by James Philip
John McCain had seen the lady on TV, and knew the American public missed the Christopher double act. Although Nicko and Mary Henderson and their daughter Alexandra were very nearly as personable and telegenic with the network media, they were not and could never be, Peter and Marija, the dream couple who had stood on the steps of the Philadelphia White House and pleaded with LBJ and millions on live TV to ‘give peace a chance.’
McCain had struck it off instantly with the Governor General and his Maltese wife. It helped that they were all of an age, like him children of the second half of 1936 and in their thirty-second years, each inwardly aged a little before their time yet still, clinging to the hopes and optimism of their younger, pre-October 1962 selves. The Yarralumla couple freely admitted that there had been times in the last four years they felt as if they were living in a very strange dream.
‘I married a destroyer captain,’ Marija had laughed. ‘He was already a hero but you couldn’t make up everything that has happened to us since that day in St Paul’s Cathedral back on Malta.’
It transpired that before the October War, Peter, insofar as he had thought about the way his career would develop, had been ‘having so much fun’ in the Navy ‘playing with all the marvellous gismos and gadgets the tax payer was kind enough to give me’, that he recollected having few, if any ambitions other than to ‘see what happened next’.
‘I was just his pen friend in those days,’ Marija had interjected with a girlish giggle, as Lucy De L’Isle, her auburn-blond hair touching her shoulders and her eyes, a little wide, darted inquisitively around the table, soaking it all in.
It had been Marija who had taken McCain aside and warned him that the teenage girl had ‘taken a shine to him.’
‘Lucy is only fifteen,’ she had reminded him. Then corrected herself. ‘But you know that…’
John McCain had found himself the star guest at the girl’s birthday party that first weekend he was in Canberra, danced with the kid a couple of times, she in her long, fawn, gala dress and he in his Navy whites with a chest full of medal ribbons.
Given that Lucy was the daughter of a British aristocrat who was also a leading member of the Thatcher government back in England, not to mention the granddaughter of another, Field Marshal Lord Gort, the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France in 1940, and that her birthday party was being held at Yarralumla, the residence of the Governor General of Australia, McCain had anticipated a relatively staid, placid, very ‘correct’ sort of soiree that evening. However, he had not counted on the presence of dozens of Lucy’s teenage schoolfriends, the children of all the Yarralumla staffers, or that the whole affair was, very deliberately, organised as an informal – or as informal as possible - ‘family affair’ for the British diplomatic community in Canberra.
McCain likened it to a well-behaved ‘prom’ back home where, although nobody got drunk, practically everybody had a good time.
‘I didn’t know you went to a public school?’ He had remarked to the princess of the ball.
Five minutes later he thought, mistakenly, he understood the young lady’s entire universe. She had been in Australia since 1961 when her father moved into Yarralumla, then there had been the war, her mother had passed away, her elder siblings had moved on until by the time Peter and Marija ‘took over’, it was just her and her sister Anne left ‘at home’. Anne had stepped in as hostess and occasionally, as her father’s companion after their mother’s death, but Lucy had been too young. Peter and Marija were her guardians: Peter could be a little stuffy, fatherly at times but that was only because he was very protective of her and he had given his word to her ‘daddy’ that he would keep her safe; whereas, Marija was like her ‘big sister’ unless she thought Lucy needed a little ‘mothering’. When she had first started at Canberra Girls Grammar School, in the nearby Deakin suburb of the capital, Chief Petty Officer Jack Griffin, Peter Christopher’s ‘Chief Steward’ at Government House, when he was not at sea with the Royal Australian Navy on board HMAS Anzac, had escorted Lucy everywhere in public, and security men had never been far from her side. ‘All that has been relaxed now,’ she had assured John McCain.
That night she had danced with the Governor General once; and with her guest of honour twice.
‘I hear you have made quite a conquest?’ His mother had observed a few days later.
‘I have?’
It went without saying that so far as he could tell he had not led the kid on, said or in any way behaved in a manner unbecoming, or inappropriate.
The kid was only fifteen!
And she was the ward of the Governor General of Australia and his wife.
He had done nothing to encourage the kid but…
Oh, God, is Peter about to challenge me to a duel, or something?
He had done the logical thing before he absented himself from Canberra to attempt to resume his flying career. The least whiff of scandal, of anything untoward would be a nightmare for the embassy and of course, Government House, and notwithstanding he was completely blameless, when you had so many four-star admirals in the family a man got to understand how politics worked!
He had called Yarralumla and asked if he might visit Government House while Lucy was at school, and if it was not too irregular, to have a confidential conversation with Lady Marija.
The Governor General’s spouse had been way ahead of him!
‘I know why you are worried, John,’ Marija had assured him. ‘I have already spoken to Lucy. There is no need to speak to Peter, he has a lot on his mind at the moment and besides, there is nothing to speak to him about.’
Marija had not told Lucy she was being silly.
In fact, she had sympathised with her.
And counselled the virtues of patience, citing her own, long and unlikely, written friendship with Peter.
‘Peter and I were writing to each other for nearly fifteen years before we met in Mdina a little over four years ago, John. Lucy knows that that worked out well in the end. So, she and I have an…understanding. In the meantime, you must carry on with your life. As must we all.’
In the privacy of his cramped cabin a wry, self-deprecatory smile played on John McCain’s lips as he extracted the sheets of paper from Lucy De L’Isle’s latest letter.
The deal Marija had made with the kid was that she would read – but not in any way censor – all her correspondence to McCain. Likewise, he would communicate via the Governor’s wife, who would decide whether or not to pass his letters on to her ward. It was the sort of solution one might find in a Jane Austen novel; yet one oddly pragmatic in an environment where nobody wanted to cause a scene while not treating Lucy like a child.
Dear John…
That was never a good start to any letter.
Now that you are safely aboard the ‘Big E’, I have finally managed to get Jack to tell me all about that day in 1964 that Peter and his Captain (D) steamed their ships under the Enterprise’s stern to fight her fires. Peter always fobs me off saying ‘oh that, well there was nothing else to be done’ but Jack has a way of making these things sound like marvellously tall stories!
Jack Griffin had been on the Talavera that day, leading the deck gangs playing the destroyer’s fire hoses on the towering inferno as explosions wracked the great ship’s aft flight deck, and burning debris rained down on the thin-skinned ships close under her transom.
McCain had spoken to a couple of officers who had been on board the carrier that day, men who had approached him when they discovered he was friendly with ‘the Christophers’. From what they had said, had HMS Scorpion and Peter’s HMS Talavera not come to the Big E’s aide that day, things might have turned out a lot worse. The Big ‘E’s fire main had been down for over half-an-hour after that Red Dawn nuke lit off and ignited the fuel and munitions of a dozen aircraft and helicopters parked on her flight deck…
It seemed that Lucy had begun to sit the series of exams which had been preoccupying her in her last letter. She was a bri
ght kid; a little worried that because she was who she was, any poor results, or horror of horrors, failures, would reflect badly on her guardians. Apparently, the situation was complicated by the fact that her elder sisters were ‘brainboxes’ and she felt she had a lot to live up to.
‘Uncle Robert’, Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies had visited Yarralumla. ‘Such a sweet, stern old man’, Lucy reported before remarking that everybody at Yarralumla was a little worried what would happen when the great man resigned the premiership later that year. For the daughter of a Viscount, Lucy had a very keen appreciation of the nuances of the Canberra political hothouse, and a contrary absence of reservations about the very real prospect of the next Australian government being formed by the Labour Party, who had been advocating an increasingly socialist, republican agenda for the last two years. This, despite the uniformly convivial relations between the present incumbents of Yarralumla with all the Australian Labour Party’s leading figures.
Lucy’s letters were full of news about her school, the whirl of receptions, functions, and the minutiae of the running of Government House. The two youngest Christophers, Elisabetta and Miles were her honorary junior siblings, likewise the baby son of Jack Griffin’s wife Mary. McCain had been astonished that Lucy’s Grammar School friends had – official state functions apart – pretty much leave to come and go as they pleased from Yarralumla. All things considered, ignoring her ‘crush’ on him, Lucy was a very level-headed kid.
I think I blotted my copybook last week. My friends know I write to you, I must have blabbed without knowing it. But they knew I was not really very interested in any of the boys in our circle, brothers, and so forth of my friends, I mean. I talked to Marija. I was in a bit of a panic because Yarralumla is such a small village, things always get out sooner or later no matter how hard one tries to keep a secret.
McCain read ahead, worried for Lucy.
He was far too far away, distanced from her obvious angst.
Marija is arranging for the Government House Press Officer to put out a statement that following her example with Peter, she requested that you be my ‘pen pal’, well, one of them, because she and Peter were worried that it was very easy for a fifteen year old to feel lonely ‘stuck all the time in a stuffy old house’ and not able to do ‘so many of the things her friends take for granted because of security worries.’ Marija says this will keep everybody happy.
John McCain sighed.
You must not feel guilty if you only write to me occasionally. Peter has explained to me that the most dangerous job in the Navy, any navy, is flying fast jets and I know that you must be incredibly busy all the time.
His emotions jangled at the girl’s parting thoughts.
I do know that the ‘crush’ is mostly, actually probably all on my side and that it is very good of you to humour me. (But that only shows what a nice man you are). Only, I do not think what I feel is just a ‘crush’ and must hope that you will still be reading and replying to my letters when I am eighteen, and free to make at least some of the decisions in my life without causing you, and everybody around me, embarrassment.
A bell sounded throughout the great ship.
In a few minutes the watch would change.
He needed to get his head in gear.
So, I think Marija is right. If, in three years we are still ‘speaking’ to each other, then our conversation will, perhaps, be different. Until then, please be safe my dear, dear pen friend…
Chapter 20
Thursday 16th May, 1968
Ukrainka-Seryshevo Air Base, Siberia
Major General Vladimir Zakharov was standing at the window of his office, gazing out across the largely empty, redundant expanse of 1950’s concrete laid down when his country still had its pride, and its soul. It was some moments before he reacted to the repeated, respectful knock at the door. He tried not to start drinking until the early evening, or at least until the afternoon; right now, he was tempted to lock himself in his quarters and drink himself into oblivion.
Sooner or later 37th Air Army HQ was going to send somebody to inventory the abandoned war supplies at the base, or perhaps, to establish how exactly he had lost, and subsequently done his best to obstruct the transfer documentation of several of his most experienced operational officers.
The trouble was that both Dmitry Akimov and Olga Petrovna were authentic Heroes of the Soviet Union: the former had done all manner of heroic things in Iraq in 1964; Olga had stood at the top of a thirty-five metre-high rocket gantry next to a fully-fuelled R-16 that day in October 1962, with Yankee bombs and missiles lighting up the horizon all around her, while slide rule in hand she had re-programmed the inertial guidance targeting co-ordinates of what was, by all accounts, the last ICBM to fly before a big bomb obliterated the last surviving units of the 33rd Guards Rocket Army!
They were exactly the sort of people – real, live, authentic heroes – that every commanding officer wanted to be associated with in the hope that a little of their lustre would rub off on their future careers.
Zakharov had toyed with the idea of sending Olga to Vladivostok with orders to return directly to Seryshevo once she had done her turn for the propaganda boys; but knew that would not work. Once those Party hacks finally got their hands on her, they would send her around the USSR – what was left of it – with their bloody Warsaw Concerto ‘peace in our time circus.’
Roll up, roll up!
Meet the woman who fired the last rocket of the Cuban Missiles War; if she can sign up to the new treaty with the Yankees, it must be a good thing!
Of course, Olga had been on this same carousel once before.
The Party had wheeled her out around the time of the invasion of Iran and Iraq; splashed her face across the cover of Pravda, and billboards in a few of the surviving cities like she was a stand-in for Yuri fucking Gagarin!
Zakharov had never discovered the real story about how she had ended up in the Siberian Far East, although he could guess. She had probably told a Party big wig where to go, or rather where to stuff her orders to carrying on playing the part of the brave little rocket girl!
Heroes were only bit players in the tragedy of the age.
The Party raised them up, discarded them, forgot they had ever existed. Until, that was, somebody remembered they might have a use for them again, like stardust sprinkled in the mud exposed by a fresh storm…
Presently, the Commandant of Seryshevo Air Base was obdurately protesting that he could not afford to lose his most senior remaining missile specialist. It was a dangerous ploy; somebody might recollect the two Kh-20 carcasses not sent back to the Urals, which he had erroneously reported to be long ago cannibalised scrap metal. Moreover, sooner or later those clowns at headquarters were going to ask him why he needed officers versed in the eccentricities of the guidance systems of missiles no longer, officially, in the Seryshevo arsenal?
With a sigh he turned away from the bleak vista.
Dmitry Akimov stepped into the room and saluted.
Zakharov nodded for him to shut the door at his back.
“Normally, I ask you what’s gone wrong now?” He grunted, staying on his feet.
Akimov remained silent.
“This time,” his commanding officer went on, scowling, “I’m the one with the bad news. Kirov has been ordered back to Vladivostok. His boss wants to talk to him. The clown hasn’t a clue what it is all about. Or if he is likely to be coming back.”
“Shit!” The junior man groaned. “Olga doesn’t think he knows anything,” he remarked. “I suppose the problem is, we don’t know what his replacement will be like?”
“Knowing our luck, it’ll be one of the true believers in the Party Secretary’s office.”
“Why would Gorbachev’s people send their own spy out here, sir?” Dmitry Akimov countered. He shrugged. “I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see what happens…”
Vladimir Zakharov exploded: “Wait and see what fucking happens!”
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br /> The veteran pilot said nothing.
They were all just one mistake, one unlucky break away from a firing squad, or likely, worse. If they were betrayed, the Party would surely set the dogs of Hell on them. It had been an impossible gamble from the outset; now it looked hopeless.
Akimov wondered if the other man had the same, sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that plagued him. Things seemed to be falling to pieces around them.
Taking the Amerikanskaya Mechta out of service had revealed a score of previously unknown, new defects and time-expired components. Worse, one of her power plants was in pieces on the ground in the nearest hangar to where the giant bomber was parked!
As if that was not bad enough, according to Olga, the whole exercise had got Tatyana Zhukov thinking, and asking questions.
Moreover, they were still no farther forward rebuilding one of the dismantled Kh-20s; and personally, Dmitry Akimov was starting to think that might just a pipe dream, whatever Olga said. Sometimes, determination and undiluted bloody-mindedness did not conquer every obstacle.
On top of that, there were fresh rumours that Seryshevo was going to be shut down as a bomber base earlier than expected; that the Mig-21s of the 452nd and 474th Fighter Regiments would be arriving in July or August.
As for Olga, they might lose her any day.
And now that oaf Andrei Kirov had been summoned to report back to his masters in Vladivostok.
Again, Olga said he knew nothing, and suspected nothing; she had him under her thumb, they ought not to worry about him…but that was before they heard he was going to be called, probably, to account for his tenure as Political Officer at Seryshevo by his new boss.
“Olga plans to see Kirov before he leaves,” Akimov said, wondering if Zakharov’s famously volcanic temper was about to mimic Krakatoa’s eruption in the 1880s.
There was no further explosion.
The Base Commander nodded, sucked his cheeks: “Let me know how that goes, Dmitry.”
Later when the pilot encountered Tatyana Zhukov on board the still indefinitely grounded Amerikanskaya Mechta, surrounded by cabling at bomber’s communications station, the young woman beat him to the verbal punch.