That was the question the Board of Enquiry was to ask him four days later. Not because Mrs Suzanne Steele was being held as hostage, they didn’t know about that at the outset. Their primary concern was whether he could have achieved his purpose of holding fast in the approaches to Mahon without the need to ground his ship. But that was before they called Lieutenant Commander Mault to give evidence.
V
Board of Enquiry
Chapter One
It never occurred to me that I would be involved. A Naval Board of Enquiry, Gareth explained as I took him down the stairs and out into the bright sunlight next morning, is much like that for any commercial shipping incident, except that the resulting report often includes a recommendation for court martial proceedings to be taken against those thought to be responsible. ‘I shall, of course, be held solely responsible. And rightly.’
He stood there for a moment on the quay, looking out to the frigate half-merged in the shadowed bulk of the hospital ruins. ‘I’ll be relieved of my command and sent back for trial.’ He said it slowly, a note of resignation in his voice. He looked dreadful in that dazzlingly crisp light, dark rings under his eyes, a worried look and his mouth compressed to a hard line. Then suddenly he smiled and his face lit up. ‘Must be one of the shortest and most fraught commands anybody has ever had.’ He shook his head, still smiling, and with a careful jauntiness walked across the quay to the waiting launch.
His last words to me before jumping in were, Tell her to forget all about me. I shan’t attempt to see her again.’ He thanked me then for putting him up for the night, gave me a quick, perfunctory salute, and seated himself in the stern.
It was Masterton who was in charge again. He looked up at me, waiting for me to follow. ‘Well, don’t let’s hang around, Midshipman Masterton,’ Gareth snapped at him. ‘Get going.’
‘Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.’ The boy gave the order to cast off. ‘My regards to Miss Callis please,’ he called out to me brightly. Then he swung the launch away from the quay and headed out to the grounded frigate, where the port tug was already standing by to try to tow her off on the top of the tide.
That was Saturday and by mid-morning, with the help of one of the Spanish destroyers, Medusa was off the rocks and lying to her anchor some three cables off the Club Maritimo, not far from where the oil tanker usually anchored. Apart from the fact that her pumps had to be kept going and that extra pumps brought in from the Naval Base were gushing water over the side, she looked perfectly all right. However, divers were down most of the day examining the stern, and that evening I heard that both propellers were damaged and it was thought the port prop shaft had been forced out of alignment. She was expected to be towed to Barcelona for repairs within the week.
Wade phoned me from London on Sunday morning to ask if I had any news of Evans. His voice sounded relaxed, even friendly. And when I told him I hadn’t the slightest idea where the man was, he laughed and said, ‘No, I didn’t expect you would. But did you gather any idea what his future plans were? You had a meeting with him on Medusa.’
‘How do you know that?’
He ignored my question. ‘I imagine the main point of that meeting was to use your wife as a lever to get Lloyd Jones to take his frigate out of Mahon. I’m not asking you for the details of that meeting,’ he added quickly. ‘That will be a matter for Captain Wheatcroft. What I want to know is, did Evans at any time during that meeting, or when you were on the island together, give any indication of what his plans were?’
‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘Until the frigate went aground he was fully committed to the new government of Ismail Fuxá and to ensuring that the powerful aid it had asked for would not be hindered from entering the port.’
‘Yes, but afterwards – after Medusa had gone aground?’
‘The grounding and Miss Callis’s arrival were almost simultaneous. You know about what happened after that, do you?’ I asked him.
‘Yes. But I’m not interested in that, only in whether he gave you any indication of what he might do next, where he would go?’
‘There wasn’t time.’
‘All right, but earlier, when you and he were with Lloyd Jones in his cabin on Medusa.’
Again I told him there was no reason for Evans to even think about where he might go next. ‘The discussion was about my wife and getting Lloyd Jones to take his frigate out of Mahon. He’d no reason then to think beyond the next few hours.’
‘I see.’ He was silent then, and the silence lasted so long I began to think we had been disconnected. Suddenly he said, ‘You don’t think he’s still on Menorca then?’
‘It hadn’t occurred to me,’ I said. ‘Why?’
‘That fishing boat you let him have – did you know it was sighted abandoned and on fire just outside Spanish territorial waters?’ Another silence, and then he said, ‘Oh well, doubtless he’s pushed off with the rest of them.’ And he added, ‘Now if you’d been able to tell me he was hiding up somewhere on the island …’ I could almost hear his shrug over the line as he went on, ‘Pity! Looks as though somebody will have to start picking up the trail all over again.’ And without another word he rang off.
Captain Wheatcroft, the officer sent out to head the Board of Enquiry, arrived that afternoon. With him on the same plane were his two Board members, a Commander Lovelock from Naval Plans, a marine engineering commander, and a smart little snub-nosed Wren Writer with black hair and rather bulging eyes. All four stayed at the Port Mahon Hotel, which had rooms to spare, some of their American guests having decided to get out. Also on the plane was a Commander Firth. Gareth had apparently served under him and having recently relinquished command of another frigate, he had been flown out to help and advise Gareth during the Enquiry – a sort of prisoner’s friend. The Board began their sittings the following day, Monday, on board Medusa.
The morning was taken up with questions arising from her Captain’s report of the grounding and the reasons for it, the afternoon with the evidence of one or two of the other officers, Lieutenant Commander Mault in particular. He was questioned by the Board for well over an hour.
I only heard about this, of course, later, after it was all over. I knew nothing about it at the time, but after Wade’s phone call I was not altogether surprised when a midshipman, not Masterton, delivered a note from the Chairman of the Board calling me as a witness and requesting that I attend on board HMS Medusa at 10.00 hours the next morning. There would be a launch sent for me at 09.30.
Soo’s immediate reaction when I told her was, ‘Do they know about me?’ and she added quickly, ‘About my being held as a hostage?’
‘Of course.’ My own desperate enquiries had made that inevitable, and Miguel’s body being found where she had been left to die had ensured maximum publicity.
‘I know what they’ll try and do. They’ll try and prove he grounded his ship because of me. That’s why you’re being called.’ Her large, dark eyes had a wild look. ‘Can’t you say he barely knew me, that when you were on board with Gareth and that wretched half-brother of his, he was making use of me just as he would any other hostage? I mean, so long as they don’t know he was seeing me, then they’ll have to accept that he put his ship aground because it was the only way he could be sure he wouldn’t be towed out …’ The words had been pouring out of her she was so tensed up, but I was shaking my head and slowly her voice died.
In the end I told her quite bluntly that what had happened was common knowledge. ‘Things happen. That’s life. And once they’ve happened they can’t be undone.’
She nodded slowly, biting her lip. And then suddenly she began to cry. I tried to say I would do what I could. ‘I’ve no desire to ruin his career, but if they bring it up I’m not going to pretend I’m a fool and didn’t know.’ And I added, ‘A lot will depend on the sort of man Captain Wheatcroft turns out to be, how understanding he is of the emotional needs of naval officers, particularly somebody like Gareth.’ But she wasn’t listening. She had tur
ned away, shaking her head, and with her hand to her mouth she ran to the bedroom and shut the door.
The Board of Enquiry had taken over the Captain’s day cabin, the three members seated at a folding table that had been brought up from the wardroom, their blue uniforms with the gold bands on cuffs and shoulder straps solidly impressive. I was shown to a chair set facing them and after the preliminaries the Chairman went out of his way to put me at my ease by saying, ‘This is not in any sense a court, Mr Steele, but you will understand, I am sure, that an expensive and valuable Navy ship has been set aground and we have to enquire into the circumstances of that grounding. For instance, was it an accidental grounding or was it deliberate? If the latter, then what were the reasons for the decision to set the ship aground?’
He was leaning a little forward, a long, fine-boned face with sharply pointed nose and high-domed forehead largely devoid of hair. ‘I want you to understand – whatever your personal feelings – that the purpose of this Board is to resolve those two questions and report our findings. You will appreciate, of course, that the circumstances were very unusual – almost, I might say, unprecedented. And the odd thing is that you, a civilian, were on board, and to some extent involved, at several of the most crucial moments.’
Captain Wheatcroft had considerable charm, his manner friendly and altogether disarming, except that, as the questions developed, his voice, which was what I would call very establishment Navy, became more aloof and inquisitorial. He had me describe the frigate’s movements from the time she raised her anchor to the time she grounded, and here I was able to avoid any reference to the glimpse I had had of an altercation between Gareth and his First Lieutenant. ‘So you’re suggesting the ship was out of control?’
‘It looked like it,’ I replied.
‘Because he went stern-first through the narrows?’ He didn’t wait for me to agree, but added, ‘He’d no reason to go through the narrows. He had far more sea room to the east of Bloody Island.’ And then he said, ‘I think I should tell you the evidence we have already heard makes it clear there was nothing wrong with the engines. That was a put-up job to justify the Captain’s refusal to move his ship when he had been ordered to leave by the port authorities, and indeed by the self-styled president of the new regime himself. You know about that, I think?’ And when I nodded, he smiled as though he had established a point he had been trying to make. ‘You realise, of course, what follows from that?’
I nodded.
‘So can I have a direct answer from you on the first question we are having to resolve – in your opinion was the grounding of the frigate Medusa deliberate? Yes or no, please.’
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Good. Now to the second question, Mr Steele, and this I think you may find some difficulty in answering. What in your opinion was the overriding reason for Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Jones’s action in deliberately grounding his ship? And let me say here we already know that you were on board and here in this very cabin when a man named Evans arrived from Cala Llonga and was brought up to see him.’ He glanced hurriedly through his notes. The three of you were together here, with nobody else present, for approximately ten minutes, perhaps a little longer. Now, would you kindly tell us exactly what was said? Evans was holding your wife hostage, correct?’
‘Yes.’
‘Any particular reason why they should have seized your wife rather than somebody else’s wife?’
I told him that perhaps it was because Lloyd Jones had personally met her. She wasn’t a stranger to him. And I added, ‘The circumstances were somewhat unusual and I was sure Evans would have heard about it.’ I knew I was treading on thin ice here, and to avoid saying too much, I told him exactly what had happened the night of the barbecue.
‘And you think, if Evans knew about that, it would be sufficient to make him single her out from all the wives in Mahon?’ And he went straight on, ‘You know, of course, that Evans is Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Jones’s half-brother. Moreover, Evans had saved his life. That would surely be enough without bringing a woman into it?’
I didn’t answer that. The man had been too well briefed, by Wade probably. He smiled and leaned back in his chair. ‘Well go on, Mr Steele. You were going to tell us what exactly took place in this cabin when the Captain, you and Evans were closeted here together for over ten minutes.’
I gave him a brief account of what had been said, without referring to the vicious way Evans had tried to needle us both. But it wasn’t Wade who had briefed him. It was somebody local, or else one of the officers, Mault probably, had leapt to conclusions, for he didn’t wait for me to finish before saying, ‘I’m afraid I must now ask a delicate and very personal question. I am sure you will understand why it is absolutely essential you give me a frank answer. What was the exact nature of the relationship between Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Jones and your wife?’
‘I don’t follow you,’ I said.
‘I think you do.’
‘Are you suggesting there was something wrong with the relationship? They met for the first time at that Red Cross barbecue. I told you that. Within a fortnight Gareth Lloyd Jones left for Gibraltar to take command of this ship. If you’re suggesting what I think you are, then they knew each other for much too short a time.’
He looked at me quizzically. ‘No offence, Mr Steele, but it doesn’t take long, and it would explain, you see, why Evans would think that by seizing hold of your wife and threatening her life–’
‘That’s enough,’ I said, pushing back my chair and getting to my feet. ‘You’ve no right to make allegations like that on hearsay.’ I don’t know why, but I was angry, for Gareth as well as Soo. I felt he had been through quite enough without having this thrown in his face. And why should Soo’s name be dragged into it, just because they were both human and had reacted quite spontaneously to something they couldn’t help?
Standing there, I told Wheatcroft what I thought of him. ‘You post a man to the command of a ship that’s half volunteers, half throw-outs, tell him to do the impossible, and then when he does it, you come here chairing an enquiry that will send him to court martial, and you have the effrontery to suggest, as a means of destroying him, that he was having an affair with my wife.’
He smiled, oddly enough quite a warm smile. ‘You say he wasn’t having an affair, that there is no truth –’
‘Of course I do.’ And I added, ‘I would hardly have gone on board his ship in Malta if I had suspected anything like that, would I?’ I made it a question in the hope that he would believe me.
‘So, if there was a court martial, you would categorically deny that there was any truth in the allegation?’
‘Certainly.’
‘You would be under oath remember.’
I nodded. I didn’t trust myself to say any more.
‘And that suggestion was never made by Evans when he was alone here with the two of you trying to persuade Lloyd Jones to leave Mahon?’
‘It was made,’ I said. ‘As a try-on. Having grabbed my wife, he was probing on the off-chance he could use her more effectively.’
‘And it didn’t work?’
‘No.’
‘It had no connection with the subsequent grounding?’
‘Why should it if it wasn’t true? In any case, Gareth –’ and I used his Christian name then for the first time – ‘was fixing it so that there was no way they could get him to leave port. Soo didn’t come into it.’
‘And your testimony as regards that will stand at the court martial?’
‘If he’s court-martialled, and I’m called to give evidence, then that’s what I shall say.’
He stared at me a moment, then turned to the other two Board members. ‘Any further questions, gentlemen?’ And when they both shook their heads, he smiled and got to his feet. ‘Then that’s all, Mr Steele.’ He held out his hand. ‘Thank you for coming here to give evidence.’ He called to the petty officer waiting outside and ordered him to see me off the ship. Then,
turning to me again, he said, ‘I’m hoping to have a little party here on board before I leave. Perhaps you and your wife would care to come – a small return for the trouble we have caused you.’ He looked round at his colleagues. ‘Tomorrow evening, don’t you think?’ They nodded and he said to me, ‘Tomorrow evening then, six o’clock say. The launch will pick you up shortly before.’
It cannot be every day that the Chairman of a Board of Enquiry gives a party on the afterdeck of the very ship whose grounding he has been enquiring into. But the circumstances were exceptional, and so was Julian Wheatcroft’s behaviour. No sign of the distant severity he had shown as Chairman of the enquiry. Now all the well-educated charm of the man was back in place as he greeted his guests on the flight deck. The borrowed deck pumps had been temporarily stilled, the ship relatively quiet, and it was one of those really lovely Menorcan evenings, the air warm and not a breath of wind.
I watched him as he greeted Soo, a little bow and a warm smile, his eyes travelling quickly over her body and fastening on her face, alert, watchful, sexually aware. The same watchfulness was there as she and Gareth greeted each other. It was obvious he was trying to make up his mind whether or not they had been lovers. She had assured me they had not, that it had been purely emotional. In retrospect, I see his problem. An emotional involvement did not concern him, only a physical one, particularly if the result were a child.
I had warned Soo that she would be virtually on show and that for Gareth’s sake, if not for mine, she should be on her guard. In the event, she carried it off perfectly, greeting Gareth with an easy friendliness, offering him her cheek, smiling and happy-looking as she congratulated him on having survived such a difficult assignment. She did it with just the right touch of intimacy and warmth. I was proud of her, and watching Wheatcroft, I saw him relax, then turn away to say something to Lovelock, the commander from Plans, who had also been monitoring the meeting between Soo and Gareth. He nodded, the down-turned corners of his mouth twisting themselves into an unaccustomed smile. He, too, seemed suddenly relaxed.
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