Alan Hannay frowned, not knowing if his new captain was pulling his leg.
“Er, I don’t understand, sir?” He confessed.
Peter Christopher shut the day cabin door behind them.
“Ask him nicely. Things will work out better that way. You’ve never been to sea Alan. On a ship this size the senior Chief Petty Officer is closely related to God. I can give him a direct order, so can the Executive officer on a good day, and when he’s at home in England Mrs McCann can give him a direct order,” he smiled, “and perhaps, my father.”
“Right you are, sir. I’ll mind my Ps and Qs with Chief Petty Officer McCann.”
As if on cue there was a knock at the door.
“Come!”
Spider McCann and Lieutenant Miles Weiss came in.
“Mister McCann,” Peter Christopher announced, “this is our new Supply Officer, Lieutenant Hannay. I’d be obliged if you’d detail somebody to show him around the ship.”
The small, chiselled little man eyed the newcomer. His hard, unblinking stare was studiously neutral, forensically intense.
“Welcome aboard, sir!”
“Thank you, er, Mister McCann.”
Miles Weiss put his hands on his hips as he watched the unlikely duo depart.
“Hannay must be mad waving goodbye to a cushy berth at HQ at a time like this?”
“I’m astonished my father let him go, actually.”
“Resurgent has two hundred rounds of four point five inch AP and about a hundred Common. That’ll leave us about a quarter light, sir.”
“We’ll take whatever she’ll give us, Guns. Don’t forget to let our new Supply officer have your wish list.”
“The engineering ‘wish list’ alone is more like a volume of War and Peace, sir!”
“Well, in that case we’ll find out what Mr Hannay is made of sooner rather than later. I’ve got a conference on Scorpion in an hour so I better get my skates on.” The two young men, friends without an obvious care in the World before the October War, exchanged rueful looks. “I’ll leave the ship in your capable hands then!”
They very nearly laughed out loud; neither of them actually believed the Navy would be so stupid as to give them a real fleet destroyer to play with. Not so long ago Miles Weiss had had his guns and missiles, and Peter Christopher had had his smorgasbord of expensive, ultra-sophisticated radar and electronic warfare wizardry; two pigs in shit couldn’t possibly have been happier; now they owned the whole ship!
Aboard HMS Scorpion Captain ‘D’s’ day cabin was crowded. The captains of the other ships of the 7th Destroyer Squadron; HMS Aisne, HMS Oudenarde and HMS Broadsword had each brought their executive officers. Peter Christopher was very aware that in terms of seniority he was significantly junior to the four other lieutenant-commanders in the cabin.
Captain Nicholas Davey called the conference to order.
“After yesterday’s excitement,” he chortled. Everybody guffawed. The previous day four United States Air Force F-104 Starfighters had approached Maltese air space without turning on their IFF — Identification Friend or Foe — transponders and the ground controller at Luqa had declared an alert. It transpired that half the air raid shelters had been locked and both Luqa and Ta’Qali had been so choked with aircraft of every conceivable type that it had been impossible to scramble a single additional interceptor to support the existing combat air patrol. Urgent remedial measures were being taken to rectify both issues. Helicopter operations had already been transferred to alternative fields, including Hal Far, which had been de-activated when RAF Luqa’s runway was extended, freeing up tarmac space at the two main bases. “Yes, after yesterday’s excitement it seems that things are pretty grim in Cyprus and on the Turkish mainland. One of our submarines sank a whole invasion convoy but HMS Salisbury was sunk by air attack and HMS Decoy badly damaged. Victorious is now close enough to provide minimal air cover for the initial evacuation. I don’t know exactly what that means but at least something is happening and we’re not completely on the back foot. The Big Cats,” the cruisers Lion and Tiger, “are on their way to support the Victorious. Anybody who has strolled along the side of Lazaretto Creek knows that the poor old Sheffield isn’t now going to attempt to catch up with the Big Cats. The latest plan is she’ll offload all inessential personnel and anchor in the Grand Harbour, probably behind the northern breakwater as a floating gun battery. As to our fate,” he grinned wolfishly, “We’re off to greet our American friends in the morning, gentlemen!”
Chapter 49
HMS Scorpion was the first of the long, sleek grey hunters to slip her moorings, glide out of Sliema Creek into Marsamxett and point her clipper bow towards the open sea.
Marija had grown up in a household where the men all worked, or were destined to work, in the Admiralty Dockyards. The men of her family, including most of her uncles and cousins were therefore, self-appointed connoisseurs of naval architecture and design. This meant that all she had to do was glimpse a silhouette on the horizon for a split second and she instantly knew the speed, armament, sea going characteristics, machinery layouts and each and every one of the mechanical quirks and foibles of that particular class of vessel. Moreover, ever since Peter had finally followed in his father’s footsteps, his letters had been full of nonsense about advanced and horribly sophisticated electrical, sensing and ‘computational’ — she had no idea what this term meant — devices; she had thus acquired a sound working familiarity with the ships of the Mediterranean Fleet that, had he known about it, any Soviet spy worth his salt would have given his eye teeth to possess…
But of course her brother Samuel had been exactly that hadn’t he?
As she stood beneath the sheltering round tower of antique Fort Tigne on the highest vantage point of Point Dragutt opposite St Elmo’s Bay, Valletta, Marija and her companions had ring side seats from which to watch the departure of the 7th Destroyer Squadron.
Marija’s mind was still in flux, a hopeless chaos of jangling thoughts as she came to terms with the new reality of her life. Peter had seen her at her worst, beaten down and with her face a mess, humiliated beyond measure and all he had wanted to do was hold her in his arms until the bad things went away. She had never wanted him to let her go.
‘I’m sorry,’ he had said all too soon. ‘I have to go. My ship…’
She had understood. Really, she had understood.
‘I thought we’d have more time to get used to things. Talk about the future,’ he’d apologised. ‘But things are,’ he had shrugged, ‘strange.’
Marija had nodded her agreement.
The only thing that mattered was that he was here and he was still her Peter.
‘Marry me, please?’ He had asked without further preamble. ‘Marry me and we’ll sort out the rest of our life later.’
Marija had nodded and started crying again.
He had wrapped her in his arms until it was time to go.
‘Yes,” she had said. ‘Yes, yes, yes…’
This morning she needed to rediscover her lost equilibrium. The last few days had been filled with madness and she had to re-find her balance, silence the cacophony of competing voices in her head.
She gazed at HMS Scorpion. She’d always thought a scorpion was a bug with a horribly painful sting; but apparently a Scorpion was also some kind of medieval ballista used in siege warfare. Her father had told her this and many other completely useless, oddly fascinating things about the ships he had worked on over the years.