Mark Mills - The Information Officer

Ralph gave a sudden loud laugh. “Damn your detractors. Now I know why you got the job.”

“What detractors?”

“Come on, you’re at least ten years too young for the post.”

“I forgot to mention … at the pub, you’re in a wheelchair. You lost both legs when you got shot down over Malta in May 1942.”

Ralph laughed some more as he pulled open the front door. After the cool of the palace and its shaded garden the heat in Bastion Square hit them like a hammer.

“She’s a great girl, Max, war or no war. She’s the real thing.”

“She’s just a friend.”

“Then you’re a bloody fool.”

“If you say so.”

“Hugh says so too.”

“Hugh?”

“And Freddie.”

He knew Freddie was a fan of Lilian’s. The three of them had spent a raucous evening together at Captain Caruana’s bar in Valetta a few weeks back. He struggled to recall when Hugh had ever set eyes on her.

“Now go in there and look after her. She needs it.”

Lilian didn’t appear particularly needy. She sat there silent and grim-faced while he made the right noises, and the moment Teresa withdrew, leaving them alone together, she suggested that they head for Boschetto Gardens. Actually, it was more of a command than a suggestion, and there was something wild and reckless in her eyes when she issued it.

“On the motorcycle?”

Until now, she had always refused to be seen with him on the motorcycle.

“Well, I’m not walking there in this heat.”

It was a short trip, a few miles at most along the ridge toward the coast. He took it slowly, savoring the experience.

Lilian rode sidesaddle because of her skirt, and as Rabat fell away behind them, she shifted closer on the seat, holding him around the waist just that little bit tighter.

She was a good pillion passenger, not fighting the curves in the road, leaning with him.

“You’ve done this before,” he called over his shoulder.

“I’ve never done what I’m about to do.”

“And what’s that?” he asked, turning to look her in the eye.

“I think it’s a goat,” she replied calmly.

They missed the emaciated creature by a matter of inches.

It would have been a pity to kill it, a survivor like that. Most had gone the way of the pot long before now.

Boschetto Gardens offered the only genuine patch of woodland on Malta—a rare glimpse of what the island must have looked like long ago, before it was stripped of trees by early shipbuilders. Max had walked its weaving pathways a handful of times, often with Ralph, who loved to go there to paint. It was a tranquil, sun-dappled world where dark pines towered over groves of lemon, orange, and olive trees. There was an ancient atmosphere about the place, a whiff of dusty fables by classical authors you’d heard of but never read.

“I half expect a unicorn to come trotting round the corner any moment.”

They were making their way along a shaded path lined with ivy-threaded walls.

“Or Pan,” replied Lilian.

“I’ve never liked Pan.”

“Why not?”

“I’m sorry, he’s too creepy.”

“But he’s the god of music and nature and love.”

“Exactly, so why’s he got goat legs?”

He told her about The Wind in the Willows , and the bizarre chapter in the book where Pan helps Rat and Mole locate Otter’s lost son.

She liked the sound of the book, especially Toad, and he promised to send her a copy of it when he got home.

Maybe it was the mention of home, but she grew silent before asking, “It is going to end, isn’t it?”

“Of course it is. And one day Germans will come here in peace and walk this path and admire this view.” He spread his hands before him.

“I hate them.”

It was said in a calm, low voice, and was all the more menacing for it.

“They’re only doing their job. It doesn’t mean they enjoy it, or even that they agree with it.”

“How can you be so reasonable? You’ve lost friends too.”

She sounded almost angry with him, and maybe she was, but he also sensed she was searching for answers she hoped he might hold. He didn’t have any to offer her, though. What could he say? Ivor, Wilf, Delia, Dicky … they had all died defending a cause in which they believed, for which they’d been ready to fight. That was his consolation. Caterina, on the other hand, had been obliterated while watching from the sidelines—an innocent bystander caught in the cross fire.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I really don’t.” He stopped on the pathway, staring down at his dusty desert boots before looking up into her lambent brown eyes. “But I know that being unreasonable doesn’t help. It doesn’t do justice to those who have died. It doesn’t honor them. They’re the ones who matter, not the man—the boy , most likely—who pulled the lever or pressed the button or did whatever he was ordered to do. I doubt he’s so very different from the rest of us, just happy to be alive and eager for it all to end.”

She weighed his words awhile.

“So who do I blame? I have to blame someone.”

“Try the politicians—the idiots who dragged us into this mess in the first place. I find that works best.”

Not long after, she led him off the path, through the trees, until they found themselves in a small glade. When she sat herself down at the base of a gnarled old olive tree, he followed suit, remembering what she had said on the motorcycle about doing something she’d never done before.

“Can I have a cigarette?” she asked.

“You don’t smoke.”

“But I want to try.”

He lit two cigarettes and handed her one, amused by his presumption.

She didn’t cough and she didn’t complain about the taste; she just smoked the cigarette, then stubbed it out in the sandy soil.

“Verdict?”

“Not so special. I feel a bit dizzy.”

She sat back against the trunk and closed her eyes. There was nothing awkward about the silence that now enveloped them. It gave him the opportunity to think about how he was going to broach the subject. It was hardly the time to do it, not while she was still reeling from the death of her friend, but time was a luxury he couldn’t afford right then.

Over the tops of the trees he could make out Verdala Palace, the governor’s summer residence, rising foursquare on the ridge above, lording over the gardens. With its corner towers and crenellations, it resembled a medieval castle, although the pale stonework lent it an exotic and less forbidding air. He could picture the vast barrel-vaulted hall with its frescoes, where he had dined soon after his promotion. Being a Plymouth Brother, Governor Dobbie was a teetotaler, but he had nevertheless kept the wine waiter on his toes that night, ensuring that his guests’ glasses had been properly charged.

“What are you thinking?” Lilian asked. She still had her head resting against the trunk, but her eyes were open now, locked on to him. “It looks serious,” she added lightheartedly.

He placed his hand over hers and gave it a small squeeze. “It is, I’m afraid.”

He told her everything, from the moment when Freddie had first summoned him to the Central Hospital to show him Carmela Cassar’s corpse. First, though, he made her swear on all she held dear that she wouldn’t share a word of what he was about to tell her with any living soul.

She was on her feet before he had finished his account, and only when he was done did she speak.

“The lieutenant governor tried to stop you?”

“He wasn’t present.”

“But he was still in the room.”

“I suppose they must have been acting with his authority.”

“I can’t believe it.”

She was angry now, pacing around.