"Almost seven hundred by the open sea route. Less if we take the Corinth Canal."
Her hand touched me, ran gently down my backbone, exploring. "And you want to go by the canal?"
"Yes."
"Bert thinks it's dangerous." She giggled, excited by the thought of danger. "I could persuade him." Her hand slipped over my buttocks to my thighs, and I looked at her. Her lips were parted, smiling, her eyes inviting. If I hadn't been full of liquor I'd have held myself in check. A boat is too small a place in which to fool around with another man's wife. "He's in the engine-room," she said and her body was against mine, flesh to flesh, passion flaring. We were on automatic pilot, open sea ahead. What the hell! Her lips were soft and warm, the bikini a trifle. I took her on the floor of the wheelhouse with the black rock cliffs of the island where Icarus fell out of the sun trying his wings close to starboard, and Bert never knew.
And afterwards we were suddenly sober, strangely self-conscious of our nakedness. I didn't understand her, a nice husband like that and throwing herself at me like a whore. Dressed, we were like strangers-polite, almost formal, our bodies released from tension and the nerve vibration of excess energy.
"We'll go through the Canal," she said, adjusting her bra. I felt like a gigolo being offered payment.
That night a strange thing happened. I came on watch at midnight, relieving Florrie, and it was very quiet as we slipped along at about four knots under sail. The sky was clear, diamond-studded with stars, the horizon a sharp line through the glasses. A satellite was wheeling like a comet across the edge of Orion's belt. For almost half an hour I had the company of dolphins, a whole school of them snorting and sighing all around me. Up for'ard I could see their shapes quite plainly, picked out by phosphorescence as they played in the bow wave. And then they disappeared as suddenly and as unexpectedly as they had arrived. Shortly after that I picked up the steaming lights of a vessel, bearing 345° and headed almost straight for us. The time was 02.40 and within minutes there were four other vessels, all approaching us fast from different points of the compass. Their steaming lights showed they were not fishing boats, and never in my sea-going experience having found myself in a situation like this, I called Bert.
"Destroyers," he said. "It's happened to me before. Not in the Aegean. Between Pylos and Malta. Have you sighted the carrier yet?" And having assured me that it would come up over the horizon "like a bloody great gas flare" he turned over and went to sleep again.
It did just that about five minutes later, its topmast light coming up over the horizon on our port bow, a single red glow like an oil refinery flame. By then one of the destroyers was very close. A searchlight stabbed the night blindingly. It remained fixed on us for almost ten minutes and then was suddenly extinguished. When my eyes became accustomed to the darkness again, the carrier had crossed our bows and was to the north-west of us, not more than a mile away and looking like the slab-sided section of a sea wall.
"The Sixth Fleet," Bert explained when he relieved me forty minutes later. And he added, "Heading up for the Dardanelles like that, I'm surprised they let you inside the destroyer screen." He was searching the horizon with the glasses. "I'm glad we're getting out of this area." He had a thoughtful look on his face as he put the glasses down. "I wouldn't like to be here if the Americans and Russians started a naval engagement. Times like this I can't help thinking we're all hell-bent on suicide, the whole effing human race." He checked the wheel and the compass course, and then, just as I was going below, he said, "Don't tell Florrie. She worries about her family. They're still in Cyprus."
Two days later we passed through the Corinth Canal, and in the late afternoon of June 15 we arrived back at Port Vathy in the island of Meganisi.
PART FOUR
We anchored off in 4 fathoms at the head of the inlet, the sun hidden by the western hills, and as we rowed ashore, the houses of Vathy glimmered honey-coloured in the evening light, their reflections mirrored in the still water. I could see Zavelas sitting at his usual place at the kafeneion and he beckoned to us. "Kalaspera. You are back, eh?" It was difficult to know whether he was pleased or not, his face impassive. "Good trip?"
"Yes," I said. And Florrie added, "The islands were beautiful."
"I see them when I'm a kid. In caiques then. Not since." A flicker of a smile showed in his eyes. "Now it is cool and you like some cawfee, eh?" He waved aside Bert's mention of the Customs Officer. "I send for him and you do your business here. Is more comfortable after you have been at sea." He called to a boy playing in one of the boats and then clapped his hands for the proprietor.
Coffee and ouzo, the usual routine, and the ex-cop watching us, silent. There was something on his mind and it made me uneasy. Florrie felt it, too, for she was talking quickly, nervously, in a mixture of English and Greek.
"Why you come back?" Zavelas asked abruptly, the question directed at me.
Why had I come back? It was a question I had been asking myself. Curiosity, or was it something deeper, a premonition, some sixth sense warning me? Gilmore, when he had shown me Reitmayer's letter, had promised to let me know the result of the investigation. He knew the date we would be in Samos, but there had been no letter waiting for me at the Harbour Office there. "Are they continuing work on the dig behind Tiglia?" I asked.
"Yes. But not Professor Holerod. He is in London. Only Mr. Cartwright and the Dutch boy work there."
"And my father-is he still at Vatahori?"
He shook his head. "No. The Doctor is on Levkas. He has a small tent there and works alone."
"In that bay you showed me-Dessimo?"
"No. It is somewhere else."
"Where?"
"That's a secret between him and Cristos Pappadimas. But I can take you there if you want." And he added, "An' I guess the Doctor will be glad to see you. He's no money, and that's mighty hard on a poor Greek man like Pappadimas. He takes him what he can, and Miss Winters helps."
"Is she still here?"
"In my house."
I hadn't expected that and the thought of her so near brought back into my mind the picture I had of her, small, intense and slightly lost … it had been there all the voyage, the last sight of her standing on the quay at Vathy, a solitary figure waving us goodbye. The Customs Officer arrived, and whilst he dealt with Bert's transit-log, I sat there, drinking my ouzo and wondering about myself and the complexity of my motives as I exchanged small talk with Zavelas.
It was just after the Customs Officer left that a boat came in, passed close to Coromandel and then headed for the quay. I saw her head, pale tow against the dark-featured Greek at the outboard. She was searching the quay. I waved and she waved back, and then I was hurrying across to meet her. Flor-rie's eyes followed my movement; she knew how I felt-at least that's what she said afterwards, that she'd known all along I was in love with her. But I didn't know it myself then, only that the sight of her, so fresh-looking, so blonde and slim — alien corn amongst the Turk-dark Greeks-gave a sudden lift to my spirits.
"Paul." Her face lit in a smile as she leapt like a cat from boat to quay. "We saw you sailing in. From beyond Tiglia. I thought it was Coromandel. So we started straight back." She was laughing, her face flushed, the words coming in a rush.
We talked for a moment, nothing in particular, talking for the sound of our voices, the sense of communication. The outboard coughed and died and the world broke in with Pappadimas tying the painter to a ring on the quay. "Two days ago I had a cable." She felt in the pocket of her anorak. "From Dr. Gilmore. I don't understand it." She fished it out and handed it to me.