Medusa

But he received no such instructions. We ran straight alongside Medusa and it was the First Lieutenant, looking down on us from the bridge wing, who received his report. ‘Are you sure it was the customs launch?’

‘I think so, sir.’

‘And crowded with men. How many would you say?’

‘Can’t be sure, sir.’ Masterton’s voice was pitched a little higher now that he was being de-briefed by his senior officer. ‘Fifty. Sixty. Quite a lot, sir.’

Mault asked me then. ‘What do you say, Mr Steele?’

‘No idea,’ I replied. ‘It was too dark. But she was low in the water so I should think Mr Masterton’s estimate is about right.’

‘Good.’ He seemed pleased, but when I suggested that we could now proceed to Cala Figuera, he shook his head. ‘Sorry. No time now. We may need our launch.’ And he ordered Masterton to land us, then return and tie up alongside pending further orders. I tried to argue with him, but he turned on me and said, ‘If you’re so urgent to get away from here …’ He checked himself, then leaned out and said, ‘Has it occurred to you, Mr Steele, that if it weren’t for you and that wife of yours we wouldn’t be in the mess we are?’ He stared down at me, then turned abruptly and disappeared inside the bridge, leaving me wondering how he knew about Soo. Had Gareth let it slip out, arguing with the man as he backed the frigate through the narrows, or later when he’d put her on the rocks?

I was thinking about that as the sailors pushed off and we manoeuvred round the rocks and into the loading point. Five minutes later we were back at the tent and as I held the flap back for Petra, I noticed the lights of at least half a dozen vehicles moving west along the main road from Villa Carlos. They were evenly spaced and looked like a military convoy. I thought perhaps they were reinforcements for the defence of the airport, or perhaps for a dawn offensive towards Ciudadela. Their real significance never occurred to me.

In the dim interior of the tent it was as though we had never left it, the chairs, the table, the unwashed plates, the glasses and the bottle of Fundador. ‘Damn that bastard Mault. ‘I reached for my glass, which still had some brandy in it. I was angry and frustrated, and when Petra said, ‘It’s not his fault, everybody must be very tense by now,’ I told her to go to hell, downed the rest of my drink and walked out. I wasn’t only angry with Mault, I was angry with myself. I should have handled it better. I should have insisted on seeing Gareth. I had the chance then, whilst we’d been tied up alongside, but I’d been so shattered by Mault’s words, his obvious hostility, that I hadn’t thought of it. And there was an element of truth in what he had said. That’s what made it so hard to swallow. Putting his ship aground had been the one action Gareth could take that would effectively make Soo totally ineffective as a hostage, the one way he could save her life and at the same time carry out his orders to stay in Mahon under all circumstances. The only other thing he could have done was to put to sea, and that was out of the question.

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.’