to glide to an imperceptible, kissing contact with the landward fenders. However, anybody with eyes in their heads could see that neither captain believed his ship was capable of such smart manoeuvring in their presently somewhat down at heel state.
The crowd parted nearby and the Commander-in-Chief strode onto the scene. It was not lost on Marija that her prospective father-in-law was wearing the sort of smile that, at this minute, implied he felt himself perfectly capable of walking on water.
“The Malta Defence Force is to be constituted as a permanent unit of the Commonwealth garrison of the Maltese Archipelago,” he announced to the two women in a voice designed not to carry beyond their hearing.
Previously, the MDF had been a hotchpotch of local volunteers, organised along the lines of the British Home Guard in the 1945 war. It had been something of a standing joke and regarded by regular British forces with affectionate contempt.
“The reconstituted MDF will have a Maltese commanding officer with the rank of major-general, its own land, sea and air branches, and,” Julian Christopher grinned, “its own Medical Directorate which, as with the other arms of the new service will have to be built from the ground up. The post of Senior Medical Officer will be graded at Commander-level initially.” He looked meaningfully at Margo.
“I’m not even Maltese,” she objected, flushing with unfamiliar embarrassment.
“Actually, you are,” retorted the tall, handsome man resplendent in his freshly pressed uniform and transparent good humour. “You have lived continuously in these islands for over ten years. Coincidentally, that’s the official definition of who is, and who is not, a citizen of the archipelago for the purposes of membership of the MDF.”
“Since when, Julian?”
“About thirty minutes ago.”
Margo Seiffert frowned. “I’ll think about it.”
Julian Christopher shook his head and chuckled beneath his breath. Marija could have sworn he winked conspiratorially in her direction but on reflection, she might have imagined it. The Commander-in-Chief, the two women, and the hundreds of people who had gathered on or around Parlatorio Wharf, on the quayside and atop the ramparts of Senglea on the other side of French Creek waited patiently, expectantly as the two destroyers held station while the tugs manoeuvred.
In the background the USS Enterprise had temporarily moored opposite the neck of the French Creek beneath the Floriana bastions, with a fleet of small boats latched onto her like limpets. Helicopters from RAF Hal Far and Luqa had begun to shuttle to and from her relatively undamaged forward flight deck offloading the unburned wounded and delivering supplies. That evening the carrier would be warped and nudged in shore to the old steamship anchorage currently occupied by the twenty-two thousand ton Cunard liner the RMS Sylvania. Beyond the Enterprise, already moored beyond the old passenger quay, the P and O liner Canberra, drab in her grey and khaki camouflage had docked overnight. The Sylvania had been in transit to Malta from Gibraltar at the time of the nuclear strikes and the C-in-C had thought long and hard before ordering her into the Grand Harbour to unload her desperately needed cargo of over two hundred skilled dockyard workers, defence industry communications specialists, radar men and electricians, their families and the four companies of fully equipped infantrymen of the Warwickshire Regiment that the liner had brought out from Southampton. The Canberra had been destined to join the Victorious Battle Group acting as a hospital ship and troopship for the evacuated garrison of Cyprus. When the Victorious had been crippled by a nuclear strike on one of her escorts and forced to withdraw to Alexandria for emergency repairs, the mission to Cyprus had been abandoned and the Canberra diverted back to Malta.
“I think Peter would have had the easier time of it,” Marija observed, interrupting the great man’s chain of thought.
“Oh, how so?”
“Well, I know that removing the steam feed to the lower half of the reversing turbines of the Weapon class ships solved the problem of major machine room breakdowns,” Marija explained, her face a picture of concentration as she watched HMS Scorpion drifting towards contact with the quayside fenders, “but having to manuever so close to such a big ship, almost in the USS Enterprise’s prop wash, HMS Scorpion must have been very nearly uncontrollable with only half her designed reversing power?”
Admiral Sir Julian Christopher’s mouth momentarily hung open in astonishment. He looked at the slip of a girl his son was determined to marry and gulped once, twice like a fish out of water before he collected his wits.
“HMS Talavera is a slightly bigger ship without partially disabled reversing turbines,” Marija continued, squinting at HMS Scorpion’s dented and slightly askew bow, missing starboard anchor, and her torn up fo’c’sle rails. In comparison the Talavera’s damage — ignoring the unsightly charred gouge all down her starboard bridge plating to the level of the main deck through which keen observers could see the destroyer’s helmsman at the wheel — seemed relatively superficial. “Peter would have had a much easier time of it. Don’t you think, Admiral?”
Julian Christopher found himself exchanging looks with Margo Seiffert who was struggling, and failing, to conceal her huge amusement at his discomfort.
It was a funny old World.
An hour ago he had been in discussion with the Prime Minister intent on clarifying the circumstances under which he was authorised to task Arc Light nuclear strike missions by the five V-Bombers based at RAF Luqa. Margaret Thatcher had sounded unusually worried and very tired at the other end of the secure voice link to her new office in Oxford, the location of the soon to be reconvened Houses of Parliament. The Cabinet Office was in the process of moving to premises at King’s College, while Christ Church would accommodate the House of Commons. It seemed extraordinary to him, as a military man, that Margaret Thatcher remained so implacably, unreasonably committed to the restoration of ‘politics as normal’ in the old country just three days after Red Dawn had launched what amounted to a thermonuclear first strike — involving the use of as many as a dozen warheads, including several city-killing yield weapons — across his theatre of operations, and specifically, against his forces in the Mediterranean. He had had to remind himself that practically everything about Margaret Hilda Thatcher, the thirty-eight year old blond bombshell, Boadicea-like leader who had emerged seemingly from nowhere to galvanise a broken and dispirited people, was utterly extraordinary.