Medusa

I had been hoping, of course, that by now Martin Lopez would have had time to straighten things out, but when he ordered us to move nearer the dockyard area, presumably so that they could keep a closer watch on us, and said that nobody was to land, it was obvious the Menorcan authorities had been in touch with them. I pointed out to him that we had been at sea for almost four days and must send somebody ashore for fresh food, but the brown eyes in the smooth dark face stared at me uncomprehendingly. In the end he told us to arrange with one of the dghajsas to supply our needs. ‘If you go ashore before you have clearance,’ he said, ‘you will be arrested.’

I was too tired to argue with him and shortly after he had left a Harbour Police launch appeared and under their direction we shifted to the industrial part of the harbour, anchoring just north of the largest of the dry docks, which was occupied by a Panamanian-registered cruise ship. Our new anchorage was noisy and smelt strongly of oil and sewage, the water thick and dark, the viscidity of its surface gleaming with a bluebottle iridescence in the bright sunlight.

The RN ship was a frigate; we could see her quite clearly now, but not her name, only the number on her side prefixed F. She was berthed alongside a quay on the Senglea shore of French Creek at about the spot where the Turks had tried so desperately to tear down the improvised palisade the Knights had erected to protect their southern flank. Maltese swimmers, armed with knives and short swords, had driven them off, and then on July 15, in the full heat of summer, Mustapha Pasha had launched what was intended as a final crushing blow against the Knights of St John. I remember the date because it was the day Soo and I had been married. The Janissaries, the Spahis, the Iayalars, the Levies were all thrown in, the galleys as well that had been dragged overland from Marsamxett. Three thousand fanatical Muslims died that day.

How much had changed! Yet over the long gap of four centuries, the forts, ramparts and ravelins of the Knights still stood massive in the sunshine — Senglea and St Michael, Birgu and St Angelo, and Fort St Elmo away to my left on the Valetta side of Grand Harbour. I had been reading up on the Great Siege when I first met Soo and it was she who had taken me to all sorts of places I would otherwise have missed. It was, in fact, the Great Siege that had brought us together, the beginning of our love, and seeing it again all bright on that cloudless morning brought a lump to my throat.

A sudden flurry of activity on the deck of the frigate brought my mind back from the past. The gangway staff had been alerted by the approach of a launch speeding across from Valetta. I watched as it came alongside the accommodation ladder, sailors with boathooks fore and aft and a naval officer stepping out and climbing quickly to the deck above. There was a twitter of bo’s’n’s pipes and I wondered if it was the Captain returning from a courtesy visit. Was it Lloyd Jones? Would he know about the Great Siege? Would that spark I had seen explode between them compensate for all the things Soo and I had shared? And then, more practically, I was looking at the frigate’s superstructure, the tangle of radio and radar equipment. There, if the worst came to the worst, was the means of communicating with the outside world, if he would play.

That thought stayed in my mind all day. I needed to know what was happening back in Mahon, what my position was. I had been so convinced I would be in the clear by the time we reached Malta, and Evans? … surely they would have searched the villa by now? Lying in the broad double bunk in the port hull my mind went over and over the stupidity of it all. To fall into such a heavily baited trap — me, with all the experience I had of sailing close to the wind — Christ! It was unbelievable.

And then, when I finally got off to sleep, there was the jar of a launch alongside, Maltese voices and the thump of feet on deck. It was the customs back again, this time with orders to search the boat, which they did from end to end, peering into all the bilges, prodding cushions and bedding and searching every locker, the engine compartments, too. Periodically I asked them what they were looking for, but each time the senior officer replied, ‘A routine search. Nothing more. Just routine.’

They were on board the better part of two hours. When they left I was advised once again not to go ashore. ‘And don’t send any bags, laundry, anything like that ashore. You wait here until you are cleared, okay?’