by James Philip
Peter Calleja and Marija’s mother did not know what they would do if – horror of horrors - when eventually the star-crossed pen-friends finally met face to face it transpired that they were not actually meant for each other after all.
Joe presented another kind of problem.
Now that peace had broken out he had thrown himself straight back into the Dockyard Workers’ Committee and once again become one of its most rebellious and most stridently vocal proponents. With the shelving of martial law normal industrial relations had been re-established in the dockyards. HMS Torquay would have been refloated and moved out of her dry dock a week ago had it not been for a series of maliciously timed, wildcat strikes and a resumption of the old pre-war malaise of individual workers downing tools and walking off site at the drop of a hat. Likewise, absenteeism rates in the yards had swiftly doubled and trebled in the last month much to the exasperation of the Admiralty Board that now oversaw the dockyards.
Peter Calleja had tried to explain to his younger son that if things went on this way that ‘the British will sack you all and bring in their own people from England’. Joe had looked at him as if he was speaking double Dutch. His son could not seem to understand that if the British decided that they could not afford to operate the docks as a social welfare scheme designed to support the wider Maltese economy, they would have little difficulty – and even less compunction - importing highly qualified men from their own bomb-blasted homeland and presumably, from elsewhere in the Commonwealth. Even Dom Mintoff and the other local politicians understood as much, and had cautioned the unions – not just in the docks – against ‘irresponsible actions’ everybody might later regret.
Joe’s mother thought her errant – favourite son – would settle down one day. All he needed was a good woman by his side, somebody who would keep his feet on the ground. Unfortunately, Joe was too busy rabble rousing and politicking in the yards to find time to court, let alone woo, a ‘good woman’.
Today Peter Calleja was worrying at Samuel.
Sam had failed to report for work for the second successive day. That afternoon he planned to sign out a car from the Dockyard Pool and drive to the company house at Kalkara that Sam shared with his wife, Rosa. It was high time he and his eldest son had a man to man talk. The boy – even though his son was thirty-one he still thought of him as ‘a boy’ – needed to pull himself together. Ever since the October War Sam’s moodiness had worsened, he had become less approachable, angrier. It had got so bad that Rosa’s parents had spoken to him and asked him to speak to his son; lately, he had wondered if he ought to try to get Sam to speak to a psychiatrist. The ‘boy’, Sam, was behaving as if he was suffering the delayed effects of shell shock. Perhaps, recent events had reawakened old demons in Sam’s head of the nightmare of the siege twenty years ago when Malta was the most heavily bombed place on Earth? Who knew? Who could possibly know?
HMS Torquay glided past with men on the deck standing by to start up her pumps or to handle new lines. Peter Calleja stared at the great, crudely welded patch over the catastrophic rent in the frigate’s starboard flank which had transformed her from a finely tuned fighting machine, into to a wreck in a split second. The bomb had torn the ship open from the keel to her amidships main deck rail instantly flooding her engineering spaces.
He sighed a heartfelt sigh of relieve as the frigate’s bows cleared the dock gates. He checked his watch. It was a little after noon which meant that, give or take a few minutes, the operation was on schedule.
A green flag waved at the seaward end of the dock.
Peter Calleja waited a few seconds and raising his right arm made a circling gesture to the man across the dock from him standing on the cab of an old Bedford lorry. More flags waved and as HMS Torquay was dragged out into the Grand Harbour the dock gates began to swing shut.
A good job well done!
In the end, leastways.
HMS Torquay was safely on her way to her temporary anchorage on the other side of Valletta in Marsamxett Harbour; and he could return to his office and get on with his paperwork. He looked around for the dock foremen who, in his son’s absence, had done most of the work ensuring that this morning’s work had gone so well. He was a man who made a point of letting his men know that he appreciated their efforts and always remembered men who had done good service.
He turned away from dock at the exact moment the first dull explosion rolled down the glassy waters of French Creek. It sounded like the discharge of one of the ceremonial saluting guns on the bastions opposite the ruins of Fort St Angelo. Except this explosion was muffled.
Instinctively Peter Calleja swung around.
It was probably some kind of trick of the eye – the mind trying to make sense of the impossible – but as he saw the expanding blast circles rippling away and the broken towing hawser whipping back over the stern of the small Royal Navy tug, there was a second eruption of dirty white water from beneath the area covered by the salvage weld over HMS Torquay’s engine room. Water seemed to bloom outwards from the side of the ship for perhaps, thirty feet in a ball which collapsed as a smaller column of water rose and fell across the deck.
Peter Calleja later had no recollection of hearing the second detonation.
HMS Torquay lurched as if she had been punched amidships by a giant fist. It was impossible but she seemed to lift herself up in the water and then sag back down, except by then she was no longer a whole ship. Her back was broken, her bow digging down into the deep waters of the grand Harbour; her stern twisting away at an ever more impossible angle from the rest of the hull.
A single terrible gout of grey smoke blasted from her funnel and from ventilation grills behind the bridge. The bow section stabilised in the water; the stern parted and began to fill, rudder and twin propellers rising slowly, gracefully above the surface as the wreck drifted into the middle of the Grand Harbour. Black smoke billowed from the stack of the big red and white decked Harbourmaster’s Department tug as she took up the slack and began to drag the sinking stern section of the frigate into shallow water. But Peter Calleja knew it was too late.
He watched in horror as men threw themselves off the two wallowing, foundering halves of the doomed frigate.
Two explosions deep in the amidships spaces.
Sabotage...
Chapter 6
Thursday 16th January 1964
Royal Naval Dockyard, Gibraltar
Lieutenant-Commander Peter Christopher was pleasantly surprised to encounter HMS Talavera’s Master at Arms, Chief Petty Officer Neville ‘Spider’ McCann at the head of the gangway when he reported back onboard his old ship.
He had been even more surprised – no, astonished – to discover the large number of ships tied up alongside in the inner harbour, and anchored out in Algeciras Bay. Talavera was one of perhaps a dozen destroyers and frigates, there were Royal Fleet Auxiliaries, tankers, ammunition and stores ships, a Tiger Class cruiser, and swinging on their anchors beyond the breakwater three aircraft carriers; the Hermes, the fleet carrier Victorious and the commando carrier Ocean. In the Reception Hall at the airfield – a much patched up building which had been targeted by Spanish Army mortars in the recent unpleasantness – he had encountered Canadians and Australians, several of whom were fliers, but mostly air force ground crew, fitters, riggers and engineers, all of whom were in transit to either Malta or Cyprus.
The diminutive veteran Chief Petty Officer with a broken nose and a ruddy, scarred complexion saluted grim-faced. Legend had it that CPO ‘Spider’ McCann had once been the Mediterranean Fleet’s featherweight – or bantamweight - boxing champion.
“Permission to come aboard, Mister McCann,” the younger man requested in the flat, formulaic way that became ingrained in every naval officer.
“Permission granted, sir!” Snapped the Master at Arms, his expression suddenly softening. “Bloody good to have you back onboard, sir!”
“Thank you, Mister McCann,” HMS Talavera’s new Executive Off
icer chuckled, reaching out to shake the older man’s hand. This was a departure from the normal etiquette of these occasions but given what the two men had gone through a little over a month ago, such minor breaches of ancient customary practice were occasionally appropriate. “It is bloody good to be back!”
Spider McCann, the destroyer’s senior non-commissioned officer – although technically junior to the greenest sub-lieutenant straight out of Dartmouth – had served with the Captain, David Penberthy, many years before this current posting, earning his unqualified respect and trust. When Peter had first reported to the ship in that now long ago age of reason before the World went mad, the ship’s executive officer – Hugo Montgommery, sadly killed at the Battle of Finisterre - had warned him, only a little tongue-in-cheek, that ‘there were only four people who have the right to give the Master a direct order; CPO McCann’s wife, God, the Captain and on a very, very good day, me.’ Hugo Montgommery had also told Peter that Spider McCann was pretty much the first man in Christendom he would want by his shoulder in a tight corner. Hugo Montgommery had been one of those executive officers who could be a perfect tartar when he needed to be, but had been a good and firm friend of the ship’s gizmo and gadget obsessed young EWO from day one. Peter missed his old friend, choked for a moment remembering the fine times he had had in the dead man’s company.
“Peter!”
Miles Weiss, the destroyer’s gunnery officer materialised out of thin air and began pumping his friend’s hand before he remembered himself.
“Sorry. Welcome aboard, sir!”
“Good to be back, Guns,” Peter Christopher laughed.
Lieutenant Miles Weiss was a dapper, lean man a year or so younger than his new Executive Officer. He was a bundle of restless energy who lived and breathed his work. Like Peter he was descended from a long line of naval officers and the two men had always shared a boyish, - childish, really – love of the marvellous, immensely expensive toys the Royal Navy had given them to ‘play’ with. Until the night of the October War neither of them had seriously anticipated having to fire a single shot in anger in their entire careers.
“We’ve done our best to tidy up the old girl but really she needs six months in dockyard hands to get back to her old self,” Talavera’s Gunnery Officer, and in the absence of a more senior watch keeping officer, until that moment her stand in Executive Officer explained at a rush while the Master at Arms rolled his eyes. “The Captain is ashore at the moment,” he went on. “At a big pow-wow at HQ.”
Peter Christopher had noted the thin grey plume of smoke rising from Talavera’s single funnel as he approached, walking past big grey warships old and new moored stem to stern along the quayside. Everywhere there was activity. Everywhere there were palettes stacked with ordinance, general stores, power and fuel lines snaking. Now he relished the almost imperceptible vibration under his feet and listened to the low thrum of the blowers.
“What have you done with that rascal Griffin?” Miles Weiss inquired, once again forgetting formalities in his delight to be reunited with his friend.
“CPO Griffin asked leave to look up a couple of ‘old muckers’ in Main Street.”
Spider McCann tried hard not to give his new Executive Officer a look which shouted: “Was that wise, sir?” And failed.
“I told him if he wasn’t onboard in a couple of hours I’d have him on a charge,” Peter told the Master at Arms, the levity draining from his face. “I gather the ship has air search and range-finding radars up and working but no other EWO capabilities?” He asked, getting straight down to business.
“That’s the size of it, sir,” the Master at Arms confirmed.
“The main battery is fully operational,” Miles Weiss added. “Unfortunately, until we get the director position sorted we’ve only got ‘local’ fire control. The good news is that engineering has its house in order. The Chief says he’s got everything in his department back up and running but obviously, we haven’t tried a high speed run yet.”
“Have we received replacements yet, Mister McCann?”
“We’re forty-three men light of war compliment, sir. We’ve still got half-a-dozen of Plymouth’s people on our roster but most of the other replacements don’t know port from starboard.”
“We inherited a few defaulters, too,” Miles Weiss snorted.
HMS Talavera’s Executive Officer had taken a good, long look at the ship from a distance before coming down onto the dockside. The destroyer’s amidships deck houses were gone, her main mast – previously festooned with sensors and aerials – had been replaced with a spindly, old-fashioned radio pole with a cross yard to string flags off. The stern deck house looked odd without the quadruple GWS 21 Sea Cat launcher, and the stern seemed positively naked without the Squid anti-submarine mortar. From afar one could not see the hastily welded patches over the countless ragged holes in the hull and the surviving superstructure, which was freshly covered with several coats of Navy grey paint. However, recollecting that the destroyer had been a barely floating wreck the last time he had seen her seven weeks ago she had brushed up nicely, he decided.
“How long was she in dry dock after she got here?” He asked.
“Eight days, sir,” Miles Weiss told him. He had sobered somewhat, the initial excitement of the reunion passing. “We didn’t have that many underwater holes but we had a couple of moderately deformed bottom plates just aft of the bridge; remember when we thought we’d grounded on that equinoctial spring tide in Fareham Creek?”
They had put divers in the water to check for damage but visibility in the Portsmouth anchorage was so bad that the Captain had called off the inspection after an hour or so. There had been no internal leaks, no significant seawater ingress into the engine room bilge, so it had not seemed worth risking lives any longer than necessary.
“The dockyard stripped out the port reduction gear,” Miles Weiss said in a rush. “The Chief says they machined whatever they couldn’t replace out of stores. We’ve turned the port shaft a few times at low revs while we’ve been moored but obviously, we won’t know how good the repairs have been until we stretch our legs out at sea.”
Peter Christopher nodded.
Right! I’m the ship’s Executive Officer!
Stop messing around and get on with it!
Miles Weiss, who clearly was not reading his friend’s mind, remembered another thing he had meant to tell the newcomer.
“Once we’d got that bloody bomb off the ship,” he grinned. “That was a good job done, I can tell you! We got ourselves organised and recovered most of your gear from your cabin. It was a bit wet, obviously but we dried everything out. It is all stowed ship shape and Bristol fashion in your new cabin, sir.”
Peter had come aboard with a change of uniform and very little else to his name. He had not given a thought to his lost kit and personal effects for several weeks.
Today got better every minute!
“You can tell me all about how you got that five hundred-pounder over the side over a drink tonight, Guns,” he declared, taking charge. “Mister McCann,” he turned to the Master at Arms. “If you’d detail somebody to put my gear in my cabin, we’ll inspect the ship now.”
HMS Talavera’s new Executive Officer spent most of the next two hours exhaustively ‘inspecting’ his old ship. The dockyard had made a good fist of papering over the cracks but the destroyer was a shadow of her former glory. Practically every trace of modernity had been ripped out of the aft half of the ship, ruined equipment had been ruthlessly removed, and where previously the ship had been a cramped warren of passageways she now seemed roomy, almost airy. Everywhere stank of paint and detergent, and even seven weeks later the occasional taint of burning assailed the nostrils; burning and the reek of bunker oil the deeper one descended into the bowels of the vessel.
Standing on the open bridge Peter looked down on the two twin 4.5 inch turrets of the main battery. The deck had been re-plated where the five hundred pound bomb had penetrated the
fo’c’sle before lodging unexploded against the magazine bulkhead. He looked up as two Westland Wessex helicopters thrummed overhead to land on HMS Ocean. Closer inshore, tenders and tugs were clustering around HMS Hermes, which had arrived around dawn that morning from Lisbon. Out in the Straits of Gibraltar the sleek grey silhouettes of the carrier’s escorts stood out to sea. He wondered how the Spanish in the surrounding hills and across the other side of Algeciras Bay must feel about the concentration of so much naval power. Perhaps, they were belatedly asking themselves why they had been so stupid as to confront it; certainly they would still be counting the high cost of their folly. Two Sea Vixens circled high over the fleet before swinging out over the sea.
“That’s the Lion, sir,” Spider McCann told the younger man, guessing where his eyes had focused. “The Blake sailed to join Tiger at Malta about a week ago.”
Peter studied the elegant lines of the modern cruiser. Like Talavera and her reconstructed sisters Tiger, Lion and Blake were new ships built on World War II vintage hulls, young ships notwithstanding they had been laid down in the middle of another war. Out in Algeciras Bay the three carriers were each as old. Hermes had been fifteen years in the building, HMS Victorious had still been young when antiquated Swordfish torpedo bombers had flown off her flight deck to attack the Bismarck in 1941, and even the Ocean, now converted to the role of a commando carrier operating only helicopters, was a Second World War build. Nevertheless, the fleet still presented an impressive spectacle.