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Chapter 53

12:49 Hours
Friday 3rd April 1964
Two miles off Dragutt Point, Malta

Joe Calleja scowled at the stocky red-headed and bearded man sitting in the bucket control chair attached to the torpedo mount.

“I don’t have time to show you how everything works, Petty Officer Griffin!”

“If I don’t work the fucking panel who the fuck will?”

“You don’t know what you’re doing! I’m surprised you haven’t launched a torpedo into the funnel the way you’ve been following the lights around the board!”

The two men glared at each other.

“Steady on!” Lieutenant-Commander Miles Weiss shouted. “Are we ship shape down here?”

“Yes, sir,” the two men chorused uncertainly.

HMS Talavera’s Executive Office could see with his own eyes that this was not the case.

“What’s the problem?”

“I’ll get the hang of this thing, sir!” Jack Griffin protested, waving his muscular arms at the control board.

HMS Talavera’s Executive Officer’s temper was on a short leash.

His stared bored into Joe Calleja’s face.

“Do you know how to work this mount?”

The civilian nodded.

“Right, you’re in the hot seat.” He switched his attention to Jack Griffin. “We’ll be approaching the target at speed and turning to starboard to launch all four fish in one attack. I’m reliably informed that the mount needs to be pointed forty-five degrees forward of the beam at the moment of launching.” He gave each man a hard look. “You will need to lead the target by about ten degrees. Any questions?”

There were no questions.

However, Joe Calleja suspected there was something HMS Talavera’s second-in-command was neither aware or, nor could possibly have taken into account in issuing his orders.

“Er, sorry,” he apologised. “Mr Weiss,” he stuttered.

“What is it?”

“The Mark VIIIs in Tubes One and Four are early ‘M’ modifications.”

Miles Weiss gave him a blank look.

“All four torpedoes are late wartime or immediate post 1945 variants. The ones they gave you to load in Tubes Two and Three are standard contact-detonated mods without any fancy electronics. But the ‘fish’,” he was uneasy using the Royal Navy term for reasons he did not begin to understand, “in Tubes One and Four are fitted with early model ‘magnetic’ detonators. If we fire those into the side of a ship it might dent the plates but it probably won’t blow up.”

“Oh, I see.” The destroyer’s Executive Officer thought for a moment. “Right, well spotted that man! Set fish One and Four to run at thirty feet. The Others can run at twelve feet.”

“Commander,” Joe groaned. “The early ‘M’ mods were all duds. Or that was what I heard…”

“What, all of them?”

“Well, most of them. Yes.”

Miles Weiss shrugged, this was exactly why he had always wanted to be a big gun man. A fellow knew exactly where he stood and what he was doing with good old fashioned naval rifles!

“I’ll tell the Captain. For your sake I hope they go off, otherwise we’ll have to ram the blighters!” He sniffed the air, feeling the motion of the ship change as power fed into her racing propellers. “Carry on!”

Less than a minute later the Tannoy blared.

“This is the Captain.” HMS Talavera was picking up speed, attempting to bury her stern in the blue Mediterranean waters as she proscribed a mile wide racing swerve. “We will shortly be attacking two large surface targets currently engaged in bombarding the island of Malta. As soon as HMS Yarmouth is in position we’re going to attack the two big ships with torpedoes. During the attack every gun that will bear on the enemy may fire at will. Stand to you duty, gentlemen. WHILE THIS SHIP FLOATS I WILL NOT LET THOSE BASTARDS PAST!”

Joe Calleja realised he was the only man gathered around or standing on top of the torpedo mount who was not laughing and cheering hysterically. His brother-in-law, his sister’s beloved husband whose death would break her heart forever, had just told his men that he would rather die than surrender. And yet the men around him were jumping up and down as if their favourite football team had scored a match-winning goal!

The English were mad.

All of them were mad!

Chapter 54

12:50 Hours
Friday 3rd April 1964
The Citadel, Mdina

Most of the shooting was coming from the quarter around the Headquarters buildings on the eastern flank of the Citadel.

Clara Pullman and her pair of frightened Redcaps almost ran into the two Soviet paratroopers. One was an older man, an NCO, the other a squat, brutish trooper with a gashed head. The Russians wasted a fraction of a second trying to work out what a nurse was doing with an AK-47 and that was the death of them.

Clara was a little surprised when the shorter man’s torso and head literally exploded in a spray of blood and bone fragments. After she had killed the trooper’s NCO she checked her Kalashnikov’s magazine.

There was a dab of red paint on the end of it.

“Dum Dum bullets,” she explained to the horrified Redcaps. The rounds in the red-dotted magazines were doctored or hollow-pointed to expand, explode, or fragment on impact. “Take their Kalashnikovs and replace the mags with ones that are marked red like this one.” She showed the two Royal Military Policemen her weapon. “And give me another full red-dotted mag. Get a move on!” She shouted, eying the two narrow passageways leading to right and left.

She took the magazine she was handed and dropped it into the voluminous folds of the front pouch of her increasingly bloody pale blue nursing auxiliary’s smock. She sized up her two companions.

“You kill anybody in a Soviet uniform or carrying one of these,” she flicked her gaze onto the Kalashnikov in her arms. “Don’t think about it just do it! Understand?”

She did not actually think either of her companions understood. Normal, decent men were often incapable of adapting to the reality of killing or being killed. Her misgivings were quickly confirmed.

“Where are we going?” The senior of the Redcaps asked. He was a lance-corporal with a deep tan that spoke of long service on the island.

“To the Headquarters. They will kill all the senior officers before they liquidate the civilian population of the Citadel.”

“You don’t know that…”

Clara brought up her AK-47.

No, she did not know that was what the paratroopers would do; just that it would be consistent with the standard operating procedures of airborne Spetsnaz — Special Forces — troops like the ones she had been killing for the last few minutes.

There was obviously some part of ‘come with me if you want to live’ that the Redcap had not understood. She was tempted to kill him but was momentarily distracted by a volley of automatic gunfire from high over her head. Empty cartridge cases started clattering around her. The British were on the roofs shooting at the next wave of parachutists. Good, somebody was getting organised at last!

“You will die if you stay here,” she said, turning on her heel.

Chapter 55

12:52 Hours
Friday 3rd April 1964
HMS Talavera

A blast of foul-smelling cordite whipped back across HMS Talavera’s open flying bridge as both main battery turrets fired. The destroyer’s bow cleaved a furrow in the three to four feet high swell offshore as she arrowed towards her distant quarry.