“Prime Minister, the fewer people who know that, the better. Wavell is horribly outnumbered in North Africa and as soon as Mussolini moves against him, his entire position will crumble. With it, the credibility of the Dominions as independent powers will be crushed and they will be forced to come back to us, cap in hand, to rescue them from the wreckage. I would urge, though, that we do not let matters reach that pass. We can approach Signore Mussolini now and offer him a ceasefire; one that returns to the prewar boundaries. We have a window of opportunity here; one where the balance of power is in our favor. We should take advantage of it.”
Halifax looked out of the window, at the miserable darkness of a British winter. There had been plenty of dry weather during December, and the rain that had fallen during the month was mainly light. The temperature was on the way down, though; there had already been several slight frosts. That wasn’t the reason for the grayness that seemed to blanket the country.
Halifax could sense what was really the problem. The atmosphere of reluctance to accept defeat; a resentment at the way the war had been suddenly ended. Now, with the news of the Commonwealth victories in East Africa, there was a growing sensation that the Armistice had been a mistake.
To make matters worse, the demands from Germany were growing.
Some of them had been quite reasonable, Halifax had thought at the time.
Closer economic ties between Germany and Britain, for example. The Germans were placing large orders with British factories. The shipyards were building merchant ships for German companies; light engineering groups, a variety of supplies. Then, the Germans had asked for the use of a small number of British airfields so they could improve surveillance of the eastern Atlantic. Tangmere had been one such airfield; Manston another. There had been a few more. A handful of German reconnaissance aircraft on a handful of British airfields hadn’t been too high a price to pay for peace.
“Very well, RAB. Instruct our Ambassador in Rome to seek an appointment with Mussolini so we can negotiate a ceasefire.”
“Perhaps it was for the best after all?”
Lieutenant Colonel Beaumont sounded almost amused by the situation. Standing beside him, Captain Robert Stewart couldn’t help smiling.
Any reply was forestalled by Australia’s eight-inch guns crashing out a salvo. A thousand yards a stern, HMAS Canberra fired at the same target: an orderly group of buildings that were the home of the Italian garrison. The buildings were empty and deserted. Early in the morning, a Sunderland flying boat out of Aden had dropped leaflets on the area, warning everybody that the base would be bombarded at noon and that anybody who did not want to see what eight-inch shell bursts looked like at close quarters ought to evacuate.
“The warning leaflets?” Stewart shook his head. “I can only think that we’ve got some very good intelligence on this garrison. Otherwise, those leaflets could cost us dear.”
“I meant getting thrown out of the old country.” Beaumont looked back on the last few weeks with almost fond exasperation. His battalion had disembarked from Australia, and been divested of all their extra equipment, before being put on trains and sent over to the Pacific Coast. There, they’d been put on a hastily-commandeered liner and sailed for the Middle East. They got there just in time to match up with Australia again. They’d been threequarters of the way around the world to end up more or less where they had started. His thoughts were interrupted by the ship shaking as another pair of broadsides crashed out.
A group of boats was assembling in the water between the two
cruisers and the shoreline. They contained two battalions of Canadian infantry; an extemporized expeditionary brigade under Beaumont’s command. It was a mark of just how stretched the Commonwealth was for troops that they were here at all. With the South Africans committed in East Africa, the Indians in Eritrea and Ethiopia and the Australians and New Zealanders in Egypt, these two battalions of Canadian troops were about the only available forces that could be found. It was the old story; wait six months, let the mobilization take effect, wait until the men being trained were ready and all would be well. Only, the war had its own momentum; it wouldn’t wait.
“Sir, the landing force commander wishes to speak with you.” The sparker had a radio set positioned on the bridge for just this eventuality.
“Mark, what’s going on?”
“The Italians are waiting for us.” There was the sound of teeth being sucked around the bridge. The troops having to fight their way ashore had been the worst-case scenario.
“Are they putting up much of a fight?”
“No, sir. They’re drawn up in parade formation on the beach. About sixty of them, waving a white flag.” There was a pause. “Sir, war can be very embarrassing sometimes.”
“Sir, I must ask you for your assistance.” Colonel Nerio Amedeo Amerigo was almost completely white and was barely able to stand. “My men are accursed by malaria. Only a handful are in fit condition for duty; the rest need medical attention urgently. I implore you to send as much aid as you can spare. Our own doctor, Rosa Dainelli, is overwhelmed and without supplies.”
Beumont took a horrified look at the desperately ill man before him. His condition was no worse, and no better, than that of the other Italian soldiers on the beach. “You paraded your men in this condition? In the sun?”
“It was necessary for us to surrender honorably.”
Beaumont nodded and turned to his radioman. “Get word to the cruisers and the two transports. Tell them we need every medic and every ounce of quinine here right away. Colonel, we will transfer your men to the transports Chakdina and Chantala immediately. We will do everything in our power for you.”
“We knew it was coming.” Maitland Wilson sounded infinitely depressed. “That Man cannot maintain a purpose from one minute to the next.”
“He’s maintaining a purpose, Jumbo; and, from his point of view, it is a very logical one. He’s trying to gain the maximum credit for his administration at minimum cost. Since our operations began, we’ve cleared the Italians out of Kenya, made a landing in Somaliland and pushed the Italians back in Eritrea. That’s a pretty impressive set of achievements and he wants to take full advantage of them now before they fade away.” Wavell sighed slightly and looked out of his window at Cairo bustling in the afternoon sun. “I think I understand him better for this. That Man does not believe he can win, ever. He assumes that no matter how well things appear to be running, they will always turn around and move against him. So his eyes are set short; to take what advantages he can seize in the short term, for he believes that the long term will always hold worse.”
Maitland Wilson looked at the telegraph message from London and his mouth twisted. “He’s certainly looking at the short term here. We are ordered to cease all offensive actions against Italy immediately, pending the outcome of ceasefire negotiations between London and the Government of Italy. The Ambassador to Rome is seeking an audience with Benito Mussolini today to negotiate the terms of said ceasefire. We all know that that means. Musso will shout and scream, waving his hands like a demented fishwife, then make some appalling threats. That Man will read them and back down, giving Musso everything he wants.”