Medusa

Everything now was in slow motion. The launch had pulled away from Medusa’s side to join the others, the three of them in a close huddle as though the vessels themselves were discussing the situation. The frigate’s guns stayed implacably levelled at the approaching superstructure of the freighter, which was now barely moving. A sudden swirl of water at her stern and she was stationary, everything held motionless as in a still picture.

The sun had begun to set, a lovely golden glow lighting up the grey slab-plated side of the frigate. Time passed, nothing happening, but the tension seeming steadily to increase as the sunset glow deepened to red so that the villas above Cala Llonga and Cala Lladró were all aflame, the bare scrubland above taking fire.

The police launch was the first to break away, ploughing back through the narrows at full speed. At the same time the harbour launch went alongside the tug. It was there for several minutes, then it made across to the freighter, going alongside on the port hand where I couldn’t see it. Meanwhile, the customs launch had passed astern of Medusa and disappeared in the direction of Cala Llonga, or perhaps further along the peninsula, by Lazareto Island. I couldn’t follow its movements because it was hidden from me by the frigate.

By now lights had begun to appear along the Mahon waterfront and in the town above. The clouds had thickened, darkness closing in early. I could still just see the harbour launch. It paused briefly to turn and run parallel with the tanker, which was already approaching the narrows. Then, when it had resumed course for the Estación Maritima, the tanker changed direction to pass out of my sight to the south of Bloody Island. At that moment Medusa leapt suddenly into fairy-like outline, her deck, upperworks and mast all picked out by strings of light bulbs — Gareth Lloyd Jones cocking a snook at the waiting ships and the shore. It was as if he was saying, ‘Here I am, still anchored here and my guns ready. What are you going to do about it?’

After that I didn’t stay much longer by the beacon. There was no point. It was already too dark to see what was going on ashore. The tug and the freighter had been joined by the tanker, all three of them anchored astern of the frigate and well beyond the two-hundred-metre protection zone Gareth had declared for himself. Stiff and tired, I went back to the camp, where I lit the pressure lamp, raided Petra’s drink cupboard for a glass of brandy, and got the paraffin stove going to heat up one of her packets of instant food.

The sound of an engine sent me tumbling back to my lookout point by the red-flashing beacon. It was the harbour launch, back again, and I watched as the dim shape of it passed through the narrows, making straight for Medusa. The frigate had swung with the slight movement of the tide, so that through the glasses I had an even clearer view of the launch as it went alongside the ladder. One man only got off and was escorted to the bridge. It wasn’t Romacho, and it certainly wasn’t Fuxa. This was a much taller man wearing a seaman’s cap and dark jersey.

A stone clinked behind me and I swung round as a voice spoke out of the darkness — ‘Your grub’s boiling over, mate.’

It was Lennie. He had rowed across in a borrowed dinghy from the little gut in the cliffs below Villa Carlos known as Cala Corb. ‘I turned the stove off. Better eat it now, then if you wanter go ashore I’ll take yer.’ He was staggering off towards the dark bulk of the hospital ruins. ‘They’ve kicked most of the prisoners out of the jail and locked up half a dozen senior officers of the Guardia and the national police instead, including your friends Menendez and Molina. You’ll be safe enough.’ His voice was slurred and he moved with care for he had spent most of the day in the waterfront cafe-bars. No, he didn’t know where Petra was, and he hadn’t been near the chandlery nor seen anything of Soo. ‘Wouldn’t go near ‘er, mate. I told yer. She fired me. Just like that. She can go to hell.’ He was very drunk, holding himself stiff and erect.

His news, gathered at second hand in the waterfront cafe-bars, was that as yet the new regime controlled barely half the island. But they had the key points — La Mola and Punta de Santo Carlos to the south of the Mahon entrance, both airports, the radio and radar station on El Toro, also the town of Alayor. But in the country south and west of Alayor there were rumours of fighting between local factions. ‘They say the Russians are coming.’ But he admitted that was just bar talk. ‘They’re full of talk over in the port, wild talk.’

He waved away my suggestion that he joined me and get some food into himself. ‘Don’t wan’ food — ‘nuther drink.’ He had found the cupboard with the Soberano in it. ‘Their own bloody fault, yer know. Didn’t think it through.’

‘How do you mean?’