The Bluebirds Trilogy Box Set

by Melvyn Fickling

  Weariness from his walking gripped his thighs. He moved to the pews that serried the floor between the columns, sat down and stared with unfocussed gaze towards the altar and its elaborate columned altarpiece at the other end of the church.

  Bryan sensed a movement from behind and someone sat on the pew opposite him across the aisle.

  ‘It’s a beautiful church, isn’t it?’

  Bryan turned to see the robed man, his black cassock now augmented by priestly vestments. He looked the clergyman in the eye. ‘Oh, how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of hosts,’ he drawled.

  The older man smiled with child-like pleasure. ‘My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord,’ he intoned and clasped his hands before him. ‘Would you like to pray with me, my son?’

  Bryan shook his head. ‘I’ve looked for God everywhere,’ he said, ‘and always failed to find any trace.’ He returned his gaze to the western end and the empty altar. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe.’

  ‘So, what brings you here?’ The priest’s voice held no reproach.

  ‘I have an interest in architecture,’ Bryan said. ‘Of course, not enough to actually be an architect.’ He turned back to the priest. ‘You’re very lucky it hasn’t been damaged yet.’

  The older man smiled. ‘No bombs will ever hit my church.’

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  The priest tipped his head to one side, as if he were speaking to a minor. ‘God protects us here. He will not allow evil to enter this place.’

  Bryan regarded him for a moment with a level gaze. ‘You remind me of my father,’ he said.

  The priest’s face suffused with pleasure. ‘Thank you. I am most flattered.’

  Bryan turned back to face the altar. ‘You shouldn’t be.’

  The clergyman stood and walked a couple of yards down the aisle and then re-seated himself, looking back diagonally across the walkway into Bryan’s face. Despite himself, Bryan swivelled his eyes to meet the direct scrutiny.

  ‘I can only repeat my question,’ the cleric said.

  ‘I can leave, if it bothers you.’

  The priest pursed his lips. ‘If you came only to insult an old man, then you have finished that task and indeed, you may go.’

  Bryan dropped his gaze. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  The clergyman smiled. ‘That, at least, is a start.’ He swivelled back towards the altar, turning his face away from Bryan. ‘Why don’t you pretend that I’m your friend.’

  Bryan looked at the back of the old man’s head, his eyes resting on the green silk stole that draped over the priest’s shoulders, reflecting the morning light with a faint sheen of incongruous luxury. ‘It’s a woman,’ Bryan said. ‘A Maltese widow.’

  The other man nodded, staying silent.

  ‘She lives in Valletta,’ Bryan continued. ‘I’m here simply to be close to her. Your church is somewhere to sit, that’s all. If she lived in a field, I’d sit in a ditch under the hedge’ – Bryan swallowed against a constriction in his throat – ‘even though she won’t… can’t ever…’

  The priest turned to look again into Bryan’s face. ‘Love does not need to be returned to make it real. It does not need to be believed to make it strong; it flourishes as its own reward. Carry it in your heart and ask nothing more than it stays there and grows. Perhaps that’s the trace of God that you’ve been searching for.’

  The priest lowered himself onto a kneeler and muttered quietly in personal prayer. Bryan, for reasons he did not understand, bowed his head and listened to the murmuring rhythm of the old man’s invocation.

  Monday, 15 June 1942

  Bryan glanced into his rear-view mirror. Behind him, three Spitfires straggled out into a loose V formation, rocking and wallowing gently through the warm Mediterranean air. He looked at his watch, checked his speed, and consulted the scribbled calculations on the notepad taped to his thigh. Tensing his stiffened buttock muscles against the hard bulk of his parachute pack, he craned his neck and scanned the vast, empty azure plain ahead.

  ‘They should be here,’ he muttered to himself. Squinting once more at the hazy horizon, he thumbed his wireless to transmit. ‘Falcon Leader to Falcon aircraft. We’ve reached our calculated rendezvous. Keep your eyes peeled for the convoy.’

  He scratched the time and fuel gauge reading on the pad with the pencil he had tied onto his wrist and returned to scanning the blank blue canvas through the spinning disc of his propeller.

  ‘Falcon Two here,’ Ben’s voice. ‘Something’s happening over on the starboard quarter, bearing east-south-east.’

  Bryan polished the right side of his canopy with the back of his hand and peered at that section of the sky. Barely discernible in the haze, a cyclic pattern of white spots appeared and vanished in the distance.

  ‘I see it,’ Bryan answered. ‘Looks like AA. Follow me.’

  He pulled his nose around and eased the throttle forward gingerly; conscious of his own mortal dependence on the contents of his fuel tank, he resisted the urge to push to full speed. The motes of smoke, growing more distinct as the distance closed, ceased abruptly. Bryan checked his compass so he could hold the course to the still-invisible convoy.

  ‘Aircraft at 10 o’clock,’ Ben’s voice again. ‘Looks like they’re heading north.’

  Bryan looked to the left of his cowling and strained to pick out the swarm of black specks shuffling across their path. ‘Strewth,’ he muttered to himself, ‘the boy’s got good eyesight.’ Then he thumbed transmit. ‘Looks like they’re going home. Let them go. There’ll be more on the way, no doubt. We need to be over the convoy before they arrive.’

  Moments later, the stick-like silhouettes of sea-going vessels formed out of the amorphous haze and multiplied to scatter the sea’s surface. Bryan led his flight in a wide circle around the flotilla, tilting their aircraft to allow the antagonised gunners below to recognise them as friendly. Ending up over the hindmost vessel, Bryan flattened out and overflew the convoy along its direction of travel.

  Something snagged at his subconscious; something wasn’t right. He surveyed the ships that slid away below his wings, carving white lines through the water with quiet serenity; nothing unusual there. He pulled his gaze back to his control panel; fuel good, oil pressure normal, compass…

  ‘Falcon Leader to Falcon Two,’ he called, ‘I think my compass is playing up. What is yours reading?’

  ‘Hello Falcon Leader,’ Ben sounded bemused. ‘Due east. This convoy is heading in the wrong direction.’

  ****

  Bryan taxied off the end of the runway in the failing light. Groundcrew guided him back to his blast-pen and swivelled the aircraft around on the hard pad of dried earth. Bryan killed the engine and pulled out his wireless and oxygen connections. As he unhooked his harness, he glanced across to see Copeland standing, hands in pockets, waiting for him.

  Bryan regarded the other man with a steady gaze for a moment, then stood, clambered out of the cockpit and slid down the wing. He shrugged off his parachute and strode across to the squadron leader.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on? Bryan hissed. ‘I’ve just been nigh-on halfway to bloody Crete flying aerial cover for what turned out to be a naval retreat.’

  ‘I know – we’ve received word from HQ. It seems the commander had concerns about some of his ships running short of ammunition.’ Copeland kept his voice low. ‘They lost one destroyer earlier in the day and another was badly damaged. He obviously decided it was safer to turn back for Alexandria.’

  ‘What?’ Bryan’s eyes bulged with outrage. ‘They were three-quarters of the way here! Do they think the Krauts will leave them alone just because they’re running away?’

  ‘Come on, Hale.’ Copeland laid a hand on Bryan’s shoulder. ‘You can see why they didn’t want to get stuck in Grand Harbour without sufficient ammunition.’

  Bryan shrugged his leader’s hand away. ‘They didn’t want to get stuck here without ammunition?�
� He stretched out his arms in cruciform supplication. ‘What about us?’

  ‘I’m sure the commander is acting in the best interests of his men,’ Copeland’s voice took on an exasperated edge. ‘That’s his job.’

  Bryan’s arms flopped back to his sides. ‘So he’s just doing his job, is he? There are housewives on this island with more moral courage than that man.’

  ‘That’s enough, Hale!’ Copeland stepped aside and pointed up the slope to the waiting transport. ‘The operation is over. Get back to Xara.’

  Tuesday, 16 June 1942

  A number of pilots sat at the tables in Xara’s dining room. Each nursed a mug of weak tea. Some used the tepid liquid to soften their hardtack biscuit, stoically coaxing it towards edibility. The radio in the corner dribbled out anaemic orchestral music; tinny violins ascending and descending in aimless sonic sweeps, like flocks of emaciated birds scratching forlorn murmurations against a blank, grey sky.

  Bryan stared at the fawn coloured liquid in his mug and tapped his biscuit on the table, swivelling it between his fingers, end on end, between each impact. Ben hunched opposite him, elbows on the table, watching the dark slab of hardtack spin and tap, spin and tap.

  ‘They say two merchant ships got through from the Gibraltar run,’ Ben offered.

  Bryan looked up and the biscuit stilled. ‘Two out of eighteen,’ he said. ‘Even Winston would struggle to call that a victory.’

  The music stopped abruptly and a man’s voice filled the silence.

  ‘We interrupt this programme to bring you an address from Lord Gort, Governor of Malta.’

  All heads swivelled towards the radio and one man leaned across to turn up the volume. There was a moment of rasping static, followed by the measured tones of the governor’s voice.

  ‘This evening I intend to speak to you with complete frankness, because I believe the truth never hurts and we are always at our best when we know the worst.’

  Bryan closed his eyes and groaned.

  ‘Some days ago, two convoys set out, one from the west and one from the east, to bring supplies which we need to restore our situation. The western convoy had to endure severe and prolonged attacks, and only two merchant ships survived the ordeal. They are now in Grand Harbour. The eastern convoy, after suffering from prolonged and intense attacks by the Luftwaffe, was ordered to turn back.

  ‘I must break to you what the arrival of only two ships means to us. For some time, we have been short of supplies, and further privations lie ahead of us. But every effort will be made to replenish our stocks when a favourable opportunity presents itself. Meanwhile, every one of us must do everything in his or her power to conserve our stocks and to ensure that the best use is made of all the available resources that remain to us. We must make all possible savings in every commodity.

  ‘We have the sure conviction that our cause is just. We have trust in ourselves and we have a still greater belief – our faith in Almighty God. Strong in that faith, let us all go forward together to victory.’

  ‘And there it is,’ Bryan muttered. ‘Victory.’ He dropped the hardtack biscuit into his tea, stood up and left the room.

  Chapter 22

  Monday, 22 June 1942

  The pearl-white moon hung in its first quarter, its disc bisected between lambent light and frigid darkness, each state holding equal sway over its pitted, silent surface. Bryan and Ben sat on Xara’s roof terrace in the gloom, sipping mugs of tea and staring out across the blackened landscape. Bryan’s pelvis poked at his denuded flesh and he shifted his weight on the unyielding wooden chair.

  ‘I walked past the main storehouse today,’ Ben said. ‘Some wag has built a gallows outside the main entrance. There’s a sign that says ‘Pilferers Beware’ and a little skull-and-crossbones.’

  Bryan shook his head in slow disbelief. ‘You can always trust the British Army to lead the way in tact and diplomacy. Have we been reduced to hanging hungry men for stealing food?’

  ‘It’s not a real gallows,’ Ben said. ‘It’s symbolic, it’s meant to be a warning.’ He frowned. ‘At least I don’t think it’s a real gallows.’

  A lethargic silence fell over the pair.

  Then Ben slurped noisily from his mug. ‘Do you remember that fish on Gibraltar?’ he said.

  ‘I actually try not to think about it,’ Bryan answered. Then he tilted his head. ‘Listen,’ he whispered.

  The low rumble of engines vibrated through the night, high up and numerous, growing steadily in timbre. Flashes of light scratched at the height of the sky’s black dome, sputtering uncertainly for a few moments, then blooming into sudden blinding brightness, each stellar distillation swaying gently to and fro in a slow, scintillating descent.

  ‘Marker flares,’ Bryan muttered. ‘What the hell are they up to?’

  The drifting motes of dazzling illumination overlapped, reinforcing one another and knitting an eery umbrella of flickering radiance over the landscape. Beneath them, in ghostly counterpoint, waves of flashing sparkles sprung into being on the ground, lapping across the fields like the white foam of an alien tide. These in turn guttered, then rallied and swelled, intermingled and finally threw tongues of leaping flame back towards the sky.

  Bryan stood up, drawn erect by his disbelief. ‘Incendiaries,’ he said, his voice stretched with incredulity. ‘The evil bastards are setting fire to the crops.’

  Sunday, 28 June 1942

  Bryan arrived in Valletta late. Transport waned scarce in tandem with the dwindling fuel stocks. It was only his pilot’s wings that gained him any traction at all in negotiating lifts. He climbed down carefully from the army truck onto the hard cobbles of the wharf and locked his knees against the insidious tremor in his legs as the truck pulled away. He glanced over the harbour at the ravaged shambles of the docks, then swept his gaze over the city’s profile. Its tumbled walls and broken casements lay quiet under the throbbing sun like the ruined vestige of an ancient civilisation.

  He set off into the silent wreckage, skirting around, and sometimes forced to climb over, the tumbled stones of annihilated tenements; piles of blocks too heavy and numerous to be moved without machines.

  Working his way up the side streets, he encountered no-one. But when he emerged onto a main thoroughfare, he stumbled upon a long queue of citizens lined up perpendicular to his route. Each person carried a bowl or a jug clutched to their chest. Most wore what had once been their Sunday best, now stained and grimed through lack of water for washing. Some wore little more than rags, evidently the only clothing they still possessed.

  The closest faces turned towards him as he approached. Their eyes held a mixture of shame and desperation, the combination creating an air of passive hostility. Their self-esteem lay dying in the gaping maw of chronic hunger, but their anger lacked the luxury of energy. No-one talked, no-one smiled. Children stood listless next to parents who could only stare in sorrow at their gaunt, vacant faces.

  Bryan muttered his ‘excuse-me’ as he cut through the line and crossed the road. He looked towards the head of the queue where two large pots stood on a trestle. Women ladled steaming liquid as the shabby procession shuffled past. Above the servers’ heads, a canvas banner announced it to be a Victory Kitchen. He blinked at the dichotomy and went on his way.

  Reaching familiar territory, Bryan walked along Bakery Street and then Mint Street. He paused, looking at the stepped pavement climbing away from him to the gardens. The sweat already prickling his brow had attracted a number of flies. He wiped away the glistening beads and flicked them from his fingers onto the smooth stone steps. Bending his back into the effort, he started the climb, ignoring the insects that careened around his face.

  At the top, the breeze from the northern harbour stripped the flies from his head and caressed away the moisture. He strolled the last hundred yards at a leisurely pace, allowing his breathing to settle and relax.

  Arriving at Jacobella’s door he stopped, a frown creasing his forehead. Across the peeling blue
paint someone had daubed the word ‘PACE’. He reached out and touched the white painted letters as if to check they were dry, then pushed through the entrance into the hallway.

  He knocked on Jacobella’s door and footsteps clattered down the stairs. Luċija opened the door and greeted him with a delighted giggle before pounding her way back up to the apartment. Bryan climbed the stairs to find the little girl sitting at the kitchen table clutching the knitted doll and waving it at him, stiff-armed, like a priest sprinkling holy water.

  Jacobella bent over her sink, kneading wet clothes under her knuckles in shallow, dirt-fouled water. She paused in her work and smiled over her shoulder; her eyes underlined with gaunt darkness yet still full of sparkle.

  ‘Someone has painted a word on the door,’ Bryan said.

  She returned to her washing, shoulders bunching with the effort. ‘It means ‘Peace’’, she said, ‘but I think it implies surrender.’

  ‘Who would do that?’ he asked.

  ‘There are many who listen to Sicilian radio. The Italians speak a lot about their Maltese brethren and some people here believe they are sincere. But it’s simply the pain in their empty bellies confusing the loyalty in their hearts.’

  Bryan frowned. ‘Did they target your door because of me?’ he asked.

  Jacobella lifted a garment from the sink and twisted it tightly in front of her breast, wringing the water out in a cascade of murky grey.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Also, because I work at the newspaper. But don’t worry. They will take it no further.’ She put the damp bundle of cloth on the draining board, folded her arms and looked him up and down. ‘Perhaps if you English looked fat and healthy, there might be a revolution.’ She smiled. ‘But it’s obvious that we’re all starving together.’