by James Philip
“Forgive me, Prime Minister,” Enoch Powell interjected. “Surely we must hold Cyprus as a bulwark against further Red Dawn adventures in Asia Minor and the Levant?”
Margaret Thatcher shook her head.
“We cannot hold Cyprus, Mr Powell. Anymore than we could hold Crete in the Second War. If we had the active support of other countries in the region, as opposed to the wary neutrality of the Lebanese, the Syrians, the Israelis, and even the Jordanians, we might have some hope of mounting a meaningful defence of Cyprus. Frankly, we are too weak to be strong everywhere. Operation Manna saved our people from starvation and the worst ravages of the winter; but only at the price of exhausting the Fleet and scattering our men and resources across the Commonwealth. The cream of our offensive ground forces was destroyed in Germany in the October War, ever since the war the Home Army has been distracted in Ulster, or committed to supporting the Police, or guarding vital national assets like power stations, ports and communication hubs. Every spare man we have, the equivalent to perhaps ten front line infantry battalions has been sent to the Mediterranean. Every available ship that is in any sense fit to fight has been sent, or is even now departing for Gibraltar or Malta. Likewise, several of our surviving V-Bombers have been transferred to Gibraltar and Malta. However, we cannot be strong everywhere and Sir Julian Christopher refuses to reinforce an untenable situation on Cyprus. In the next few hours HMS Blake will sail from Limassol carrying away the thirty-eight nuclear warheads previous held at the CENTO storage facility at RAF Akrotiri. The majority of the aircraft based at Akrotiri and their support personnel have already been evacuated to Malta and Egypt.” She quirked half a smile. “Who would have thought that of all the leaders in the Middle East, that Mr Nasser would be the one man who has grasped the true implications of the catastrophe threatening the whole region?”
“Will the Egyptians fight with us?” Enoch Powell asked flatly.
“They may,” Margaret Thatcher replied. “Their ports and airfields in the Nile Delta are already open to us. The Foreign Secretary tells me that President Nasser is beset with factions inside his regime and his military, the Army mainly, who are intrinsically isolationist and anti-British.”
“It was ever thus,” the Member of Parliament for Wolverhampton South West agreed. “If Cyprus falls, then what?”
“If Cyprus falls I pray that we can hold on long enough for our American allies come to our rescue.”
Chapter 45
Tuesday 4th February 1964
Headquarter of the Commander-in-Chief, Mdina, Malta
The flash signal from RAF Akrotiri landed on Admiral Sir Julian Christopher’s desk like a hand grenade. Except with this metaphorical live hand grenade there was no way he could put the safety pin back into the ‘locked’ position because the bomb had already gone off.
Initial reports indicate the detonation to be in the general range of ten to twenty kilotons. It is likely that the bomb was onboard a small ferry which had made the trip from Turkey heavily loaded with refugees and was being escorted into port at Limassol in a sinking condition by HMS Londonderry. The detonation occurred approximately three hundred yards from where HMS Blake was moored. HMS Blake has partially capsized and is lying in forty feet of water. The wreck of HMS Londonderry partially obstructs the deep water channel of the inner port. No information regarding casualties is available at this time.
Up until that moment the worst news that morning had been that his flag lieutenant, Alan Hannay, had respectfully requested a transfer to sea duty. His request had included the supplementary information that he was aware of several vacancies in the wardroom of HMS Talavera, and that he had already established that the commanding officer of the said ship would be happy to have him aboard in the capacity of Supply Officer and Purser. Notwithstanding, he was unlikely to find a flag lieutenant half as capable as young Hannay, in good conscience the C-in-C did not have the heart to stand in the boy’s way. In times like these if a man wanted to put his hand in the fire; who was he to hold him back?
HMS Dreadnought’s report of a tramp steamer steaming unmolested beneath the guns of the Admiral Kutuzov group suddenly assumed ominous – actually, chilling – new significance. Another such vessel had clearly sailed into Limassol harbour. Any ship laden with refugees, or apparently fleeing from the madness in the Aegean or Asia Minor could be a potential thermonuclear booby trap and would henceforth have to be treated accordingly.
This just got worse!
The Blake and her cargo of thirty-eight nuclear warheads lay on the bottom of Limassol harbour. At least one of her escorts was lost – partially blocking the harbour, it seemed - and most of the other vessels in the port would be damaged or sinking. A bomb that size would have wrecked most of the port, killed practically everybody above ground half-a-mile away and seriously burned and injured anybody within a mile. In a fiery split second the planned, tactical evacuation of Cyprus was now so morbidly problematic as to be impossible.
And what was to stop the bastards using further nukes?
Julian Christopher went to his door.
“I need to speak to Air Vice-Marshall French,” he said urbanely, as if he needed to have a chat with his deputy about a cocktail party. “And round up the Operations Staff. We’ll assemble in the Situation Room in fifteen minutes.”
Daniel French listened intently for some moments. The phone line clicked and whistled; proof the scrambler was doing its job.
“This is a bad business,” the other man agreed. “Do you want to delay going to War Stations until we have more information, sir?”
“No. We’ll hit the alarm button now, Dan. I can’t spare frigates and destroyers to maintain an exclusion zone around the Archipelago; I’ll leave that to the RAF. If you could talk to your American opposite number please. There are more US aircraft at Luqa and Ta’Qali than British, so if he’s willing to throw his lot in with us, so be it.”
Down in the bowels of the building, sunken into the living rock upon which the ancient Citadel was founded, a dozen worried men were awaiting the Commander-in-Chief’s arrival. From their expressions each man had been drastically recalibrating worst case scenarios.
Julian Christopher understood how important it was that he set the right tone. The Staff needed to know that although what had happened at Limassol was a setback that the C-in-C was still in control of the situation.
“The bad news is that my flag lieutenant has asked for an immediate transfer to sea duties,” Julian Christopher announced sardonically as the circle of officers opened to allow him to walk up to the big table where several maps were partly unfurled. “It seems the young man is in cahoots with my son, the Hero of Lampedusa.” This drew a couple of snorts of amusement and generally lessened the gloom. “I’ve sent Hannay on his way to the Talavera. No point delaying at times such as these. However, while it would be churlish to complain overmuch, I fear that young Hannay’s absence means that the refreshments normally available at these conferences might not be up to the normal standard.”
“Bad show!” Somebody sympathised.
There were other guffaws of strained amusement.
“The situation isn’t good,” Julian Christopher went on. From his tone and confident bearing a disinterested observer might have concluded this was a routine meeting and he was keen to get it over and done with so he could enjoy his luncheon. “I for one didn’t anticipate what has happened in Limassol. Nobody did. As of now I am declaring War Stations throughout the Theatre of Operations and all War Book Options are in play except Arc Light. Dan French is organising an extended air blockade of the Archipelago. A one hundred mile War Exclusion Zone is now in effect and any unidentified vessel or aircraft entering that Zone without prior authorization will be liable to attack without warning. I will be detailing off the Sixth Destroyer Squadron and elements of the Twenty-Second Escort Flotilla to intercept targets which refuse to turn back when challenged by aircraft.”
“What do we do about Cyprus, sir?”
“The Victorious Battle Group will proceed to Cyprus to support the evacuation of all personnel, their dependents and all portable military assets. V-Bomber conventional bombing strikes will be scheduled if enemy ground activity interdicts the evacuation. All non-movable military assets will be destroyed so as to not fall into enemy hands. If Red Dawn attempts to salvage any munitions of any type from HMS Blake I will request an Arc Light strike on the ship.”
Julian Christopher had spoken crisply, with clarity and unshakable conviction. But just in case any of his senior staff had not got the message he laid on a second layer of indefatigable certitude.
“Please make it clear in all you actions that I will defend the Maltese Archipelago to the last man. This is where we stand and this is where we will remain.” He looked around the table. “No surrender, gentlemen.”
Chapter 46
Tuesday 4th February 1964
St Catherine’s Hospital for Women, Mdina
“I think Marija and her visitor would probably like a little privacy,” Margo Seiffert suggested wryly, extending a helping hand to Rosa Calleja. Another woman dressed in the pale blue of the hospital’s nursing staff supported the injured young woman from the other side.
Suddenly, Peter Christopher was alone with Marija.
For long moments neither of them spoke.
The man’s eyes clouded with concern as he surveyed the woman’s desperately bruised face. One eye was black, the other threatening to follow suit. The wound in her eyebrow looked horribly angry and the tears trickling down Marija’s cheeks cut him to the quick.
“I,” he began, lost his courage and had to start anew. “I imagined, dreamed really, about this day. About all the ways we might meet at last.” He was standing at the foot of the bed, his hands in constant nervous motion. “But life is a funny old thing, isn’t it?”
Marija nodded mutely.
Peter moved a step closer, hesitated.
“You’ve had a rough old time of it lately?” He muttered.
“So have you,” she retorted timidly, shyly, horribly self-conscious. I must look awful!
He shrugged.
“Dr Seiffert said you knocked your head? That you had a touch of concussion?”
“Yes...”
“I had a taste of that a couple of months ago. I felt groggy for a couple of days afterwards.”
Marija did not know how it happened but she was beginning to feel less ill, less edgy, less afraid, more herself, normal. Her normal self would have held out her hand, sought out physical contact. And that was what, intuitively she did now; she extended her right hand towards the man.
He took it and with immense care, and perched on the side of her bed.
Her hand disappeared into his much larger paws.
Marija studied his face. White scar lines of recently healed injuries on his brow were merging with his new Mediterranean tan. She had expected him to be more boyish, joking, but that was not this man because right now he could not be that man. He had been through too much lately and he was too worried, too frightened for her.
“How did you imagine we would meet for the first time?” She asked, involuntarily lowering her eyes.
“I’d be on the deck of a big ship and you’d be on the quayside,” he said, relaxing a fraction. “You’d be standing apart from the crowd and when I spotted you you’d be looking straight at me.”
“Men!” Marija scoffed gently. “I was on the waterfront at Sliema the night when you brought HMS Talavera into the Creek. Lieutenant Hannay asked me to meet you when you came ashore with your father.” She made herself meet the man’s gaze. “I could not. After what my brother did...”
“I don’t care about any of that.”
“But you should. Your father is a great man,” she pursed her lips, “and scandal follows great men...”
Peter Christopher pressed Marija’s hand.
She looked away.
“You are going to have real shiners on both eyes,” Peter observed sympathetically. He grinned and she mirrored his expression momentarily.
“It is not funny.”
“No,” he agreed.
“I was stupid,” Marija declared, finding her everyday voice for the first time. “I shouldn’t have locked myself away here like a nun.”
“A nun?”
“That is what I have been all my life, I think.”
The man frowned, not knowing quite where she was going.
“Yesterday, I was stupid,” she reiterated. “I saw you in the piazza. And then you were gone. I thought I had lost you forever,” she shrugged philosophically, “so I ran after you! How stupid is that?”
“You ran?”
“Like I once ran when I was six years old.”
Peter Christopher wanted to wrap her in his arms. But how do I do that without hurting her?
“I ran for three, four, maybe five paces,” Marija continued, recounting her ‘stupidity’ with very nearly happy self-deprecation, “before I remembered that I cannot run.” She gesticulated at her face with her free hand. “As you see, Peter.”
“But for four or five paces you did run, Marija,” the man pointed out with a pride that stung his eyes, threatened to raise a lump in his throat.
“I thought I was about to lose you forever.”
“No chance!” He murmured vehemently.
And before he knew it Marija Calleja was in his arms, her face buried in his shoulder and they were both crying.
Lieutenant-Commander Peter Christopher was over an hour late reporting to Captain ‘D’ in his immaculate day room at the stern of the Weapon class destroyer Scorpion. The ‘Leader’ of the 7th Destroyer Squadron was moored fifty yards away from HMS Talavera.
“I apologise for my lateness, sir,” he blurted as soon as the cabin door closed at his back. “I have no excuse. It was my fault.”
Captain ‘D’ was a greying, generously proportioned man of around average height with alert, possibly querulous green eyes that appraised the junior officer with keen intent for several long seconds.
Nicholas Davey had left the Royal Navy, retiring to build and race yachts on his fifty-fourth birthday. That had been in 1961. After the October War he had volunteered his experience and his services to the Admiralty in its relocated HQ buildings in Plymouth. He had flown out to Malta shortly before Christmas to take command of the Scorpion. On Boxing Day he had been promoted to Captain and directed to reform the 7th Destroyer Squadron, collecting together the available Battle and Weapon class Fast Air Detection conversions into a single homogenous fighting unit.
“Goodness me,” he grunted, ponderously rising from behind his desk where he had been sifting through his other captain’s readiness reports. “You are the spitting image of your father when he was younger!”
Peter Christopher deduced from his new commander’s tone and general demeanour that he was not in trouble for his tardiness in making an appearance.
“So people say, sir,” he concurred flatly, still standing rigidly at attention.
“The C-in-C’s flag lieutenant sent me a message you’d been delayed at HQ,” Captain Davey guffawed. “There’s supposed to be a huge flap on this morning! Presumably, we’ll hear about how it affects us sooner or later, what?” He stuck out his hand in welcome. His grip was firmly enthusiastic. “Sit yourself down, you look like you could do with a stiff drink, young man.”
“My, er,” Peter Christopher struggled to explain, not quite crediting what he was about to voice, “my, er, fiancée had a nasty fall yesterday, sir. Getting bombed off Cape Finisterre and the Lampedusa affair did not shake me up half as much as...”
Captain Davey laughed.
“You’re getting hitched?”
“As soon as possible, sir. Although, Marija says that won’t be for a month or so. Her face is a bit of a mess at the moment and her mother will want to make her wedding dress, and she has a big family, and,” he halted, grimaced apologetically. “Sorry, sir. I’m sure you’ve got mor
e important things to do than hear me witter on this way?”
“Probably,” the other man chuckled. “Have you known ‘Marija’ long?”
“Since I was a teenager, sir.”
“Oh, I didn’t realise you were out here when your father was CO of First Cruiser Squadron?”
“Er, no, sir. I’d never been to Malta until a few days ago.”
Captain Nicholas Davey did not hide his confusion.
The younger man hurriedly attempted to clarified matters.
“I only met Marija face to face for the first time three hours ago, sir.”
This of course, did not really clarify anything in particular but before Peter Christopher sowed further seeds of confusion the alarm bells began to sound throughout the ship.
Chapter 47
Wednesday 5th February 1964
HMS Dreadnought, 12 miles south of Paphos, Cyprus
It was twenty-four hours since they had heard the distant eruption of the bomb in Limassol harbour. On the surface a gale was blowing, a short-lived Mediterranean winter storm. In a day or two the sea would be calm again. Two hundred and fifty feet down there was no wave motion, all was still. And HMS Dreadnought was at war.
While the Victorious Battle group came up from the south to fly off personnel from Akrotiri and her escorts took turns off-loading evacuees from Limassol and other smaller ports, including Pathos, Dreadnought was standing sentinel barring the south-western approaches to Cyprus. Her orders were simple; to hunt and kill anything on or below the waves that trespassed in her patrol ‘box’. The small British garrison on the island had withdrawn into the hills and forests of the hinterland, HMS Blake’s two undamaged escorts, the destroyer HMS Decoy and the frigate, HMS Salisbury were at the eastern end of the island performing a similar blocking role. Hawker Hunters operating out of Akrotiri were attempting to provide air cover for the two surface ships but Decoy and Salisbury they were out on a limb, dangerously exposed to submarine or air attack.