* * *
The main harbour of Vrakonisi, though comparatively small, is one of the best in the southern Aegean, safe and comfortable in any weather except a southerly gale, which is uncommon in these waters. Most volcanic islands rise too steeply out of the sea to afford decent anchorages - the bay of Santorini, for instance, is over a thousand feet deep, and you must tie up to the shore or to a communal buoy - but a primeval disturbance of the sea-bed has tilted part of Vrakonisi northward, reducing the angle of its cliffs and providing a shallow strip up to eighty yards or so from the shore. This area is bounded by two short moles, the western one visibly dating back to Venetian times. Here, after refuelling, the _Altair__ moored.
Bond stood on the mole in the brilliant sunshine, waiting for the others to join him and looking about. There was plenty to see. The basin to his right was full of small craft: yachts, fishing-boats, transport vessels (most of Vrakonisi's needs have to be supplied by water), and a feet of the little twenty- and thirty-footers necessary to an island where roads are few and bad and many inhabited places are virtually inaccessible except from the sea. Ahead, a row of small buildings lined the waterfront. At the near end were whitewashed cottages with blue or tan shutters and doors, then a grocery, a ship's supplier, harbour offices, a _tavérna__ with a faded green awning. No neon, no cars, no souvenir shops. Not yet.
Litsas and Ariadne came ashore and the three moved off towards the bustle of the little port. From behind it the faltering zigzag of a dirt road led to the dazzling white scatter of the town, built on and around half a dozen minor crests at four or five hundred feet. And everywhere - apart from the slopes of an isolated limestone peak standing against the sky, older even than the volcano itself - ran the fantastic horizontal bands of igneous rock, black lava, porous white and yellow tufa, harder, more violently coloured strata of crimson, royal purple, seaweed-green. Vrakonisi is an unforgettable sight, but strange, even disturbing, rather than beautiful, in some way out of key with human habitation. The legend Bond had heard from Ariadne came irrepressibly to his mind. It struck him now as in one sense truer than any geological chronicle could be, in that it expressed the almost supernatural awe which any serious attempt to visualize so gigantic an upheaval must inspire.
They had a late lunch of fish soup made with plenty of lemon-juice, and half a dozen each of the admirable little quail-sized birds that fall to the gun all over Greece at this time of the year, accompanied by a sensible modicum of retsina. Litsas refused coffee and took himself off, explaining he must visit the harbourmaster's office, not merely to stay within the law by presenting the _Altair__'s papers there, but to keep his ears open and drop a few carefully-framed questions in that centre of island gossip.
He was back within the hour. The brown eyes were snapping and the mouth compressed in a kind of mirthless downward smile. One glance at him showed that he had news.
With a flourish he sat down, called for coffee now, and leant forward over interlaced fingers. 'Two points,' he said in a lowered voice. 'I believe I have traced von Richter. A mysterious Dutchman who's calling himself Vanderveld and says he's studying rocks has taken a cottage near the eastern tip of the island. He has with him another man, a young one, also supposed to study rocks. It wasn't difficult to find this out. Von Richter hasn't tried very much to hide himself. He dined at this _tavérna__ last evening. Of course, he didn't think he could be recognized. I think he was never within a hundred miles of here during the Occupation. We've had good luck.'
Bond frowned. 'Niko - forgive me, but how do we know we have the right man? A description can't really- '
'My dear chap, I have some sense. Von Richter had a special mark. He has got a blast from a gun in the face. The gases from the muzzle have given him a bad burn on the left side of the head. That ear damaged, and the skin near it, and he lost some hair for always. Our friend the Dutchman who likes rocks had the same thing. Enough?'
'I'm prepared to go along with it, yes.' Although he spoke coolly, Bond felt a surge of excitement. All day his restlessness at the lack of action had been sharpened by the fear that the right way to action might never be found, that the three of them might be ignominiously and hopelessly reduced to spending the crucial night in the offing of the islet, ready to pit the _Altair__ and a rifle and tommy-gun against whatever mass-assassination weapon the Chinese had in store. Now at any rate they had a meaningful next step. But there was something else first. 'What was the second point?'
'Oh yes.' Litsas drained his coffee and chased it with icewater. 'It would be useless to ask at the hospital. Our man walked out of it as soon as they'd bandaged him. On his way down into the town he met a farmer on a mule and he made him tie his shoes up. The farmer offered him a ride on the mule, but he said he would walk. Some people in the town asked him to stop and rest, but he wouldn't. Everybody's talking about it and saying the farmer should have made the man go back to the hospital. Anyway, the thing is that when last seen, this chap was walking to the west. Where the Russians are having their meeting on the islet. The opposite direction to von Richter's hide-out. What do you make from that?'
'Two hide-outs,' said Bond, gazing at the scrubbed boards of the table. A memory was stirring, pushing feebly at the threshold of his consciousness. Something small, something recent. To grope for it was no good, he knew; to thrust it away might double its pressure, force it in the end to break through. He went on, 'They'll join forces soon. Tonight; they can't leave it any later. The business end of the operation is presumably in the western part of the island rather than the east, so it must be von Richter who'll be making a move. The question is how. This house he's taken, Niko: is there a road to it or a path or anything, do you know?'
'Above the house there are some vine-terraces, but you must climb a cliff to reach them. Not impossible, but very hard. I think we can forget that. He'll move by water.'
'So we watch the place from the _Altair__ and follow him when he comes out,' said Ariadne briskly. 'Obvious.'
Litsas made a face. 'That will be damn tricky, my dear. If we're near enough to see we're near enough to be seen. I can't see how to help that. We're somebody who just happens to be passing? Then he waits until we pass. Very very tricky indeed.'
'So we dowse our lights.'
'The moon'll be up.'
'I saw him!' said Bond suddenly. They looked at him. 'Not von Richter, the man from the hospital. This morning, while we were waiting for you to come back, Ariadne. He was scrambling down the hillside in a clumsy sort of way, as if he were injured. From where he was he might have been making for any one of half a dozen houses along that shore. But we know the area now.'
'How can you know he was that chap?' asked Litsas.
'I'd bet anything you like. I remember asking myself what could be so urgent that it would make an obviously handicapped man undertake a bloody awful ordeal like that. It was him all right, going to report to his lords and masters.'
'But that's the northern shore.' Litsas still seemed dissatisfied. 'You can't even see the islet from there.'
'And they can't see you. We've no hope of understanding that part of it at this stage. What we have got is what to do next. We go off now and sail past that part of the coast at a discreet distance and find somewhere to...'
Litsas's expression changed and his body grew rigid. His hand on Bond's forearm felt like heavy metal. He said in a strangled undertone, 'He's here. Herr Hauptmann Ludwig von Richter. To your right, James. Coming out of the grocer's. You can look at him. They still stare at the foreigners in these parts.'