Medusa

‘But he let you go,’ I said. ‘That’s what you told me, sitting right here at your desk. You said he dropped you overboard up-tide of the buoy, so you’d drift down on it. And you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone who he was.’

He nodded, standing in the centre of the cabin, a silhouette against the light so that I couldn’t see the expression on his face. ‘Yes.’ His voice was toneless. ‘He gave me my life, and I made a promise.’

‘Why? The blood tie? The fact that you share the same father. Is that why he saved your life?’

‘No.’ And after a moment he went on slowly, ‘No, I don’t think it was that, more a matter of putting me in his debt. I’ve never been a part of Pat’s world, so I can’t be sure, but I have an idea that, besides the ruthlessness, there’s a primitive sense of loyalty. You do somebody a good turn, then you’re in credit with him and some day you can make a claim on him.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll find out about that soon enough. Won’t be long now.’

‘You’re expecting him?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what are you going to do?’

He sat down opposite me again and I thought for a moment he had reached a decision. But all he said was, ‘Have you any idea of the average age of this ship’s company?’ He was interrupted again. More messages. He flicked through them, nodded briefly to Stanway, turning back to me and saying, ‘Well, have you? The average age.’ He slapped his hand on the table. ‘You won’t believe this, but it’s not quite twenty-three and a half. That’s the average age of everybody, officers, senior rates, the lot. They’re kids, most of them, with mothers and fathers, girlfriends, quite a few of them married, and I’m responsible. Not just for them, for their lives, but to all those people I’ve never met.’

‘All right,’ I said. ‘So what are you going to do?’

‘What can I do?’ He got suddenly to his feet. ‘You don’t seem to realise — this potty little island is the centre of the world. Just for the moment. For the next few hours.’ He started to pace up and down. ‘There are warships converging on it, the whole apparatus of military confrontation beginning to be put in motion. The heads of half a dozen of the world’s most powerful countries will be consulting their advisers, despatching envoys with cautionary notes, even talking to each other direct, and all because of a little jumped-up peasant farmer called Ismail Fuxa, a bunch of disaffected locals and a couple of hundred highly trained professional soldiers, commandos probably, and almost certainly from an Arab country. In these circumstances, speed and ruthlessness, a willingness to take chances — hit the other fellow before he knows what’s happening. God! I’ve had plenty of instruction on this. If you strike fast enough and hard enough you can change the face of the world. And you’re asking me …’

The loudspeaker interrupted him. ‘There’s a boat coming out from Cala Llonga, sir. The speedboat again, I think.’

He picked up the mike. ‘Very well. It should be a man named Evans. Have him met at the ladder and if it is bring him straight to my cabin.’

‘Very good, sir.’

He turned back to me. ‘You’re worried about your wife, and so am I. But just try to get this clear in your mind — you, me, Soo, all the boys on this ship, we’re just pawns in a game that is being played on a world board.’ He turned away, staring out to the lights of the waterfront. ‘It will all depend now on whether I can persuade Pat.’ He gave a little shrug. ‘Frankly I doubt it. This must surely be the biggest thing he’s ever been involved in.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Cape Spartivento is about two-forty miles from here — eight hours’ steaming, something like that, and it’s nearly nine already. Five hours gone. By midnight a whole fleet of ships could be gathering off the entrance here. An hour after that they could be steaming in past Villa Carlos, and if they were able to do that unopposed … Then it would be a case of possession being nine-tenths of the law. International law, that is, and Fuxá has appealed to Moscow for help. Belatedly Spain has called upon her EEC partners to assist in maintaining her sovereignty here.’

He was running over it again for his own benefit, not mine. ‘And on our side — ’ He was at the port hole. ‘Mahon-naise! That’s what Richelieu’s chef called his version of the local allioli. You know what that was for?’ He was talking for the sake of talking. ‘For the banquet. The French were holding a banquet here at Mahon after their victory over Byng. We’d held the islands for almost fifty years, from 1708 till 1756. Mahonnaise!’ he said again. ‘Poor Byng!’ His voice had dropped to a whisper. ‘We were here for another nineteen years, from 1763, and then yet again for four very important years during the Napoleonic Wars. That was when Nelson was supposed to have stayed up there at Golden Farm.’