“The Happy ‘H’?” Jack Griffin chuckled when he learned his fate.
“Out of the frying pan in to the fire,” Peter remarked. “They’ve got you down as an ‘Officer’s Steward’ on your papers.”
Both men laughed.
The Naval Attaché was handing out new accommodation chits.
“Hotel Armada de Tagus,” Peter Christopher’s ‘Steward’ muttered, reading his chit. “Sounds like a dive?”
Peter Christopher didn’t care.
There were only two things on his personal agenda between now and tomorrow morning: writing a letter to Marija, and catching up on his sleep.
Much to Jack Griffin’s disappointment the Armada de Tagus was a genteel, old-world sort of rest house that usually catered for retired civil servants and naval officers. It had about it the faded glory of the days when Portugal had been in the first rank of European superpowers. Like Portugal itself, the hotel had seen better times and was quietly falling down, its walls cracked and its paint flaking.
There were no English language newspapers in the lobby or the lounge so the headlines on the local papers meant nothing to either of the Navy men. Thus, for a little longer they remained blissfully unaware of the Portuguese nation’s horror at the unprovoked ‘carpet bombing of Malta’ by ‘American terror-flyers’.
In his shabby first floor room Peter flattened the creased portrait of Marija Calleja on the rickety table beneath the grubby window. He stared at the photograph for a long time; his troubles slowly dissipating into the humid atmosphere of the old port city.
Dear Marija,
I feel like I have been out of things for an age, although in truth I have only been out of touch for a week or so. I hope that this letter will reach you before you hear what befell the Talavera in the Atlantic last week.
Suffice to say that although a lot of good men were lost we eventually made it to Oporto. I was knocked about a little but not so badly that the damage isn’t already mending. The ship didn’t get off so lightly and she’s out of commission for a while, so I am to be posted to HMS Hermes. What use a destroyer EWO will be on a twenty-five thousand ton aircraft carrier I have no idea! Never mind, I’d got myself in a fine old lather worrying about being sent back home again and at least that isn’t going to happen quite yet.
Maybe one fine day the Hermes will sail into the Grand Harbour and we shall finally meet face to face.
Goodness that will be a thing!
Suddenly all he wanted to do was sleep.
I am falling asleep as I write this so I’ll put down my pen for the moment and pick it up again before I go to the airfield tomorrow morning. All being well this letter will get into a diplomatic pouch and reach you without the normal delays.
Although he put down his pen as he’d said he would; he found himself getting his second wind, and picked it up again before he lost his train of thought.
Between you and me things were a bit sticky at times in the last week. I didn’t think we’d make it. The ship was so badly knocked about and the seas were so big I thought we were done for. I took to carrying your picture as close to my heart as the inside pockets of my jacket allowed. As you know I’m not one of these fellows who turns metaphysical at the first sign of trouble. My life didn’t keep flashing before my eyes, or any of that nonsense, but thinking of you and feeling that a part of ‘you’ was with me, well, that helped a lot.
That sounds so lame, he chided himself. Completely unromantic, too. But am I trying to be romantic? Yes, I have all sorts of ‘romantic’ thoughts about Marija; and yet, Marija is more than that to me. So much more. She symbolises the possibility of a future with…hope. I am not courting Marija Elizabeth Calleja. One day perhaps I will, properly; but that is not what I am doing today. Today I am talking to the one person in the World I trust with all my secrets, and with all my fears.
I can’t help thinking that what happened to Talavera and the Devonshire was my fault and every time I close my eyes to try to sleep I find myself replaying the seconds before the attacks, asking myself what I did wrong? What else could I have done? Nobody’s said anything. Nobody’s mentioned a Board of Inquiry. But I still feel responsible.
Earlier today I shook the hand of the Prime Minister of Portugal — a mild-mannered old fellow, not at all what you’d expect of one of Europe’s last surviving pre-war dictators — and pictures were taken for the papers as if I was some kind of hero. Afterwards, I could hardly look anybody in the eye. I’m an electronics enthusiast who joined the Navy to play with the expensive toys on the big ships. There were so many new gadgets and gizmos on HMS Talavera that I thought all my Christmases had come at once! I never expected there to be another war; I honestly never expected to hear or see a gun or a missile fired in anger. No, I imagined I’d get to play with my marvellous toys and occasionally stand a bridge watch or two in heavy weather just so I wouldn’t be a complete disgrace to the family’s seafaring escutcheon. So much for all my plans! I am a fraud. A complete fraud.
It was so good to have confessed it. If he wasn’t the ‘Fighting Admiral’s’ son they’d have put him on the beach by now. Because of him scores of good men had been killed; because of him the Skyhawks had surprised the two destroyers off Finisterre…
There was a knock at the door.
Peter turned over the sheet he was writing.
It was Jack Griffin.
“There’s a bloke downstairs who says he from the London Times and the First Sea Lord has given him permission to ‘interview you’, sir.” When Peter Christopher stared at him like a rabbit in the headlights of a speeding lorry, the other man added: “he says you can read the First Sea Lord’s letter if you want…”
Chapter 35
Edward Heath hadn’t been ready for the ‘shock of the modern’ that awaited the delegation from the United Kingdom Interim Emergency Administration in the ‘summit room’. The hall was some kind of hastily reconfigured briefing facility in which comfortable hard-backed chairs were arranged down each side of a sturdy oak table. At the head of the table was a large television and behind it a camera of the type the Prime Minister had only ever previously seen in a BBC television studio or at the outside broadcast of a major sporting event. One end of the room was a tangle of power cables and the big, multi-lens camera bearing the logo of ‘NBC News’ was attended by a team of three civilians in shirtsleeves.
“All this technology should make it possible for you to see the President as he speaks,” Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Vice-President of the United States of America explained, evidently very proud of this unambiguous statement of American technological mastery.
The other members of the UKIEA delegation — Tom Harding-Grayson, Iain Macleod and Dick White — eyed the ‘technology’ with mistrust and looked to Edward Heath for a lead as to how to react.
“Most impressive,” Edward Heath decided. “Presumably, this equipment will also record our deliberations?”
The Vice-President didn’t know the answer to this question so he turned to his staffers.
“Yes,” he confirmed after a short delay. “Is that a problem, Prime Minister?”
Edward Heath shook his head.
The United States Air Force had treated its guests from England with immense solicitude as if the battle for Washington was happening on another continent rather than less than twenty miles away. A light luncheon had been served, stewards had come and gone bearing tea, coffee and biscuits while the delegation waited for the final technical arrangements to be complete.