The Information Officer

by Mark Mills

  The names had been coined and then quietly disseminated by Max’s predecessor, their biblical source designed to chime with the fervent Catholicism of the Maltese.

  “It’s part of what we do at the Information Office.”

  “You mean propaganda?”

  “That’s not a word we like to use.”

  “I was told you were independent.”

  “We are. Ostensibly.”

  Max detected a worrying flicker of youthful righteousness in the other man’s gaze. Six months back, he might have retreated and allowed Pemberton to figure it out for himself, but with Malta’s fortunes now hanging by a thread, there was no place for such luxuries. He needed Pemberton firmly in the saddle from day one.

  “Look, none of us is in the business of dragging people’s spirits down. The Huns and Eye-ties have cornered that market.”

  He manufactured a smile, which Pemberton politely mirrored.

  “You’re evidently a bright young man, so I’m going to save you some time and tell you the way it is.”

  He opened with a history lesson, partly because Pemberton’s file made mention of a respectable second-class degree in that subject from Worcester College, Oxford.

  It was best, Max explained, to take the stuff in the newspapers back home about “loyal little Malta” with a pinch of circumspection. At the outbreak of hostilities with Italy in June 1940, when that sawdust Caesar Mussolini threw his hand in with Hitler, Malta was a far more divided island than the British press had ever acknowledged. The Maltese might have offered themselves up to the British Empire back in 1800, but almost a century and a half on, there were many who wanted out of the relationship, their hearts set on independence from the mother country. Seated across the table from these nationalists in the Council of Government were the constitutionalists, defenders of the colonial cross. Not only were they superior in number, but they had the backing of the Strickland family, who effectively controlled the Maltese press, putting out two dailies: the Times of Malta and its vernacular sister paper, Il-Berqa.

  The war had played into the hands of the Strickland loyalists. The first Italian bombs to rain down onto the island severely dented the affinity felt by many of the Maltese for their nearest neighbors, a short hop to the north across the blue waters of the Mediterranean. But neither were the Maltese fools—far from it. They could spot a lie at a hundred paces, and many were wary of the Strickland rags, which they knew to be slanted toward the British establishment.

  Hence the Information Office, whose Daily Situation Report and Weekly Bulletin offered up for public consumption a cocktail of cold, factual, and apparently unbiased news. In essence, the Daily Situation Report was a scorecard. How many of their bombs had found their marks? And how many planes had both they and we lost in the course of that day’s raids? There were gray areas, of course, not least of all the often-conflicting claims made by the RAF and the artillery. In the wild confusion of a heavy raid on Grand Harbour, who could say with absolute certainty that a diving Stuka had been brought down by ack-ack fire and not the Hurricane on its tail?

  Mediating such disputes had ruined many a pleasant evening for Max, all thanks to the late situation report—an update to the five o’clock report—which he was expected to put out at ten forty-five P.M. He’d lost count of the number of times he’d been summoned to the phone in the middle of an enjoyable dinner party to listen to the tedious bleatings of HQ Royal Artillery and RAF Intelligence, each so eager to stake their claim to another precious scalp.

  Max thought it best to hold this information back from Pemberton. He certainly didn’t explain that the main reason he’d lobbied the lieutenant governor’s office for an assistant to take over the editorship of the Daily Situation Report was so that his own evenings might remain uncluttered by such irritations.

  Instead, he played up his own onerous workload, spelling out in some detail the other activities of the Information Office: the monitoring of enemy radio stations in the Mediterranean; the translation of BBC broadcasts and speeches by the governor into Maltese; and the production of light entertainments, which, along with the relentless stream of news items, were put out over the island’s Rediffusion system.

  “Gilding the pill,” said Pemberton distractedly, when Max was finished.

  “Nicely put.”

  “But not propaganda.”

  “Perish the thought.”

  “Well, not ostensibly.”

  “Never ostensibly. Before the week’s out, I’ll be up in front of the finance committee fighting to justify the additional expense to the department of one Edward Pemberton.”

  No lie there. Max would have to make his case, then the Maltese representatives would haul him over the coals, and then they would agree to his demands. In its own small way, this predictable little theater, played out with tedious regularity, laid bare one of the grander themes of colonial administration: allow them a voice, then tell them what to say.

  “I think I get the picture.”

  “Excellent. Now, where are you staying?”

  “The Osbourne.”

  “We’ll have to find you more permanent digs. There’s a drinks party later. It would pay for you to show your face. We might be able to rustle up something for you.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “If you don’t mind riding pillion, I can pick you up around five.”

  “You have a motorcycle?”

  “Technically, it’s three motorcycles, held together with wire and willpower.”

  Pemberton flashed his film-star smile.

  Yes, thought Max, Rosamund will be most pleased with her unexpected guest.

  She was.

  Her hand even went to her hair when she greeted them at the door, something it had never done for Max.

  The house sat near the top of Prince of Wales Road in Sliema, just shy of the police station. It was typical of many Maltese homes in that the unassuming façade gave no indication of the treasures that lay behind it. The wooden entrance door was flanked by two windows, with three more windows on the upper floor united by a stone balcony overhanging the street. Perfectly symmetrical, the front of the house was unadorned except for a brass nameplate set in the white stucco—Villa Marija—and a small glazed terra-cotta roundel above the entrance, which showed a disconsolate-looking Virgin clutching her child.

  Rosamund was wearing an oyster-gray satin evening gown, and once her hand had tugged self-consciously at her auburn locks, Max made the introductions. Rosamund offered a slender hand, drawing Pemberton inside as they shook, which permitted her to fire an approving look over his shoulder at Max as she did so.

  The entrance hall was cool and cavernous, impeccably decked out with antique furniture. A Persian rug sprawled at their feet, and a handful of colorful impressionistic paintings hung from the walls. Pemberton looked mildly stunned.

  “Tell me, Edward, you aren’t by any chance related to Adrian Pemberton, are you?”

  “If he lives in Chepstow Crescent, then he’s my cousin, I’m afraid.”

  “Why should you be afraid?”

  “You obviously haven’t heard.”

  “No, but I can’t wait.”

  She hooked her arm through his, steering him across the drawing room toward the large walled garden at the rear of the house.

  “Has he done something terribly wicked? I do hope he’s done something terribly wicked. It would bear out all my suspicions about him.”

  Max dumped his scuffed leather shoulder bag onto the divan and followed them outside.

  Rosamund had three rules when it came to her “little get-togethers.” The first was that she personally greeted everyone at the door. The second was that it was unforgivably rude to speculate about the source of the copious quantities of spirits on offer, when it was barely possible to locate a bottle of beer on the island. The third rule stated quite simply that there was to be no “talking shop” after the first hour, to which end she would ring a small handbell at the appointed tim
e.

  “All week I get nothing from Hugh but barrages and Bofors and Junker 88s. For a few small hours, I’d like to talk about something else, and I’m sure you all would too.”

  Hugh was her husband, a lieutenant colonel in the Royal Artillery. A mathematician of some standing before the war, Hugh had worked out the intricate calculations behind the coordinated box barrage over Grand Harbour—an impressive feat, and one that had seen him elevated to the position of senior staff officer at RA HQ. Though he was in his early forties, he looked considerably older, which played to his private passion—the theater—making him eligible for a host of more senior roles, which he scooped up uncontested every time the Malta Amateur Dramatic Club put on one of their plays. He was always trying to get Max to audition for some token part to make up the numbers: butler, chauffeur, monosyllabic house guest.

  While Rosamund abandoned her first rule in order to parade her new catch around the garden, Max made for the drinks table in the grateful shade beneath one of the orange trees. True to form, there was no one to pour the drinks. It wouldn’t be good for relations if the Maltese staff were to witness the excesses of their brothers in suffering. Max was concocting a whisky and soda when he heard a familiar voice behind him.

  “‘Ah, thou honeysuckle villain.’”

  “Henry the Fourth,” Max responded, without turning.

  “Not good enough, and you know it.”

  Max swiveled to face Hugh, whose forehead, as ever, was beaded with perspiration. It was an old and slightly tedious game of theirs. Hugh liked to toss quotations at him, usually Shakespeare, but not always.

  “King Henry the Fourth, Part II,” said Max.

  “Damn.”

  “Mistress Quickly to Falstaff. I studied it at school.”

  “Double damn. That makes three in a row.”

  “But only twenty-two out of thirty-eight.”

  Hugh gave a little chortle. “Glad to see I’m not the only one keeping score.”

  “Speaking of scores, congratulations on your century.”

  “Yes, quite a month. One hundred and two, all told.”

  “One hundred and one; 249 Squadron are claiming the Stuka over Ta’ Qali yesterday afternoon.”

  “Bloody typical.”

  “Let them have it. Their heads are down right now.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  Max hesitated. “So the rumors are true.”

  “What’s that, old man?”

  “They’re sending us another batch of Spitfires.”

  “Couldn’t possibly say—it’s top secret.”

  “Then I’ll just have to ask Rosamund.”

  Hugh laughed. His wife had a reputation for being “genned up” on everything. No news, however trivial, slipped through Rosamund’s net. Given her connections across the services, it was quite possible that she knew near on as much as the governor himself. The fact that she had cultivated a close friendship with His Excellency—or “H.E.,” as she insisted on referring to him—no doubt boosted her store of knowledge.

  “I’ll be right back,” said Hugh, grabbing a bottle. “Damsel in distress over by the bougainvillea. Trevor Kimberley’s better half. A bit on the short side, but easy on the eye. And thirsty.”

  “We like them thirsty.”

  “‘Thou honeyseed rogue.’”

  “King Henry the Fourth, Part II.”

  “Doesn’t count,” said Hugh, disappearing with the bottle.

  Max turned back to the drinks table and topped off his glass. Hugh was right; April had been quite a month—the darkest yet. The artillery might have knocked down more than a hundred enemy aircraft, but that was largely due to the more frequent and promiscuous raids. The figures were in, and the Luftwaffe had flown a staggering ninety-six hundred sorties against the island in April, almost double the number for March, which itself had shattered all previous records. The lack of any meaningful competition from the boys in blue had also contributed to the artillery’s impressive bag. There weren’t many pilots who’d logged more than a few hours of operational flying time all month, thanks to the glaring lack of serviceable Spitfires and Hurricanes. Even when the airfields at Ta’ Qali, Luqa, and Hal Far pooled their resources, you were still looking at less than ten planes. The pilots were used to taking to the air with the odds mightily stacked against them—things had never been any different on Malta, and you rarely heard the pilots complain—but what could a handful of patched-up, battle-scarred crates really hope to achieve against a massed raid of Junker 88s with a covering fighter force of sixty?

  Things might have been less dispiriting if a large flock of spanking new Spits hadn’t flown in just ten days before—forty-six in all, fresh from Greenock in Scotland by way of Gibraltar. The U.S. Navy’s aircraft carrier USS Wasp had seen them safe as far as the waters off Algiers, and the fly-off had gone without a hitch, all but two of the batch making it to Malta on the long-range fuel tanks. It had seemed too good to be true. And it was. Field Marshal Kesselring, sitting safely in Sicily, was no fool. He had obviously got wind of the reinforcement flight and had figured it best to wait for the aircraft to land before making his move. Within three days of their arrival almost half of the new Spitfires had been destroyed, and the rest had been put out of action by the Luftwaffe’s intensive carpet bombing of the airfields.

  Kesselring had his man on the ropes and was going for the knockout. He knew it; they knew it. Because without fighter aircraft to challenge the Luftwaffe’s aerial dominance, there was little hope of any supply convoys getting through. And if that didn’t happen very soon, the guns would fall silent and the island would starve. Invasion, an imminent threat for months now, would inevitably follow.

  Christ, it was unthinkable. So, best not to think about it, Max told himself, topping off his glass once more and turning to survey the garden.

  He found himself face-to-face with Mitzi.

  She had crept up on him unannounced and was regarding him with a curious and slightly concerned expression, her startling green eyes reaching for his, a stray ray of sunlight catching her blond hair. Not for the first time, he found himself silenced by her beauty.

  “What were you thinking?” she asked.

  “Nothing important.”

  “Your shoulders were sagging. You looked … deflated.”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Flatterer.”

  “It’s true.”

  “If it’s true, then why didn’t you even look for me?”

  “I did.”

  “I was watching you from the moment you arrived.”

  “You were talking to that bald chap from Defense Security over by the bench.”

  “Well, I must say, you have excellent peripheral vision.”

  “That’s what my sports master used to say. It’s why he stuck me in the center of the midfield.”

  “You don’t really expect me to talk about football, do you?”

  “When Rosamund rings her bell, we might have no choice.”

  A slow smile broke across her face. “My God, I’ve missed you,” she said softly and quite unexpectedly.

  The desire in her voice was palpable, almost painful to his ears.

  “You’re breaking the rules,” said Max.

  “Damn the rules.”

  “You’re forgetting—you were the one who made the rules.”

  “Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Max.”

  “It’s the best I can come up with under the circumstances.”

  “Now you’re being abstruse.” She handed him her empty glass. “Mix me another, will you?”

  “Remind me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “Bandits at one o’clock,” he said in a whisper.

  He had spotted them approaching over her shoulder: Hugh with Trevor Kimberley’s dark and pretty wife in tow.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Mitzi sighed volubly. “Another gin and French.”

  Max took her glass. “So where’s Lionel? Out o
n patrol?”

  Hugh was within earshot now. “Be careful, old chap. Asking questions like that can land a man in deep water.”

  “Hello, Margaret,” said Max, ignoring him.

  Margaret Kimberley nodded benignly and maybe a little drunkenly.

  “I mean,” Hugh persisted, “why would you want to know the details of what our noble submariners are up to?”

  “Besides, I’m hardly the person to ask,” said Mitzi. “Lionel doesn’t tell me anything. One day he’s gone, then one day he’s back; that’s all I know.”

  “It’s all any of us needs to know.”

  “Trevor tells me nothing,” chipped in Margaret.

  Hugh peered down at her. “That, my dear, is because your Trevor does next to nothing for most of the time. Take it from me as his commanding officer.”

  “Somehow, Hugh, I can’t think of you as a commanding officer,” Mitzi chimed, a playful glint in her eye. “A genial one, maybe, and slightly inept, but not a commanding one.”

  Margaret’s hand shot to her mouth to stifle a laugh, which drew an affronted scowl from Hugh.

  “Bang goes Trevor’s promotion,” said Max, to more laughter.

  A little while later the ladies left together for the far end of the garden. Max fought to ignore the lazy sway of Mitzi’s slender hips beneath her cotton print dress.

  “Entre nous,” said Hugh, considerably less abashed about admiring the view, “all the subs will be gone for good within a week or so.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, you’ve seen the pasting they’ve been taking down at Lazaretto Creek. And since Wanklyn came a cropper …”

  The loss of the Upholder a couple of weeks back had rocked the whole garrison, right down to the man on the street. Subs had been lost before, subs driven by good men known to all, men who had once lit up the bar at the Union Club and whose bones were now resting somewhere on the seabed. “Wankers” Wanklyn was different, though. A tall, soft-spoken Scotsman with a biblical beard, he’d been modest in the way that only the truly great can afford to be. With well over one hundred thousand tons of enemy shipping under his belt and a Victoria Cross on his chest, he’d exuded a quiet invincibility that others had fed off, had drawn strength from. Not one of his peers had begrudged him his star status because he’d never once played to it; he’d just got on with the job. And now he was gone, sent to the bottom, a mere human being after all.