There was a shout, one word, not a Maltese word, but French — Attaquez,and on the instant the scene changed, a rush of movement, the car was picked up bodily from one side, the engine screaming as it was pitched on to its side and the wheels came free of the ground. Screams and shouts, and the two fire hoses, run out now across half the width of the quay, bulged, their nozzles hissing like snakes, water bursting out in a broad arc. But the car and the crowd were too far away. The jets of water barely reached them. I heard Mault's voice, but before he had even given the order, the Marine sergeant and his men, all in uniform and with bayonets fixed to their self-loading rifles, came thundering down the gangway.
If they had moved in before the shore party had reached the quay, if they had broken up the crowd, grabbed the ringleaders and the other agitators… But that would have meant taking the initiative with the Navy blamed for everything that followed. As it was, the men forming up in a compact body at the foot of the gangway and then advancing might still have been sufficient intimidation to get the sailors back on board. Instead, the sergeant ordered them to charge, and that was just the catalyst needed to turn an ugly little incident into a political bombshell.
The crowd round the car were already opening out. In a moment they would have run. But then it happened, a spurt of flame, the sound of a shot, and Lieutenant Kent, climbing out of the car, all of his torso reared up in the open window on the driver's side, threw up his hands and began to scream. And as he lost consciousness, his body sagging to lie crumpled across the side of the vehicle, I saw the man who had fired the shot drop his pistol, turn and slide away to the rear of the crowd.
I saw him, but I don't think the others did, for their attention had switched to the armed party. They had suddenly stopped, the sergeant's voice ringing out as he gave the order to fire over the heads of the crowd. The volley was ragged, but the noise of it and the sight of those men in blue with their rifles raised and the bayonets glinting in the glare of the searchlight was enough. The crowd broke and ran, melting away so quickly that for an instant the only figure left on the scene was the motor cyclist trying to kick-start his bike into life. Finally he threw it down and ran.
I think the enormity of what had happened was immediately apparent to Gareth, for he stood there on the bridge wing, his face white with shock, too stunned, it seemed, to take command. It was Mault who ordered the armed party back on board, sent for the medical orderly and a stretcher party to get the young lieutenant to the sick bay, and had the shore party drawn up at the foot of the gangway and checked against a list of names to make certain nobody was missing. They were coming back on board and the damage control men were rolling up their hoses before Gareth finally came out of his state of shock. 'Lieutenant Commander Mault.'
Mault turned, an interrogatory lift of his straight, very black eyebrows., Time we got out of here. Come to immediate notice for sea and go to harbour stations as soon as you're ready. We'll move out into the open harbour and anchor seaward of that Russian cruiser. After that we'll see.' He turned abruptly, going back into the bridge housing. 'Find Chief Petty Officer Gordon and tell him to have a word with me,' he said to one of the seamen. 'I'll be in my cabin.' And he disappeared hurriedly through the door at the back.
I realised then that he had understood more than any of the officers around him, including his First Lieutenant, the full implications of what had happened — an armed party had landed from a Royal Navy ship and had opened fire on a crowd of Maltese. Never mind that they had fired in the air, that their action had been provoked and an officer had been shot, it had been done on Maltese soil. An invasive and hostile act, that's how it would be presented, to the Maltese and throughout the Third World and the non-aligned states. He had forgotten all about my presence on the ship, and I couldn't blame him.
The main broadcast suddenly blared out, Mault's voice ordering the crew to harbour stations. I waited until he had finished his announcement, then suggested he signal Thunderflashto come and collect me, but he shook his head. 'Sorry. You'll have to wait until we're anchored.' He had hung up the mike and now had glasses trained on the main dock area where a crowd had gathered at the slip by Somerset Wharf. 'The whole place will soon be in an uproar.' He turned to the chart table, shaking his head. 'Bad business.'
He shouldn't have said that, not in front of me, and certainly not with the Navigating Officer standing beside him. And the way he said it, as though it were nothing to do with him — I knew then that he was trying to distance himself from his captain. At the time, of course, I put it down to the fact that he was older, a resentment at being passed over. Later I was to discover his grandfather had been an admiral in the First World War, his father killed at sea in the Second, and he himself had come up through the traditional officer education of the Navy, Pangbourne, Dartmouth, then service at sea. What had damaged his career was volunteering for submarines and then, when he was posted to HMS Dolphinfor a submariners' course, finding he was subject to claustrophobia and unable to concentrate when submerged.
In the circumstances it was a bit hard to find himself serving under a man who had joined the Navy as a boy seaman at Gangesand been commissioned out of the lower deck, was several years his junior and newly promoted to Lieutenant Commander, a rank he had held more years than he cared to remember. Added to which, he had never had command of a ship in his life, and now this raw young Welshman was plunging him straight into a first-class Mediterranean balls-up. That was his choice of words, and he went on: 'There's Chinese in the dockyard here, one of the latest Russian cruisers anchored in Grand Harbour, and the Libyans barely two hundred miles away. We should never have come to the wharf here. We should never have agreed to tie up alongside.' He turned away, muttering something that sounded like, 'He should have had more sense.' Then he was giving orders for singling op and sailors were letting go all but the head and stern ropes and the springs.
The bridge had now filled up with the special sea duty men, the Navigator standing in the middle by the pelorus. Mault, watching from the bridge wing, finally told him to inform the Captain the ship was singled up and ready to proceed.
I was watching the quay, so I didn't see Mault's face as the Pilot put the phone down and told him the Captain was in the main communications office and he was to take the ship out to the new anchorage himself, but I did notice the sharpness in his tone as he gave the order to let go aft and, picking up the mike to the wheelhouse below, said, 'Port thirty, slow ahead port, slow astern starb'd.'
I could feel the beat of the engines under my feet, saw the stern swing clear of the quay, then we were backing out past the rust-patched freighter moored at the Parlatorio Wharf. 'Harbour launch, sir, coming away from Gun Wharf, heading towards us.'
Mault nodded his acknowledgement of the lookout's report, the ship still going astern and turning. As soon as we were clear of the freighter and had sea room to complete the 180° turn, he went ahead, the long arm of the harbour opening up in front of us as we turned the end of Senglea Point with the massive fortress of St Angelo showing beyond it. The harbour was a broad lane of flat water ablaze with lights on either side and at the end of it the swinging beam of the St Elmo light flashing three every fifteen seconds, with the small light on the end of the breakwater winking steadily.
Mault moved to the chart table, calling to the Pilot to join him. 'Plan to anchor about there,' he said, pointing his ringer to a position roughly south-west of what used to be Gallows Point but was now shown on the chart in Maltese as Il-Ponta Ta'Ricasoli.