Turn Left for Gibraltar

by David Black

  Two raids had gone over during the night: high-level bombers that had dropped their loads over Kalkara Creek way. Harry had even watched the searchlights seek out the planes of the first raid from Nicobar’s bridge as they’d edged up Marsamxett Harbour. He counted over a dozen Italian Savoias. But the flak Malta’s guns had thrown up, had brought no raider down from that raid. He only heard the second raid, being down in the forward torpedo room, helping hump the one-and-a-half-ton beasts up and out of the for’ard hatch. Welcome back from patrol, Harry, he told himself, since no one else was going to welcome him.

  Which wasn’t strictly true: no person was welcoming him, but the mosquitoes were. And the sandflies. It might only be the end of March, but the temperature was rising, and the buggers were up and about as they laboured to move the torpedoes across the jetty.

  When they were finished, and the sun was up, Harry told Bill Sutter to mind the shop; he was off to Lascaris if anyone was looking for him. It sounded like official business, but both men knew it wasn’t. Not that it mattered. Nicobar would be moving nowhere while it was daylight. But it would take Harry four hours to walk from Msida Creek to Lascaris, the island’s combined headquarters and ops room, instead of the half hour it should have.

  It was a beautiful, cloudless morning as he stepped out in his whites and dress cap and with his new second ring upon his shirt epaulette, but what he saw distracted him from putting on any swank. As far as he could see, Pieta, Floriana, Corradino Heights – they were all just jumbled mess now, whole streets looking like they’d been stood on, and he could feel the crunch of grit in his mouth, the entire landscape painted with a patina of dust. There wasn’t a single living person in sight. He knew it was early, but there should have been someone about.

  He’d barely been walking five minutes and he could already see the Upper Barracca Gardens and the Saluting Battery at the extreme south-eastern corner of the Valletta bastion, under which the HQ’s tunnels had been carved out of the rock, when the first air-raid siren had sounded, and he’d had to find the nearest shelter.

  The moaning wail started echoing out over what was left of the town, and Harry had started running. When he got to the shelter’s entrance, he could sense it was already full, even as he dodged through the sandbags, before he even hit the steps, jumping down three at a time. He could smell it.

  Coming out from the mote-filled shafts of light into the dark, all he saw were the faces looking up at him: grimy pale women, old people, children; a floating raft of faces, looking to see who was coming down at this hour. They’d obviously all been here all night. There was the smell of unwashed bodies, and the smell of overflowing latrines. Everyone was too tired to get excited about his arrival. An old man who shifted a little to give him a patch of dirt to sit on, had a coat over his pyjamas, a pair of plaid slippers on the end of bony ankles, and a dust-choked, full grey beard – at least Harry thought it was grey: it could have all been dust. The old man eyed Harry’s pristine white shorts and shirt, but he was too exhausted to engage in conversation. He just rocked a little with what laughter he could summon, and said, ‘Best of luck with that, Jack.’

  After the all-clear, Harry had moved on, but had to duck into another shelter for another raid, before he finally made it to Lascaris and Katty.

  ‘We’re better than we were,’ she said, once all the hugs and kisses and a few tears were over. The two of them sitting with cups of tea in the Lascaris canteen. She hadn’t even noticed all the dirt and scuffs on his now filthy uniform. ‘Two cargo ships made it in the other day, and they’ve managed to beach another down in Marsaxlokk Bay. They were all that got through from a convoy from Alex. There was a big sea battle in the Gulf of Sirte. We drove off an Italian battleship.’

  Harry thought she looked dazed, like a punch-drunk boxer. She was quiet for a moment, then she frowned. ‘But there’s a big row going on now,’ she said, looking around to see if anyone was listening. There wasn’t another soul in the room. ‘The ships that made it into Grand Harbour. The bombers got them before they could be unloaded properly. Everyone’s blaming one another. And Group Captain Mahaddie has told me all the Spitfires that were flown in while you were on patrol . . . they’re all U/S . . . unserviceable. Shot up on the ground, he says. So he’s hopping mad too. And no one knows when they’re going to be able to try and run another convoy through.’

  ‘You’re tired,’ said Harry.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Everybody’s tired. And there’s no beer left!’

  The days that followed passed in a blur. Harry got his first real view of Grand Harbour in daylight for weeks: the toppled cranes and the wharves with bomb craters like bites out of them. The rising palls of smoke and the tangled wreckage of the crippled merchantmen, both sunk, resting on the bottom with their superstructures and upper decks still showing, crews clambering over them trying to get at any surviving cargo, loading it on to barges. And the light cruiser HMS Penelope, still in dry dock from another fateful night in which Force K, this time, had charged into a minefield off the North African coast. HMS Neptune had been lost, and Penelope was so full of holes she’d been rechristened HMS Pepperpot – now festooned with netting and surrounded by smoke pots that they’d ignite to disguise her every time a raid came over, another pall to be added to the ones already smudged across the island’s sky; the yard workers labouring beneath it to get her fit to make a run for it to Gib.

  And then there were the days of Nicobar’s dry-docking, and the yard workers continuing to work on her too, under netting during daylight hours, ignoring the raids; Harry, shamefaced having to run to the shelters, because he was under orders to do so, because sub crews were not expendable. And meeting Captain Clasp again, down on French Creek, his P-boat alongside, discharging cargo after another Magic Carpet run – four of the old minelaying boats now assigned to this emergency lifeline full-time, bringing in essentials such as aviation spirit, anti-aircraft ordnance and baby milk powder. Harry shaking hands with him, the two of them promising each other a drink when there was a drink to be had: Clasp, for Harry cutting free that lifeboat and saving his submarine, and Harry, for Clasp looking after his sextant, and leaving it safe for him on Malta, confident he’d be back to pick it up.

  And then there were the three days spent on the bottom of Marsamxett Harbour, listening to the bombs going off above them, playing Uckers or trying to sleep. And four nights with base maintenance crew getting Nicobar squared away and ready for her next patrol.

  And all the odd hours snatched with Katty, sometimes a whole night, in other people’s apartments; at their favourite café on Sliema seafront, dodging in and out of the air-raid shelters when the bombers came over; stepping into the shadows to hide from passing 109s because of the number of people now – civvies as well as servicemen: women, children, any living thing – being strafed by the Germans just for the hell of it. Losing count of the raids. Some days it felt as though Jerry was coming over, dropping what he had, and then just heading back for more.

  The electricity was off and the gas, water was intermittent, and the streets were strewn now with the detritus of aerial war: unexploded bombs and cannon shells, lumps of shrapnel from the endless barrages thrown up by the island’s anti-aircraft guns, coming down again. There were bodies too – the ones who never made it to the shelters in time, or the ones who did and got blown out again. The only little saving grace that saved you as a passer-by from the full random horror of it: the dust. It coated everything, so that you saw no blood or open wounds, just a bland enclosing sandy patina that blanketed everything until there were only shapes and no colour, so that the newly dead looked like the ancient dead, like a scene from a Pompeii dig.

  The Rediffusion was out completely now. Only the Times of Malta continued to print, and as well as news, it would run the latest information on the distribution of food. It didn’t print the whole truth, of course. Katty had heard the word was around Lascaris that without another convoy they had two months’ of supplies lef
t: ten weeks at a pinch, then all the food would be gone. The amount of fuel left and ammunition, the authorities managed to keep closer to their chests.

  Then Nicobar was ready for sea again, and back she went out on patrol, back to the shallow waters off the North African coast. When she returned at the end of April, there were two more merchantmen and two more schooners on her Jolly Roger. And there was news to digest. Malta had won a medal. The King had written to them, in a personal message: ‘To honour her brave people I award the George Cross to the island fortress of Malta to bear witness to a heroism that will long be famous in history.’

  The George Cross: the British Empire’s highest award for civilian gallantry. To bestow such an award to an entire population was unprecedented, and the news had gone around the world. Everybody was chuffed, even hiding in their holes.

  But there was other news too. The Tenth Flotilla’s ace and mascot, HMS Upholder, was ‘overdue, presumed lost’. Her CO, Lieutenant Commander David Wanklyn, VC, DSO and two bars, the submarine service’s pin-up boy, and all his crew, gone. Operating out of Malta, they had sunk almost 130,000 tons of Axis shipping in just over a year. The Upholders had been the Flotilla’s veterans. The crew who knew every trick, and what a load of nice blokes too. Everybody agreed, they’d done their bit. And they’d been on their last patrol before going home to Blighty for a rest and a refit. If they could get the chop . . . People stopped the conversation right there: no future in going down that road. Not right now, not here, not these days.

  There was another matter too, that affected Harry in particular. While they’d been on patrol there had been a scatter of awards Gazetted for Umbrage’s crew and their action against the Italian cruisers. No one mentioned it to Harry when he got back. No one had wanted to, for reasons that would become obvious. And since Umbrage with her new CO, Hume, had just gone out, no one felt they had to. It had been Shrimp who had called Harry in.

  Grainger, who was now back in Blighty apparently, all but recovered from his wounds and pushing pens for the time being in some Admiralty liaison job, had got a bar to his DSC, and there had been a DSC for young Wykham. The Wrecker, Parry-Jones, and Tuke, Umbrage’s ASDIC man, had both got Distinguished Service Medals, and there had been several Mentioned-in-Despatches for others. Harry got nothing.

  ‘It was skilled and determined action that inflicted significant damage on the enemy, and I felt your conduct merited the Distinguished Service Order,’ Shrimp had told him.

  Harry had been dumbfounded. A DSO. You didn’t need to be in the Andrew long to know the old ‘Dicky-Shot-Off’ usually only went to COs, and even then just to four-ringers and above. For a junior officer to get one, well, that was the next best thing to their Lordships taking out a personal ad in The Times announcing you’d just missed getting a VC.

  ‘This matter isn’t over, Mr Gilmour,’ Shrimp had said. ‘Leave it with me.’

  What else was he going to do?

  Later, when he’d composed himself, he found he wasn’t that bothered he’d received no recognition for the action, as if to do so would have been some kind of acceptance that he had signed himself over in his entirety to this life, and that what was important to it, must now be important to him. For some reason, he didn’t feel quite comfortable with that. It meant his old tweed jacket and silly scarf days would be gone, and with them all the light, daft days of his life and the luxury of blessed irresponsibility. He decided not to think about it any more, telling himself he didn’t have the time to, which seemed as good an excuse as any.

  Nicobar was only in for three days, before she was ready to go back on patrol. Carey, having to shout over the noise of another bombing raid going on above him, told Shrimp he felt safer at sea, and so did his crew. Which was true. And Shrimp, well, he knew Malta’s only strategic relevance was in being able to attack Rommel’s supply lines. Right now, with her airfields looking more like the surface of the moon, the submarines of the fighting Tenth were the only chaps doing the job. And Rommel was stockpiling for another go at the Eighth Army. All the intelligence signals coming in from Northways told him so. So did the photoreconnaissance boys. Chally was still flying, although this time from some flyblown sandpit west of Cairo. So, of course Shrimp said yes, even though the Flotilla’s mounting losses were becoming harder for him to take, not easier. Not that Harry knew any of this; he was too busy.

  Harry still managed to be with Katty though, twice, before he had to sail.

  There was a part of him that used to sit off to the side these days, watching himself with her. Lots of things to see that fascinated him, including the fact of his own fascination. It was as though he were practising some kind of supreme form of detachment: the ultimate selfishness of it, protecting yourself by pretending you weren’t actually there, but above it, above everything.

  The easy domesticity he slipped into with her amazed him – both of them complicit, and all of it against the most undomestic of backdrops. The two of them, conjuring up an everyday life for each other while the bombs rained down about their ears, and the world fell apart. Blocking out the knowledge that either of them could be killed at any time, for no reason, because it was happening to so many others, and there were no reasons for it not to happen to them.

  It made him laugh to himself to think of the Katty of a few months ago, and the Katty now. The glamorous Katty, envied and desired back then; filling her days now, not with nightclub engagements and champagne at the top tables, but with drinking tea with a young Royal Navy Lieutenant with no prospects and nothing to offer beyond his next knocked-off bag of real coffee – and the fun she obviously felt, stepping out with him in the dark, when all the 109s had gone home for the night, for an arm-in-arm stroll to their favourite café, still open, to deliver another bag of that illicit coffee, and trade it for a room to themselves for a few hours, or until the first air-raid siren woke them.

  And what was even more fascinating was the number of times he found himself wondering what Shirley would have made of the world he found himself in now. Not about Katty, but about Malta: what it had once been and now was; how the bombs could not quite obliterate the quiet beauty of the place, nor the stoicism of its people. He thought of Shirley walking through a restored island, at some time in a better future, curious about what she would think, curious about who would be with her.

  The last snippet of Lascaris gossip Katty had for Harry before he sailed, was that C-in-C, Mediterranean Fleet now considered it too risky to attempt any more relief convoys from Gib, and that the next scheduled convoy from Alex had been cancelled. Oh, and that everyone believed a German invasion was now imminent. And then she’d given him a goodbye kiss, as if none of that had meant anything, and they’d both said they’d see each other in a couple of weeks, and away he went.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Captain Charles Bonalleck VC, Assistant Chief of Operations to Flag Officer, Submarines was absently daydreaming about his next appointment, sitting in his office in the airy spaciousness of Northways. He’d been assured it was going to be an operational command: a Captain (S) appointment. The Blythe flotilla had been mooted, which didn’t fill him with the joy he’d hoped for. He’d been envisaging something more tropical – something that would take him away from the cloying presence of Mrs Bonalleck. He was sure, however, that even if it did turn out to be Blythe, he could concoct some plausible scenario that would prohibit her from moving north with him.

  That was when the summons arrived: the little light on his bulky Bakelite desktop telephone exchange. It was Max’s office.

  ‘Captain Bonalleck. The FOS would like to see you right away, Sir.’

  The Bonny Boy wondered if this was the news he’d been waiting for. You might be promised a posting; told, nay assured, it was yours – the orders were going to be cut any day now. And then it never happened. The Andrew was famous for that. Was he about to find out?

  He knocked on the door marked ‘Vice Admiral M.K. Horton VC’ and the PO Writer manning the d
esk told him to come in and take a seat. Max kept him waiting some considerable time, and when he was summoned into the presence, the face that met him was not welcoming.

  Max was seated behind his desk. He did not get up to shake the Bonny Boy’s hand, as he usually did; he did not address him by his first name; no ‘Charles, dear boy!’ this time; nor did he invite him to sit.

  On Max’s desk, between them, lay a bland, regulation manila folder. Max gestured to it, irritated. ‘Look at that and then explain to me why it has landed on my desk,’ he said with his crisp, reading-a-grocery-list voice he used to those he was about to destroy. The Bonny Boy felt his guts sag. He leaned over and picked up the dossier.

  In it were four separate typewritten documents. The first was a recommendation for the award of the Distinguished Service Order to Acting Lieutenant Harris John Gilmour RNVR, formerly of HM Submarine Umbrage, from Captain G.W.G. Simpson, Tenth Flotilla, Malta.

  The second slip was from the office of the FOS: an assessment of the officer’s fitness to receive the award. Appended to it was a copy of a section of the evidence of Commander C.A.W. Bonalleck RN, VC to the Court of Inquiry into the loss of HM Submarine Pelorus. The section concerned the conduct of one Sub-Lieutenant Harris John Gilmour RNVR. The recommendation for the award of the DSO was stamped ‘Rejected’.

  And the fourth document was a signal from Captain (S) 10, personal to FOS, asking for an explanation.

  When Max saw that the Bonny Boy had finished reading, he spoke again.

  ‘I ordered you to make this accusation go away, did I not?’ Max said. And indeed he had. Some months ago, the Bonny Boy had been seeking to have Sub-Lieutenant Gilmour put before a court martial for his conduct prior to the loss of Pelorus. The accusation was deserting his station. Meanwhile, Sub-Lieutenant Gilmour had been posted to a French submarine as Liaison Officer, where far from being unreliable, his conduct there had led the French to award him the Croix de Guerre.