calcibus—‘With Fists and Heels’. Elliott had come late to the party, materializing as if from nowhere around Christmas, hot on the heels of Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into the war, but in four short months he’d stitched himself into the fabric of their little brotherhood lorded over by Hugh. He’d even got them all playing poker.
Elliott had a keen ear for scandal and was recounting a lurid story he’d heard from Ralph involving a chief petty officer’s wife and a Maltese gardener when the tinkle of Rosamund’s bell rang around the rooftop.
‘Most of you know what this means,’ she announced from the top of the steps. ‘Turn your minds and your talk to higher matters, to life and to art and, I don’t know, past loves and future plans.’
‘But I was just hitting my stride.’
‘My dear Elliott, I doubt it was anything more than mere gossip.’
‘True, but of the most salacious kind.’
‘Then be sure to search me out before you leave.’
This drew a few chuckles from the assembled company. These died suddenly as the plaintive wail of the air-raid siren broke the air.
Some groaned. They had all been expecting it. Breakfast, lunch and cocktail hour, you could almost set your wristwatch by the Germans and their Teutonic time-keeping.
They turned as one towards Valletta. From the high ground of Sliema, Marsamxett Harbour was spread out beneath them like a map, its lazy arc broken by the panhandle causeway connecting Manoel Island, with its fort and submarine base, to the mainland. In the background, Valletta reared majestically from the water, standing proud on her long peninsula, thrusting towards the open sea. Beyond the city, out of sight, lay the ancient towns and deepwater creeks of Grand Harbour, home to the naval dockyards, or what remained of them.
One of the more eagle-eyed pilots was the first to make out the flag being raised above the Governor’s Palace in Valletta.
‘Big jobs,’ he announced.
‘There’s a surprise.’
‘Where do you think they’re headed?’
‘The airfields, probably Ta’ Qali.’
‘The dockyards are due a dose.’
It was a strange time, this lull before the inevitable storm, the seven or so minutes it took the enemy aircraft to make the trip from Sicily. All over the island people would be hurrying for the underground shelters they had hewn from the limestone rock, the same rock with which they had built their homes, soft enough for saws and planes when quarried, but which soon hardened in the Mediterranean sun.
Had Malta been blanketed with forests, had the Maltese chosen to build their homes of wood, then the island would surely have capitulated by now. Stone buildings might crumble and pulverize beneath bombs, but they didn’t catch fire. And it was fire that did the real damage, spreading like quicksilver through densely populated districts, of which there were many on Malta. The island was small, considerably smaller than the Isle of Wight, but its teeming population numbered more than a quarter of a million. Towns and villages bled into each other to form sprawling conurbations ripe for ruin, and while they had suffered terribly, the devastation had always remained localized.
In the end, though, it was the underground shelters—some of them huge, as big as barracks—which had kept the casualty rates so low. The Maltese simply descended into the earth at the first sign of danger, taking their prayers and a few prized possessions with them. Max liked to think of it as an inborn urge. The island was honeycombed with grottoes, caves and catacombs where their ancestors had sought refuge in much the same way long before Christ walked the earth or the Egyptians threw up their pyramids. The threat might now be of a different nature, but the impulse remained the same.
He could remember running his theory past Mitzi on their first meeting. And he could remember her response.
‘Once a troglodyte, always a troglodyte.’
She had said it in that mildly mocking way of hers, which he had misread at the time as haughtiness.
‘Have I offended you?’
‘Not at all.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s a lovely theory, I’ve always loved it.’
The subtext was plain: Don’t think for a moment that you’re the first person to whom it has occurred.
He knew now that she had been sparring with him, playfully batting his pretentiousness straight back at him to see how he reacted. He had failed that first test, lapsing into silence, obliging her to end his suffering.
‘But to tell you the truth, I’d love it more if I didn’t spring from a long line of Irish potato-pickers.’
The memory of her words brought a smile to his face.
‘We’re about to have seven kinds of shit knocked out of us and you’re smiling?’ Elliott remarked.
‘I think we’re safe.’
Everyone else did too, judging from the number of people abandoning the garden for the grandstand view of the crow’s nest. Max spotted young Pemberton among the stream of souls pouring on to the roof. Too polite to question the behaviour of the other guests, he nevertheless looked very ill at ease. Who could blame him? Common sense dictated that they all seek shelter. A year back they would have done so, but somehow they were beyond that now. Exhaustion had blunted their fear, replacing it with a kind of resigned apathy, a weary fatalism which you were only aware of when you saw it reflected back at you in the shifty expression of a newcomer.
Max caught Pemberton’s nervous eye and waved him over.
‘Who’s that?’ Freddie enquired.
‘Our latest recruit, bound for Gib when we snapped him up.’
‘Handsome bastard,’ said Elliott. ‘There’ll be flutterings in the dovecote.’
‘Go easy on him. He’s all right.’
‘Sure thing,’ said Elliott, not entirely convincingly.
Max made the introductions, with Pemberton saluting Freddie and Elliott in turn.
‘So what’s the gen, Captain?’ Elliott demanded with exaggerated martial authority.
‘The gen, sir?’
‘On the raid, Captain, the goddamn air raid.’
‘I’m afraid I’m new here, sir.’
‘New!? What the hell good is new with Jerry and Johnny Eyetie on the warpath?’
‘Ignore him,’ said Max, ‘he’s having you on.’
‘Yank humour,’ chipped in Freddie.
‘And that’s the last time you salute him.’
Elliott stabbed a finger at his rank tabs. ‘Hey, these are the real deal.’
‘Elliott’s
