Tales of Brave Ulysses (Timeline 10/27/62)

by James Philip

  The Great Hall was not as packed as it had been for the great confidence debate – not every Member of Parliament had been able to get back to Oxford over the weekend – but the public gallery, cordoned off from the chamber at one end of the hall seethed with gentlemen of the press.

  “I spoke to Her Majesty the Queen yesterday and again this morning. The purpose of these conversations was to keep Her Majesty abreast of fast moving events in the Mediterranean and elsewhere and to place at Her pleasure my resignation...”

  Chapter 75

  12:10 Hours

  Monday 6th April 1964

  RAF Luqa, Malta

  Marija’s emotions were in turmoil. Moments ago Captain Lionel Faulkes, the C-in-C’s Senior Naval Staff Officer had breathlessly pressed through the crowd around her and her husband.

  “Your mother and father are safe, Lady Marija,” he had gasped, looking around for Joe Calleja as he recovered his breath. Lionel Faulkes was obviously been feeling his age and Marija had taken his elbow to steady him. It was a hot spring day on Malta, the sort of day native Maltese regard as a balmy and cool demanding a coat or jacket but an Englishman would regard as a burning hot summer day back home. “Your father was slightly injured, a few scratches, nothing more before he took shelter. Your mother is unharmed and bar a few windows blown in their house in Sliema is in one piece.”

  Much to Lionel Faulkes consternation Marija had suddenly hugged him ecstatically before wriggling through the throng to find her husband who had been corralled by a cabal of pale-skinned; soon to be sun burnt men from the Oxford press corps. She had burst upon the group with her good news and he had attempted, very painfully on his part to sweep her into his arms.

  Now Marija gazed thoughtfully at the RAF Comet 4 – one of four aircraft now loading or refuelling on the freshly laid, sticky back tarmac underfoot - to which she and her beau were making their limping, halting way; he because he could not trust himself to put any weight on his twisted and immobile right leg, she because well, her aching bones badly needed a long, long rest.

  “I think I am afraid of flying, husband,” she confessed lowly.

  “How do you know, my love?” The man inquired as they struggled closer to the jetliner.

  She squeezed his hand, said nothing.

  “They say flying in one of these kites,” Peter went on confidently, an act because he had absolutely no happy personal memories or experiences of flying, “is like riding on the wings of a featherbed with four great big engines.”

  Marija giggled, recollecting her husband’s tongue-in-cheek horror stories about his short trips in helicopters that he was convinced were about to fall out of the sky at any time, and one particularly harrowing flight in a storm on a transport aircraft whose pilot had mistaken the perimeter track at the Royal Naval Air Station at Yeovilton for the main runway and ploughed to a halt in a field only feet away from a barn.

  At the top of the steps to the cabin of the Comet the couple took a deep breath, and looked around at the ruined suburbs that ringed the airfield. They waited while the cameras rolled, Peter with his arm protectively about his wife’s shoulders, Marija with her arm about his waist, both smiling stoic smiles until their faces began to hurt. Nearby two other Comets, another Mark 4 in the livery of British European Airways, and an older, vaguely old-fashioned looking variant were also loading, the one walking wounded and the other stretcher cases on a hoist at the rear of the aircraft while other injured men and women were gently manhandled up the forward steps. Beyond the other Comets a Boeing 707 in United States Air Force livery was disgorging men and women, officers, doctors, nurses and presumably, miscellaneous Central Intelligence Agency spooks onto the apron from its front hatches and general cargo from the rear. Ambulances were starting to queue to transfer more injured and wounded men and women onto the jetliner, which was scheduled, like the three Comets, to return to the United Kingdom later that day.

  Peter Christopher had been told that ‘their’ aircraft was a Comet Mark 4C, the long-range version of the fourth generation of de Havilland’s wonder machine of the late forties. The jetliner looked and smelled almost new. Peter had learned that several undelivered Comet 4Cs had been mothballed after the October War and only recently brought into service after the Operation Manna convoys eased the worst of the fuel shortages in England.

  The short-range version of the aircraft could carry up to a hundred passengers but this Comet 4 had less than eighty seats. In the end twenty-seven Talaveras and a dozen of Yarmouth’s survivors took their seats in the rear half of the stuffy, humid, somewhat claustrophobic passenger cabin. The front of the compartment filled with VIPs returning to England, walking wounded and several grubby and somewhat worse for wear men who refused to be separated from their cameras and recording equipment – apparently, a Ministry of Information film crew who had been in Valletta at the height of the bombardment - as the Comet’s four Rolls-Royce Avon Mark 524 turbo-jet engines spooled up.

  The cabin doors were dogged shut and immediately it was quieter although still just that little bit too noisy to be able to carry on a completely normal conversation without straining one’s voice. Much to their disquiet Peter and Marija had been ushered to seats adjacent to that of the Cabinet Minister returning to England on this aircraft. It seemed Sir David Luce and Mr Airey Neave were returning to England on different flights; somebody back in Oxford having invoked a rule limiting the number of ‘very important’ VIPs who were permitted to fly together on any one flight. Marija had hesitantly moved into the window seat, while her husband had protectively lowered himself into the aisle seat where he could stretch his throbbing, immobile right leg into the aisle. Opposite him Iain Macleod wanted to conduct a briefing on what ‘the order of ceremony’ would be on arrival at RAF Brize Norton.

  “I hate flying,” Iain Macleod confessed irascibly.

  “Me too,” Peter concurred.

  “Everywhere I go the PM insists we fly with the Royal Air Force and the blighters won’t allow a man to smoke!”

  The young naval officer refrained from murmuring ‘oh dear, that must be a terrible trial for you, sir,’ and contented himself with a sympathetic smile.

  The aircraft jolted forward; Marija gasped and squeezed her husband’s hand with momentarily superhuman strength.

  “They’ve just pulled away the chocks, darling,” Peter assured her gently, completely missing whatever it was that Iain Macleod had just said to him.

  The public address crackled.

  “This is Squadron Leader Guy French,” an insouciant, marvellously relaxed and very, very old-school voice declared. “I have the honour to be captain of this flight to England. May I welcome our Royal Navy guests, heroes one and all onboard Flight Six-One-Seven from RAF Luqa to RAF Brize Norton. I am just awaiting clearance from the control truck and then we shall be on our way. The flight will take approximately five hours. We shall be heading west to get around Sicily and Sardinia without antagonising the locals, then we’ll mosey on up north over the Côte d'Azur, on over the Alps and the Rhineland and turn left for Blighty once we get to the North Sea. Over England we will be flying up the Thames Estuary and passing over London. I don’t honestly know if it is a good sign but parts of the capital looked quite green the last time I flew this route a week or so ago. In the meantime if you would secure all seat belts please. The weather back home is a tad English, I’m afraid. Showery and a little cool for the time of year, I am reliably informed.” The pilot paused. “We’ve just been cleared to take off. I will speak to you again when we are in the air. Enjoy your flight. Pilot out.”

  Marija had seized her husband’s left hand and was clutching it with grim resignation to her lap as the Comet 4 began to roll.

  Chapter 76

  12:14 Hours (GMT)

  Monday 6th April 1964

  Great Hall, Christ Church College, Oxford

  “I stand before you today,” Margaret Thatcher declaimed, “at Her Majesty’s pleasure to make a statement of reco
rd concerning the events of the last seventy-two hours.”

  There had been a minute or so of bedlam after she had uttered the word ‘resignation’. On the benches opposite the Government there had been brief ecstatic jubilation quickly soured by the realisation that the Angry Widow was not about to step down. Behind her there had been gratifyingly loud, persistent and anguished cries of “No”, and “Never!” As always when the House of Commons was enraged and frightened the hubbub subsided slowly, reluctantly.

  Boys will be boys...

  “What I say to the House today is based on the latest information that I have to hand. This morning I have received briefings from the Chiefs of Staff of our gallant armed forces, the Director Generals of the Security Service and the Secret Intelligence Service, the United States Ambassador to the Court of Blenheim Palace, and of course, my Cabinet colleagues. I have resolved to communicate everything that we know to the limit of disclosing information which might be of aid to our enemies.”

  Margaret Thatcher had prepared notes that morning and committed them to memory in the thirty minutes before she walked into the chamber of the House of Commons.

  “First, before I begin it may be helpful to Members of this House and to the gentlemen of the press to be aware of events scheduled after I leave this place later this afternoon.” The chamber was very nearly silent now. “I shall be travelling to Brize Norton this afternoon to attend Her Majesty the Queen when she greets the President of the United States of America. Approximately an hour after the President lands Her Majesty will welcome home our brave heroes from the Battle of Malta. The men of HMS Talavera and HMS Yarmouth will be weary after their ordeal and their journey home. After they have been received by Her Majesty they will be allowed to rest on their laurels this evening. Tomorrow morning there will be a grand parade in Oxford to celebrate their courage and peerless service to their country, and Her Majesty will award well-earned medals for valour at Trinity College. President Kennedy and his entourage will be our honoured guests at that celebration.”

  “Here! Here!”

  “At approximately the same time our brave boys are landing at Brize Norton, a United States Air Force aircraft will be transporting the members of the so-called ‘Irish Peace Delegation’ to England. The Foreign Secretary plans to meet that ‘delegation’ when it disembarks at RAF Cheltenham and to conduct preliminary discussions with its members overnight at that air base.”

  There was no question of allowing essentially uninvited, unwanted visitors from the Republic of Ireland, to set foot on English soil outside the perimeter of RAF Cheltenham while President Kennedy and his entourage were in the United Kingdom.

  Without being aware of it Margaret Thatcher smoothed down her skirt before stepping again to the dispatch box – in this new reconvened Oxford chamber the dispatch box of yore was a simple college lectern – and leaning a little towards her political foes.

  “I will begin my briefing to the House with the situation in Ireland,” she warned, her expression turning sour. “Over the weekend a major crackdown by Special Branch, the Security Service and the police has resulted in a large number of arrests. However, I have been warned that a small number of Irish Republican Army fanatics are still at large in our country. Moreover, I am informed that these terrorists may possess modern weapons including anti-aircraft missiles. The fact that the Dublin Government is as apparently exercised by this development as the UAUK is, in my view, a small shaft of light in the otherwise uniformly dark outlook for Anglo-Irish relations. The ‘peace delegation’ from Dublin comes to England at a time of heightened tensions in Ulster and indications that the IRA is on the verge of mounting a renewed terroristic offensive both in Ulster and on the mainland.”

  The spirits of Members of Parliament invariably dropped when Ireland or Ulster was mentioned. Two men sitting close to Enoch Powell rose to their feet to attract the Deputy Speaker’s eye.

  “I shall not be giving way!” Margaret Thatcher announced with a brutally dismissive wave of her right hand. The ‘Unionist’, or Northern Ireland part of the former Conservative and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom had to a man walked into uncompromising opposition to the UAUK in recent weeks and she did not mourn their defection. “The opinions of those members who worry about ‘Irish matters’ before they worry about any other deserve to be heard; but today we are here to deal with matters of great import not just to the wellbeing of the one-and-a-half million people of the six counties of Ulster, but to the wellbeing of the nearly forty millions who survive in the rest of the United Kingdom!”

  This prompted angry and bitter retorts from across the chamber; which she ignored magisterially giving every appearance of never having heard them in the first place.

  “In the South Atlantic you will have learned that the Argentine Republic, presumably believing that it could take advantage of our ‘distractions’ elsewhere in the World, has seized by force the Falkland Islands and South Georgia.” Margaret Thatcher made herself slow down, and to take one, two, three slow breaths before she continued. “I will say nothing more about this matter at this time other than that if the Argentine Government thinks, for a single minute, that I will let this monstrous invasion of British sovereign soil stand unchallenged, then they have made a very bad mistake. My Government and I will not forget, nor easily forgive what has happened in the South Atlantic. While our brave boys in the Mediterranean were fighting to preserve the values and the honour of our country the Argentine stabbed us in the back. I say again, this will not be allowed to stand!”

  The Prime Minister was a little off put by the prolonged cheering and stamping of feet not just at her back among her own supporters but, to an extent, that which came from the opposite side of the House.

  “In the Mediterranean I have the honour to report that Cyprus is now back in British hands. The Task Force Commander reports that organised enemy resistance has ceased...”

  There was more stamping of feet and inane cheering.

  “But now I must speak of Malta.”

  The House of Commons fell quiet.

  Chapter 77

  12:22 Hours (GMT)

  Monday 6th April 1964

  3 Miles North of Cleeve Hill, Gloucestershire

  Parcels of land around Cleeve Hill, the highest point of the Cotswolds at 1,083 feet, had been taken over by the Army during the 1945 war and never completely returned to cultivation, or to livestock grazing in the years since. However, trees grew and clumped in the valleys between Bishop’s Cleeve, Prestbury and Winchcombe and patches of scrub and overgrown pasture provided cover of a sort for a man who did not want to be seen. None of this had been known to Seamus McCormick as he drove away from the scene of the murders of the two Redcaps on the village green at Bishop’s Cleeve.

  The ‘main’ roads hereabouts in Gloucestershire were narrow, rutted ribbons navigating in careless loops around ancient field boundaries and hemmed in by unkempt hedgerows. In the dark he had swung the clumsy Bedford lorry off the Winchcombe Road at the first gate and begun to pick his way along a dirt track up the side of a steep hill. Once or twice he had thought the Bedford would topple onto its side, or slide back down the impossible incline but he had been in such a panic, in the grip of such an unreasoning desperate madness, that he had pressed on and on until the winding track ended in what had seemed, in the darkness, an impenetrable black tree line on the down slope of a ridge he knew the truck would never re-climb.

  Normally, he was a man who carefully weighed the odds.

  But now he felt hunted.

  In the last darkness before the dawn he had shut his eyes and driven the Bedford straight into the woods until with a sickening thud it had come to a dead stop. He had been driving only at a few miles per hour; even so his head had cracked hard against the windscreen.

  Seamus McCormick had recovered consciousness in the dawn half-light on the ground beside the driver’s cab door.

  Miraculously, the lorry was lodged so deep into the copse that it
was invisible from outside the tree line, and as miraculously at full daybreak two Hawker Hunter fighters had swooped over the wood clearly making a final approach to RAF Cheltenham. Both aircraft had passed almost exactly over his head at a height he estimated as being about seven to eight hundred feet.

  So low he could have taken out either of the fighters out with a point blank tail pipe shot with his Redeyes!

  Point, shoot and kill!

  Chapter 78

  12:23 Hours (GMT)

  Monday 6th April 1964

  Great Hall, Christ Church College, Oxford

  “Preliminary indications are that local defectors and traitors, mostly immigrants smuggled onto the Maltese Archipelago from Italy and Sicily since the October War, assisted by Soviet saboteurs landed by enemy submarines succeeded in disabling the air defence system of the islands in the thirty-six hours before the attempted invasion of Malta. It is clear that our enemies knew that Malta was denuded of its normal defences and therefore unusually vulnerable. I am informed that critical elements of the radar defences of the archipelago had been badly damaged during the December raid on Malta, and rendered largely inoperative by the effects of the electromagnetic pulses emitted by the large atomic airbursts in the region in February, and were therefore more susceptible to sabotage, local disruption and sophisticated jamming than they otherwise would have been. However, this only partially explains how the garrison of Malta could be so completely taken by surprise in this day and age.” It was all she could do not to shout to the rafters that the United States Navy was supposed to have been covering the known gaps in the Maltese Archipelago’s early warning radar network. “This is a question deserving of detailed further scrutiny but a question which palls into insignificance in the light of subsequent events.”