by James Philip
Doctor Margo Seiffert was glad she’d ordered Joe Calleja to stay with the other volunteer porters and orderlies. Out of sight and mind, that was the best thing if one was in doubt. Her companion had thought she was being overly cautious which wasn’t at all like Margo; but then Marija was one of those beautiful people who had a happy knack of always looking on the bright side of things. Margo Seiffert was not.
The Royal Marines parted to form a protective phalanx around their charge as two men emerged from the door next to which a blast-pocked sign read ‘Transport Officer’.
The first man to emerge was a slightly built boy in a sub-lieutenant’s uniform with a mop of mildly rebellious black hair that constantly threatened to flop over his brow. His uniform was a little dusty but otherwise crisp, fresh from the cupboard. The second man to step, blinking into the brightening sunlight of the Mediterranean day was several inches taller than his Flag Lieutenant.
Margo Seiffert noted the bruises on the tall man’s positively god-given weathered good looks, and the upright, commanding bearing that no amount of pain from unhealed injuries – she could tell he was hurting from the way he held himself, moving minimally when possible – could touch. He was older than she remembered and unlike any normal man in his position, it was evident that he was not remotely weighed down by the crushing burden of his responsibilities in this time of clear and present crisis.
The man who’d been Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations for less than twenty-four hours put a hand on his Flag Lieutenant’s arm when the younger man attempted to bar the women’s way.
“It is all right, Lieutenant Hannay,” he murmured drily. He’d already decided to promote the boy to full Lieutenant. Not just because he could – now that he’d assumed a major independent command he could have promoted the boy two or three ranks if he wanted – but because he’d seen enough of Alan Hannay in the last twenty-four hours to know the youngster was destined for great things in the Service. The sooner he started climbing the promotion ladder the better. “Surgeon Commander Seiffert, Unites States Navy, Retired, poses no threat to my personal safety.”
“Don’t be so sure of that, Julian,” Margo Seiffert snorted, halting before the famous ‘Fighting Admiral’ with her hands on her hips. “When a man ups and goes without saying goodbye some girls tend to take offence!”
It was said with a wry smile.
“I seem to recall,” Julian Christopher chuckled, stepping forward and extending his right hand, “that by that time we’d mutually agreed to differ over practically everything that actually mattered.”
The man and the woman locked eyes.
Margo Seiffert was a full head shorter and still wearing the stained and blood-spotted white coat Marija had discovered in the bomb damaged stores. Her young companion blinked incomprehension at the nuances underlying the short exchange.
“You’re quite the hero now,” Margo said simply.
“We do what we must do,” the man retorted softly. “Is there anything I can do to assist your work here?”
Margo shook her head, and then reconsidered.
“We’re short of blood products.”
The man nodded. “Would it help if every member of my party,” he counted numbers before going on, “young Hannay here, myself and sixteen or seventeen great big hulking Royal Marines like these excellent fellows,” he indicated his bodyguards, “donated a point or two of blood before we move on?”
“Yes,” the woman agreed, trying not to sound too surprised. “It would make a big difference.”
“Most of my headquarters facilities are out of commission,” Julian Christopher explained, matter of factly. “There seem to be good telephone links from the barracks hereabouts. If we are delayed I shall be able to keep in touch with things in the meantime.” Even as he spoke his gaze kept falling back onto the dark-haired slim young woman attired in the pale blue uniform of an auxiliary nurse who, thus far, had said nothing.
Margo Seiffert accepted his remark with a pecking nod of her head. In a moment she stepped aside and gently pressed her protégé forward.
“The last time I saw you, young lady,” Julian Christopher said, quietly paternal, “you were in a hospital bed in the Children’s Ward at Kalkara.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember meeting you, sir,” Marija Elizabeth Calleja apologised. Her English was touched by a faint trace of a Home Counties accent, her pronunciation clipped and precise, not quite natural but somehow...enchanting. Julian Christopher hadn’t expected her to be so enchanting. None of the reports he’d received had prepared him for that. “I don’t remember much about a lot of the things that happened when I was a girl.”
Marija shrugged and shook the great man’s hand. His grip was dry, and very careful.
Julian Christopher studied the young woman.
At a first glance she was no eye-catching natural beauty, but a second look gave the lie to first impressions. The apparent plainness of her features framed by the jet darkness of her hair drew one’s attention to the quizzical, bright intelligence and compassion in her almond eyes. There was serenity and knowingness in those eyes that seized and transported the emotions of those around her. Instantly, he understood how she’d become the de facto leader of the ‘Women of Malta’ protest movement, and why so many people on these islands already looked to her for leadership.
“My wife would be,” the man found himself struggling for the right words, “quite beyond herself with delight to see you as you are now, Miss Calleja,” he said eventually. “And to discover everything that you have achieved in your life.”
Marija cast down her eyes for a moment in embarrassment.
“Peter’s mother was a very nice lady,” the young woman murmured. “I was so sorry to hear of her death.” She raised her eyes. “As my mother constantly reminds me, there is no justice in the world.” To the man’s astonishment she quirked a shy, distinctly mischievous smile and added: ‘but then when was it ever otherwise in any age, Admiral Christopher?”
“When indeed?” He echoed.
“Forgive me, I must return to my work,” Marija decided.
“Of course.”
The new Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations watched the young woman walk away. She limped a little, favouring her left side, and there was a pained weariness in her gait that spoke both of her horrific childhood injuries and also of an innate defiance, an implacable determination not to be defeated by those old traumas.
“Well?” Margo Seiffert asked. Beating about the bush had never been her style. “Now that you’ve met our little Princess, what do you think of your prospective daughter-in-law, Admiral Christopher?”
The man didn’t speak for several seconds.
“I think she is enchanting,” he said frankly in a voice that was close to a whisper.
“But?” The woman asked, detecting an unlikely dissonance in him.
“Peter’s ship was one of two Royal Navy destroyers attacked by at least four Douglas A-4 Skyhawks fifty miles off the north-west coast of Spain. The attack was timed to coincide with the raid on Malta.”
“Oh, God!”
“There was a full winter gale blowing in that part of the Atlantic last night and Peter’s ship reported heavy damage before contact was lost with her shortly before midnight.”
There was a sickening deadness in the way he said it that told Margo Seiffert that the father thought his only son was dead.
She patted Julian Christopher’s left arm.
He winced, instinctively drew away.
“Sorry,” he muttered. “I got a bit knocked about when a castle fell on me last week. Perhaps, when things have settled down a little I might tell you all about it over dinner?”
Margo Seiffert pursed her lips.
“I know you don’t place much faith in these things but I shall pray for Peter and his crewmates.”
“Y
es, if would please. That would be good.”
Chapter 5
Saturday 7th December 1963
RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, England
Captain Walter Brenckmann, USN (Retired), didn’t object to being ostracised by practically every member of staff of the now defunct United States Embassy to the Court of Balmoral. He hadn’t made many friends in his time in England. Leastways, not with his countrymen and women at the Embassy, or with any of the people attached to the various trade and cultural legations, the very existence of which in their hosts’ eyes added insult to injury. There was no public lounge at Brize Norton, just a couple of big hangars where departures and arrivals were processed. It wasn’t cold but it was damp and the amenities were basic. Career diplomats didn’t like having to queue for the wash rooms or for the vile stew the Brits called ‘coffee’ dispensed along with curling sandwiches and soggy digestive biscuits by the female auxiliaries of the RAF Catering Corps. There were bags and sacks strewn randomly on the concrete floor of the hangar, personal possession hurriedly and hopelessly mixed up with heaps of confidential papers that there had been no time to burn, all haphazardly bagged by the armful. The Brits had confiscated all the firearms at the Embassy and respectfully, but very insistently requested that everybody surrendered their ‘personal firearms’ before being processed into the departures hangar.
Nobody knew when the first flight would be leaving.
‘That’s for your people in Washington to arrange,’ the Ambassador, or rather, the former Ambassador, Loudon Baines Westheimer II had been politely informed when he’d tried to make a scene.
The British had provided an RAF Group Captain with a magnificent handlebar moustache to act as the Embassy Party’s Departure Liaison Officer. Group Captain Harold – ‘Oh, by all means call me Harry’ – Verity, a marvellously amiable and friendly man of advanced middle years with a chest full of weathered and somewhat faded medal ribbons below an equally aged pilot’s wings on his left breast. He’d been so unflappably cordial and sympathetic, and so apologetically unmovable in his dealings with Loudon Baines Westheimer II, that the Texan oil man who’d been posted to England to pay off a political debt, had very nearly reacted in the way that most very rich Texan oil men tend to react when they can’t get their own way. At one point Walter Brenckmann had thought he was going to hit the British officer. However, he hadn’t, so that at least was one diplomatic faux pas – possible the only one – former Ambassador Westheimer hadn’t committed in his short time in England. Walter Brenckmann would have despaired of his countryman but for the fact none of them would have noticed.
Perhaps, alone among his former colleagues he wasn’t remotely surprised that, after the events of the last thirteen months, he and his fellow Americans found themselves cooling their heels in a dank hangar in the English countryside. The only thing that really surprised him was that the Brits hadn’t actually shot anybody at the Embassy; he’d almost certainly have started shooting by now if he’d been in their shoes.
‘The bastards are supposed to give reasonable notice of the withdrawal of diplomatic accreditation!’ The Ambassador had complained to anybody who was prepared to listen. Unfortunately, nobody outside his immediate staff was prepared to listen.
“Sorry about the coffee, old man,” Group Captain Harry Verity sniffed, dumping his large frame into a chair beside the ex-US Naval Attaché. Walter Brenckmann had wired his resignation to the Navy Department along with a frank appreciation of the diplomatic and military situation from the British point of view. He’d included a warning that ‘if urgent steps are not taken the United States of America will find itself at war with the United Kingdom and (probably) with several of its Commonwealth allies. Even if the United Kingdom ‘goes it alone’ American influence, business and cultural interests and the freedom of US-registered merchant ships to navigate large parts of the world’s oceans will inevitably be curtailed. In the event of war the armed forces of the United States will eventually prevail but only at a terrible cost. The United Kingdom’s military is ready for war; our front line forces are not.’ He’d probably have faced a court martial if he hadn’t already resigned his commission.
Walter Brenckmann broke out of his thoughts and glanced at the Englishman.
“This is a bad business,” Group Captain Harry Verity declared.
“Your version of coffee? Or the latter-day bankruptcy of American foreign policy, sir?”
The RAF officer guffawed.
“I was at the Embassy in Washington at the time of the Suez debacle. Never felt more ashamed in my life,” Harry Verity confessed. “But Suez was just a blip on the old national escutcheon. The things that have happened since hardly bear thinking about. This is a bad business, a very bad business...”
Loudon Baines Westheimer II, presumably having seen Walter Brenckmann fraternising with the enemy was stomping across the hangar with a party of pale faced, disorientated acolytes in tow.
The Departure Liaison Officer and the former US Naval Attaché rose to their feet with a mutual groan.
“I demand to be furnished with a direct line to the State Department in DC!”
Walter Brenckmann thought that was a bit like asking your congressman for Santa Claus’s zip code; or asking Edgar Hoover to produce a rabbit from a Homburg in the middle of a Senate hearing.
“I’ll pass your ‘demand’ on to the appropriate authority, sir,” Harry Verity assured the former Ambassador.
Loudon Baines Westheimer II was a large – obese really – man who was accustomed to cowing subordinates into acquiescence by dint of his sheer physical presence.
“When?” He growled like a bear with a hangover.
“When what, sir?” The Englishman parried with a baffled smile. “When will I communicate your ‘demand’ to the appropriate authorities? When will those appropriate authorities investigate the practicalities of the matter? When will the appropriate authorities communicate their conclusions to me?”
“When can I fucking talk to the State Department in DC?”
“Oh, I see.” Harry Verity ruminated for some moments, turning the possibilities over with meticulous care. “Frankly, I haven’t a clue, sir,” he admitted eventually. “But as I say, I shall certainly pass your ‘demand’ on to the appropriate authorities. In due course. I’m led to believe that your State Department has been informed of your present situation, whereabouts and immigration status. In the circumstances I’m sure they’ll want to get you all back home as soon as possible.”
Loudon Baines Westheimer II had gone very red in the face; a vein throbbed at his left temple as he leaned threateningly towards the RAF officer. Observing the scene from only two paces away Walter Brenckmann wondered, briefly, if Harry Verity was deliberately goading the other man.
Ex-American Ambassador assaults senior RAF officer!
No, the British didn’t operate that way.
But it would still be a helluva headline!
Every American in the hangar had been declared persona non grata by the UKIEA, and that was that. Nobody in the hangar had any special rights or privileges. Harry Verity was trying to be decent about the whole disastrous mess and Walter Brenckmann’s former colleagues didn’t get it. They didn’t even begin to ‘get it’.
“We’re going to be here forever,” he remarked to the Departure Liaison Officer after the Ambassador and his coterie had retreated to the farthest corner of the hangar to discuss the feasibility of insurrection against the brutal, unfeeling dead hand of British imperialist oppression.
“Afraid so, old man,” Harry Verity agreed. “I’m trying to beg, borrow and steal enough mattresses for your countrymen to sleep in shifts. The girls from the Catering Corps are trying to rustle up some rations to keep bodies and souls together for a day or two. After that you are the responsibility of your ‘State Department’. Nobody expected you to be dropped in our laps here, you see. I can’t really ask the Station Commander to empty his stores for a crowd of people he’d rather
see starve. Besides, he won’t have his own people go hungry. Not after Washington’s failure to make good on its post-war promises...” The Englishman stopped, held up his hands. “Forgive me, from what I hear you are the sort of fellow who doesn’t need to be told how wrong-headed things have been, on both sides of the Atlantic, lately.”
The two men lapsed into silence for a minute.
The RAF man made no sign of intending to move on.
Walter Brenckmann, conditioned by his years before and between wars as a Boston lawyer – even after all his years in the Navy he still regarded himself as a litigator first, an Officer and a gentleman a poor second – waited patiently, sensing that the other man had something he wanted to get off his chest.
“There are rumours about incidents in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean,” the Englishman murmured presently, almost inaudibly. “The upshot is that I’m afraid nobody’s coming to collect you or your fellows. Right now any American aircraft approaching these islands would be shot down. I’ve been ordered to keep the peace as long as possible. To avoid unnecessary unpleasantness.”
“Okay...”
“We don’t want war, Captain Brenckmann.”
“Nobody wants war.”
“Quite. I think that is why I’ve been instructed to put a very odd request to you.”
Okay, I didn’t see that coming!
“Go on.”
“Hypothetically speaking, you understand,” the RAF officer qualified, “would you be prepared to return to the UKIEA Government Compound at Cheltenham to speak to, er, certain parties?”
Chapter 6