Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud did not need a Westerner to tell him what was patently obvious to the humblest beggar in Riyadh. This was after all why the prevailing mood within the Saudi government was one best categorised as ‘barely contained panic’.
Had it not been for the Crown Prince’s veto the Saudi Army would already have broken into the ‘American Depots’. The Defence Minister had also spoken against such a precipitate and irreversible move but not out of any consideration for the likely reaction of the United States. His concerns were wholly prosaic; he did not have a sufficiently large cadre of trained men to use the majority of the weaponry stored at Jeddah or Dhahran and in the camp outside Riyadh. Untrained conscripts from the backstreets of the Kingdom’s cities, or the sons of desert wanderers could not suddenly learn to drive and fight an M-48 tank, or handle a howitzer, let alone fly a modern jet aircraft, or for that matter, any kind of aircraft. Moreover, large stocks of general munitions — thousands of tons of shells and bombs — posed insuperable problems to his forces; if he let his people break into those depots they would probably inadvertently blow up the damned places!
“The Kennedy Administration believes that the Soviets may content themselves with seizing the oilfields of Iraqi Kurdistan. The Central Intelligence Agency says that the Russians are too weak to invade the whole of Iraq. The Soviets have already decapitated the regime in Iran,” Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud involuntarily winced as he said this, mindful of the grainy movie of the execution of the Shah of Iran, copies of which had mysteriously been delivered to several key ministries in Riyadh in the last week, “perhaps, all they plan to do is threaten your Imperial fief at Abadan?”
This savagely pointed barb bounced of Tom Harding-Grayson.
The British Foreign Secretary put aside the hypocrisy of being taunted about ‘Imperialism’ by a man who was currently in his present elevated post only because he happened to be one of the thirty or forty offspring of a former monarch of the Kingdom.
“No, Your Highness. That is not the objective of the Soviet High Command.”
It was stated in a tone as unequivocal as the words.
Prince Abdulaziz Al Saud’s eyes narrowed.
“How can you be sure, Sir Thomas?”
The Englishman smiled thinly.
“The Red Army will drive south to the Persian Gulf, Your Highness,” he said. “It will assault Abadan. There is nothing you or I can do about that. True, we could start another nuclear war but I think we’ve all come to the conclusion that’s not a terribly good idea. The RAF is flying in reinforcements every day but without heavy equipment and munitions we’re up a creek without a proverbial paddle. Every available tank and armoured vehicle in the United Kingdom has been or is being loaded onto fast merchantmen and sent to the Gulf via the Cape of Good Hope. There’s even talk of rushing HMS Ark Royal out of dry dock and using her for a fast run around the Cape loaded to the gunnels with all manner of war supplies. But hardly any of that will arrive in time to be any use. Unless, of course, the Kingdom and its neighbours join us in the fight to save your oilfields and your systems of government and belief from the Godless interlopers who mean to crush you all beneath the heel of a new Marxist-Leninist monster.”
Chapter 29
Notwithstanding that the American government, the newspapers, and the radio and television networks were horribly negative, even derisive about everything that the ‘old country’ touched, the two young Maltese women had adored practically everything else about America. Neither they nor their husbands had encountered so much as a scintilla of personal hostility since they had disembarked from the Queen Mary; to the contrary, they had been greeted — feted indeed — as if they were movie stars. Thus, it was with only mild trepidation but without surprise that the two sisters emerged from the sepulchral splendour of the Cathedral onto the steps down to North 18th Street to be greeted by an even larger than usual crowd. There were the normal photographers, a cordon of Philadelphia Police Department men, their own bodyguards — led by Chief Petty Officer Jack Griffin, proudly wearing his scars from the Battle of Malta — and perhaps a hundred or more Philadelphians simply wanting to catch a glimpse of the visiting celebrities.
These ‘events’ had already developed their own rhythms and unwritten protocols. Marija and Rosa would pose shyly for the newspaper photographers, and smile nicely. The husbands would shift on their feet in the background like two self-effacing Englishmen abroad who honestly and truly did not know what all the fuss was about; and before they made their escape the couples would briefly hold hands separately, concluding events by standing together for one final photo call and a self-conscious wave to the bystanders.
Often, as today, they would be cheered as they drove away in the big Embassy cars in which they were obliged to travel in the city.
The Ambassador had been very insistent about how they were to travel around the city.
‘The average American citizen is by nature welcoming, friendly and wishes you nothing but happiness,’ Lord Franks had explained. ‘But as experience in Washington showed in December there are also some very strange and some very dangerous people about. In the city you must be careful at all times.’
Not that there was any chance of not being careful when Jack Griffin was in charge of one’s security detail. Not only did their faithful guard dog growl and scowl at anybody who remotely gave his charges — particularly his ‘ladies’ — a cross look, at all times he was at pains to broadcast the impression that if anybody got out of line he would not hesitate to crack their skull.
This morning the women jumped into the first car; knowing their husbands would want to talk about ‘Navy’ matters, specifically about their forthcoming trip to Norfolk, Virginia, home to the US Atlantic Fleet. Jack Griffin had held the door for the women, scowling watchfully at the nearby crowd before dropping into the front passenger seat beside the driver. He was never far away when ‘the girls’ were outside the protection of the Embassy compound.
“What a lovely service,” Rosa Hannay declared breathlessly. She was beginning to get over the sensation that she was completely in her sister’s shadow. Until she had married Lieutenant-Commander Alan Hannay, DSO, two days before embarking on the Queen Mary at Southampton the women had been ‘sisters-in-law’, now they were just sisters and basically, each other’s best friends. They were both newly married, transported thousands of miles from the misery which might have otherwise plagued them had they still been in their native Malta, and each was positively drunk on a diet of exciting new places, sights and sounds. And unashamedly a little overwhelmed by America, with which they were fast falling into love.
It was the second Sunday that they had attended Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. The Cathedral was magnificent and it was hard to believe it was, in the scale of things, so young.
The Embassy staff had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the two ‘Navy couples’. The advent of two newlywed catholic girls married to ‘heroes’ who had if not embraced, then taken onboard their wives’ Catholicism, had been seized upon by their Ministry of Information ‘minders’ with delight.
There had been an early and very public introduction to the Catholic Arch Bishop of Philadelphia, John Krol, who had proudly taken them on a tour of his ‘church’. Designed by Napoleon LeBrun who had also designed the Academy of Music in the city and later the Masonic Temple and a host of other ecclesiastical buildings in New York, the Cathedral had been built between 1846 and 1864. The Cathedral was, and remained the largest Catholic church in Philadelphia — and incidentally, the city’s largest brownstone structure — capable of seating two thousand worshippers. Built in a Romano Corinthian style it was modelled on the Lombard Church of San Carlo al Corso in Rome. According to Arch Bishop Krol its Palladian façade and aqua oxidized-copper dome drew on influences from the Italian Renaissance.