One of the yellow beams swept past a small object, illuminating it brightly like a silver moth flashing through a shard of moonlight. The operators tracked back, searching for another taste of this tiny, hostile insect.
‘There!’ Bryan pointed as the light rediscovered its victim and followed its slow progress across the night. ‘It’s one of those three-engine Italian jobs. I bumped into some of those over Canterbury last year.’
As the men craned their necks past the edge of the trench, two more searchlights swung in ponderous arcs to latch onto the unlucky raider. The airmen flinched at the percussion banging through the hard ground as the nearest heavy anti-aircraft battery opened fire. Its strident bark was soon interlayered with the yapping of smaller guns as all the defences roused from rest to meet the skyborne menace. Small flashes glittered in and around the searchlight beams, building a box of slashing shrapnel that swirled death and disfigurement into the dark.
‘Their shells are fused too low,’ Bryan muttered. ‘He’s going to get away with it.’
Black specks fell from the aircraft, slicing through the illumination and vanishing into the darkness between the beams. A whistling rose behind the beat of the guns, like the pipers of a demonic army, to be lost in the thudding explosions laid down by the pinned bomber and its gaggle of unseen companions, stitching a pattern of mayhem across Ta’Qali’s runways.
The trenchful of airmen hunkered lower to the stony base of their shelter as the strikes meandered closer. One man’s quaking voice staggered through the Lord’s Prayer as detritus pattered around their heads. The final bomb roared its vehemence no more than fifty yards away and the last line of shaky benediction wavered from the praying man’s mouth as the rumbling detonation rolled away through clouds of dust.
A crooked smile pulled at the corners of Bryan’s mouth as he lifted his face back to the sky to hear the lumbering Italian bombers climbing away, chased blindly by the now-impotent AA fire. The memory of their fat, corpulent bodies wallowing through his gunfire in the grey Kentish sky sparked a tingle of urgent desire in his vitals.
‘Forever and ever,’ he echoed under his breath. ‘Amen.’
Sunday, 15 June 1941
Copeland walked slowly across the airfield through the strengthening dawn light, his shoes scuffing up dust as he went. At his shoulder, Bryan sucked on a cigarette, his features crunched in concentration. Both men surveyed the destruction as they went. Several hurricanes lay lopsided like crippled seabirds, some smouldered from opened bellies, settling in on themselves as they decayed into the licking flames. Other fighters, though still whole, revealed rents and tears in their fabric as the men passed close by, presaging unknown internal damage, enough to make the plane unserviceable until checked over. The pair skirted a bomb crater, a thin pennant of white smoke curling up from its centre.
‘How can we fight them if they only come at night,’ Copeland said.
‘Italians.’ Bryan chewed on the word. ‘I certainly wouldn’t recommend stirring them up; they’ll fight damned hard if they’re cornered. But they tend to look for the’ – he searched for the right words – ‘least hazardous way of conducting their operations.’
‘We need more anti-aircraft guns, more shells and more gunners,’ Copeland’s voice sizzled with his frustration. ‘But nothing’s coming through. It seems we really are stuck between the Italian devil and the deep blue bloody sea.’
‘Well.’ Bryan flicked away his cigarette butt and lit a fresh smoke. ‘They know where we are, and they will keep coming back. But that means we know where they are going to be.’
Copeland frowned. ‘What are you talking about, Hale?’
‘We should put up a few fighters to meet them every night.’
Copeland barked a laugh. ‘You’re joking!’
‘Think about it.’ Bryan blew a stream of tobacco smoke through his nostrils. ‘A standing patrol at night will never be a waste of fuel, because we’re practically guaranteed a target will turn up, with the added bonus that they’ll have no escorts.’
They walked on in silence past a collapsed slit trench. Three bodies lay on the ground under a tarpaulin and two medics laboured to recover a fourth from the slumped earth.
Copeland stared at the scene for a long moment, then cleared his throat. ‘How do you propose to find a raider in the dark?’
Bryan gazed at the blocky lines of a Hurricane standing on the perimeter and pursed his lips. ‘Well, in England we used a socking great Beaufighter with a magic box in the back and four cannons in its belly. Obviously here, things will be a bit more… Heath Robinson.’
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘Last night I watched the searchlights cone a bomber. The gunners were on it straight away, but they have to range and lead a target which is effectively coming to the end of its bomb-run and turning away for home. What shots they managed to get off were well below target. They might’ve punctured his tyres if they were lucky. Other than that, he got away scot-free. Things would be a lot easier in a fighter flying at the right altitude. Once the bandit is illuminated, the pilot simply has to drop in behind it and shoot it up the arse.’
Copeland grimaced. ‘Isn’t it bloody dangerous, flying through a bomber formation in the dark?’
Bryan glanced back over his shoulder. ‘No more dangerous than sitting in a shitty little trench wondering where the next bomb will land.’
Copeland’s nose wrinkled at the blunt reality. ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘Let me put it up to the AOC.’
****
With men working to repair the runways and little chance of daylight incursions, Bryan slipped away from the airfield and jumped onto a transport heading to Grand Harbour. With shouted promises of a rendezvous to catch a lift home, Bryan dropped from the truck’s tailgate on the approach road to the harbour on the northern side of Valletta.
The sun, climbing towards mid-morning, warmed his face as he walked the last sweeping curve in the road and the north harbour opened up before him. The far bank jostled with buildings that shimmered white and grey in the strengthening haze. The shore they massed against extruded a promontory, less crowded by construction, that still boasted scrubby gardens unsubdued by dry, barren sandstone. Along the edge, an ancient arched palisade rose from its waterborne reflection, like a palatial residence lifted from a desert oasis.
Sloping walls lined the road Bryan walked, set as if to defend against this supplanted Egyptian menace. He walked on, grateful for the beneficent shade thrown by these belligerent bastions. Across the glittering water, another edifice slid into view. Atop the promontory, set full-square on the rock, commanding the harbour waters that split around its seat, a palace or a fort from a different war, long past.
The road curved east and the sun’s eye bored into his forehead, backlighting the bomb-damaged domes and broken spires of Valletta, at once exalting their time-worn solidity, but lighting their uncertain vulnerability against the power of this new age of siege machines that came at night with no respect for bastion or battlement.
The lilting chime of bells paused his step, its loosely frayed pattern soon overlain with a different sequence from another church, both joined by more until the entire city tinkled with the gentle calls to worship.
Bryan took a side road, grateful to escape into the shade between its towering walls, and moved into the city proper. Around him a sedate eddy of humanity emerged from battered wooden doors and flowed towards the nearest, loudest peal of the bells. Families mixed with couples, and they hailed greetings to ancient, solitary men in black jackets and grease-banded hats, all of them intent on giving thanks for what little they had and, as their reward, receive a morsel of holy sacrament.
Bryan stopped, allowing this stream of humanity to break around him, talking and calling in a language that tipped alien, meaningless words into his ears like the music of an unknown instrument. He lulled towards it, suddenly enticed by its boundless, unconditional compassion. Then the memories flashed: the sirens
, the crowds cascading into the tube stations, the flinty self-preservation of the troglodyte shelterers in the shattered and burning London he’d left behind. He withdrew. He pulled himself back from the resonant ambience of simple, unquestioning joy.
He lit a cigarette and walked on, once more alone in the crowd.
Chapter 4
Tuesday, 24 June 1941
Bryan sat in the tiny mess room and regarded the lumps in his thin stew with deep suspicion. He bisected one with his spoon, exposing a russet interior flecked with white and grey fibres. He lifted a piece to his mouth and chewed it carefully. The substance tasted of salt and string, so he concluded it must be corned beef.
‘Have you heard?’ Ben sat down opposite him and smoothed out a copy of The Times of Malta on the table between them.
Bryan pushed away his bowl and pulled the page closer. The headline read ‘Nazis Invade Russia.’
‘When did this happen?’ he asked, scanning the article.
‘Sunday,’ Ben answered. ‘That’s the reason there haven’t been any Germans over the island for the last month.’
‘What is that little Austrian twerp up to?’ Bryan’s voice rang with his astonishment. ‘He’s got most of Europe in his pocket, Britain’s no great danger to him and he had Stalin safely tied up in the non-aggression pact. Surely he should’ve left him there until he’d taken Egypt and got his hands on the oil.’ He looked up into Ben’s face. ‘He’s mad. This actually proves he’s mad.’
Ben frowned. ‘So, what does it mean for us?’
Bryan glanced down at the congealing remains of his lunch. ‘Hopefully it will make pushing a convoy through from Gibraltar a lot less dangerous, so we might get something decent to eat.’ He scratched at the stubble on his cheek. ‘Having said that, the Germans still need to supply their blokes in Africa, so we’re certainly a long way from being off the hook. But at least, for a while, it will be an all-Italian hook.’
‘For a while?’
‘This little adventure won’t stop the German factories making aeroplanes. We can only hope the Russians soak them up for as long as possible.’ Bryan jabbed a finger at the newspaper’s masthead. ‘Where did this come from?’
‘The Maltese print it in Valletta,’ Ben said. ‘Remember? You collared a journalist for directions outside their offices. I understand they haven’t missed an issue yet.’
Bryan nodded in mild appreciation. ‘Commendable stuff.’
Saturday, 5 July 1941
Bryan and Ben walked through the mercifully cooling evening, drawn by the seedy allure of Strait Street.
‘I would’ve thought fighting a war might have involved shooting at something,’ Ben said, side-stepping out of the way of a drunken couple weaving in the opposite direction. ‘I’ve sat on the toilet for more hours than I’ve sat in a Hurricane.’
‘Don’t knock it too much, my friend,’ Bryan said. ‘The Russians might just end this whole thing for us and we can get back to the important business of flying air shows at Biggin Hill.’
‘Do you think so?’
Bryan stopped and looked at his companion. ‘No,’ he said flatly, his eyes refocussing on something over Ben’s shoulder. ‘Now, that looks interesting.’
Ben turned to follow Bryan’s gaze. On the corner of an adjoining street sat a large square building. On the balcony that stretched over most of its frontage, a large banner proclaimed its name to be the ‘Egyptian Queen’ in lettering reminiscent of a wild west saloon. Beneath the balcony were three doors. Above the left-hand door, a sign indicated it led to the ‘International Bar’. In the centre stood the shuttered entrance of a tobacconist’s kiosk, closed for lack of stock. Running down either side of the third door, signs read ‘Cabaret’ and ‘Variety’, and the strains of a strident waltz drifted out onto the pavement.
‘Let’s take a look,’ Bryan said.
The two men walked across the street, through the third door and up the stairs. At the top, they ducked through a beaded curtain into the muggy atmosphere of a function room packed with dancers, its atmosphere close and shot through with the acid tang of body odour. The eight-strong band all played battered brass instruments, gamely covering their lack of finesse with a thick layer enthusiasm. Their dark Maltese eyes followed the dancers as they whirled across the front of their low stage, glittering with pleasure at the abandon their halting music inspired.
The pair jostled through the press of bodies to the bar and Bryan caught the bartender’s attention.
‘Two beers, please.’
‘No beer, sir.’ The barman grimaced in apology. ‘We’re waiting for a delivery.’
‘From the brewery?’
The barman shook his head. ‘No, sir. From England.’
Bryan held the man’s gaze, sensing an undercurrent of hostility. ‘So, what can you offer us?’
‘Wine,’ the man answered.
‘Excellent. Which kinds do you have?’
‘Red.’
Bryan turned to Ben, intent on leaving. But his companion was deep in conversation with a local girl who laughed and smiled as she gazed into Ben’s face. Bryan sighed and turned back to the barman.
‘Two glasses of red, then.’
Bryan paid for the drinks and tapped his friend on the shoulder. Ben looked at the offered glass in mild confusion for a moment, then took it and resumed his conversation.
Bryan took a sip of the blood-warm liquid and grimaced as it dried out on his teeth.
‘Not impressed with the local plonk?’
Bryan turned to the sound of the female British accent and looked into the light-blue eyes of its owner. Blonde hair framed a face flushed pink from the exertion of dancing and her cotton dress clung to her petite frame where sweat had spread in patches under her arms and around her neck.
‘It’s my first taste,’ Bryan answered. ‘I’m trying to find something about it to like.’
‘It’s safer to drink than the water.’ The woman smiled. ‘Which has to be a good thing.’
She stood on tip-toe and raised a hand to attract the barman.
‘No, please,’ Bryan said, ‘let me get you a drink.’
‘That’s very kind. They’ve probably got some Pimms, now all the navy wives have been evacuated.’ She pulled a sodden lock of hair away from her eyelid, ‘Would you mind if I met you on the balcony? I’m absolutely melting.’
Bryan bought the drink and wormed his way through the dancers to the door that led to the balcony. Once outside, he handed the woman her glass.
‘Thank you… er…’
‘Bryan Hale. Based in Ta’Qali. I only shipped in a month ago.’
She shook his offered hand. ‘Katie Starling.’
‘That’s an interesting surname. Does it mean you’re fond of birds?’
Katie snorted a laugh. ‘No. They terrify me, especially pigeons. Would you believe I’ve never visited Trafalgar Square because of the pigeons?’
Bryan leaned on the balcony rail and swirled the wine in his glass. ‘Me and that barman didn’t seem to hit it off.’
Katie took a sip of her drink. ‘Well, there are two trains of thought amongst the Maltese. Most of them feel more British than the King. But there are some who think they’d be better off under the Italians. The way they see it, it’s our fault that they’re running out of all the things that make life bearable, while their nearest neighbour is delivering bombs every night instead of meat and drink every week.’
‘Things will probably get better soon,’ Bryan said, ‘what with the Germans out of the way for a while.’ He lit two cigarettes and handed one to Katie.
‘Thank you.’ She took a gentle pull of smoke. ‘It needs to happen quickly, though. Did you know they have a ‘surrender date’ calculated? That’s the day that the food and fuel is expected to run out. It gets pushed back if a ship or a submarine gets through, but the clock is always ticking.’
Inside, the trumpet player delivered a lavishly off-key flourish and Katie giggled at the absurdity.<
br />
Bryan smiled at her good nature. ‘Is this the best place in town?’ he asked.
‘It’s probably not the best.’ The band staggered to a finale, paused for a moment and then launched into a ragged foxtrot. The noise dragged another smile onto Katie’s face. ‘But I like it. There are several bands that rotate around the city. Some are better than others. You’ll hear them all eventually.’
‘Well.’ Bryan held out a hand. ‘Would you like to attempt a dance to this?’
‘How could I refuse such a brave man?’ She took his hand and they went back inside to the crowded dancefloor.
****
The bus jolted along the road back towards Ta’Qali.
‘You could’ve warned me.’ Ben broke the strained silence that had descended between the two men.
Bryan sat with his arms folded, gazing into the thickening darkness through the unglazed window frame next to his seat. ‘Did it not occur to you that she was getting rather too friendly, a bit too quickly?’
Ben’s head sunk into his hands and he groaned. ‘Everyone was watching me. More to the point, all the nice girls were watching me. My reputation is ruined.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense.’ Bryan ruffled his companion’s hair. ‘None of the nice girls even noticed you were there. And now you’ve done the reconnaissance, you’ll be able to spot the prostitutes on our next sortie.’
Ben straightened his back and smoothed his hair back into place. ‘Who was that girl you were dancing with? She was sweet.’
‘A nurse, works up in the hospital at Mtarfa. Not my type really.’
‘Get away!’ Ben said. ‘She’s lovely.’
‘So she might be.’
‘I saw the way she looked at you.’ A smile crept over Ben’s face. ‘She was getting quite dewy.’
Bryan stared silently into the night as the air-raid sirens around Valletta began wailing their mournful warning.
The Bluebirds Trilogy Box Set Page 55