Gilmore had appeared, carrying his other case. "I tried to talk them out of it, but I expect they have their reasons."
The anchor was on deck, the two boats drifting. Kotiadis looked at her. "Are you ready, Miss Winters?"
She nodded and then turned to me. "Is there nothing-?"
I shook my head. "He was very near the end, anyway. It's better like this."
I don't know whether she believed me or not. I'm not even certain she understood. She stared at me a moment, standing very still, biting her lip, her eyes luminous with tears. But whether for him, or for what might have been between us, I will never know, for she got control of herself and went past me, moving towards the rail in a daze. Kotiadis took the suitcase and helped her over onto the patrol boat. Gilmore followed. "We'll see you in Levkas, I expect."
I nodded. But I thought that very doubtful. The Greek sailors cast off and the patrol boat gathered way, heading north up the channel, a froth of white water at her stern. Sonia had not once looked back. I pushed the gear lever into forward, swung the wheel over and brought Coromandel round onto the line of the patrol boat's wake. I saw the flick of a lighter reflected in the glass of the windshield. Kotiadis was in the wheelhouse now, standing behind me, the smell of his cigarette rank in the hot air. Neither of us spoke, and abreast of the southern end of Tiglia I left the wheel and
gio Levkas Man
went out onto the starboard deck. Hans and Cartwright were busy dismantling the mess tent, Vassilios loading his boat. The orange sleeping tents were already struck. They didn't look up as we steamed past the southern opening to the cove, the water there a flat sheet of brilliant green, the rocks above pulsating in the heat.
I had set the engine revs fairly low, so that we were doing no more than four knots. The time by the wheelhouse clock was 16.10. Just over four hours before it was dark. I pushed past Kotiadis to the chart table and measured off the distance to Levkas port. It was exactly 11 miles-81/^ to the entrance of the canal. Back at the wheel I steadied her on a course of 35°, which would take us just to the east of Skropio Island, and engaged the automatic pilot. "Can I get you anything?" I asked. "A drink, some coffee?"
"Thank you-coffee." His heavy-lidded eyes were screwed up against the sun-glare, the cigarette dangling from his lips. He was still wearing his jacket and I wondered whether that meant he was armed.
Down in the galley, I lit the gas ring and put the coffee percolator on. There was tinned ham in the fridge and I cut myself some sandwiches. By the time I had finished them, the coffee was made and I took it up to the wheelhouse. Skropio's wooded slopes stood like a dark hat floating above the milk calm of the water. Not a ripple anywhere and the boat thudding along as though we were on rails. "Black or white?" I asked him.
"Black."
He watched me as I poured it and I wondered whether he knew I was dangerous.
"Sugar?"
"Thank you."
I handed him the cup and he took it with his left hand, his eyes on me all the time, his right hand free.
I pulled the flap-seat down and sat on it. The coffee was scalding hot and the sweat trickled down my body. "Well, what happens now?" I said. "When we get to Levkas."
"You will be sent on to England."
"I'm from Holland, not England."
"You have an English passport."
"Am I under arrest?"
He didn't say anything.
"If you're at war, then you don't have to take any notice of Interpol."
"We are not at war. And the English are important to us."
"The man I killed was a Communist. You hate Communists. Doesn't that make any difference?"
He shrugged. "I have my instructions."
"And the boat?"
"It will be searched. Probably impounded."
"Why?"
His eyes flicked open. "You ask me why? You are in Pytha-gorion on June tenth. You leave that night. Our information is that you were in the Samos Straits and that you have a rendezvous with a Turkish fishing boat. Correct?"
I finished my coffee, the two of us watching each other. "Yes, quite correct," I said.
"Then explain, please."
"A smuggling job."
I gave him some more coffee, and then, as we closed Skropio Island and motored close in along the shore, I told him the whole story, and by the time I had finished, Skropio was astern of us, and we were passing another wooded island, Sparti, our bows headed slightly east of north and the sun beginning to fall towards the dark rim of the Levkas mountains. Visibility had improved, and beyond the open roadstead of Port Drepano, I could just see the buoys marking the dredged channel into the canal. Four miles to go. One hour at our present speed. "You mentioned Byron to me once. ." And for the next quarter of an hour I used every argument I could think of to persuade him that I could be of some service to his country if I were at liberty. After all, in the event of war they would need ship's officers. But it was no good. He had his instructions. "If it had not been for the accident to Dr. Van der
Voort, you would have been deported when you arrived back in Meganisi."
We were off Mara Point then, close in to the Levkas shore, and I was relieved to see the patrol boat coming up astern. It passed within two or three cables of us doing about 12 knots. It would be in Levkas inside of half an hour. I looked at the clock. It was now 17.21 and the sun was already behind the towering bulk of the mountains. In forty minutes we should be in the dredged channel, with shallows all round us and darkness only two hours off. "Time for a drink," I said. "Whisky or cognac? I'm afraid there's no ouzo."
"Cognac, thank you. But from the bottle, eh?" And he smiled at me thinly. He was taking no chances, and when I came back up to the wheelhouse, I let him pour it himself. Then I asked him whether he'd any idea what we'd been smuggling out of Turkey.
"You told me-antiquities from old tombs."
"Would you like to see them?"
"When we get to Levkas."
"There are twenty-three packages. When we get to Levkas, will you ring Leonodipoulos for me?" If they were museum pieces, I thought perhaps I could do a deal. But he only laughed. "They are Turkish. Leonodipoulos is only interested in Greek antiquities."
There was nothing for it then, and I sat there drinking my cognac, watching the cat's paws of an evening zephyr slip beneath our bows. The sky deepened in colour. The channel buoys grew larger beneath the solid bulk of Ayios Giorgios fort. And all the time Kotiadis stood there, leaning against the back wall of the wheelhouse, the glass in his hand, but hardly drinking. Astern of us, the sea was empty, not a sign of any other vessel right back to the dark shape of Skropio and the outline of Meganisi.
We entered the dredged channel at 18.06, chugging slowly between the first two buoys, the water suddenly a muddy brown on either side. To starboard was the small island of Volio, the fort above it on its hill, but all ahead of us it was a
flat Dutch landscape. I was at the wheel now, a big trading caique coming south. We met her just after we had passed the second pair of buoys, the channel narrow and the ripple of her bow waves breaking where the shallows on either side were only six feet deep. The entrance to the canal proper was marked by the final pair of buoys and there was a red-roofed hut to port, on the extreme edge of the saltings, where cattle grazed in the shadow of the steeply rising hills beyond.
I reached back to the chart table, picked up Chart 1609, folded it to the large-scale plan of the canal and propped it in front of the wheel. Just over a quarter of a mile beyond the entrance a green-flashing buoy marked the fairway, where the channel made a slight dog-leg to the west and was crossed by the curving line of an older canal. And, just before it, there was an unlit buoy marking shallows with a depth of only one foot to starboard. This was the spot I chose, and as we slipped between the last pair of buoys, I took the glasses down from their hook and searched the whole line of the canal ahead. I could see the fairway buoy quite distinctly, with the mound of Paleo Khalia to the right of it, and beyond was a great sheet of shallow water stretching all the way to limani Levkas, and not a sign of a mast, no caique to pull us off before it got dark.