Sarah Caudwell - The Shortest Way to Hades

Towards noon — Selena, I supposed, was by then already under sail on the blue waters of the Ionian — I went out into Middle Temple Lane and turned my steps towards Fleet Street. The news-vendor on the corner of these two thoroughfares was already offering for sale the earliest edition of the evening paper. I paused to glance at the placard proclaiming the latest news:

HEIRESS FEARED DROWNED IN SAILING ACCIDENT

I purchased a copy of the paper and looked for the “Stop Press” column; but for some reason I scarcely needed to read it to feel certain that the headline referred to Camilla Galloway.

There is a sense in which my inquiry had been successful. Its purpose, as my readers will recall, had been to stop Julia talking about Sir Thomas More: in this it had succeeded. It is right, however, to confess immediately that my conclusions were entirely erroneous. In reaching them, I had too uncritically accepted a view of Deirdre’s death which accorded with my own preconceived opinion, banishing from my mind those curious features of the unhappy incident which were left unexplained: an error all the more culpable in that the facts were already known to me which should have led to a virtual certainty of the truth, requiring only a trivial piece of commonplace research to be confirmed beyond question. I blame myself much for my failure of judgment; though I could hardly have foreseen how dangerous it would prove to persons whom I held in affection.

The news of Camilla’s sailing accident did not persuade me, for more than a moment or two, to reconsider my opinion. Dismissing as irrational my sense of uneasiness, I concluded merely that the descendants of the late Sir James Remington-Fiske were peculiarly inclined to misadventure. Fuller and more accurate accounts of the incident appeared in due course in the English newspapers. I refrain, however, from setting out any of these in extenso, since there is nothing in them which is not also related in Selena’s letters to Julia: these, being most material to my narrative, must be placed before my readers in their entirety.

The first arrived some ten days later, on a day when I happened again to find myself in London. Looking into the Corkscrew at an early hour of the evening, I discovered Julia on the point of reading it, and willingly accepted her offer to do so aloud.

SV Kymothoe at anchor in the bay of Mourtos.

Sunday afternoon.

Dear Julia,

I have been obliged to put in here by unrest among the crew, namely Sebastian. I had meant to take advantage of a nice westerly breeze to press on northwards to Corfu; but the crew claimed the sea was too rough for sailing on and threatened strike action. I pointed out that lying in the cockpit and reading aloud from the Odyssey —these being his principal duties — did not actually constitute an essential contribution to the smooth running of the vessel. It was further represented to me, however, that it would be wrong to pass by Mourtos without a second glance, since it was the scene of the great sea-battle which marked the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War and changed the history of the Western world; and had a taverna where we could eat grilled prawns. I yielded to these arguments against my better judgment.

I must tell you a most extraordinary story I have heard about Camilla Galloway. It may perhaps have been mentioned in the English newspapers; but I don’t imagine they would have thought it worth reporting in detail.

The first I heard of it was at Preveza.

Preveza is on the west coast of mainland Greece, on the north side of the Gulf of Amvrakikos. We arrived there on Friday morning, collected the necessary papers from the shipping office and took possession of the Kymothoe. She is a 25-foot Snapdragon, small enough to be handled by two people, but with plenty of space below decks and everything one needs to be comfortable — a well-designed little galley and a proper lavatory and shower, quite separate and private, with room to stand upright there as well as in the cabin. I really think, Julia, that even you — well, no, perhaps not.

Our destination is Ithaca, but by a roundabout route: northwards between Corfu and the mainland coast until we round the northern end of Corfu, then southwards again. This is a longish voyage under sail in a fortnight, and of course I don’t want to motor any more than I have to: it seemed to me that if we were going to see anything of Ithaca we should waste no time, but set sail as soon as we were properly provisioned.

I could see no reason for lingering in Preveza — it looked like a very ordinary fishing port, all whitewash and cobblestones, such as one might see anywhere on the Mediterranean, and distinguished only by the unusually pungent smell from the harbor. I was told by the crew, however, that in ancient and medieval times it had been a place of great strategic importance and that in the surrounding waters a battle had been fought which had changed the history of the world; I was also reminded that it was nearly lunch-time. (It’s rather extraordinary that whenever the crew wants to stop for lunch we find ourselves at the scene of a battle which has changed the history of the world — there are judges I know who would think it a most remarkable coincidence.)

We accordingly went ashore and ate moussaka and Greek salad at a taverna overlooking the Gulf, while the crew told me all about the battle. It appears that Aktion, on the south side of the Gulf, is the same place as Actium, where Octavian defeated Antony and Cleopatra and started the Roman Empire — the Greeks, as is their custom, have changed the name to confuse foreign visitors. (Attempts were made to persuade me that it had really been called Aktion all along; but Shakespeare calls it Actium, so I dismissed these as subversive.)

After this it was too late to make any serious start on our voyage — we could not have been sure of making a safe harbor before nightfall. We spent the afternoon dawdling about inside the Gulf, getting used to the foibles of the Kymothoe and from time to time stopping for a swim. The sky was clear and the winds very light, so much so that I eventually had to use the motor to take us back to Preveza. The water, however, was a good deal choppier than one would expect in such weather. I began to wonder why, and what conditions would be like outside the Gulf. While we were drinking our first ouzo at a bar by the quayside, I instructed the crew (whose duties include those of interpreter) to engage the barman in conversation about the weather.

This was how we came to hear that on the previous night there had been a violent storm, in which a yacht owned by an Englishwoman had been lost and all those on board her drowned. Or almost drowned. Or one drowned, and the others almost — our informant was rather vague about the details. Of course I didn’t know, at that stage, that it had anything to do with Camilla.

We put to sea early on the following morning, having taken such steps as we respectively thought prudent to ensure a safe voyage: that is to say, I had listened to the weather forecast and checked that the engine was working, and the crew had poured a glass of retsina over the bows as a libation to Poseidon.

“Sebastian,” I said, “you have always told me that you are a dialectical materialist, and do not believe in gods of any kind.”

“I don’t,” he said. “But it does no harm to be on the safe side.”

The gods seemed to show less gratitude than they might have done for these attentions — a brisk west wind and the after-effects of the storm combined to produce in the sea outside the Gulf a distinct bumpiness, which caused the crew to feel not quite well. He lay in the cockpit, groaning, and unable to attend to the duties previously mentioned — namely, the reading aloud of the Odyssey. I tried to divert his mind by asking why Homer always speaks of the wine-dark sea, when the Mediterranean is such a striking shade of blue, and whether this meant that the Greeks of that period drank some kind of dark blue wine. The crew, however, showed no enthusiasm for this interesting question, but continued to lie in the cockpit and groan.