“You were far too busy to absent yourself for the best part of two days,” the man replied emolliently. “Besides, for my sins I was once a soldier and sometimes military men find it easier to be frank with a fellow old soldier.” This said he changed the subject. “I missed President Kennedy’s fireside chat while I was in the air?”
“The President rowed in behind us. He was a real trooper! I listened to the ‘fireside chat’ with Jim Callaghan and Tom Harding-Grayson. They were mightily encouraged and somewhat relieved. Jack Kennedy is having a frightful time convincing Congress to support his line; Lord Franks was astonished he went so far as he did. He’s virtually declared war on his own Party in the House of Representatives.”
Willie Whitelaw had known, or rather known of, Oliver Franks, the British Ambassador to Philadelphia — for the foreseeable future the de facto post Battle of Washington capital of the United States — for many years and regarded him as the best possible man to be representing the United Kingdom’s interests in America.
It was two o’clock in the morning and the Prime Minister had been working through her official Red Boxes — the constant stream of reports, papers and submissions which flowed through her private office — when the Secretary of Defence had arrived back at Government House. She had smiled, ordered him to sit down while she arranged for tea to be brewed and served. Presently, they sat across a low coffee table, cradling their cups and saucers next to a guttering coal fire.
“The naval situation is potentially very worrying,” Willie Whitelaw explained. “Every available ship is being rushed to the Mediterranean but as you know, some thirty percent of the fleet is still in overseas waters and committed to maintaining our ‘presence’, in Australian, New Zealand, South African, Hong Kong, Singapore and other waters as part of the compact informally agreed with Commonwealth and other countries to facilitate Operation Manna. That part of the active fleet which is now in Home Waters is mostly in very urgent need refitting or replenishment, and drafts of experienced men have been taken from many of those ships to bring the crews of ships in the Mediterranean up to war strength, or to form new training cadres in the United Kingdom. The case of the Ark Royal illustrates the situation perfectly. The ship and her men are exhausted after a year of continuous operations. The ship needs many months in dock and her men are frankly, somewhat jaded. HMS Eagle, our other large aircraft carrier is just out of dockyard hands, and by transplanting several hundred men from the Ark Royal into her complement and transferring Ark Royal’s somewhat depleted air group, I am informed that she may be fit for limited operations sometime in the next month or so.”
“But the Hermes is available?”
“Another tired ship with a depleted air group. Hermes is currently en route for Malta at her best speed, currently around sixteen knots. In certain sea condition she can fly off fast jets, but without all her machinery working in tip top form she will struggle to land any aircraft she launches safely. That leaves HMS Victorious as our only available fleet carrier in the theatre. And she is still relatively freshly out of dock and is carrying only half her designated air group. These problems are common, to one degree or another, across the whole Mediterranean Fleet, Margaret. The depth of our problem may be best expressed by the fact that Admiral Christopher is hoping to send HMS Sheffield to join the Victorious battle group. One of HMS Sheffield’s three main turrets is wrecked and she cannot steam faster than eighteen knots. He won’t even know if the ship is seaworthy until she runs trials off Malta in the coming days.”
“But that’s…”
“Madness?” Willie Whitelaw suppressed a yawn. “I think not. The First Sea Lord reminded me of something Sir Julian’s Second World War predecessor, Admiral Cunningham said during the Battle of Crete, something along the lines of while it takes two or three years to build a ship, it takes hundreds of years to build a tradition. I know you speak to Sir Julian every few days and you will believe me when I say that he is in no way downcast. The transfer of American aircraft to Gibraltar and Malta increases ‘Allied’ air power in the theatre and thus far, although Red Dawn — if it is not Red Dawn then it is something equally inimical to our vital strategic interests in the region — obviously has significant naval forces and possibly, armies on land, we have thus far seen little evidence of a comparative modern air striking force. In fact, Red Dawn seems to completely lack an air component. Nevertheless, Operation Reclaim is on hold for forty-eight to seventy-two hours pending developments.”
“Developments? Such as?”
“Other than HMS Dreadnought we have virtually no intelligence gathering capability in the vicinity of Crete or in the Aegean. As for Asia Minor we are blind. The CIA mounted a U-2 mission to overfly Istanbul, the central Aegean and the length of Crete yesterday but photographic analysis hadn’t commenced by the time my flight left Malta. All the US Air Force people who do that sort of work were in transit from Aviano yesterday. RAF Luqa is like an oriental bazaar at the moment. Honestly, Prime Minister, you wouldn’t credit how much equipment our American allies had stashed away at Aviano! Plane after plane is unloading all the time! Our chaps out there feel like comparative paupers!”
There was a quiet knock at the door.
“Come in!” Margaret Thatcher called.
James Callaghan, the Deputy Prime Minister looked like he had just been awakened from a deep sleep. Sir Thomas Harding-Grayson seemed only a little less discommoded.
Chairs were drawn up around the still glowing embers in the hearth, and there was a pause in proceedings while the Prime Minister made sure her new guests had cups of tea.
The Foreign Secretary yawned and rubbed his eyes. His tie was a little askew and his threadbare jacket needed pressing; he had probably come over without disturbing his wife, Lady Patricia.
At the Prime Minister’s prompting Willie Whitelaw briefed the newcomers, adroitly summarising what he’d already reported to Margaret Thatcher.
“So, we still don’t know what Red Dawn intends?” Jim Callaghan groaned. “Just that it appears to have a lot of ships we didn’t know about until a week or two ago and the whole Aegean seems to be in its hands?”
Tom Harding-Grayson frowned wearily.
“If a number of major ex-Soviet surface warships survived the October War then it is likely that a number of ex-Soviet submarines survived also. As we learned to our cost fifteen months ago, some of their submarines carry nuclear-tipped torpedoes, Margaret.”
“Yes,” the Angry Widow acknowledged tersely.
“Sir Julian is not unaware of this possibility,” Willie Whitelaw remarked.
“I spoke to the American Ambassador before I came over,” Tom Harding-Grayson said to the room in general. “Walter Brenckmann says that when the Enterprise battle group arrives off Gibraltar, the USS Enterprise and the USS Long Beach, the two nuclear-powered ships will proceed directly into the Western Mediterranean and proceed at their best speed to Malta.”
The Defence Secretary coughed.
“Several of the Enterprise’s escorting vessels will need to oil and provision at the Rock before proceeding into the Med,” he explained. “In the event they don’t catch up with her in time Sir Julian plans to send vessels pencilled in to join HMS Hermes’s squadron to meet the Enterprise.”
“When can we expect the Enterprise to reach Gibraltar, Willie?” Jim Callaghan inquired.
“Thursday at the earliest. There’s a huge storm system in the North Atlantic presently. Even pulling out all the stops,” he shrugged, “she probably won’t be in a position to support our forces in the Eastern Mediterranean for a week to ten days.”