Medusa (40 page)

Thinking about it, I almost fell into a newly dug slit trench. A Scots voice cursed me for a clumsy bastard, a hand gripping hold of my ankle. ‘Luke where ye're fuckin' goin', laddie. There's some of us doon here that are still alive, ye noo.'

I was in the graveyard area and there were four of them sprawled on the ground with a couple of hand-held rocket-launchers. From where they lay they could see into the steep-sided little bay draped with the pale glimmer of villas that was Cala Llonga. I asked them if any vessel had put out in the last half-hour. But they had seen nothing, so clearly the customs launch had come either from Lazareto Island or from the La Mola peninsula itself. Perhaps even from Cala Pedrera on the other side of the Mahon entrance.

I squatted there talking to them for several minutes. Two of them were leading seamen whom I had met on the bridge during the trip out from Malta, one of them had brought me kai that night. But they couldn't tell me anything I didn't already know. They had had a word with the Captain, they said, just after midnight. Apparently Gareth had made a tour of all the positions established round the island and in the hospital ruins, but it had been more of a morale booster. He hadn't told them anything very much, only warned them that if they were attacked, it would all happen very quickly. He had also said jokingly that if they weren't attacked, they'd probably be stuck out there all night. ‘I asked him straight oot,' the Scots lad said, ‘wha' are we expectin' then, but he was no' verra communicative. He just said, if it comes, make cairtin ye've said yer prayers. An' he wasna jokin'. He was daid sairious.'

The time was then ten minutes short of two o'clock and still nothing had happened. I started back towards the tent, but just before I reached it, I saw a little group coming down the gangway from
Medusa's
stern. With no lights, I couldn't see who they were, but they headed towards me along the path under the hospital walls, so I waited. It was Gareth, setting out on a second tour of inspection. Mault was with him, and Sergeant Simmonds. I don't think he saw me at first. He was walking with his head bent, not saying anything to his companions, as though lost in his
own thoughts, and when I spoke his head came up with a startled jerk and he looked at me, tight-lipped and very tense. ‘Sorry you didn't make it ashore,' he said.

I asked him what was going on in the outside world and he just shook his head. He would let me know, he said, as soon as he had any definite news. And he added that, until he knew for certain what the situation was, there was no question of his risking the launch in another attempt to take us into Cala Figuera. And when I pressed him, saying that something had to be done about Soo, he just looked at me and said in a voice that was dead and without emotion, ‘Your wife is only one of many factors I have to take into consideration.' And he added, in that same dead tone, as though he were talking about something quite remote and impersonal, ‘In the overall scale of things I'm afraid she ranks very low, however important she may be to you, and to me.' He muttered something about being in a hurry – ‘A lot on my plate at the moment.' And he nodded briefly, brushing past me.

I went back to the tent then. Nothing else I could do. With no boat, Petra and I were marooned on the island, and we just sat there, waiting. It was long past the time when the warships that were supposed to be supporting Fuxa's coup d'etat should have been entering Mahon harbour, and though I fiddled around with Petra's little radio, all I could get was dance music. God knows what was going on in the world outside of Bloody Island.

All around us there were the sounds of men settling in for the night in improvised trenches or in the stone walls of the hospital itself. And though I went out and talked to some of them, I couldn't find anyone who knew any more than we did. In fact, I suppose the only people who could have told us what was going on in the outside world were Gareth and his communications team. I learned afterwards that, apart from those two quick tours of the island's makeshift defences, he spent the whole night there, sifting endlessly through the mass of reports, signals, newsflashes,
and speculative comment from all around the world picked up by the ship's antennae.

Back in the tent again I found Petra sitting there, not drinking, not doing anything, just sitting there with a shut look on her face. I said something to her. I don't remember what. But she didn't answer. She had withdrawn into some secret world of her own. And then, suddenly, she got to her feet, a quick, decisive movement. ‘I'm tired,' she said. ‘God! I'm tired. No point in sitting here waiting for something to happen. I'm going to bed.'

I was desperately tired myself, my mind seemingly no longer capable of constructive thought. The picture of that room, the little dog, and Evans – the way he had talked about sending her to Gareth in bits and pieces. Christ! What a hell of a mess! All I could think of was the poor girl out there somewhere in the hands of those bastards.

In the end I found a spare sleeping bag and followed Petra's example. But before curling myself up in it, I went outside again. It was quite chill now, a whisper of a breeze coming down from the high ground above the harbour, the scent of wild flowers on the air, and as I stood there, relieving myself, I was conscious of the bodies all around me. It was very strange, hearing nothing, but knowing they were there, like the ghosts of all those buried dead.

But then the glow of a cigarette, showing for an instant under the hospital wall, brought my mind back to reality. Away to the right I could just make out the dim shape of a sailor standing in silhouette against the stars, and when I climbed to the top of a rock there was the outline of the frigate, stern-on and not a light showing. Somebody coughed, a hastily suppressed sound, and as I went back into the tent I heard a clink of metal on stone somewhere out beyond the dig.

It was almost four. Another hour and dawn would be starting to break. Perhaps it was the coffee, or perhaps I was just too damned tired, but I couldn't seem to sleep, my mind going round in circles, worrying about Soo, about
the future, about what it would be like if she were killed.

Then suddenly I was being shaken violently and Petra's voice was saying, ‘Wake up! Wake up, Mike! It's all over.'

‘What the devil are you talking about? What's all over?' I sat up so abruptly my head caught her on the chin. The flap of the tent was drawn back, the sun blazing in. Blinking in the glare of it, I asked her what time it was.

‘Just after ten and there's three Spanish warships steaming past us.'

I wriggled out of the sleeping bag, slipped my shoes on and went outside. They made a brave sight, two destroyers and what looked like some sort of a logistic ship, the sun blazing full on them, outsize Spanish flags streaming from the ensign staffs on the ships' sterns and the water of the harbour mirror-calm ahead of them, Mahon blindingly white above. The tanker was back in Cala Figuera, moving in to the fuel depot with the tug in attendance.

It really did look as though Petra was right and it was all over. But the Navy was clearly taking no chances, the frigate lying there against the rocks, silent and watchful, no movement on deck and only the hum of machinery to show that the inside of it was alive with men. No movement on the island either, only the occasional whisper of a voice to indicate that there were sailors there, standing to their weapons and waiting.

I clambered up on to the ruined wall above the dig, where I had an uninterrupted view eastwards towards La Mola. No sign of the Libyan freighter, the water flat calm and empty of anything except a small boat trawling for fish. The slit trench with the Scots leading seaman I had talked to in the night was quite close, but all they could tell me was that they had heard the freighter fetching its anchor sometime around three-thirty, just after they had seen the lights of a dozen or more vehicles moving away from La Mola along the road above Cala Llonga. They couldn't tell me whether the freighter had headed seaward or gone back to Mahon.

They were far more relaxed than when I had talked to them in the early hours.
Medusa's
galleys had produced a hot breakfast for them at the usual time, the ground still strewn with mess tins and eating irons. They thought it wouldn't be long now before they were allowed to stand down.

I was still in my underpants and I went back to the tent to get myself dressed. Petra was cooking us some breakfast. I remember that very distinctly, the smell of bacon and eggs, and sitting there in the sunshine, neither of us talking. I don't know how many men there were around us, but the sense of hushed expectancy was almost overpowering.

Then suddenly the frigate's broadcast system was blaring out
Rule Britannia,
men erupting on to the deck, the island around us coming alive as word was passed to stand down, everybody talking at once, a roar of voices mingled with the high quick laughter that comes of nervous relief.

I joined a party lugging equipment and the debris of a meal down to the stern of the ship. There was an officer there, a man I hadn't seen before. He refused to let me on board and I was forced to scribble a note to Gareth on a message pad. But even as a seaman went for'ard to deliver it, I saw Gareth, dressed in what looked like his best uniform, scrambling down a rope ladder and jumping into the launch, which then headed for the harbour where the Spanish warships were anchored close off the Naval Base. I would now have to wait until he had paid his respects to the Spanish naval commander, and even then he might not feel able to send me ashore.

Shortly after that I walked out to the dig and stood by the red-flashing beacon, staring across the narrow strip of water to the steep rise of the land beyond with villas perched white on the slopes. Where would they have taken her? Pulling out suddenly like that, what for Christ's sake would they have done with her? They would hardly have taken her in that convoy of vehicles that had left from La Mola in the dark of night. Or would they?

I sat down on a rock, my mind going round and round, gnawing at the problem. And in the sunshine, with wild flowers in every crevice, I saw her as she had been back in Malta when I had first met her. A picnic on Gozo, her body lying on a rock all golden warm like the limestone of the buildings on the hill above caught in the slanting rays of a glorious sunset. And in that little trellis garden of her mother's, bougainvillaea and morning-glory, and the two of us dancing to that old portable gramophone, our bodies close and the moon full above the curved roof tiles. A world apart, the two of us hopelessly in love in the moonlight, not another thought in our heads, not a care in the world, our bodies tingling to the touch of our fingers, the ache for each other growing.

God in heaven! What had happened to us? To me? What had changed it?

Questions, questions, the result emotional torment and my heart reaching out to her. Surely to God two people who had been as close to each other as we had been then could make contact across the distance that now separated us. If I thought hard enough, if I could concentrate my mind sufficiently, surely I could evoke some response from her, some telepathic indication of where she was.

I was there by that beacon for a long time, alone with my thoughts, and right above me the Golden Farm to remind me of two other lovers. And then Petra came to say the launch had finally returned.

‘Any message from the ship?' I asked her.

She shook her head and I stared at that narrow strip of water, wondering whether I could make it, picturing him back in his day cabin, his desk piled with urgent messages. In the circumstances, my note would hardly seem of great importance. Soo would either be dead or abandoned somewhere. Whichever it was, he had every reason to think a few more hours would make little difference.

I was in the tent, stripped to my underpants and stuffing my clothes, pipe, matches, keys, money, everything I
might need ashore, into a plastic bag, when the flap was pulled back and I looked up to find Petty Officer Jarvis standing there. ‘Captain's compliments, sir, and the launch is waiting to take you ashore.'

I shall always bless him for that. In the midst of all his problems he had read my note and understood my urgency, the depth of my feeling. I didn't attempt to see him. I just scribbled a note of thanks and handed it to Jarvis as he led me up the gangway on to the stern and for'ard to where the rope ladder was rigged. The same midshipman was in charge of the launch, and as we swung away from the frigate's side, I asked him what the news was. He looked at me, wide grey eyes in a serious face. ‘News, sir? You haven't heard?' And when I told him it had been a long night and I had slept late, he grinned at me and said, ‘They miffed off. The revolutionaries and those mercenaries who put that Fuschia chap in. The fleet, too – the fleet that was going to support the new government. It just faded off the radar screen. And all because of
Medusa
.'

‘A Russian fleet, do you mean?'

‘Yes, the Russians. The American Sixth Fleet is shadowing them.'

‘Is that official?' I asked him. ‘About the Russian and American fleets?' We had swung away from the ship's side and were heading for Cala Figuera, the note of the engine making it difficult to talk. ‘Did you hear it on the news?'

He shook his head. ‘I haven't had a chance to listen to the BBC, but that's what they're saying – saw them off all on our own, long before those Spanish ships arrived.' And he added, ‘Now that he's back from seeing the Spanish admiral, I've no doubt the Captain will be making an announcement. I'd like to have heard that.' He gave an order to the helm, then turned back to me. ‘You know him well, don't you, sir?' It was more a statement than a question and he didn't wait for me to answer. ‘He's a super man. Never batted an eye all night, going the rounds, chatting and joking with everybody and all of us expecting
to be blown out of the water any minute. Then, when it's all over, he has a thanksgiving in the wardroom.'