Submariner (2008) (24 page)

The minesweeper was getting under way, he noticed. And a Sliema ferry – motor-launch with a tall, pipe-like funnel and canvas
awning along her sides and afterdeck – was turning in towards the Customs House at the foot of this great stone barricade.
Meaning of the word ‘Barracca’ perhaps? Hadn’t occurred to him, until now. There was a landing-place down there and near-vertical
flights of steps;
had
been a passenger lift that brought one to the top here but hadn’t been working for a year or two. The ferry had passed out
of sight, directly below him. These Barraccas, upper and lower, provided the vantage-points from which Maltese by the hundreds,
even a thousand or more on occasion, had throughout the siege gathered to cheer the surviving ships of convoys into harbour.
Convoy arrivals under attack even, cheers almost wild enough to rival the screams of diving Stukas.

Lieutenant-Commander
, for God’s sake … Come to think of it, would have to scrounge some gold lace from somewhere or other. Had thought of it last
night but not since. Get epaulettes complete, ready-made – and preferably scrounge, not buy; but gold lace, half stripes to
be sewn-on between the two thick ones on each sleeve of one’s two reefer jackets, in readiness for the Fleet’s autumnal change
from whites to blues – that was something else. But – memory stirring again – there was a shop in Strada Reale – a lace shop
that was run by a very smart grey-haired woman named –

No. Lost it. If one had ever had it. Well, one
had
. Abigail French had introduced him to her: which in itself provoked another line of thought – drop in on Abigail, if Shrimp
left one with time enough? Anyway, that woman
might
have gold lace in stock, in which case she might do the tailoring as well. Or know of someone who would. Strada Reale anyway
– little shop on the right, going back down that way. In fact must have passed it earlier – if it was still standing, of course
…

Crikey – eight minutes to eleven. Go see Shrimp.

Shrimp told him, ‘There’s nowhere else, if she can’t help you. I think she has nuns who do sewing for her. Carmella Cassar.
She certainly does sell the lace they make. Pushing it a bit by this time, but she’s still a fine-looking woman. Head on her
shoulders too.’

‘I’ll mention your name, if I may.’

‘Mention anything you like. But grab that chart, bring it over?’

In this underground chamber – the Submarine Office, in the labyrinths of Combined Services HQ – there was a hum of some kind
of ventilation machinery and when the door was open a rattle of distant typewriters. Mike had been checked in to the old building
by a Royal Marine sergeant who’d passed him on to a paymaster midshipman whom Shrimp had recently taken on as his private
secretary, and who’d brought him through an outer office to this larger one, announcing him as Lieutenant Nicholson, Shrimp
correcting this with ‘Actually, Lieutenant-Commander Nicholson, lad.’ Adding, ‘You weren’t to know. One reason and another
we’re keeping it quiet for a couple of days. But you’d also know of him as CO of
Ursa
.’

‘Of course, sir. Er – congratulations – I mean on your last patrol, sir –’

‘Thank you, Mid.’ They’d shaken hands; Shrimp telling Mike, ‘George was sunk in
Medway
and before that in
Naiad
. Michael, you’ll need to find yourself some half-stripes, won’t you?’Which was how the subject of the lace shop had come
up;Carmella Cassar being one of Shrimp’s many local friends, apparently. Mike brought him the chart. Familiar enough: central
Med, with Sicily and the toe of Italy in its eastern
half – Malta about the size of a pea – or the Isle of Wight, say – and the QBB minefield outlined and shaded-in in Indian
ink. Shrimp was lighting a cigarette.

‘Sit down, Michael. Smoke if you want to.’ Touching the chart. ‘Won’t bother with this for the moment, we’ll go over the strategic
background, first. Starting with the imperative of feeding and maintaining this island and ourselves. “Pedestal” improved
the situation by a total of 32,000 tons – saving our bacon but only for about a month, at most. Magic Carpet submarines from
Gib and Alex are continuing to do their bit, of course, and
Welshman
and
Manxman
are hard at it, bless them.’
Welshman
and
Manxman
being 40-knot minelayers who’d been making frequent solo runs from either end. Shrimp wobbled one hand: a gesture of uncertainty. ‘Invaluable,
but as far as we’re concerned very much hand-to-mouth stuff – can’t realistically count on it for ever, and we need to be
able to look a
long
way ahead – especially as our role here is pretty well bound to become more and more important. That’s primarily because
Eighth Army under this man Montgomery mean business – you can count on it, won’t be long before we see things moving in the
desert, and then the picture
really
changes – Libyan airfields in our hands, convoys with air-cover and a decent chance of getting through, so then – well, Sicily,
perhaps. Why not? It’s the obvious way into Italy. Or – maybe slightly less obvious, Sardinia, Corsica, Gulf of Genoa – Spetsia
or even Nice – huh?’

Mike had lit a cigarette. ‘Wow.’ Eyes on Shrimp’s. ‘Dependent on an absolutely sweeping success by the Eighth Army – you say
count on it, sir –’

‘Tell you this in strict confidence, Michael. The Canal’s being closed to shipping off and on for periods of half a day or
more while mountains of stuff are lifted over to be deployed south of Alexandria and El Alamein. Guns, tanks, troops, everything.
And when he’s ready –’

‘Montgomery?’

A nod. ‘With Alexander behind him commanding the whole theatre. I’m told he has a reputation amongst fellow-pongos for not
moving until he
is
good and ready, won’t be pushed into going off at half-cock – under pressure from Winston, for instance. But in regard to
all that speculation – Sicily, Sardinia, whatever – prior to any of that, Pantellaria, perhaps. Or North Africa somewhere.
And all or any of this depending on us staying put
here
– and of course continuing to make Rommel’s life difficult or better still impossible for him. Which in turn depends, returning
to my starting-point –’

‘Convoys.’

‘And the job being thrust upon us now is aimed at getting one through very soon and if possible intact. Well, anything that
could contribute to that has to be worth trying. My own first reaction was less than enthusiastic. We’ve tried some, haven’t
we. But if these chaps
could
pull it off, you see –’

‘Not another airfield?’

‘Three fields simultaneously. Fields selected incidentally by Air Intelligence. Basic idea being to incapacitate all three
in the convoy’s final stages – small, fast convoy – from the east, this time –’

‘Three boats?’

‘Yes.
Ursa
as one of them because you’re here, due for a week’s rest at least and a second one wouldn’t hurt you – or a third, for that
matter. And of course you’ve experience of such operations.’

‘Not all brilliantly successful, sir.’

‘That last one wasn’t, but not through any fault of yours. No more than the failure of
Una
’s the other day was any fault of Pat Norman’s. If a landing party fails to make the rendezvous – well, rotten luck, but as
long as you’re in the right place at the right time you’ve done
your
job. Anyway – airfields to be
targeted are Gela, Comiso and Catania. Yes, Catania again. Still home to three Mas-boats, as far as is known – also German
E-boats at Augusta. Gela’s an open-beach landing with no patrols we know of, although Mas-boats do frequent Licata – what,
a dozen miles away?’

‘But – in any of those places, sir, what makes them think they can do better than they did at Catania?’

‘The commandos are sure they have the answer or answers, and the Staff – well, as I said,
anything
that’ll do the trick, or help to … Another thing is that so soon after
Una
’s effort it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting.’

‘Well, there’s that.’Mike looked up from the chart. ‘Comiso, I must say, I don’t know at all.’

‘Here.’ Stab of a blunt forefinger. ‘Not marked, but close to Ragusa, which is. Bit of a hike for our pongos – landing
here
, say – open-beach – then all of ten miles inland.’

‘Pongos’ being a friendly but slightly derogatory naval term for soldiers.

‘So that team will need to be landed several hours earlier than the other two – if the assaults are to be simultaneous.’

Yes, simultaneous attacks. Assaults to go in when the convoy’s about thirty, thirty-six hours short of Grand Harbour. The commandos’ll
have their own schemes of course, but as far as landing or launching and pick-up points are concerned we obviously have the
final say, nothing’s finalised until we’ve agreed it with them.’

‘What about maps, sir – for our own guidance?’

‘They’re on the way.’ Shrimp was stubbing out his cigarette. ‘You’re right – as an aid to countering pongo bullshit, if any.’

‘Well – right …’ Concentrating on the chart again. ‘Random thought, though. We’ve always gone for pick-ups reasonably close
to landing areas. Might be worth a rethink perhaps? Landing-points much farther from targets, land if
necessary the night before and lay-up all day, attacking if possible from the blind side –’

‘I don’t think so, Michael.’ Shrimp shaking his squarish head slowly. ‘For one thing, the pongos wouldn’t wear it. They want
in and out double-quick,
always
, on this sort of lark. I can see major problems anyway.’ Shrugging, expelling smoke. ‘I haven’t time to go into it here and
now, but all right, see what you can come up with. For all three teams. Settle yourself into a corner of the Ops Room at Lazaretto,
tell the SOO he’s to let you have whatever charts, pilots etcetera you may want. What else now?’

‘Any thoughts on which other boats, sir?’

‘Yes.
Unsung
– Melhuish will be back I think on Monday, can’t leave it any longer than that. And
Swordsman
– Gerahty’s sailing tonight but if necessary I’d recall him – an “S” having a
little
more room for passengers than you do. Depends to some extent on the composition of the teams – if one’s larger than the others.
But then again, if you and the Chief Pongo hit it off, might make sense to take him and his team in
Ursa
. See how it works out.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

‘Give Carmella my regards.’

Up the Lascaris steps into sunlight and the shade of the heap of shattered stone that had been the Royal Opera House until
they’d destroyed it in that very bad time in the spring – one particularly bad night for the centre of Valetta, Kingsway in
particular, where they’d flattened the Law Courts too.
Ursa
had been in dockyard hands, repairing depth-charge damage, had miraculously survived that and several more nights of the
same, although others within virtual spitting-distance of her certainly had not. Although there’d been quite a few bombs that
didn’t explode, including one out of town that everyone had talked about for weeks afterwards and Mike
had (criminally) mentioned in a letter to his father; a large bomb said to be of Italian origin which had penetrated the dome
of Mosta Church, bounced off a wall, skidded the full length of the building and ground to a halt without exploding. There’d
been three hundred people attending a service at the time. In April, that had been. The vast majority of the bloody things
had
exploded, in the town and elsewhere but especially the dockyard and its surroundings, destroying virtually everything aboveground.
That was when Senglea had been reduced to rubble and a number of ships sunk – two destroyers, three submarines, three minesweepers.
There’d been a convoy brought in –
some
of a convoy – and the cruiser
Penelope
, which had been part of its escort, had been in dock with frantic round-the-clock efforts being made to complete essential
repairs while under constant dive- and high-level bombing. The London press had nicknamed her HMS
Pepperpot
on account of the number of holes in her upperworks; but they’d got her away all right, despite continuing blitzkrieg. Having
security and censorship in mind he hadn’t mentioned any of that in the letter to his father, only the miracle at the church.

In Strada Reale again now. Down here on the right …

Carmella Cassar told him that Abigail had ‘taken a hard knock’: Mike having reminded her that Abigail had introduced them,
at some time or other. In fact she did
seem
to remember the occasion, although he didn’t flatter himself that this was anything but her natural
politesse
. She was, as Shrimp had intimated, a fine-looking woman: she’d had her shop – same premises – since well before the war,
and Shrimp had known her from that time, in his several pre-war visits to the island.

Yes, she had gold lace in stock, and employed a seamstress who’d fix his things up for him. She could provide epaulettes right
away – ones abandoned by lieutenant-commanders on promotion to commander. They’d cost him very little, in fact next to nothing;
she’d have to look them out, they weren’t of recent origin. Congratulations were presumably in order?

Abigail … Well, poor darling. But she was back at work now. Colonel Ede had given her a couple of weeks off, and she’d spent
that time not in her little flat on South Street but at the Wingrave-Tenches’ at St Julian’s. Which had been perfect for her,
of course. She’d come back to work yesterday,
but for the time being was still at the Tench place. She’d dropped by at lunch-time yesterday, as it happened.

She’d paused, Mike had been trying to get a word in edge-ways, asked her now, ‘What kind of “knock”?’

‘Oh. Forgive me. I had assumed you would have heard. But let
her
tell you, Commander.’

‘Commander. Didn’t stay long as a two and a half, did I?’

‘Hah! I dare say you won’t. Any case I’m sure Abigail would very much like to see you – and to hear your good news. Do you
know where it is, that building?’