George Washington's Ghost

Alex had climbed back up to about eight thousand feet when the first Sea Eagles began to swoop onto the dockyards on San Juan Island. Other Sea Eagles, torpedoes slung under their bellies raced in from the east, squashing down low over the inner bay, their fish splashing into the water heading for the merchantmen and small warships moored to the north and alongside the naval and civilian piers.

High overhead a flock of Goshawks patrolled; others would already be strafing the aerodrome to the east.

Alex banked his Goshawk, and tried to establish if the German cruiser was still under its own steam. To his surprise it was almost at the neck of the bay and nobody seemed to be shooting at it now.

He forgot about the ship.

The dockyards were rapidly disappearing under billowing clouds of smoke and dust, there were new, very big fires burning along the shore of the bay. To the east great eruptions pocked the crowded city streets and plaza to the south east.

Time was telescoping.

Huge explosions walked across the western edge of the inner bay where, presumably, the port and headquarters of the German Concession lay.

Although here and there tracer climbed aimlessly through the clouds of destruction, to all intents the defenders had stopped fighting back.

There were no Dominican scouts struggling for altitude to distract the carrier-borne air fleet.

The enemy had been caught with his pants proverbially, around his ankles!

It was pure murder even before Alex summoned the bulk of his thus far, unengaged Goshawks of the high cover squadron, to fall upon the now defenceless airfield to the east of the burning city.

Far out at sea the livid flash of either the Princess Royal’s or the Indefatigable’s broadsides lit the now fast-brightening northern horizon.

Pure bloody murder…

Chapter 37

Monday 8th May

Viano do Castelo, Portugal

“Alonso has to make some phone calls,” Henrietta De L’Isle murmured, blushing deeply as she entered the small, private dining room where Melody, with Pedro on her lap happily spreading butter, egg and breadcrumbs over himself and his other ‘Mama’, were breakfasting.

On mornings such as this Melody could not stop herself feeling just a little bit… maternal. That was nice, every now and again but she knew it would soon get old if she had to do it every day. It had been fun despatching Henrietta to her fate yesterday evening, and when neither her friend or Alonso had appeared for dinner last night, she had known that ‘the big gamble’ had paid off.

That was fine.

Better than ‘fine’, in fact; and she had had Pedro to herself. Granted, it had seemed a little odd bathing him without Hen in the bath, too. Later, reading to him in patient, indulgent Castilian from one of the books of nursery rhymes Hen had acquired in her absence had been blissful. The boy had listened with rapt fascination, and slept like a little angel in her arms all night.

Henrietta had reported that his nightmares were going away.

That too, was good.

And as for the flush of guilty embarrassment on her friend’s face when she finally made an appearance that morning, well, that had been exquisite.

There was nothing like knowing a plan had come together like a dream!

That was not to say that Melody had not experienced a brief pang of selfish, somewhat adolescent angst in acknowledging the new reality of their lives. In the future, she and Henrietta would be friends first, not lovers, or at least, that was what she had reconciled herself to; that being the worst-case scenario, etcetera.

Henrietta was wearing a cotton frock which reflected her sunny mood, and that revealed her shoulders and arms and a discreet suggestion of cleavage.

She kissed the top of Pedro’s head, and then Melody’s cheek, her lips touching the side of her mouth, and lingering a moment.

“Did you sleep well, dear?” Melody asked mischievously.

“Eventually,” Henrietta giggled.

Melody waited expectantly.

“It was completely lovely, actually,” the younger woman confessed, avoiding Melody’s gaze.

“And?”

Henrietta’s expression was, momentarily, confused.

“Oh,” she sighed, recognition dawning. “Er, that’s what one of the telephone calls is about. Alonso’s mother’s engagement ring is in a deposit box in a vault in a bank in Lisbon. He’s getting one of his arms men to bring it here.”

All the while, Pedro was earnestly wrestling with the concept of boiled eggs and ‘soldiers’, thin strips of toasted bread which one dipped in the warm, runny yellow yoke, ideally without spreading bits of both liberally about one’s local environment.

He was still a long way from mastering this latter trick.

Henrietta looked at the boy, a dob of yellow yoke on the tip of his nose, and smiled proudly. She picked up a napkin and tenderly removed the spillage.

Melody arched an eyebrow.

“Did you?” She asked, pointedly, wanting to know if her friend had obeyed her ‘plan of action’ to the letter.

“Yes, I got into the bath with him.”

Melody waited patiently.