all that oil in the Middle East. If that happens, well, I know which horse my money’s on. Egypt has to hold out, and that’s where we fit in—this dot of an island in the middle of nowhere, so easy to ignore.”
“You call this being ignored? Every day for the past God-knows-how-many months they’ve dropped the same tonnage of bombs on us as they did on Coventry.”
“Field Marshal Kesselring’s no fool. Far from it,” conceded Elliott. “He knows the importance of Malta. But does he have Hitler’s ear? Because in the end, that’s what counts.”
“None of it’s going to matter when they invade.”
“They’re not going to invade.”
“I’m so glad you told me,” Max replied, with casual sarcasm.
“I mean it. The invasion’s off.”
“Off?”
“Put back. But that’s enough. Once the new Spitfires get here, it’s dead and done for. This was their one chance, and it looks like Hitler’s made the same mistake again. He should have invaded you guys two years ago. July 1940. That was his moment, and he missed it. This time, his big mistake was listening to Rommel. Rommel thinks he can get to Cairo, Malta or no Malta. But Rommel’s not an administrator; he’s a tactician—and a good one, if only because he’s unorthodox and therefore hard to read. Logistics like supply lines are beneath his dignity; it’s quartermaster stuff. He takes for granted he’ll get whatever he needs, and right now he is getting it. But if we gain air superiority over this island, then the Wellingtons and Blenheims will start flying again from Luqa, and he’ll know what it’s like to feel the pinch. Maybe he’ll take Tobruk—odds are he will, in my book—but Cairo’s a step too far.”
“Anything else I should know while you’re at it?”
Max intended the question as a joke.
“Depends if you can keep a secret or not,” replied Elliott, lighting a cigarette. “The governor’s about to be relieved.”
“Dobbie?”
“That’s impressive—the information officer knows the name of his commander in chief.”
Max was genuinely shocked. Dobbie was—well, he wasn’t just part of the furniture, he was Malta itself.
“Why?”
“He’s lost the confidence of his service chiefs, and they’ve started sneaking to teacher. Personally, I blame the command structure you’ve put in place. It’s a goddamn shambles. You’ve got a governor who’s answerable to the colonial secretary and to the War Office, and a general officer commanding who can’t coordinate the defense of the island because your naval and air force commanders report directly to their C-in-Cs in Cairo.”
“When you put it like that …”
“It is like that, and Dobbie’s taking the fall for it. I’d play the ‘poor health’ ticket if I were you, if only because there’s some truth in it. Oh, and better get drafting your piece. It’s going to happen soon, any day now.”
“In the middle of all this?”
“No point in hanging about once the decision’s been made. Thanks for everything, amigo, and adios.”
“Who’s replacing him?”
Elliott smiled. “You don’t expect me to hand you everything on a plate, do you?”
“No, although a piece of fish would be nice, before it’s cooked to buggery.”
They ate the fish with a simple salad of tomatoes so sweet that it suddenly made sense why they were classified as a fruit rather than a vegetable.
“I’ve been doing all the talking,” said Elliott. “Time for a bit of quid pro quo.”
“You really think I have anything up my sleeve to match what I’ve just heard?”
“I was talking about you. Tell me something about Max Chadwick that I don’t already know.”
“There’s a whole load of stuff you don’t know.”
“Don’t be so sure; I’ve read your file.”
“There’s a file on me?”
“You’re the information officer in a key theater of war. What do you think? I even know the name of your housemaster at Wellington.”
“Old Arsebreath?”
Elliott laughed. “That’s a level of detail it doesn’t go into.”
It came pretty close, though. Apparently Max had been described as “coming from a good family.”
“Well, that’s rubbish, for a start,” he protested. “My great-grandfather made a lot of money sending coal miners to their deaths. His son was a drunk, a bully, and a bigamist who never did an honest day’s work in his life.”
“A bigamist?”
“Well, maybe not technically, but he led a double life with another woman and other children.”
“And his son?”
“My father? He’s proof that the apple doesn’t always fall close to the tree.”
“Good on him,” said Elliott. “And that’s from a man who also had a bully for a father.”
Elliott already knew that Max’s mother had died when he was young. He