Medusa

I nodded and poured myself some more wine. I was suddenly very tired. Tension probably. I had never really contemplated death before. At other times, when I had been in danger, it had all happened too fast. Even that time Ahmed Bey had been killed, it had been very sudden, the Italian boat coming at us out of the darkness, and later, the days at sea and the heat, the trek along the African shore, getting weaker and weaker, it hadn’t been the same at all.

Now I had been given virtually the exact time of death, the rendezvous approximately midnight fourteen miles off the coast. Fourteen miles. Just over half an hour at full speed. Say another half-hour while they argued it out over radio. I was remembering suddenly that Gareth had said he had a civilian on board who was fluent in Russian. Probable time of engagement, therefore, would be around 01.00. And my watch showed it was already almost midnight.

An hour to live! Perhaps a little more. But not another dawn.

If the decision had been taken to occupy Mahon harbour, then the opposition of a puny and obsolete RN frigate would be brushed aside in a holocaust of missiles. The whole of Bloody Island would be blasted to hell. Evans was right. His half-brother and the crew of his ship were doomed to extinction. So was I. So was Petra.

I looked across at her, wondering if she understood. ‘Have you got any more brandy?’ I asked her. ‘Lennie finished that bottle of Soberano.’

She stared at me dully, her mouth turned slightly down at the corners, the big capable hands gripped on the edge of the table. I think she knew all right, for after a moment she nodded and got to her feet, opening the lid of a store box and rummaging around inside. She came up with a bottle, looked at the label, and said, ‘No Soberano. It’s Fundador. Will that do?’ She was suddenly smiling. She knew damn well anything would do. ‘You going to get drunk?’ She handed me the bottle.

I shrugged as I screwed the cap off. ‘Possibly.’

She sat down again, finished her wine and pushed the glass across to me. ‘How long have we got?’

‘Long enough.’ I wasn’t going to tell her how long it would be. ‘In any case, a lot can happen …’ I poured us both a good measure. ‘Salud!’ And I added under my breath, ‘Here’s to the dawn!’

We were on our second brandy, and I was wondering in a vague sort of way whether it would be better to die in a drunken stupor or whether the two of us should lie together and die naked with the warmth of our bodies to give us comfort at the moment of impacting oblivion, when there was the sound of footsteps outside the tent and a voice said, ‘Mr Steele?’

‘Yes?’ I went to the flap and pulled it back. Petty Officer Jarvis was standing there. ‘Captain says if you and the lady would care to go ashore, he’ll have the launch sent round to the landing point.’

I looked at my watch. It was now well past midnight — 00.37. The Russian ships could already be off La Mola, approaching the entrance to Port Mahon. Any moment things would start happening and he was giving Petra and myself a way out. And yet I stood there, feeling as though I’d been struck dumb. It was a lifeline he was offering us and I hesitated. Having braced myself for what was about to happen, having come to terms, or something very near to it, with the fact that I was about to die and would not live to see the sun rise, the offered reprieve seemed an affront to my manhood. Perversely, I found myself on the point of refusing. It was as though I would be running away, revealing myself to be a coward. It was only the thought of Petra that stopped me. Or was it? Was I really a coward seeking justification, an excuse for acceptance?

‘Please thank him,’ I told Jarvis. My mouth felt dry. ‘Tell him I accept his offer. I have to find my wife. Tell him that. And Miss Callis should undoubtedly be got off the island.’ And I added, ‘Is there any chance I can have a word with him before we leave?’

‘I doubt it, sir. He’s in the Ops Room. At least that’s where he phoned me from. And I gathered from his manner things were a bit hectic. A lot going on, if you understand my meaning, sir.’

‘Yes, of course,’ I said. ‘Only to be expected.’

‘Five minutes, sir. The launch will be there in five minutes, probably less. Okay?’ He didn’t wait to see my nod, but hurried off back to the ship.

Petra was already searching around frantically for her archaeological material, scrabbling up notebooks, rolls of film, dumping them in a holdall. I grabbed a sweater and told her to hurry. ‘We’ve no time to lose.’

‘My thesis,’ she said. ‘There’s a draft of my thesis somewhere. I must have it.’ And then she stopped. ‘Oh, my God! It’s in the hypostile. I left it there. Won’t be a minute.’

She was ducking out of the tent when I seized hold of her arm. ‘Forget it,’ I told her. ‘They’ll hit this island any minute now. Alive, you can redraft it. Dead, it won’t matter anyway.’