Medusa

'Yes. I'm all right.' Her voice shook slightly.

'Who's with you?' I asked. 'You said we.' Ithink I knew the answer, but when she said 'Gareth', Soo gave a little gasp and I cursed under my breath. It wasn't the moment. 'What the hell's he want?'

'You'd better come up,' Petra said. 'It's been a long couple of hours, and not knowing didn't help.' Her voice was a little slurred.

I told her to get Soo to bed and pushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time. I wanted to get shot of him, to save Soo the emotional strain of meeting him face-to-face. I didn't know what the effect on her would be.

He was in the front room, sitting in the wing chair I normally used with a glass in his hand and a bottle of brandy open on the table beside him. He was dressed in a white open-necked shirt and grey flannels, his face gleaming with perspiration, and his eyes had difficulty in focusing on me. 'Ah, M-Mike.' He hauled himself to his feet, clutching the back of the chair. He was very, very tight. He started to say something, but then he stopped, his eyes narrowing as he stared past me.

I turned to find Soo in the doorway, her eyes wide and fixed on Gareth as he tried to pull himself together. 'Y'rorlright-th'n,' he mumbled.

She nodded and they stood there, the two of them, gazing at each other. Then abruptly Soo turned away, walking blindly into Petra, who had been standing just behind her in the doorway. 'Get her to bed,' I told her again, and she took Soo's arm and led her off to the bedroom. But she was back almost immediately. 'She's asking for Benjie.'

I'd forgotten about the dog. Tell her I'll get it for her.'

Gareth had subsided back into my chair, his arms slack, his eyes closing. 'Where did you find her?' he asked. And when I told him, he muttered, 'That's like Pat. Leave it to the sea, anything so long as he doesn't have to do it himself.' He hesitated. 'Impersonal,' he went on reflectively. 'Couldn't stand close contact, y'know. Didn't like to touch people, women especially.' And he added, 'Strange sort of man.'

Those last words were mumbled so softly I could barely hear them, and when I told him how he had seized hold of Petra and held a knife at her throat, he didn't seem to take it in, muttering something about he'd been thinking, his eyes half-closed.

I picked up the bottle and poured myself a drink. As I put it back on the side table, he reached out for it. 'B'n thinking,' he said again, leaning forward and staring down at his glass, which was half-full. 'Abou' what they did to poor ol' Byng.' He shook his head, picking up his glass. He stared at it for a moment, then put it down again, carefully. 'Had enough, eh?' He collapsed back in his chair. 'Byng. And now me. Know what they'll do to me?' He was leaning back, his black hair limp against the wing of the chair, deep furrows creasing his forehead, and his dark eyes staring into space. 'I b'n wress-wrestling all afternoon with a bloody form, man. S two three t-two — report on collision and grounding. I grounded my ship, y'see.' The eyes fixed suddenly on me. 'How the hell do I explain that?' And then, leaning suddenly forward, 'Bu' I di'n run.' He was peering up at me. 'I di'n run like poor oP Byng. Shot him,' he added. 'On the quarterdeck of the ol' Monarch — in Portsmouth Harbour with the whole Fleet gawping at it.' And then he quoted, speaking slowly, groping for the words: 'II est bon de tuei de temps en temps un amiral pour encrug-encourager les autres — that's what Voltaire said. F-fortunately I'm not an admiral. Tuer, non, mais…' He paused, staring at me sombrely. 'You ever b'n at a court martial?' He didn't wait for me to shake my head, but went straight on: That's what'll happen to me, y'know. They'll fly me to Portsmouth, an' just inside the main gate, ther'shpeshul room for poor buggers like me who've run their ships aground, an' you go back in with the prisoner's friend an' there's your sword with the b-blade pointing at you.' He shook his head angrily. 'An' all because I can't tell them the truth about why I ran Medusaashore. All because of that devil Pat…' His voice trailed away. 'If Pat hadn't got hold of her… I can't tell them that, can I? So I'll be shot — figuratively, you un'erstand. They'd never…' His head was nodding. 'Never admit personal reason as legit-gitimate defence.' He reached out his hand to the side table, groping for his glass.

That's the second bottle.' Petra had come back and was standing looking at him. 'I've given her something to make her sleep. She'll be all right now.' She nodded towards Gareth. 'After they'd recovered the inflatable he insisted on coming ashore with me. Said he wanted to see you. But I think it was Soo really. He wanted to make certain she was all right.' And she added, 'He's been here ever since — waiting. What are we going to do with him? He can't go back to his ship in that state. And he's worried sick about the future.' She touched my arm. 'Why did he do it, Mike? I was there. I saw it. He ran his ship aground — deliberately. Why?'

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.

Part 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 stem.

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, Medusawas off the rocks and lying to her anchor some three cables off the Club Maritime, 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 stem, 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?'