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—seventeen miles from top to toe, and only nine at its widest point—but its teeming population numbered more than a quarter of a million. Towns and villages bled into one another 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—that 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 raised their pyramids. The threat might now be of a different nature, but the impulse remained the same.
He could remember running this 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?” she asked.
“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 onto the roof. Too polite to question the behavior 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 that you were aware of only 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 inquired.
“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 the American, 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 Eye-tie on the warpath?”
“Ignore him,” said Max. “He’s having you on.”
“Yank humor,” 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 a liaison officer with the American military,” Max explained. “Whatever that means.”
“None of us has ever figured out quite what it means.”
Tilting his head at Pemberton, Elliott said in a conspiratorial voice, “And
Max’s laugh was laced with admiration, and maybe a touch of jealousy. Anyone who knew Elliott had felt the pull of his boisterous American charm. It was easy to think you’d been singled out for special attention, until you saw him work his effortless way into the affections of another.
“Freddie here’s a medical officer,” said Max.
