The British had warned their allies that the Spanish had a habit of tracking foreign warships entering the Mediterranean. From the intelligence digests he had read Anderson Schmidt doubted these two contacts were Spanish ships. The Brits had sunk or disabled half the Spanish Navy in December’s battles and most of the surviving surface units had hunkered down in Cadiz and Barcelona ever since.
The surface contacts were already starting to fall astern.
Anderson Schmidt signalled the bridge talker to approach him.
“Put me on the ship-wide circuit,” he ordered, picking up a handset from beside the tactical plot.
He waited for the circuit to open.
“This is the Captain,” he said, hearing and feeling his amplified voice booming around the great ship, “this ship has now entered a war zone. A few minutes ago unidentified surface contacts were detected at the extreme range of our radar systems. As a precaution our escorting destroyers have been authorised to manuever freely so as to clear the ranges for their missiles. We are presently drawing ahead of the surface contacts which remain under surveillance by the Independence’s aircraft. From this point on we can expect to be targeted and attacked by enemy submarines, surface units and aircraft. Because of the risk of attack with atomic, bacteriological and or chemical weapons no crew member may go on deck other than with the express permission of a senior officer.” He paused. “The ship will now close up to battle stations.”
Turning to the Officer of the Deck, Anderson Schmidt smiled thinly.
“Sound Action Stations!”
The klaxons blared and the USS Iowa was consumed by rushing bodies, semi-organised chaos and outright, shambolic chaos.
The minutes dragged by, reports came in.
The lights on the readiness board began to change from amber to green.
Everybody donned flak jackets and steel helmets; officers strapped on their 45-calibre Brownings, or if they were old-school like their commanding officer, pattern 1911 Navy Colts.
Number Two turret’s lights gleamed bright red long after the rest of the battleship had closed up to battle stations.
“Number Two main battery turret reports many electrical failures, sir!” Then: “Turret captain reports turret ready for action under local control, sir!”
Schmidt’s expression was glacial.
At least the Turret Captain had worked out his options eventually!
Many of the smaller anti-aircraft weapons in the superstructure were in exposed open mountings. In battle, Schmidt would be stationed in the conning tower, protected by up to seventeen inches of armour.
Who said life had to be fair?
Chapter 39
It was almost midnight before Peter Christopher crept through the front door like a thief in the night. He carefully placed his bag on the floor, hung his cap on the hook on the wall at the foot of the stairs and, without even thinking of putting on the light, started to creep upstairs.
The Grand Harbour had been empty, a dark and lonely place when he had finally conned HMS Talavera through the breakwaters. Even HMS Sheffield had gone, having presumably set off on her long slow cruise back to England and a likely appointment with the breakers yard. Anchoring fore and aft to the emergency destroyer buoys on the Corradino heights side of the anchorage he had sent two thirds of the crew to their billets on the Cunard liner Sylvania, left his ship in the capable hands of his Executive Officer, Miles Weiss and taken a taxi back to Kalkara. He had to return to his ship in a few hours but the way things were shaping up, he might not see Marija again for days or weeks once Talavera had taken on a full ammunition load and topped off her fuel bunkers. The prospect of not seeing Marija again before Talavera received her sailing orders was, unthinkable…
The second step creaked loudly under his foot.
He froze.
A minor steam leak and miscellaneous easily fixed, but nonetheless vexing generator and electrical faults apart, Talavera’s sea trials had gone well. Actually, they had gone better than well. Under full power the destroyer had touched thirty-four knots, and her new torpedo division had drilled relentlessly. The ship still felt ‘light’ in any kind of sea and ‘stiffer’ than she had been in her prime as a Fast Air Detection Escort with a mass of sophisticated equipment installed high above her centre of gravity. Even at flank speed Talavera’s bow was reluctant to dig deep into big waves, her stern settling down, burying her screws deeper and deeper in the water as the increasing power was transmitted into her propeller shafts. He wondered how fast Talavera might steam if he had ordered engineering to open all the valves. He had been tempted, resisted the urge, not wanting to risk breaking his rebuilt ship on her very first excursion out of dockyard hands.
The hall light came on.
“Peter!”
Marija flew down the stairs into her husband’s arms with such alacrity and abandon that she literally fell into his embrace. For a moment he thought they were both going to tumble backwards. Fortunately, he had braced himself specifically against this mischance — Marija tended to fly into his arms more often than not when he came home after a day at the dockyard, let alone when she had not seen him for several days — and was, therefore just able to catch and safely arrest his wife’s headlong flight.
“I did not want to wake you or Rosa,” he whispered before he realised that if Rosa had not been rudely awakened by Marija’s screech of delight she would have had to have been struck stone deaf in the days he had been away.
The returning hero would have said more.
Marija forestalled this by kissing him wetly and carrying on kissing him as he struggled to carry her up to the landing.
“You missed me then?” He gasped when his wife came up for air.
She giggled.
The bedroom door shut with a soft click at his back.
When some hours later the returning hero slowly awakened in the half-light of pre-dawn, he was unable, initially to move a muscle. He did not worry about it overly for some minutes as he unhurriedly collected his wits. It was warm and fragrant, and Marija’s hair was tickling his nose…
Eventually, he worked out that his wife’s darkly nutmeg musky-scented hair was the key clue to why he could not move; he was lying face down on the bed and Marija was lying, blissfully supine on top of him.
Peter Christopher would have groaned in complacent pleasure if he had had sufficient air in his lungs.
Eventually, he began to consider exactly how he was going to dislodge Marija without waking her, or risking dropping her onto the floor. She stirred, sighed contentedly.
“I don’t want to ever move again,” she murmured in his left ear.
He could refuse her nothing so he remained where he was a while longer.
Presently, with a moan his wife rolled off him and the lovers looked into each other’s eyes.
“Do you really have to go straight back to the ship?” She inquired sleepily, her left hand tentatively exploring his naked lower torso, knowing exactly what was likely to happen next.
In the night they had made love with a strange, consuming hunger; in the morning light they coupled slowly, lazily, belatedly, guiltily mindful to avoid the voluble excitement of before to save Rosa’s blushes in the bedroom below. Eventually, the man could hold back no longer and they clung together, swapping kisses and catching their breath.
It was fully light when Peter Christopher rolled off his wife.
Her finger tips touched his chest.