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.
He nodded, smiling at me. He understood the problem. ‘It might interest you to know he’s just rung me to say he wants one sailboard with wet suit and goggles ready on the flight deck by 09.00. I’m in charge of sailing, you see.’ And he added, ‘Sorry about the board, but it’s the best we can do. No dinghies, I’m afraid.’
It was probably nervous exhaustion that finally got me off to sleep that night for I was dead to the world when Petty Officer Jarvis shook me into consciousness. He was earlier than usual. ‘Lieutenant Craig would like you to select whichever one fits best.’ He dumped three wet suits on the foot of the bunk. ‘They’re the only sizes we have on board.’ And as he went out, he asked me to leave the two I didn’t want and any borrowed clothing on the rack above my bunk.
By then the bo’s’n’s mate was rousing the ship, and shortly afterwards Gareth’s voice announced: ‘This is the Captain. Just to bring you up to date. We are now approaching Port Mahon, the main harbour and capital of Menorca, one of the Spanish Balearic islands. For obvious reasons we shall not be tying up alongside. Instead, I propose to anchor well clear of the town in the approaches opposite Villa Carlos. In the circumstances, I do not see any possibility of shore leave. I will let you know how long this courtesy visit is to last as soon as I can. That is all.’
His cabin was empty by the time I arrived for breakfast. ‘Captain’s on the bridge,’ Petty Officer Jarvis told me. ‘And there’s no choice this morning.’ He placed a heaped plateful of bacon, sausages, eggs and fried bread in front of me. ‘He thought you might appreciate it. Later in the day, that is.’
I was still working through it when Gareth appeared. ‘We shall be abreast of St Carlos Point and La Mola in approximately fifteen minutes. Things will begin to hot up then. As soon as you’ve finished, I’d be glad if you’d return to your cabin and wait there until Petty Officer Jarvis comes to take you down to the quarterdeck. Chief Petty Officer Clark will meet you there. He will have …’ The Sinbad loudspeaker interrupted him, a voice from the bridge reporting that revs were now being reduced. ‘Also, there’s a small vessel lying off Lazareto. Spanish Navy by the look of her, sir. Could be coastal patrol, or one of those small minesweepers, can’t tell yet.’
Gareth reached for the mike. ‘Very good, Simon. I’ll be up.’ He turned to me again. ‘That could complicate matters. I didn’t expect an escort.’
‘You’ve decided have you – to get me off the ship by sailboard?’
‘Yes, didn’t Peter Craig warn you last night?’
‘All he told me was that you’d ordered him to have a board ready on the flight deck by 09.00. I didn’t know you’d made up your mind till your steward brought me a choice of wet suits with my tea this morning.’ I hesitated, but this looked like my last chance to question him. ‘Has Wade been in touch with you?’ I asked him.
‘Commander Wade?’
I nodded, watching him closely as he said he couldn’t discuss official contacts with me.
‘Particularly Wade I suppose?’
He didn’t answer. I think he had intended having a cup of coffee with me, but now he put his hat back on his head. ‘I’ll try and arrange it so that Medusa is between you and the escort when we drop you off. The engines will be stopped for that moment and I’ll get as much of the way off the ship as I can. You’ve got a good breeze, so with luck you’ll be on the board and sailing fast enough to remain hidden from the escort vessel as we gather way again. Okay?’ He smiled then and held out his hand. ‘Good luck, Mike!’ And as we shook hands he had the gall to add. ‘If you make it to Bloody Island you’ll be able to hide up with that archaeological Amazon of yours.’
There is something about a Navy ship that instils a sense of something akin to discipline even in a civilian visitor like myself. I could have turned left, gone up to the bridge and watched our approach to Mahon. Nobody would have stopped me. I could have got my things, found my way aft down to the flight deck and waited there. Instead, I did what Gareth had told me and went straight to my cabin. I wished I hadn’t. Sitting on the bunk, staring at nothing except the opposite berth and the cabin fittings, time passed slowly. There was no porthole and even if I had had something to read, the ceiling light was too dim, so that I would have had to stretch out on the bunk with the little bulkhead light on.
Shortly after 08.40 I felt the engines slow, then Mault’s voice called for the watch on deck to muster and put fenders out on the starb’d side. Somebody was coming aboard, presumably from the patrol boat. The engines stopped, feet pounding on the deck and orders shouted, then a slight bump as the other vessel came alongside. This was the moment they should have dropped me over the side, but nobody came and the beat of the engines started up again.
It was 08.55 when Petty Officer Jarvis knocked at the cabin door. ‘Everything’s ready, sir, if you’ll bring the wet suit with you. And the Captain asked me to give you this.’
‘What is it?’ I asked as he handed me a nasty-looking bit of black fur in a plastic bag.
‘A beard, sir. Compliments of our entertainments officer. The Captain thought it might help if somebody had their glasses on you.’
There was a CPO waiting for us on the flight deck. The sailboard was propped against the hangar doors, mast and sail rigged, and a thin line attached to the bows was coiled ready. To starb’d the cliffs of La Mola and the brown of the military casements came into view. ‘We’ll be approaching the narrows at the southern end of Lazareto Island in a few minutes,’ the CPO said. ‘Lieutenant Craig estimates the distance from the buoys marking the narrows to the spot where we’ll be anchoring as roughly nine cables. He’ll stop engines when we come abreast of the little island immediately beyond Lazareto. That will be the signal for you to go.’
I stripped off my clothes and he helped me into the wet suit, zipping me up and slipping a bum-bolster round my buttocks. ‘’Fraid the harness isn’t exactly a speed seat. You’ll have to adjust it as you go. And the board’s just an ordinary production job for funboard sailing, so if you want air, you won’t find it.’ Looking at it, I could see it was no jump board, more a beginner’s board, which suited me in the circumstances. ‘Got any goggles?’ I asked.
He reached into his pocket and produced a narrow, almost slit-eyed pair with black surround. I put them on and adjusted them to fit my head. ‘Don’t forget the beard, sir.’ He was grinning. ‘You look like you could play Mephistopheles in that. Nobody could possibly recognise you.’
By then the conical buoy with its flashing light marking the channel on the starb’d side was already bobbing in our wash, the sharp southern point of Lazareto, Punta de San Felipet, appearing at the same instant. The engines were slowing now, the speed dropping off. ‘How long do you reckon?’ I asked the CPO.
‘Seven, eight minutes.’
The beard was close-fitting and warm, the sea goggles on the tight side. They wrapped up my clothes and taped them into a plastic bag, which they tied firmly to the base of the sailboard’s mast in such a way that it did not restrict its pintle fitting. Petty Officer Jarvis excused himself. He had to attend to the needs of the Captain and his visitor, who was the Spanish Navy’s Jefe, Capitán Perez. The long brown line of Lazareto went slowly by. Peering out to port, I could see the buildings of Villa Carlos coming closer. Soon now, and I was wondering whether Petra would be back from burying her father, whether she would be on the island, and how the hell I was going to live with the police watching for me and no money. All I had in the pocket of my trousers, now screwed up in a plastic ball, was £235 in traveller’s cheques
which I couldn’t cash because it meant going to a bank or a hotel.
Cala Pedrera. Punta de Medio. I could see Punta de Cala Fonts coming up, and beyond the point, the Villa Carlos promenade with its hotels and restaurants and the Cafayas light. ‘Stand by, sir.’ The engines were slowing, the sound of water slipping past the plates dying away. I caught a glimpse to starb’d of the Plana de Mahon light. ‘Ready?’ The CPO took one end of the sailboard, I took the other. A few steps, a heave, and it was overboard, the slim board surfing alongside as he held it by the line. ‘Away you go, sir, and whatever you do, hang on to the beard. Entertainments want it back.’ He was grinning as he clapped me on the shoulder. Not quite a shove, but it reminded me of the one occasion I had parachuted under instruction. I jumped, my head in my arms, my knees up in a foetal position. Wham! I hit the water, the ship still moving, its displacement dragging me under. And then I was up, the grey stern moving past, the board within yards, anchored by the sail which was lying flat on the surface.
It was over two years since I had been on a sailboard. The technique doesn’t leave one, but, like skiing, the muscles lose their sharpness. I flipped on to it all right, but instead of getting myself and the sail up in virtually the same movement, it was all a bit of a scramble. The wind was funnelling down the harbour, a good breeze that had me away on the starb’d tack and going fast before I was visible to the escort vessel, which was on the far side of Medusa and lying a little ahead of her, one of the old minesweepers by the look of it.
There was a moment, of course, when I felt naked and unsure of myself, but as my arms and knees began to respond to the drive of the sail, confidence returned, and after I had snapped the harness on I began to enjoy myself, steering close to the wind, my weight a little further aft and the speed increasing, my exhilaration, too. I found I went better if I railed it down to leeward. Gradually, as I became more relaxed and let the harness take some of the strain off my arms, I was able to glance over my shoulder at the pale grey shape of the frigate with its bristling antennae. I was paralleling her course and going faster, so that I was soon abreast of her for’ard guns. There was a little group of men gathered on the fo’c’s’le ready for anchoring and the four international code flags flying from the yardarm. Ahead of me, and beyond Villa Carlos, I could now see Bloody Island, with the old hospital buildings looking even more like a stranded steamer.
I swung round, passing the sail across as I went through the wind on to the other tack. I was heading directly towards the patrol boat now and there were other boats about – a launch, two motor cruisers and a sailing yacht, several rowing boats and a tug moving across to Cala Figuera to perform its regular job of taking the small supply tanker in tow. Without thinking I put my hand to my chin. I knew the beard was still there. I could feel it. But I still had to touch it, to be sure nobody could recognise me. By then I had worked the board up to about twelve knots and it was really skimming across the flat surface of the water. The tug hooted, and as though that were a signal, Medusa’s anchor splashed down, the clatter of the chain running out echoing back from the rocky shore, a cloud of seabirds rising from the small boat gut in the middle of Villa Carlos.
I turned again, driving the board hard on the wind through the gap between Bloody Island and the shore, heading straight for the north side of Cala Figuera until I could see the quay I’d built and the chandlery and my home tucked tight in against the cliffs. There were two boats moored stern-to by the quay, figures moving about their decks and the chandlery door wide open. So the business was still operating. I passed within two hundred metres of it. No sign of Soo, but the office balcony window was open. I was then heading straight for the Club Maritimo, and seeing a big inflatable coming out from the huddle of yachts moored at the pontoon, I swung away towards the other shore.
If I hadn’t been distracted by a small freighter coming out of Mahon itself, I would have recognised that inflatable sooner. Or would I? The fact was that I was thoroughly enjoying myself now, the water and the sailboard having temporarily divorced me from reality, so that perhaps I had no desire to recognise it, subconsciously aware that reality and all the problems of the future were at the helm. I ploughed my way into the freighter’s wake, swinging down-wind and surfing in the turbulence. And then, when I was almost back at Bloody Island and could see the inflatable heading straight for it, I knew, and in the instant I couldn’t resist the joke of heading straight for it, just to see what she’d do, a bearded stranger sailboarding alongside.
It was Petra all right. She smiled and waved, her features half-hidden by that ridiculous sombrero she sometimes wore. She held up the tail end of a rope, offering me a tow, and I felt a pang of jealousy, seeing her suddenly as a girl on her own making overtures to an unattached male. Or did she guess who it was? I swept round and chased her all the way to Bloody Island, running the sailboard in right behind her and flopping into the water alongside the inflatable, ‘I thought we might have dinner together,’ I suggested.
She was out on the rock that did service as a quay, leaning down, her shirt gaping. Her eyes lit up. ‘Where?’ She was smiling that big-mouthed smile of hers, the lips open so that her strong features looked all teeth.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘On the island. I’m told you have a tent …’
‘That beard of yours.’ She was squatting down on her hunkers, her eyes very wide and bright in her tanned face. ‘It’s crooked.’ She began to giggle uncontrollably.
Reality closed in on me before I had even hauled the sailboard out of the water, words pouring out of her, a rush of information as she moored the inflatable and began unloading her stores. There had been several quite large political demonstrations ahead of next week’s election and during the night a bomb had gone off in the little square in the centre of Villa Carlos. Two soldiers on sentry duty outside the military HQ and one of the Guardia had been injured, and it had affected the telephone exchange, all lines between Villa Carlos and St Felip being cut. ‘Two-thirty in the morning. It woke me up. I thought one of the big guns on La Mola had gone off. And now I’ve just heard there was another bomb went off in that big new hotel at Santa Galdana and fires started at several of the most congested urbanizacións – St Tomas in particular and St Jaime. None of your properties are involved. At least, Lennie doesn’t think so.’ She asked me what I had been up to. ‘You’ve been in Malta, I gather. Were you mixed up in that disturbance? I was picking up newsflashes about it as I waited at Gatwick for my plane.’
I told her a bit of what had happened as I helped her hump her shopping up to the camp, which was in the lee of one of the hospital’s standing walls, close by the old burial ground and the dig. There was just the one big tent. Now that the hypostile was fully excavated she was using that as an office-cum-storeroom, the big stone roofing slabs covered with vegetation providing protection from sun as well as wind and rain.
Her father was dead and she had only been back a few days, having stayed on after the funeral to help her mother move up to her sister’s in Nottingham. ‘I’ve traded in my car, by the way. The little CV2 had just about had it and that old rogue Flórez offered me a Beetle – very cheap!’ I asked her if she had had time to see Soo since she had arrived back in Mahon and she said she had been talking to her only a few hours before.
‘How is she?’ I asked.
‘Oh, she’s fine, and very full of what her Lieutenant Commander has been up to, and now that he’s right here …’ She was grinning at me and I told her not to be bitchy, but she only laughed. ‘You can’t blame her when every time she looks out of the window now she can see his ship anchored there.’ And then she switched to her work. ‘You remember the drawing on the cave roof I took you to see?’
‘The night of the Red Cross barbecue?’ I stared at her angrily. ‘I’m hardly likely to forget it.’
She ignored that, telling me how she had checked on it while she was in England. They don’t think it can be anything important, probably done with a burnt stick in roughly
the same period as the megalithic remains. Certainly no older, which is a pity because Lennie knows of some more drawings – drawings that are fully exposed, human figures as well as animals – in a passageway leading back into the headland above that big underwater cave Bill Tanner told me about at Arenal d’en Castell.’
By then she had disposed of the stores she had brought out and, still talking, she began to help me off with my wet suit. I asked her for more details about the night’s bombings, whether she had picked up any gossip about the reaction of the authorities, but she had no official information, only what she had heard from Lennie when she had met him coming out of the chandlery. ‘He said it’s been panic stations since the early hours with the policia and the Guardia rushing around all the major foreign developments.’ The violence had been directed exclusively against foreign-owned property. ‘Except for the Villa Carlos bomb. It was in a parked car and they think it may have gone off by accident. There’s talk, too, of disturbances in Alayor and Ciudadela, but nothing serious – just demonstrations, no bombs.’
‘Well, that’s something,’ I murmured and asked her for the loan of a towel as she pulled the wet suit clear of my feet. But instead of handing it to me she insisted on towelling me down with the inevitable result that we finished up in each other’s arms arguing hilariously as to how we should proceed, her camp bed being designed strictly for one person and the floor being bare earth and rock. We had just settled for a sleeping bag opened out and spread on the floor when we were interrupted by the sound of an outboard coming steadily nearer. ‘Oh hell! I forgot.’ Petra pulled herself away from me and glanced at her watch, which by then was the only thing she had on. ‘Lennie! I told him to be here by ten.’
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