Timeline 102762 Main 04 Red Dawn by James Philip

Author:James Philip [Philip, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B00SZ0ULQ0
Published: 2015-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 25

Wednesday 29th January 1964

The Waterfront, Sliema Creek, Malta

“I thought I’d find you here,” Joe Calleja declared in the subdued tone he’s been unable to rise above in the days since the news of Lieutenant Jim Siddall’s murder. The man had saved his life once; and had been a good friend to his sister at a time when she’d badly needed a friend. And now he was dead and it was likely that their brother had set the bomb that blew him into countless pieces of seared flesh and splintered bone.

Marija glanced nervously to her brother, then looked back at the sleek, mauled grey warship moored fore and aft to big drum buoys in the middle of the anchorage less than a hundred yards away. Deeper into the Creek the big salvage barge moored alongside the wreck of HMS Agincourt was partially hidden by the stern of the recently anchored warship. From the shrouds below her black, double bedstead radar, an enormous battle flag flapped below the port top cross brace of her great steel lattice foremast.

Marija had dressed in dark clothes, a long dress almost down to her ankles and her hair was hidden, as was much of her face by a black muslin scarf.

“Do you remember the night of the war when everybody came down to the Creek to watch the British destroyers trying to escape out to sea?” Joe asked.

“Yes,” his sister replied in a whisper. “That was the night we met Jim for the first time.”

“It seems like years ago.”

“Perhaps, it was. I think we are all much older now.”

“Mama said you planned to go back to Mdina tonight?”

“Lieutenant Hannay promised to send a car later.”

“Oh.” Joe hated to see his sister brought so low. He thought he’d seen all her moods but this was different, there was a dull resignation in her. He’d never seen that before, not even when as a five or six year old he’d visited her in Bighi; in those days when she’d been trapped – seemingly forever – in a hospital bed, often in a cage of steel that was literally holding her together, her eyes had sparkled and she’d prattled about what she would do when she was well again. Always, there had been hope, a future filled with possibilities, bright and exciting. “I saw Papa had the Times of Malta,” did you read the story about HMS Talavera?”

“Yes.” Marija sniffed back a tear and forced herself not to raise her hands to her eyes to wipe away the moisture welling, welling, unstoppably like the rising lump in her throat. The British had gone insanely close inshore off Lampedusa to help the assault company of Royal Marines who had gone ashore unopposed only to be pinned down by a hail of machine gun and shoulder launched rocket fire. The ‘enemy’, or ‘pirates’ or ‘monsters’ depending on who one spoke to had opened fire on the destroyers and frigates of the 23rd Escort Flotilla, led by HMS Talavera with anti-tank and anti-aircraft guns.

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