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  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  Extracts from an interview given from his prison cell by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring to his American interrogators, July 25, 1945:

  “In 1940 we had a plan to seize all North Africa from Dakar to Alexandria, and with it the Atlantic islands for U-boat bases. This would have cut off many of Britain’s shipping lanes. At the same time, any resistance movement in North Africa could be crushed. [Afterwards], nobody could have interfered in the Mediterranean.”

  “The attack on Gibraltar was so methodically prepared by the Luftwaffe that, according to all human expectations, there could be no failure …There was only one unprotected airfield on the Rock. In 24 hours the Royal Air Force would have been forced off … and we could have battered it to pieces. This was a real task and we were eager to accomplish it.”

  “I urged [Hitler] to put these decisive considerations into the foreground and only after the conclusion of [the Gibraltar]undertaking to examine further the military and political situation with regard to Russia. For, if these conditions were brought about, we would be in a favourable position in the event of an intervention by the United States … Failure to carry out the plan was one of the major mistakes of the war.”

  Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, a key architect of Hitler’s war strategy, talking to his interrogators in Nuremberg:

  “Instead of attacking Russia, we should have strangled the British Empire by closing the Mediterranean. The first step in the operation would have been the conquest of Gibraltar. That was another great opportunity we missed.”

  Prologue

  Madrid: Prison of Cárcel de Carabanchel, July 26, 1940

  Think back, Romero told himself. Concentrate!

  It was high summer, 1915 and he was nine years old. He was with his father Alonso and his mother Molly at the funeral in Dublin of the exiled firebrand Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, whose body had been brought home from America for burial. In spite of the oppressive heat, for it was a muggy August day, the men, his father included, were dressed in heavy wool or serge. Some wore dark suits, others the uniforms of the Citizen Army, the Irish Republican Brotherhood or the Irish Volunteers. Behind them, among the gaudy memorials, stood the representatives of the ordinary people who had followed the hearse from City Hall to Glasnevin Cemetery. Sweat ran down his father’s face. No one spoke. The word was that this would be no ordinary funeral and the sense of anticipation was extraordinary. The coffin was lowered. The priest in his white cassock made the sign of the cross and led a recital of the Rosary.

  What followed marked the day in history. First a volley of shots rang out, then a young man wearing the peaked cap of an officer in the Volunteers stepped forward. Drawing a paper from his pocket, he surveyed those present with a look of almost mystical authority. Padraic Pearse did not have to call for silence. He spoke at first in Irish, which few present understood. Then he switched to English. Ireland’s foes, he warned, were strong and wise and wary. But they could not undo the miracles of God who ripened in the hearts of young men the seeds sown by the dead generations.

  His voice was hypnotic. “Life springs from death; and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations. The Defenders of this Realm have worked well in secret and in the open. They think that they have pacified Ireland. They think that they have purchased half of us and intimidated the other half. They think that they have foreseen everything, think that they have provided against everything; but the fools, the fools, the fools! – they have left us our Fenian dead, and while Ireland holds these graves, Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.”

  The speaker was half mad, half visionary. The Easter Rising he planned would be a blood sacrifice, not a feat of arms. But his oration seared everyone who heard it. Romero, a half-Spanish boy, with his dark eyes and sallow skin, remembered how his father placed both hands on his shoulders as Pearse spoke. He remembered the hypnotic impact of the words and how hard his father gripped, the pressure of each finger on his small bones. So long ago and it seemed like the beginning and the end of everything. He had thought nothing as important would happen again in the whole of his life.

  But the years, full to the brim with evil, had rolled past like clouds on a windy day. Now, as he faced his own death in this bleak and awful place, he tried not to let his hands shake. They mustn’t know the fear he felt. He prayed for the souls of his father and his mother; for his dead comrades, their bodies heaped into mass graves across Spain, with neither cross nor winding sheet nor a friend’s lament; for his new-made companions in the fight against Hitler. For one in particular. There was no one else. He looked up, twisting his head so that he could focus with his remaining good eye on the group of officials gathered to legitimise his death. He was refused the Last Rites of the Church. The priest stood against the wall, reading from the Bible, not daring to meet his gaze, pretending that he couldn’t see that the condemned man had not only lost an eye at the hands of his captors, but all of his fingernails. A prison guard circled the garrotte, checking that that everything was in order. The man tested the straps and the collar – a technician, nothing more. Then, without warning, a second guard drew a leather hood over his head and the world grew dark. He wished that his last sight had been of the woman he loved. The door to the execution chamber opened, emitting a draft of ice-cold air before it shut again with a distant click. There was a jangling of keys, followed by the footsteps of the executioner as he made his way behind the garrotte post. Through the metal, he felt the man’s hands grip the lever.

  The deputy governor of the prison stepped forward. “Edward Alonso Maria Romero: in the name of the Spanish people and in accordance with the requirements of the Penal Code, you have been convicted of wilful murder and are sentenced to death for your crime. The sentence will now be carried out. Have you anything to say?” Romero straightened himself, feeling the steel of the collar against his skin. “Long live the Republic!” he shouted.

  The official nodded. Romero’s last words, heard only by himself, were the closing lines of the centuries-old Catholic prayer known as the Confiteor. “May Almighty God have mercy on me, forgive me my sins, and bring me to everlasting life. May the Almighty and merciful Lord grant me pardon, absolution, and remission of all my sins. Amen.” The executioner began to twist the lever. The collar tightened. After a few seconds, Romero found that he could not breathe. His body began to shake in the wooden chair. His arms and legs pushed against the straps that held him. Then his eyes began to roll. He had no control over them. He felt them bulge and twist. His tongue protruded from his open mouth. It was at this point that the metal screw positioned at the back of his head penetrated his neck and severed his spinal column. His head fell forward, the convulsions stopped, and his life gave out with a sigh.

  “Remove the prisoner,” the deputy governor said. “Bring in the next one.”

  Chapter 1

  British Crown Colony of Gibraltar: six weeks earlier

  The Rock divided the light from the darkness. East of the ridge, the colours of the morning were clear and vivid. The Mediterranean reached out, past Oran, past Sicily, past Tobruk and Crete, all the way to Egypt and Palestine. To the West, the town and its dockyards remained in shadow and the colder, deeper waters of the Atlantic pressed against the harbour, where the aircraft carrier Ark R
oyal sat at anchor.

  At 5.35, sunrise rippled across the heights and the great lamp of the lighthouse at Europa Point dimmed and went out. A Marine sentry finishing his watch in the forward observation post at the base of the tower raised his field glasses and swept the narrow Strait from west to east. It was the clearest time of the day and, to the south, Morocco’s Mount Jebel Musa stood out in sharp relief against the ochre haze of Africa.

  Two miles to the north, in a stone-walled villa overlooking the Spanish border town of La Linea de la Concepción, an agent of German military intelligence, the Abwehr, wearing an open-necked shirt and beige lightweight slacks, observed the colony through a similar, but superior, pair of high-powered binoculars. He was logging details of the continued extension of the colony’s airstrip and focused for several seconds on the face of a Canadian Army engineer about to end his shift, who stood for a moment facing east, feeling the warmth of the early morning sun on his face.

  The runway, with its support facilities, was the colony’s biggest single project in years. Built on rubble left over from a network of supply and communication tunnels, it stretched 200 metres into the bay beyond the Western Beach, continuing across the northern littoral as far as the Eastern Beach, where it looked across to the modest market town of Marbella.

  At six o’clock, the streets and alleys of the town echoed to the sound of Reveille as the main garrison came grudgingly to life. Steam rose from the kitchens as ten thousand breakfasts got underway. A destroyer in the harbour, about to embark on a patrol of the Strait, emitted its distinctive high-pitched whoop-whoop and drew rapidly away from its berth on the South Mole, creating a swell that caused even the Ark Royal to bob gently at its moorings.

  Lieutenant General Sir Clive Gerard Liddell, Gibraltar’s Governor and commander-in-chief, glanced up through the open windows of his office towards the limestone peak that reared some 1,300 feet above his head. A battery of naval guns was testing elevation and trajectory, watched by a group of apes who, unknown to the general, had interrupted their grooming for the occasion.

  Everything seemed to be in order. The Rock, seized from Spain in 1704 and granted to Britain “for ever” under the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, was to all outward appearances as unassailable as ever. Liddell knew differently. He had read the reports. Which was why he was about to sit down with a trio of senior representatives newly arrived from London.

  Two of the visitors, one from the Treasury, the other from the War Office, were much as he would have expected. He didn’t doubt their abilities. Having worked in Whitehall for a number of years, he had come to respect the so-called mandarin class. It was the MI6 man who was a surprise. The name hadn’t registered at first, but as soon as he walked into his office, there was no doubting who it was. Older, of course, but the same imperturbable schoolmasterly demeanour, even, quite possibly, the same suit. Tom Braithwaite was a Yorkshireman of the old school, with a mind like a filing cabinet. Back in 1929, just before the financial crash, they had run across one another when they were both collating intelligence. Braithwaite, he recalled, had previously operated under cover in Turkey, Russia, Ireland, other places. As the storm clouds gathered, it was reassuring to know he was on the team.

  “Braithwaite,” he said, “It’s been a long time.”

  “Governor. You’ve come up in the world since we last met.”

  “Oh,” said Liddell. “You know how it is – always openings for bureaucrats. What about you?.”

  “They’ve given me Iberia and the Maghreb. Challenge enough at my age.”

  “I know what you mean. The years don’t get any kinder, do they?” Liddell, born in 1883, was coming up on 58. Braithwaite was two years older. Both men would have been facing retirement if it hadn’t been for the war. “Anyway, good to see you. We’ll have a chance to catch up later. But let’s get on, shall we? I’ve asked Admiral Cunningham to join us. He should be here at any moment.” Liddell moved towards a polished oak table, set with blotters and pens and glasses of water.

  At this point, as if on cue, the Admiral walked in. Sir Andrew Cunningham, commander of Britain’s Mediterranean fleet, was tall and grey-haired, with hands that might have belonged to a farmer or a sculptor. In his late fifties, he looked fit and spry, with keen, darting eyes. The Governor made the introductions before taking a seat at the head of the table, next to his adjutant. The naval chief, in his summer whites, sat on his own at the opposite end.

  Liddell’s initial presentation lasted just over five minutes and dealt with the progress he had made since taking over in 1939. The two mandarins, facing the window, treated his account like an audit. His proposals for additional support were mentally scrutinised and costed and set against earlier projections. “Yes, yes,” they murmured. “Of course, of course.”

  Braithwaite, with his back to the wall, knew only too well that any increase in outlay would have to be met out of the contingency reserve – a ruinous, but largely fictitious fund, as elastic in its scope as the duration of the war. He could only guess what Cunningham was thinking, but was unsurprised when the naval chief cleared his throat theatrically and glanced up at the clock on the wall.

  “Gentlemen,” he began. “I hate to interrupt your calculations, but I’m due to fly to Alexandria in an hour’s time and there are a couple of points I’d like to make before I go.”

  Liddell gestured his assent. The mandarins nodded obediently, pens poised.

  Cunningham’s demeanour was weary, yet resolute. “The Governor has presented you with details of the strengths and weaknesses of Gibraltar itself, and I strongly endorse each one of his conclusions. My concern, however, is to drive home the absolute, overriding military necessity of keeping it out of German hands.”

  He glared at the civil servants, with their clipboards. “London has no idea. They look upon this place as a fixed asset, like a house on which the mortgage is fully paid up. They forget that though the Rock itself is fixed, we are not. We could be driven off at any time. And if we are, God help us. The plain fact of the matter is, if Franco ever decides to throw in his lot with Hitler and Gibraltar falls, the chain that holds the empire together will be broken.”

  Twisting round in his chair, the Admiral pointed out the window towards the impressive array of naval vessels moored in the harbour. “British sea power in the Mediterranean is already under threat. The Italians have a formidable navy. A number of their ships are modern and their officers and men know what they’re doing. Worse, every one of our bases is within easy reach of their air force. That’s one thing. We can deal with that. But imagine the ships that you see moored in front of you gone.” He swept his hand across the civil servants’ line of vision. “Aircraft carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines – the lot. Vanished! Imagine now what would replace them. The Bismarck and the Tirpitz, both of them coming up for completion, bigger and more powerful than anything we’ve got right now – together with heavy cruisers, escorts and a squadron of U-Boats. Italy would control the Mediterranean. Mussolini’s Mare Nostrum would be a new reality. At the same time, the Kriegsmarine, hugely emboldened, would seek to achieve total domination of the Atlantic and the western approaches.”

  He paused. No one spoke. “And where would we be?”

  It was a rhetorical question and Cunningham did not wait for an answer.

  “What remained of Force H would be a thousand miles away, in Egypt, bottled up, unable to get out of the Med without getting into the scrap of our lives. At the same time, the oil and other raw materials on which our country depends for its survival would have to be sent via the Cape – an additional eight thousand miles – subject to enemy attack at every turn.”

  He paused, taking in the silence that greeted his monologue. “It’s a truly awful prospect, gentlemen – worse than anything in our lifetimes.”

  “We’re all on the same side, Admiral,” one of the
mandarins said.

  Cunningham looked sceptical. “In that case, with your permission, Governor, gentlemen, I’ll leave you to it.” He rose from his chair and placed his cap on his head, straightening the peak so that there was no sign of his rapidly receding hairline. Before he left, he tapped the MI6 man on the elbow. “I don’t know what your lot get up to in Madrid, Tom,” he said. “But it’s time for a re-think.”

  “Depend on it,” said Braithwaite.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know.”

  Cunningham nodded, then turned on his heels and left.

  For a moment, nobody spoke. The Governor coughed lightly. “You heard the Admiral,” he said. “There’s a crisis brewing on our doorstep. And the question is, what are you going to do about it?”

  “One thing I can promise you, Sir,” the Treasury man said. “Whitehall will be left in no doubt as to the strength of your views.”

  Liddell turned away from the grey-faced officials, who seemed suddenly to depress him, and gazed out towards the harbour and the slightly more distant prospect of Africa. “The hell with Whitehall!” he said. “I want you to go straight to the Prime Minister. He’s the only one can do anything. Tell him that if he wants to win this war, or at any rate to survive it, he must do everything possible to forestall an attack on Gibraltar. There is simply no time to lose.”

  London: Roland Gardens, South Kensington, June 10

  The only thing Charles Bramall noticed that was different when he returned to his London flat after a ten-week absence was the smell. He’d forgotten to empty the bin in the kitchen and the bottle of milk in his tiny refrigerator resembled a school science experiment gone terribly wrong. A bunch of flowers his mother had given him from the garden of the family home in Northamptonshire was little more than straw bleached white by the sun. Atrophy and death, it seemed, were life’s natural accompaniment.