bump-start the motorcycle.
The 10th Submarine Flotilla was housed in the Lazaretto, a run of old buildings that had once served as a quarantine center for the Knights of Saint John. They were strung out along the southern shore of Manoel Island, staring Valetta in the face, sandwiched between the water’s edge and the soaring wall of rock on which Fort Manoel was perched. The Lazaretto had stood there unscathed for centuries but now wore a tired and decidedly sorry appearance.
The approach road was a patchwork of bomb craters, great gobbets of earth lay scattered about, and the small chapel had been gutted, although by some miracle its façade was still standing. The floating gangways where the subs berthed were deserted and damaged, reaching into Lazaretto Creek like the splayed fingers of an arthritic hand. The buildings themselves had fared far worse. At the western end, many of the roofs were gone, having taken the floors below with them.
When the base was viewed from this angle, the decision to pull what remained of the 10th Submarine Flotilla out of Malta made considerably more sense.
By some stroke of good fortune, the officers’ quarters at the far end of the Lazaretto had not suffered to the same degree, and a surly rating directed Max to Tommy Ravilious’s office. It lay off a sun-drenched loggia on the first floor, where a couple of officers, one of whom Max recognized from the Union Club, were lounging in wicker armchairs, smoking.
“I’m looking for Tommy Ravilious.”
He was thumbed in the general direction. “His day cabin’s three doors down on the left.”
Max had picked up enough naval jargon to know that “day cabins” were offices, just as floors were “decks,” and going out for lunch was “going ashore.” It was the same at Fort Saint Angelo on the Grand Harbour side, a “stone frigate” renamed HMS Saint Angelo by the navy when they’d adopted it as their headquarters. The urge to scream You’re on dry land now, not a bloody ship had never quite deserted Max.
One part of the corridor he picked his way down was open to the heavens, and the door to Tommy’s office was hanging off its top hinge.
Tommy was at his desk, sharpening a pencil with a rusty scalpel.
“Well, well, well …,” he said cheerily when Max entered.
Others at Lazaretto might have lost some of their usual lustre, but Tommy’s trademark brand of Boy’s Own Paper enthusiasm appeared unscathed.
“To what do I owe this pleasure—nay, honor?”
“I was passing.”
“Come now, my dear fellow, we’re too old and too wise for that.”
“So what are we doing here?”
Tommy exploded in laughter, casting a quick look around his dusty empire. “God only knows. Maybe we sinned in a previous life.”
“I hadn’t figured you for a reincarnationist.”
“My grandmother’s to blame. She loved all that nonsense. A committed naturist, too, right up until the day she died. ‘I believe in the two sexes airing their differences,’ she used to say. Drink?”
“What have you got?”
“Gin or gin.”
“Have we earned it?”
“I know I have.”
Max pulled up a chair. “Well, if only to dim the image of your grandmother airing her differences …”
It was Plymouth gin, favored by the navy men; Gordon’s was strictly army.
Max raised his tumbler in a toast. “The fourth of May.”
Tommy frowned, trying to figure the significance of the current day’s date.
“One has to be celebrating something, or else one is simply a common drunk.”
His impression of Hugh’s sonorous bass voice must have been close enough, because Tommy laughed and asked, “How is old Hugh, and the lovely Rosamund?”
Tommy downed his gin as if making up for lost time, which in some respects he was. The enemy’s recent fixation with the submarine base had kept him at his post and away from the clubs and dinners for the past month or more. As a senior member of the headquarters staff, he had barely any time for leisure
The 10th Submarine Flotilla was housed in the Lazaretto, a run of old buildings that had once served as a quarantine center for the Knights of Saint John. They were strung out along the southern shore of Manoel Island, staring Valetta in the face, sandwiched between the water’s edge and the soaring wall of rock on which Fort Manoel was perched. The Lazaretto had stood there unscathed for centuries but now wore a tired and decidedly sorry appearance.
The approach road was a patchwork of bomb craters, great gobbets of earth lay scattered about, and the small chapel had been gutted, although by some miracle its façade was still standing. The floating gangways where the subs berthed were deserted and damaged, reaching into Lazaretto Creek like the splayed fingers of an arthritic hand. The buildings themselves had fared far worse. At the western end, many of the roofs were gone, having taken the floors below with them.
When the base was viewed from this angle, the decision to pull what remained of the 10th Submarine Flotilla out of Malta made considerably more sense.
By some stroke of good fortune, the officers’ quarters at the far end of the Lazaretto had not suffered to the same degree, and a surly rating directed Max to Tommy Ravilious’s office. It lay off a sun-drenched loggia on the first floor, where a couple of officers, one of whom Max recognized from the Union Club, were lounging in wicker armchairs, smoking.
“I’m looking for Tommy Ravilious.”
He was thumbed in the general direction. “His day cabin’s three doors down on the left.”
Max had picked up enough naval jargon to know that “day cabins” were offices, just as floors were “decks,” and going out for lunch was “going ashore.” It was the same at Fort Saint Angelo on the Grand Harbour side, a “stone frigate” renamed HMS Saint Angelo by the navy when they’d adopted it as their headquarters. The urge to scream You’re on dry land now, not a bloody ship had never quite deserted Max.
One part of the corridor he picked his way down was open to the heavens, and the door to Tommy’s office was hanging off its top hinge.
Tommy was at his desk, sharpening a pencil with a rusty scalpel.
“Well, well, well …,” he said cheerily when Max entered.
Others at Lazaretto might have lost some of their usual lustre, but Tommy’s trademark brand of Boy’s Own Paper enthusiasm appeared unscathed.
“To what do I owe this pleasure—nay, honor?”
“I was passing.”
“Come now, my dear fellow, we’re too old and too wise for that.”
“So what are we doing here?”
Tommy exploded in laughter, casting a quick look around his dusty empire. “God only knows. Maybe we sinned in a previous life.”
“I hadn’t figured you for a reincarnationist.”
“My grandmother’s to blame. She loved all that nonsense. A committed naturist, too, right up until the day she died. ‘I believe in the two sexes airing their differences,’ she used to say. Drink?”
“What have you got?”
“Gin or gin.”
“Have we earned it?”
“I know I have.”
Max pulled up a chair. “Well, if only to dim the image of your grandmother airing her differences …”
It was Plymouth gin, favored by the navy men; Gordon’s was strictly army.
Max raised his tumbler in a toast. “The fourth of May.”
Tommy frowned, trying to figure the significance of the current day’s date.
“One has to be celebrating something, or else one is simply a common drunk.”
His impression of Hugh’s sonorous bass voice must have been close enough, because Tommy laughed and asked, “How is old Hugh, and the lovely Rosamund?”
Tommy downed his gin as if making up for lost time, which in some respects he was. The enemy’s recent fixation with the submarine base had kept him at his post and away from the clubs and dinners for the past month or more. As a senior member of the headquarters staff, he had barely any time for leisure
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