Each barrel was loaded with Mark 8 ‘super-heavy’ 2700 pound APC — armour piercing capped — shells which, when fired with a maximum charge of 660 pounds of cylindrical-grained propellant was capable of hitting a target over twenty nautical miles distant. Leaving the muzzle at a velocity of 2690 feet per second the shell would be in flight over one-and-a-half minutes and at the end of its trajectory retain sufficient inertia to penetrate deck armour twice as thick as that protecting the decks of any ship in the World, excepting the other three — mothballed — Iowas. At a range of twenty miles a Mark 8 round would cleave through the three inch deck armour of the Yavuz very much in the fashion of a red hot knife going through butter. At half that range a Mark 8 would scythe through the ten-inches of cemented belt armour protecting the Yavuz’s machinery spaces, magazines and turrets with only minimal retardation.
“I want constant real time updates on the co-ordinates of the Yavuz and the accompanying heavy!” Schmidt demanded, marching purposefully back to the plot. “Iowa will commence shooting when in range.”
Chapter 63
Clara did not try to fool herself that taking a look through the skylight was a good idea. However, jumping through it without knowing who or what was waiting for her in the office below was an even worse idea.
She was pleasantly surprised to discover that the skylight was ajar, presumably propped open before the battle to allow fresh air to circulate in the room. It had always been a mystery to her that a people who came from such a cold, wet place like the British Isles where in her experience the sun hardly ever shone, could be so fixated with ‘fresh air’.
Not being too proud to look a ‘gift horse in the mouth’ — another peculiar British saying, she thought — she gently eased the skylight open and clambered into the relative gloom of the office. Her left ankle twisted as she dropped to the floor. Her gasp of pain was silent. To never betray one’s pain was a thing she had learned in the camps as a child; and it had stood her in good stead ever since.
There was desultory gunfire in the lower levels of the Headquarters complex. ‘Complex’ was a generous word to describe the warren of offices, walk-in cupboards, the old chapel, the bunkers and dungeons in the lowest reaches of the former Emergency Command Centre. The ‘complex’ had been set up during the Second World War and largely neglected in the ten years before its reactivation after the air raid last December, which had destroyed practically every other key command and control installation on the archipelago. In the farther distance she recognised the clatter of Sten Guns, the faster ‘burping’ of Kalashnikovs, the single shots mostly from hand guns, and the less frequent crack of rifles.
The door to the Chief of Staff’s office was closed.
She did not waste time putting her ear to the door.
She pushed it open and stepped into the adjoining office where she discovered Admiral Christopher’s flag lieutenant — actually a middle-aged lieutenant-commander — dead on the floor. Two head shots. Another man, a youthful second-lieutenant with the pale features of a man newly arrived from England was sprawled behind another desk.
The Second World War ‘Emergency Headquarters’ had become the Central RAF Officers’ Mess on Malta in the 1950s, now she walked through the old bar onto what had been the magnificent terrace where officers had wined and dined their guests, and brought countless pretty girls to impress them with the panoramic view of the island from tables perched seemingly at the top of the ramparts.
“Hello, Clara.”
The woman froze.
The door to the Commander-in-Chief’s room was ajar.
Clara turned but did not immediately raise the muzzle of the AK-47. Dying was one thing but dying for dying’s sake another.
Arkady Pavlovich Rykov beckoned her to follow him inside, gesturing with the muzzle of the Browning semi-automatic pistol in his right hand. Clara wondered why he was holding the gun in his right hand before she noticed the blood dripping down his left arm from a wound somewhere above his elbow. From the way he held the arm and the hint of greyness in his face she guessed the bullet had shattered his upper arm.
Admiral Sir Julian Christopher, Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations was standing behind his desk with his left arm cradled by his right, cool, collected and more than somewhat disenchanted. Blood flowed freely from his left brow and from his left nostril, his hair was a little awry, his uniform jacket soiled and torn. More blood was travelling down his uniform from a shoulder wound close to where his left collar bone met his sternum. He looked tired, and somehow, enormously dignified. He swayed on his feet as he viewed Clara.
A Soviet officer in standard airborne camouflage fatigues but with KGB flashes on his collar was covering the Englishman with a 9-millimetre Makarov pistol.
There was a sustained burst of automatic gunfire on the floor below.
“A little mopping up, my dear,” Rykov declared. “We’re almost finished here. I should have asked you if you wanted to come with us when we left. But…”
“It slipped your mind Arkady Pavlovich?” The woman inquired acidly.
“Something like that…” Rykov’s voice trailed off. He had been holding his gun loosely, pointed at the ground.
But the muzzle of his former lover’s AK-47 had risen to point at the middle of his chest.
The man viewed her quizzically for a moment.
“Perhaps, you should give me the gun?” He suggested, with the impatience of a man who had finally realised that he could be surprised like any other man, by the actions of a woman he had been convinced he understood better than any man alive.
She made no move to surrender her weapon.
“There is no time for this, Clara,” the Russian said flatly, dangerously.
She quirked a half-smile.
Out of the corner of her eye she later recollected that Admiral Sir Julian Christopher, the Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations had also been smiling. As if he knew exactly what was going to happen next.
And was wholly reconciled to it.
“My name,” she said quietly, “is not Clara.”
That was when she pulled the trigger.
Chapter 64
“TORPEDO ATTACK PORT!"
Initially, that had confused Joe Calleja. Lieutenant-Commander Weiss had specifically told him to position the quadruple 21-inch torpedo launcher to fire at an angle of forty-five degrees to STARBOARD.
Petty Officer Jack Griffin, whom seconds earlier had practically manhandled him into the director seat on the right-hand side of the quadruple 21-inch torpedo tube mounting, sensed his indecision.
“The fuckers changed course!” He yelled. Thumping the civilian’s shoulder he went on: “Swing the tubes to PORT!”
The mount moved at a stately, unhurried pace, the drive motor whirring, the whole installation groaning and trembling and then, abruptly, it stopped and there was a new smell of burning practically beneath Joe’s chair. The mount was pointing only a few degrees off the centreline of the ship, aimed directly at the aft port footing of the wrecked lattice foremast.
Both Joe Calleja and Jack Griffin cursed foully and eloquently in their own native tongues.
“The servo has burned out!” The Maltese dockyard electrician cried.