‘He’s alive,’ I said. ‘They’ll get him ashore when things have sorted themselves out. Some time tomorrow presumably. Meanwhile, I imagine they’ll stitch him up as best they can.’
She poured me some wine. It was good dark Rioja, the colour of blood. I drank it down at a gulp. ‘They’re a bit preoccupied right now,’ I told her, and at that moment, as though to emphasise the point, the lights that lit the outline of the frigate went suddenly out, everything dark again.
She nodded. All around us we could hear voices, the clink of metal on metal, the tramp of feet. ‘They’ve started to dig in,’ she said.
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.’
She was trying to wrench herself free, but at my words she stopped struggling and stared at me, appalled. ‘D’you mean that? D’you mean it’s – now?’
‘Any minute,’ I said. ‘There’s a Russian cruiser, several other warships. They should be off the entrance now.’
She came with me then, pulling on a loose cardigan as we hurried down to the landing point. The launch was already there, two sailors holding it alongside the rock with boathooks, Leslie Masterton in the stern, the engine ticking over. He took Petra’s holdall, helped her in, and as I followed her, he gave the order to push the launch clear.
‘What’s the latest news?’ I asked him as we pulled away from the rocks.
‘I don’t know, sir. Everybody’s at action stations –’ He rolled the words off his tongue as though savouring them with excited anticipation. For a moment he concentrated on swinging the launch under the frigate’s bows. Then, when we were headed for Cala Figuera, he added, ‘But the Captain hasn’t said anything. There’s been no announcement. So I don’t know anything really, nobody does. All we’ve been told is to stay on maximum alert until we’re ordered otherwise. A lot of the boys are off the ship and among the ruins of that hospital. But you know that. Seems the Captain’s expecting some sort of an attack.’ He was strung up, the words pouring out of him. ‘I’ve been allocated the launch.’ He grinned. ‘Didn’t expect the opportunity of a run ashore.’
I glanced at Petra and she smiled. I think we were both wondering whether Gareth had done it purposely, an excuse for getting this pleasant kid out of the firing line. I pulled back the sleeve of my sweater and looked at my watch. It was already 01.11. Eleven minutes after the time I thought they might be steaming in through the entrance.
It was then that one of the sailors said quietly, ‘Ship on the port bow, sir. Close inshore.’ He pointed and I could see it then, a dim shape under the Villa Carlos cliff line momentarily outlined by the double red flash of the light on the point. It was a small vessel, moving slowly and very low in the water. ‘Looks like that customs launch,’ Masterton said and throttled back until we were barely moving. Even so, the vessel, heading in towards Mahon itself, would cut right across our bows. We lay there without lights, waiting. And when I suggested that we make a dash for it, the young midshipman said, without even hesitating to consider the possibility, ‘Sorry, but my orders are to take no chances and return immediately if challenged.’
We could see the launch quite clearly now each time the Villa Carlos light flashed red. She was low in the water because she was crowded with people. Soon we could hear the sound of th
e engine. She would cross our bows at a distance of about two hundred metres, and lying quite still, with no lights behind us, there was just a chance we would remain unseen.
But then, as the launch was approaching the point where she would cross our bows and we could see that the pack of men standing on the deck were most of them armed, a string of lights appeared behind us on the road above Cala Lladró. We were suddenly in silhouette against them. Somebody on the customs launch shouted, several of them were pointing at us, and then there was the flash and crack of a rifle fired. I didn’t hear the bullet whistle past. It was lost in the roar of our engine as Masterton gunned it and swung the wheel, turning the launch round and heading back towards Bloody Island. I caught a glimpse of some sort of struggle on the deck of the customs launch. There was the crackle of small-arms fire, spurts of flame, splinters flying off the woodwork of our stern, a glass window shattered, and little geysers bouncing past us as bullets slapped the water close alongside.
The moment of shock passed, the customs launch receding into the distance until it was finally lost in the dark of Mahon’s harbour. There seemed no reason then why we shouldn’t resume our course for Cala Figuera, but when I suggested this to Masterton I found myself faced, not by a kid, but by Midshipman Masterton, a budding officer to whom orders were orders. He had been told to take no chances and return if he was challenged. He had been challenged. Not only that, he’d been fired on, and though I argued that the customs launch was now out of sight and no danger, he said, ‘I don’t know who they were on that launch, but they were armed and they opened fire. Before we can make your quay at Cala Figuera they could be ashore and somebody on the phone to the military.’
Nothing I or Petra could say would change his mind. The nice cheerful face had suddenly become obstinate, his manner indicating the implacability of naval training. I think he was quite capable of initiative, but not when he had been given specific orders. ‘I’ll have to report back.– He said that twice. ‘Then, if I’m instructed to proceed …’
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.’
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 pla
te 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.
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