'Yes, it's coming,' I said.
Now that I had a chance to examine him more closely I thought he looked tired and edgy, as though his new command was getting him down.
The steward came in with two large gins on ice and a bottle of tonic. 'Fifty-fifty, plenty of tonic?' Gareth gave me a quick grin, poured the tonic, then took a long pull at his own drink before subsiding on to the couch. 'Well, what brings you here? That's your catamaran over by the dry dock, is it?' He must have caught sight of Soo's photograph then, for he suddenly bounced up, went over to the desk, and under the pretext of looking at some papers, turned the picture face down.
Briefly I explained what had happened, finally asking him whether there was any way he could find out what the attitude of the authorities in Menorca was to me now. 'Have you anyone there you can contact by radio?'
He hesitated. 'Yes, but…' He got to his feet and went back to the desk, lifted the mike off its rest and press-buttoned a number. 'Captain. Is the Yeoman of Signals there? Ask him to have a word with me.' He put the mike back on its rest. 'Funny ship, this,' he said. 'It's an antique really, but after being mothballed for several years and threatened with the knacker's yard twice, their lordships suddenly hauled it back into service, gave it a quick facelift, and then fitted it out with the latest in communications systems so that to that extent we must be the envy of the Fleet. We also have sonar equipment that's on its last legs and an Ops Room that belongs to the Ark and is on the blink…' There was a tap at the door and he said, 'Come in, Yeo.' He turned to his desk, reached for a message pad and began to write as a thin man with a dark pointed beard pushed aside the curtain. When he had finished, he said, 'Have that sent and make it immediate. And they're to stand by for a reply. This is Mr Steele, incidentally. Petty Officer Gordon, my Yeoman of Signals.'
The beard and I smiled at each other, and as he left Gareth said, 'It may be a little time before we get a reply to that. Meanwhile, perhaps you'd join me for my evening meal.' And when I demurred, he said, 'No, of course not — no trouble at all. I'll be glad of your company anyway. Occasionally I mess in the wardroom, and I have messed with the Senior Rates once, but mostly I feed alone. It's the custom, you know. So as I say, I'll be glad of your company.' He called to the steward to bring us another drink. 'I never drink at sea, of course ' He spoke as though he had been in command for years — 'but now that we're tied up alongside…' He gave a little shrug, as though the fact of being tied up to a quay absolved him of some of the responsibility of command.
But as time passed I began to realise that his position weighed heavily on him, more heavily than it should, even tor a man newly appointed to the command of a ship. It was as though he had something on his mind, and the only clue he gave as to what it might be was when he suddenly said, apropos of nothing, 'You know, it's a strange thing, here I am flying the White Ensign, but tucked away against this filthy little quay, as though the Maltese didn't want to recognise the flag that's flown here for so many years. I'm out on a limb. Nobody wants to know us. Officially, that is. We're sort of pariahs. I've been here four days and not a day has passed but the authorities have dropped hints it's time we left. We have in fact flashed up the boilers so that we are ready to sail at short notice if we have to.'
He paused then, but two gins had loosened his tongue and he went on, talking fast: They don't want to make a thing of it, tell us outright to go, but they've made it very clear they don't want us here. You see, wherever we are, in this ship — any RN ship — we're a bit of the UK. That's what the Union flag is telling them, and they don't like it — not now, not any more. Politically, here in Grand Harbour, we stick out like a sore thumb.' And he added with a wry smile, 'Our visit isn't a bit like it was for the last frigate that showed the flag here.'
That was the first courtesy visit in seven years if I remember rightly,' I said.
'Well, not quite. The Brazenwas the first ship to visit Malta after the British Forces finally left the island in 1979. She had the C-in-C Fleet embarked. Prince Charles came later with ninety thousand Maltese cheering and waving flags.' He made a face, shrugging his shoulders. That's what the papers said anyway. And look at us, tucked away in a corner where nobody can see us, and that bloody great Russian cruiser lording it in the centre of the harbour. That's why I had the lights rigged.'
'I don't think La Valette would have approved of their presence here,' I said.
He smiled, 'Ah, so you know what happened. More than four centuries ago and we still talk of St Elmo's fire.' He had read Ernie Bradford's book, knew the whole incredible story, the astonishing bravery of the Maltese when led by men like the Knights and motivated by religious faith and the fear of being captured and sent to the Turkish galleys. 'And now they are under the hand of another Muslim ruler.'
There was a knock at the door and a thickset, bull-headed Lieutenant Commander with greying hair entered, cap under his left arm, some papers gripped in his hand. He was a good deal older than his newly-appointed captain. His name was Robin Makewate. 'MEO,' Gareth said, explaining that it meant Marine Engineer Officer. It was a state-of-the-engines routine visit, and when he had gone, Gareth said, 'He's forty-three, started as a stoker at the age of nineteen after studying engineering at night school Volunteered for the job here, even though he knew he'd be serving under a much younger man.' He finished his drink, saying as he did so that it was odd being in command of a ship that was filled partly by volunteers, partly by throw-outs from the rest of the Fleet.
That wry smile again, his eyes not looking at me, not seeing anything but what was in his mind as he went on speaking so quietly I could hardly hear him: 'I've a total complement of well over two hundred, and of those, fifty seven are volunteers. Why? I don't know, and I'm the Captain. They don't know, and they're the ones who volunteered. Something dangerous, that's all some of them have been told. There's one or two I picked myself The Appointers were generous in that respect — my Navigating Officer, Peter Craig. Also the SCO — that's my Communications Officer, Lieutenant Woburn and Tom Draycott, my Weapons Engineer Officer. I've also got a CPO who was at Gangeswhen I was there. Most of the key people, they're volunteers, but there's others, fifty or sixty at least, who've been quietly wished on me by other ships' captains as though word had been put around that Medusawas a sort of personnel dustbin and I was a sucker on whom they could foist all the yobbos and troublemakers they wanted to be rid of. Oh, well…' Again the wry smile, the slight shrug. 'Let's have some food. I'm hungry. You must be, too, listening to me.'
He called for the steward, and over the avocado and shrimp cocktail we talked of Libya and the PLO, Beirut and the effect of the Gulf War. A daily signal from Fleet Headquarters at Northwood near London plus the World News of the BBC kept him very well informed. He needed to be, I thought, tied up here like a sitting duck in a little independent country that was set in the very centre of the Mediterranean like a stepping stone to the most volatile and unreliable country in Africa. And even as I was thinking about that, full of curiosity and wondering whether I could ask him about his plans, what orders he had received, and if he was headed for Menorca next, he was called on the intercom loudspeaker. It was the Officer of the Day reporting a little crowd beginning to gather on the quay.