Marija was genuinely baffled and since she did not subscribe to the view that she ought to be seen but not heard when in public with her illustrious husband, asked a question before Peter could get a word in edgewise.
“But the Americans have betrayed us?”
“Yes,” Sir Varyl Begg admitted. “But we can’t afford to get carried away with newspaper headlines and suchlike. We and the Americans have more things in common than not. For example, we don’t want to be at each other’s throats, ever again. Whatever, our political leaders might say. The Royal Navy will keep transatlantic channels of communication open. At the urging of the government I am sending Sir Peter and a small supporting ‘team’ to our embassy in Philadelphia to work with Lord Franks, our ambassador, to ensure that whatever else goes wrong that we never again stop talking to our American friends.”
“Oh,” Marija sighed, suddenly afraid she was going to be separated from her husband of less than two months, again.
Peter Christopher had digested what he had been told and was immediately able to put Marija’s mind at rest.
“For extended overseas diplomatic postings it is normal for officers to be accompanied for the full duration of that service by their spouses and families, my love,” he said softly, bending his lips down to her ear. He straightened and met the First Sea Lord’s gaze. “Might I inquire as to the makeup of my ‘team’, sir?”
“Who do you have in mind, Sir Peter?”
“Alan Hannay as my number two, acting in the capacity of my personal and social secretary, sir. I’ll need a security presence, as opposed to a detail, I have in mind Chief Petty Officer Griffin to head it.”
“Griffin? The fellow who was on the torpedo tubes with Lady Marija’s brother?” The query was partly rhetorical because the First Sea Lord knew who Jack Griffin was, and his chequered history.
Marija sensed his disquiet.
“Jack won’t let us down in America,” she said in a tone which brooked no dissent.
And so it was settled.
“We’ll send you all over to New York in style on the Queen Mary,” Sir Varyl Begg declared, sealing the deal. “That will give the Ministry of Information people plenty of time to plot their ‘charm offensive’ with the Americans.”
Peter wanted to say he had hoped to have another seagoing command, that the fight was unfinished and that his place was not thousands of miles away from the action. He made no such protest; knowing it was pointless. The Navy and as importantly, the Ministry of Information wanted him mending old fences, building new bridges across the Atlantic and generally reminding all and sundry that the United Kingdom remained a going concern. Diplomatically and probably militarily, a time of famine and distrust was besetting the two old allies; and he and Marija were being sent to the United States in an attempt to limit the damage.
“The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for Information will brief you fully before your departure. The Queen Mary will be sailing from Southampton on the 30th of this month.”
Alan Hannay had seen the First Sea Lord button-holing his friends and once the coast was clear he, with Rosa Calleja inseparably attached to his left arm, approached Peter and Marija.
“We are all going to America,” Marija announced.
“Oh. I thought that was enemy territory?” Alan Hannay grimaced.
Peter Christopher had been lost in his thoughts.
It had been a peculiar day all round.
First there was Marija’s marvellous news. Then the inspection of the assembled surviving Talavera’s and Yarmouths; and the parade bathed in kind, unexpected sunshine along streets thronged with waving and cheering people, the march past and salute — with Her Majesty, literally propped up, flanked by her consort, Prince Philip, and most of the UAUK’s senior members — and the investiture a little later in the great quadrangle of King’s College.
His father’s sword, flown back to England from Malta, felt odd at his side; likewise the full dress uniform adorned with a whole row of campaign and other medals he had not known he had been awarded until a day or two ago.
Two splendidly ornamented ladies in waiting had hovered — one to each shoulder — to catch the Queen if she faltered during the investiture.
The Victoria Cross hung heavily on his breast as afterwards he stood to the front of the parade beside his fellow VC, and Talavera’s former Master at Arms, Nevil Spider McCann, the man who had kept the destroyer afloat long enough to fire her torpedoes. The Queen had presented Commander John Pope’s VC to his widow, Mary, a tearfully proud brunette accompanied by her sons, aged twelve and ten. Her Majesty had spoken to the Pope boys like a fondly protective aunt, and placed a comforting arm on Mary Pope’s arm. Chief Petty Officer Stanley George who had taken command of the wrecked Yarmouth as she reeled away from the battle, had been the fourth man to receive his VC.
Joseph Calleja, cutting a somewhat paler and reduced figure from his stockier, fleshy pre-Battle of Malta self, had been the first man presented to the Queen. The Maltese dockyard electrician who had been sacked by the Royal Naval Dockyards of Malta — several days before he jumped onboard HMS Talavera when all his fellows were leaping ashore — on account of his trade union activism and openly avowed Marxist politics, had stepped shyly up to the diminutive figure of his monarch to receive his George Cross.
He had leaned close to hear what the Queen was saying to him.
He had responded in a hoarse whisper that had failed to carry to the ranks behind him; she had talked again. Their conversation had only ended after about a minute.
Joe Calleja had smiled, bowed his head and stepped back.
There had been tears in his eyes as he had walked to join Marija, who was standing a little to one side surrounded by government ministers and several large, heavily armed Royal Marines.
Brother and sister had hugged as if they had not seen each other for ten years…
Peter Christopher looked to his wife now and she returned his gaze. They were suddenly like islands in the stream, the room was moving around them, and they were uncaring, oblivious of anything but each other.
He quirked a smile and she reflected it back for they were attuned precisely to each other’s thoughts.
“Well, Lady Marija,” Peter Christopher remarked wryly, “it seems that fate has decreed that our daughter will be born in America…”
Chapter 25
Forty-six year old Gamal Abdel Nasser, since 1956 the President of the Egyptian Republic halted in the long, vaulted cloister and raised his right hand in greeting at the approach of his old friend and fellow ‘Free Officer’ from the revolutionary days of 1952.
Muhammad Anwar El Sadat, the man who was in all but name Nasser’s deputy, was a dapper, lean man in exactly the way his friend and leader was not. Where Nasser was a broad, increasingly heavy-set man who cut a commanding figure by sheer dint of his physical presence and spoke with a compelling gravitas or impassioned eloquence as the occasion required, Sadat cut a slighter figure. The same age and military generation as his friend, Sadat was a cerebral, calculating man who had only really come to the fore since the Cuban Missiles War. Previously, he had been one of several confidantes of the President, now there were those in Cairo who whispered that he was the ‘power behind the throne’. This was untrue, no man in the regime was more devoted to or loyal to Nasser than Anwar Sadat; but the rumours and the gossip irritated both men. Like many men who had come to power in a coup d’état they were intensely preoccupied with notions of ‘legitimacy’ and forever looking over their shoulders to see where the next threat was coming from.