by James Philip
Joanne’s confusion must have seemed perversely comical.
“The President is planning to fly to India in the next few days to sign a non-aggression treaty with the Russians in New Delhi. Special Emissary Thompson of the State Department and Soviet Foreign Minister Kuznetsov have already initialled draft copies detailing the terms of the five-year agreement...”
“For God’s sake!” Joanne protested. “Don’t those idiots in Philadelphia understand the British at all?”
The United States Ambassador to the Court of Woodstock shook his head.
“No, my dear,” he sighed, “they don’t...”
The Brenckmann’s turned as the door at their back opened.
Tom Harding-Grayson and his wife Patricia entered the room.
There was a bizarre, uncomfortable interregnum while the couples, firm personal friends, exchanged handshakes and shadow kisses with the respective wives.
“I suggested we meet here at Hertford College because the Prime Minister has asked to be present at our tête-à-tête, Walter,” the Foreign Secretary explained a little sheepishly.
“Oh, shall I,” Joanne began, thinking to excuse herself.
“No, no,” Pat Harding-Grayson said immediately. “This must be awful for you. You and I are both invited to attend the Prime Minister’s rooms, Jo.”
Seven months ago Joanne Brenckmann had been a Boston housewife. Twenty months ago she and Walter had been talking about whether they could afford to retire down to the Florida Keys. In retrospect that had been a pipe dream but it had been a warm, reassuring notion to entertain as they faced their late middle age together now that all the kids had flown the nest. Seven months on she was in Oxford, England among friends her President had betrayed.
“I’m so glad you accompanied the Ambassador, Mrs Brenckmann,” Margaret Thatcher said sombrely, rising to shake the older woman’s hand. “We’ve not really had much of a chance to speak in your time in England but I know from what Pat has told me that you have been a tower of strength at Walter’s side throughout these troubled times.”
Joanne Brenckmann was struck by the Prime Minister’s dignity; and that she seemed fresh, unwearied and utterly unbowed by the events of the last few hours. The younger woman’s clear blue eyes held her a moment.
“Sit next to me,” Margaret Thatcher directed, drawing Joanne towards one of the threadbare chairs that seemed to be the hallmark of English domesticity. “We’re just waiting for Mr Callaghan to arrive and then we shall begin.”
There was a tea service on a low table.
“Shall I be mother?” The Prime Minister suggested.
Nobody demurred.
Joanne Brenckmann was starting to think she was dreaming; either that or she had mistakenly walked into the Mad Hatter’s tea party.
The Right Honourable Member of Parliament for Cardiff South, the leader of the Labour and Co-operative Party and Deputy Prime Minister in the Unity Administration of the United Kingdom arrived, escorted by his son-in-law, Peter Jay, who made himself scarce once he had safely delivered his charge to the hurriedly called counsel.
“Forgive my lateness,” the big, lugubrious man apologised. He was ashen and exhausted in exactly the way Margaret Thatcher was not. Jim Callaghan was late because he had warned her that he needed to consult ‘with others’ – his own Party’s inner circle - before attending Hertford College.
Suddenly, everybody was looking at Walter Brenckmann.
“Jo and I appreciate your personal kindness,” the US Ambassador said to the room at large. “It makes what I must say to you all the more,” he hesitated, forced himself not to say ‘wrong’ and instead said, “unpalatable and unfortunate. However, I am here at my country’s bidding not as a private citizen.”
Jim Callaghan had taken the seat to Margaret Thatcher’s left, clockwise around the room were Patricia Harding-Grayson, the Foreign Secretary, Walter Brenckmann and Joanne who had reached out and squeezed her husband’s hand.
“The President has instructed me to communicate the following to the UAUK, Prime Minister,” the Ambassador said, adopting the air of detached courtroom formality he had cultivated over the years.
“The President believes that is in the interests of all the parties to cease hostilities in the Persian Gulf immediately and for representatives of the said parties to convene at a time and a place to be agreed where our mutual grievances may be discussed.”
Walter Brenckmann halted, half-expecting a question.
“The President is determined not to allow the war in the Gulf to escalate into a new global nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. He asked me to make it clear to you that following the incident in which the USS Providence was lost...”
“The Providence was sunk by a Russian submarine!” Jim Callaghan grunted. “Even your Navy must know that, Ambassador?”
Walter Brenckmann did not reply.
“Pray carry on, Ambassador,” Margaret Thatcher requested softly.
“The President is profoundly unhappy that two thermonuclear devices were deployed over Central Iraq without prior consultation with the Administration. He considers that this breaks formal and informal undertakings made by the UAUK to the American government.”
The quietness had grown icy.
“This and the UAUK’s continuing aggression in the Gulf convinces President Kennedy that, at this time, the UAUK is not amenable to seeking a peaceful outcome to the conflict in that region. It is therefore, President Kennedy’s conviction that the United States has no other option but to act bilaterally with the Soviet Union to avert a new thermonuclear disaster.”
Margaret Thatcher raised her tea cup to her lips and sipped daintily.
“I’m tempted to observe,” she said sadly, “that it would have saved everybody a lot of trouble if President Kennedy had adopted this approach in October 1962.” She smiled a glacial smile. “Before, rather than after he blew up half the World.”
The Prime Minister sat back, looked to her Foreign Minister.
“About now,” Tom Harding-Grayson, “Lord Franks, our man in Philadelphia will be delivering a note to Secretary of State Fulbright,” he grimaced, “or more likely to one of his flunkies. United States Navy ships at Malta and Gibraltar have been arrested and in due course their crews will be interned as prisoners of war. United States Navy ships still at large in the Mediterranean will be required in due course to surrender, either at Malta or Gibraltar. United States Navy surface ships, submarines and aircraft currently in the Mediterranean Theatre will not be permitted to leave that sea. We have taken this action because since the Cuban Missiles War US forces have launched a series of cowardly sneak attacks on our people. We were prepared to accept that previous atrocities were attributable to breakdowns in the proper chain of command; but what happened in the Persian Gulf yesterday was a deliberate, unprovoked act of aggression sanctioned at the highest levels of the US Federal Government. Heretofore, the United Kingdom and the United States are, de facto, at war in the Persian Gulf; the matter of whether that war spreads will depend entirely on the actions of the US Government. Lord Franks has been instructed to remind your State Department in the most unambiguous terms that if the United States employs nuclear weapons against the British Isles, British Crown Dependencies or British and Commonwealth Forces anywhere in the World we will retaliate. That is all.”
Walter Brenckmann blinked worriedly.
There ought to have been more.
“We have to talk about the situation in the Gulf?” He asked, looking to Margaret Thatcher. “We have to stop this...”
Her topaz blue eyes burned with quiet rage.
“I’m deeply sorry, Walter. But we have nothing further to say to your Government about the situation in the Persian Gulf.”
Chapter 78
12:50 Hours
Friday 3rd July 1964
HMS Alliance, Lazaretto Creek, Malta
Lieutenant-Commander Francis Barrington pushed back his cap and leaned forward to cau
tiously rest his forearms on the relatively cool steel of the cockpit rail atop the submarine’s tall sail. It was an atypically overcast, balmy day. Fittingly, dark clouds periodically rolled over Malta from the north. He stifled a yawn. The World had gone completely, stark, raving bonkers again and he had got to the point where he had given up trying to make sense of it.
The intercom beeped for attention.
“Captain,” he intoned automatically into the handset.
“Number four is now loaded, sir,” reported Lieutenant Michael Philpott, the boat’s executive officer from the control room some thirty feet below.
“Very good, Number One.”
Barrington’s gaze fell on the grey murderous silhouette of the seven thousand ton brand new guided missile destroyer USS Leahy (CLG-16) moored across the other side of Marsamxett Anchorage at the oiling wharf, directly opposite the broad mouth of Lazaretto Creek.
The big number ‘16’ was clearly visible under her bow.
For the moment the destroyer’s Terrier surface-to-air missile pylons were trained fore and aft, likewise her two twin 3-inch gun turrets. Members of her crew stood at her port rail and stared at the Alliance; Barrington presumed with unbridled incredulity not unlike his own.
His orders were unambiguous: if the Leahy attempted to cast off or made any attempt to activate, or to train her weapons systems off the centreline of the ship he was to launch all the fish in his forward 21-inch torpedo tubes into her side.
No ifs, no buts!
If the destroyer made a false move he was to sink her.
It was official; the World had gone stark raving bonkers!
“There’s a barge approaching, sir!”
Barrington had posted a detail of four armed men on the casing.
“Ask Mr Philpott to take over from me up here.”
Alliance’s visitor was a fresh-faced lieutenant from C-in-C Mediterranean Fleet’s staff. Barrington took him to the claustrophobic privacy of his cabin.
“What the Devil is going on?” He demanded wearily. Alliance had been in dry dock the last three days; only returning to her moorings in Lazaretto Creek late last night. “We’d hardly had time to tie up to the emergency buoys this morning and suddenly I’m being ordered to point the boat at that bloody Yank battleship over on the other side of Marsamxett!”
“I’m sorry, sir,” the other man apologised. “I don’t know if anybody actually knows what’s going on. All I know is that Admiral Grenville is sending chaps like me out to all the ships and subs we’ve got guarding the Sixth Fleet ships in harbour. Telling them what he knows, if you see what I mean, sir.”
The older man waited patiently.
“We don’t know all the details but there has been some serious unpleasantness in the Persian Gulf. We think American ships and aircraft attacked HMS Centaur and her escorts...”
Francis Barrington’s jaw must have very nearly hit the deck because the boy officer – he could not have been more than nineteen or twenty – gave him a very odd look.
“Nobody knows why,” the report continued. “Anyway, the order came from Fleet Command to ‘arrest’ all US Navy ships. The same order went out to Cyprus and Gibraltar. The Marne...”
“The Marne?” The commanding officer of HMS Alliance asked in bewilderment.
“Yes, sir. That’s what we renamed that Turkish destroyer Alliance captured after the Battle of Malta. Admiral Grenville said she ought to have her ‘proper name’ back. Anyway, she’s got her torpedo tubes trained on the Independence. Lion was alongside Corradino heights making ready to re-ammunition when the balloon went up; she’s got her guns trained on the Independence, too. We’ve got the Andrew, the other 2nd Submarine Squadron boat in port lined up in Kalkara Creek with her bow tubes bearing on the USS Iowa. Obviously, we’re a bit outnumbered but we’ve got patrol boats close alongside most of the other Yank ships ready to roll depth charges into the water underneath them. The Army have got three or four tanks they’re going to drive up onto high ground overlooking the Grand Harbour and the Royal Artillery are emplacing twenty-five pounders along the Valletta ramparts. The only place there’s been any fisticuffs was at RAF Luqa. Independence flew off about half her air group before she docked. I gather that the Royal Marines have now ‘pacified’ the troublemakers.”
Francis Barrington ran a hand through his thinning hair.
“So we’ve what,” he hesitated, not believing he was asking it, “arrested? Interned the whole Sixth Fleet?”
“Yes, something like that, sir.”
“And if the Leahy,” Barrington waved at the American warship, “so much as blinks I’m really supposed to sink her?”
“Oh, absolutely, sir! Admiral Grenville was most categorical about that!”
Chapter 79
14:15 Hours
Friday 3rd July 1964
RAF Abadan, Iran
“My chaps told me you’d got yourself killed, Frank,” Lieutenant General Michael Carver observed as the dusty, bandaged scarecrow figure limped into his forward command trench.
Both sides had stepped back, as if to take a metaphorical deep breath in the mid day heat. Distantly, guns barked sporadically, otherwise it was almost eerily quiet after the Bedlam of earlier hours.
‘Trench’ was something of a misnomer in the context of the interconnected anti-tank ditches, tunnels and bunkers dug as deep as the water table would permit which, had the complex been visible from space would have resembled a giant rabbit warren. The ‘command trench’ was a zigzagging segment of the spider’s web of earthworks and mazelike dead ends containing several shallow bunkers half concealed within the wrecked and burning refinery sprawl. Walking wounded from the nearby casualty clearing station were being guided past it and accommodated within it.
Wounded and exhausted men were sitting, lying, standing everywhere. The air stank of burning and of cordite, even though the shelling of the area had abruptly halted over two hours ago. The relative quietness of the battlefield was unsettling, horribly unnerving in ways the dreadfulness of the barrage, the hammering of the guns, the constant crunching, thudding impact of bombs and shells on the nearby airfield had not been. It was a thing old soldiers understood; that sometimes in war both sides wore themselves out and by default, a kind of unholy mutual unspoken agreement, pulled back to get a second wind.
“No, no, no,” the newcomer chortled. The top of his head was swathed in a gory rag bandage and his left trouser leg was caked with dried blood. “I’m fine. God, isn’t this a thing!”
“What did you do with your colleagues?”
“I found them a nice deep hole to hide in a about half-a-mile south before I made my way over here, sir.”
A medical orderly had appeared from behind the C-in-C’s shoulder.
He started unwinding the dressing on the visitor’s head wound.
Frank Waters ignored him.
“The 4th Tanks put up a heck of a good show before they pulled back from the Karun River line!”
Carver nodded.
“Yes, they did.” Only two Conquerors and six Centurions had made it back into the lines bisecting what was left of RAF Abadan. A man stepping above ground might easily imagine he was standing on a moonscape of craters and blasted concrete. “What did you make of the Red Army’s performance last night and this morning?”
Frank Waters thought about this.
Whatever had torn up his scalp had briefly knocked him out. The rest of his ‘crew’ had had to carry him to an aide station to get his head stitched back together.
“Either they didn’t think we were waiting for them or they didn’t care, sir,” he decided. “I’d have expected them to throw everything at us at once, not in waves. I got the impression their armour isn’t talking to their artillery, or vice versa. Perhaps, all their good tankers got killed in October sixty-two?”
Frank Waters flinched as the medical orderly started to re-clean his head wound.
“We could have held the south bank of the Karun for
a while longer?” He remarked.
“Yes.”
The younger man grinned broadly.
“Is it true that we really do have tanks out in the eastern desert!” He concluded rhetorically. “Just like that cove Julian Calder said!”
Michael Carver smiled.
“Yes,” he said again. “Perhaps, as many as a hundred or so. Their time will come but first I need my opposite number to put his head well and truly into the noose.”
Frank Waters forgot about the pain.
“What I really want him to do,” Caver went on didactically, “is to bridge the Karun, preferably with heavy casualties, assault the south shore and to brush aside the pickets still guarding the road down to Abadan, and,” he shrugged, “to get his spearhead embroiled with our defences down here before the 3rd Imperial Iranian Armoured Division crashes into his flank and rear echelon troops north above and to the east of Khorramshahr.”
“Stand still, sir,” the orderly told Frank Waters. “This man needs to go to a dressing station, sir,” he informed Carver.
The tall, patrician General nodded sternly.
“The big fly in the ointment is that we don’t have any air cover,” he said to the former SAS man, matter of factly. “The Americans sank HMS Centaur last night.”
Frank Waters involuntarily stuck out a hand to steady himself against the earthen wall of the trench. He was obviously concussed, delirious; Michael Carver had just told him the Yanks had sunk a British aircraft carrier!
Or at least he thought what the C-in-C had said...
Realising the wounded man was having trouble swallowing the news Michael Carver elucidated.
“They sank Centaur, her three close escorts and shot down all her aircraft. We fired off twenty-three Bloodhounds beating off the Red Air Force this morning. That leaves us half-a-dozen to fight off the Red Air Force and, presumably, the Yanks later today.” Michael Carver waved to the west. “One of Admiral Davey’s ships blew up this morning; the other four were all damaged in the bombing. The latest news from England is that the Yanks have given us an ultimatum to stop military operations by zero-one hundred hours tomorrow,” he sighed wearily, ‘or else. Or else we’ll all be sorry, I presume.”