“Sort out these fellows,” he grunted, forcing a smile for the sake of the harassed diplomat.
Leading Electrical Artificer Jack Griffin folded his arms and glared at the other men spilling from the ancient bus.
“You heard what the officer said!” He bellowed menacingly. “Form up in a line! Mind your spacing! And shut your traps until the dignitary has got back into his car! Any questions?”
Nobody had any questions.
Only five of the twenty men on the ‘airport detail’ were survivors from HMS Talavera, the rest were new recruits who’d got off a plane from England the previous day. The new recruits were the ones in the brand new uniforms. Talavera’s survivors, Peter Christopher included, were decked out in borrowed, ill-fitting rigs and all of them still showed the bumps, bruises and bandages of the desperate battle to save their ship.
“Who the Devil is this in aid of, Sir Richard?” HMS Talavera’s former Electronic Warfare Officer asked wearily. He’d had two nights nightmare-ridden sleep since he’d been sent ashore in Oporto. Nobody would tell him what the Navy planned to do with him; trying to get information about Talavera and the disposition of the surviving members of his Division was a waste of time, and he resented kicking his heels on a wet aerodrome when all he really wanted to do was to get back to sea. He’d overheard loose talk about the Hermes Battle Group and the RAF giving ‘Franco’s boys what for’ but otherwise he hadn’t a clue what else was going on in the World.
“The Prime Minister of Portugal wishes to meet with and shake the hands of several of the heroes of the Battle of Cape Finisterre,” the older man replied with a forced calm. “What he particularly wants, I suspect, is to have his picture taken shaking the hand of the son of the man who has recently been made Supreme Commander of British Forces in the Mediterranean. Had Prime Minister Salazar declined to assist HMS Talavera and HMS Devonshire by opening Portuguese waters to the Royal Navy,” he hesitated, throwing a look over his shoulder at the transports, bombers, jet fighters and helicopters parked and moving around the airfield, “and assisted in your rescue to the absolute limit of his available resources, you wouldn’t be standing here now. HMG requires you to comport yourself in the best traditions of the Service.”
Peter’s expression became one of bemusement.
What was the Ambassador talking about?
“My father is no longer C-in-C Pacific Fleet, sir?”
“Goodness, you really have been all at sea!”
The younger man didn’t think this was a particularly sympathetic or helpful comment and his irritation was barely contained when he spoke.
“Yes, sir. I have been ‘all at sea’ lately.”
“Forgive me,” Sir Richard Templar apologised, instantly realising that in his anxiety he’d been unforgivably crass. “Your esteemed father, Sir Julian, has been appointed the new Commander-in-Chief of all British and Commonwealth Forces in the Mediterranean Theatre of Operations. His command includes everything from the Atlantic approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar to Cyprus and the miscellaneous enclaves we still hold in the Middle East.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. You said ‘Sir’ Julian?”
“He was knighted for his role in Operation Manna by Her Majesty shortly before he departed to take up his new command at Malta.”
“Oh, I see.”
“According to the telegram I got from the Foreign Office,” Sir Richard continued, “Her Majesty was pleased to make Sir Julian a baronet, the first such since the October War. There was some confusion in Cheltenham initially, I gather, because Her Majesty also administered an accolade…”
Peter Christopher was staring at the older man now.
“Her Majesty dubbed Sir Julian’s shoulders with the flat of a sword,” the older man explained, exasperated at the ignorance of the younger generation. “That’s a knightly thing. A baronetcy is the only hereditary honour in Her Majesty’s gift which is not a peerage. It is superior to any knighthood except that of membership of the Order of the Garter.”
“So my father has been knighted,” Peter Christopher checked, quizzically, “but even though he’s now ‘Sir Julian’, he’s not really a knight?”
“He’s perfectly entitled to the appellation ‘Sir’!” Exclaimed the British Ambassador in exasperation. “As will you be if you survive your father!”
“Oh, I see.”
Sir Richard Templar shut his eyes for a moment.
“Good, I’m glad we sorted that out,” he groaned.
Two big black — rather elderly — cars were approaching.
Peter Christopher had decided the greying, stooped Ambassador was giving him a very odd look.
“What is it, sir?”
“Nothing. Nothing. I knew your father when he was your age. It is uncanny, the family resemblance, I mean. Uncanny…” Sir Richard stumbled away to greet António de Oliveira Salazar, the Dictator of Portugal.
Salazar impressed Peter Christopher as a mild-mannered, softly spoken man with a somewhat reluctant smile. He seemed far too harmless to be one of the two surviving pre-World War II dictators. He looked a little younger than his seventy-four years, but still somewhat tired and grey.
“I trust you are recovered from your injuries, Commander Christopher?” The old man asked solicitously, in lightly accented English.
“Very nearly, sir. The Royal Navy will be eternally in your country’s debt for everything that you’ve done for us in the last few days, sir.” Peter Christopher could imagine Sir Richard Templar almost swooning with relief. Just because he was one of the new ‘technical’ officers in the Navy it didn’t mean he didn’t know how to comport himself in public. For all that he’d joined the Navy to play with its ludicrously expensive ‘toys’ it didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of, and enthralled by the traditions of the Senior Service. He belonged to a band of brother that traced its spiritual lineage back to the coterie of captains who’d gathered around Admiral Lord Nelson’s table before the Battle of Trafalgar. To Peter Christopher the Royal Navy was the living embodiment of everything that was best in his nation; and he was fiercely, indefatigably proud of it. He knew what was expected of him and he played his part in the morning’s small drama as if to the manner born. “My men,” a flick of the eyes momentarily to his left where the parade line stood, “the Royal Navy and my country are in the debt of the Portuguese people, sir.” A respectful nod. “And to you, sir!”
“In these times it is important for nations to know who they may call their friends,” António de Oliveira Salazar declared, evidently more than satisfied with what he’d just heard.
Two flash bulbs exploded and Peter politely, respectfully without being overly deferential, invited the old man to review ‘your honour guard, sir.’
Ten minutes later he gave the order for the honour guard to stand easy as he watched the dignitaries drive off into the mist.
“The bus will take your men back to the Consul’s office down on the waterfront,” Sir Richard Templar explained, mopping his brow with a white handkerchief. “The Naval Attaché has set up shop down there. If you’re lucky he should have your orders by now.”
The younger man didn’t ask what those orders might be. He half-expected to be put on a flight back to England in the next day or so and if that was to be his fate he wasn’t in a hurry to embrace it.
“You’re all off to the Hermes,” he was told by a middle-aged, sallow-faced Commander. “Weather and the Spanish Air Force permitting, I’ve got you pencilled in for the first Wessex shuttle tomorrow morning. Make sure you and,” he paused to consult a checklist, “LEA Griffin are at the airport at eight tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.”