Air Commodore French nodded thoughtfully. He was always pleasantly surprised, not to say impressed and reassured, when he discovered a superior officer who was actually one step ahead of him; not least because it didn’t happen very often.
The two men parted company shortly afterwards.
“Your next appointment is waiting downstairs, sir,” Lieutenant Alan Hannay reported apologetically after a brief interval during which Julian Christopher had stared out across his new domain. “Staff Sergeant Siddall, sir.”
“Oh, yes, of course. Wheel him in.”
The tall, muscular Royal Military Policeman in dusty khakis marched into the presence of the great man, saluted crisply, stomped rigidly to attention before the new Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations.
“Staff Sergeant Siddall, Intelligence Division, 2nd Platoon, Royal Military Police, on secondment to Internal Security, Fort Phoenicia, sir!”
Julian Christopher gestured to his Flag Lieutenant to remain before he turned to the Redcap.
“No notes, Lieutenant Hannay,” he said. “Stand easy, Staff Sergeant,” he said evenly, neutrally to the perspiring NCO.
The big man clunked to the ‘at ease’ stance, eyes to his front.
“I am informed that casualties among ISD on personnel on Manoel Island are extremely heavy.” Julian Christopher reported. He continued, making a second statement but also posing a question. “Your commanding officer was killed during the attack, as were several subalterns?”
“Yes, sir,” Jim Siddall acknowledged, staring at the wall above Julian Christopher’s head.
The older man studied the Redcap.
The man was thirty-four years old. Married. His wife and seven year old son survived in England; somewhat estranged it seemed. Siddall had been ostracised by many of his ISD comrades; notably for his part in ‘exposing’ abuses of prisoners at the Empire Stadium in Gzira earlier in the year and effectively, closing down the joint CIA-ISD ‘reception depot’ that had been set up there after the instigation of martial law in November last year.
“What remains of the Internal Security Department on Malta is to be disbanded effective as of midnight this night,” Christopher informed the Redcap. “You will be assigned until further notice to the Political Intelligence Section of my personal command staff with the brevet rank of Lieutenant. In the interim my staff will be operating out of this building. My people have identified several vacant nearby properties we can use. Find one of those and get to work. I intend to normalise civilian relations between us — the British colonial power — and the representatives of the Maltese people at the earliest time. Your job will be to keep me informed as to the general political situation on the Archipelago. You are not a spy; you are a member of my personal staff whose job it is to support my dealings with the legitimate representatives of the Maltese people. Any questions?”
Former Staff Sergeant Jim Siddall — now brevet Lieutenant — didn’t understand what he’d just been told and after a moment of hesitation, decided to confess as much.
“I don’t understand, sir.”
To the big Redcap’s astonishment the battered ‘fighting admiral’ with the ferocious reputation — who looked and held himself as if he’d been on the wrong end of a bar room brawl in Strait Street, Valletta’s small drinking and red light district — smiled wanly.
“I want your insights on the way our Maltese friends,” he said the word ‘friends’ without any kind of varying inflexion as if he actually meant ‘friends’ when he said ‘friends’, “think about us and our intentions towards them. I was here during the forty-five war and afterwards and although nobody doubted who was the occupying power, relations were invariably on an even footing. One day Malta will be an independent country and when that day comes, I want, despite everything that has happened, for the Maltese and ourselves to remain ‘friends’, and for long afterwards.”
The big man ruminated.
Julian Christopher anticipated his next question.
“Martial law will be suspended in the next few days. In fact it will happen as soon as the roads have been cleared and the harbours are safe for navigation again.”
Alan Hannay guided the bewildered Redcap out of the great man’s presence.
Julian Christopher sipped his whisky.
He must have dozed off to sleep for a few minutes because when blinking, he awakened he was confronted by Margo Seiffert standing, hands on her hips, viewing him wearily with a long-suffering smirk on her lined and tanned face.
The man struggled to get to his feet.
A combination of lack of sleep and rest, and the stiffening of his mishandled torso meant he’d only half-risen from his chair before he thought better of it and slumped back down.
“Forgive me,” he muttered.
The woman drew up a chair opposite him. The dusk had drawn down over the island and insects buzzed and flitted in the lights along the terrace. Elsewhere across the island street lamps blinked distantly.
“Why no black out?” The woman asked, idly. As she asked the question she reached across and picked up the half-drunk whisky. She sniffed it, took a sip, nodded her approbation and put the tumbler back on the table.
The man smiled, shook his head.
Still the same Margo he’d known all those years ago!
“If our enemies send more B-52s no blackout on Earth will save us,” Julian Christopher confided dryly. “Although, judging from the other day’s experience, the RAF might.”
Margo Seiffert nodded sagely.
“If your predecessor was still in the hot seat I’d probably have been locked up by now.”
Julian Christopher stared out into the gathering darkness of the cool Mediterranean night. He didn’t trust himself to meet the woman’s gaze; partly to hide the pain in his eyes in memory of his fallen friend, Hugh Staveley-Pope, whose body had been recovered from his day room at Fort Phoenicia on Manoel Island earlier that afternoon, and partly because he knew why Margo had come to see him.
“There is no news about Peter,” he murmured. “The First Sea Lord sent me an emergency flash telex two hours ago informing me that Talavera was under tow by HMS Plymouth, a modern frigate, some miles off the Portuguese coast. Talavera and Devonshire are both trying to make Oporto before the next Atlantic storm system blows through.”
The woman reached across the table and gently patted the back of his left hand.
“Why did they send you here, Julian?”
The man looked to her.
“I think you know that, Margo.”
“It would be good to hear it from the man at the top.”
Julian Christopher shrugged off his foreboding.
“Here we stand,” he grimaced, “and here we stay. Here, Cyprus and Gibraltar. For better or worse we, the British, notwithstanding our many sins, have been the glue that has held this part of the World together for a hundred and fifty years. If we allow ourselves to be driven out, worse,” he grunted, “if we just give up this whole region will descent into chaos.”
“But before the October War you were going to withdrawn from Malta next year anyway?”
“That was then and this is now.”
“Is it true that you plan to end martial law?”
“Yes. Sometime in the next forty-eight hours hopefully.”
“Because you’re an enlightened modern man?”
Julian Christopher drained his glass.
“Perhaps, I am, Margo. Perhaps, I can think of better ways to employ the eight thousand British service personnel based on these islands than having them police a population that, with a few notable exceptions, doesn’t actually need to be policed? Not by my men, leastways. Make up your own mind. What do you think?”