Medusa

‘But you couldn’t possibly keep quiet about it,’ I said. Anyway, he hadn’t attempted to conceal the fact that he had seen them landing arms at the King’s Fleet. ‘Or was it just his identity you promised not to reveal?’

He nodded, ‘I swore I’d never tell anyone I’d recognised him. I wouldn’t have done, anyway,’ he murmured. ‘He knew that. But he made me swear it all the same.’

‘Then why have you told me?’ I asked him.

He got up suddenly and began pacing back and forth again, his shoulders hunched, the new cigarette burning unheeded in his hand. When I repeated the question, he said, ‘I’m not sure really.’ He stopped just behind my chair. ‘To show you the sort of man Pat is. That’s one reason. A warning. And at the same time …’ He went over to his desk and sat down, pulling the message slip out of his pocket and going through it again. ‘God in heaven!’ he murmured. ‘Why doesn’t he get the hell out? Now, while nobody knows he’s involved.’

And then he turned to me. ‘He’s not all bad, you see. And to end up in prison. A life sentence. He’s not the sort of man who could bear imprisonment. Freedom is everything to him. That’s why he deserted from the Navy, why he couldn’t stand any ordinary sort of job. It’s against his nature, you understand.’ He was pleading with me, trying to persuade me to keep quiet about where I had found that Russian gun. I remembered Soo’s words then, wondering what exactly the relationship had been between this man, who was now the Captain of a Royal Navy frigate, and his half-brother, who was a gun-runner, what they had felt for each other when they were both youngsters at Ganges and Pat Evans had got him down from the top of that mast.

He looked up at me suddenly. ‘How old’s that catamaran you sailed to Malta?’

‘It was built six years ago,’ I said.

He nodded perfunctorily as though it was what he had expected. ‘The hulls are painted white now, but underneath — any sign of black paint?’

‘You’d have to ask Carp,’ I told him. But neither of us were in any doubt it was the same boat.

He didn’t say anything after that, sitting hunched at the desk the way he had been when I had come down from the bridge to have a drink with him, his mind closed to everything else but the signals lying there under his hands.

The loudspeaker burst into life, a muffled announcement about the deadline for posting letters home. He listened to it briefly, then returned to the papers.

‘About tomorrow?’ I reminded him.

He looked up, frowning. ‘I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, if. you’ve finished your drink …’ He returned to the papers, his withdrawn manner making it clear the period of intimacy was over. ‘See you in the morning.’ But then, as I was going out, he stopped me. ‘Ever done any board-sailing?’ And when I told him I had run sailboard courses when I first came to Menorca, he nodded. ‘That might help.’ And he added, ‘I’ll think about it. Let you know in the morning.’

I went up to the bridge then, standing inconspicuously by the radar, watching the knife-like bows rise and fall beyond the twin barrels of the 4.5-inch guns, the white glimmer of the bow wave either side, my body adapting to the pitch and roll as we drove north-westwards through breaking seas. The wind had backed into the north and was blowing about force five. Standing in the dark like that, conscious of the engines vibrating under my feet, the sound of them overlaid by the noise of the sea, and the watch on duty still like shadows all about me, there was an extraordinary sense of isolation, of time standing still. I was thinking of Thunderflash

and the voyage to Malta, all the other occasions when I had been alone at the helm, just the sea and my thoughts for company. But now it was different. Now I had the feeling I had reached some sort of watershed.

Tomorrow! And my life slipping through my mind. Nothing achieved, never anything solid, all I had built in Menorca breaking in my hands, Soo, the business, everything, and now that bloody catamaran … ‘Care for some coffee, sir? Or there’s kai if you prefer it.’ One of the leading seamen was standing at my elbow with a tin tray full of mugs. I chose the chocolate and took it over to the chart table, where the Navigating Officer was now checking our position against the plot. ‘Do you know where we’ll be anchoring?’ I asked him as he completed the log entry.

For answer he pulled open the topmost drawer and extracted the chart that gave plans of Mahon and Fornells harbours, as well as two in Ibiza. ‘About there, we reckon.’ He indicated the Mahon plan, where he had pencilled a cross just south of Cala Llonga right opposite Villa Carlos. ‘ETA is now 09.30 approx.’ He looked at me curiously. ‘You staying on board or is the Captain arranging to put you ashore?’

‘I’m not certain,’ I said.