Medusa

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.’