Hammond Innes - Levkas man

Unworldly was the way Borg had described him. But it

was difficult to believe that anybody could be quite so naive. It was only when I got him talking about himself that I began to understand. He was an East Londoner, who had spent most of his life as a fitter in the R.A.F. He had married in Cyprus and had then left the Air Force and settled at Great Yarmouth, where he had built up a small engineering business turning out specialized items for the North Sea rigs.

"But the Government changed, inflation hit us and we lost business to Dutch and Danish firms. If I'd held out until they devalued maybe I'd have been all right-at least I'd have got a better price. As it was, I sold out at about the bottom." His broad shoulders moved, a self-deprecating shrug. "I'm not much of a business man, but at least the boat was cheap."

He had converted her himself in the fish port at Great Yarmouth, and then they had sold their house and sailed south into the Channel. "It was marvellous-just ourselves- and the sea and foreign ports. Nothing to worry about, only the weather."

He was on to his second drink then and he began telling me the story of the voyage out, how they had run into a force lo gale in the Bay of Biscay. "Can you navigate?" he asked suddenly. "By the stars, I mean. Mr. Borg said you were an experienced sailor." When I said I could, he nodded. "I studied it a bit-we've got a sextant on board. Reeds Almanac and all the tables. But I haven't the patience for that sort of thing. Anyway, we didn't see the sun for three days …"

He paused, his head on one side, listening. There was the sound of voices and then footsteps on deck. A moment later a small, bright-eyed woman in orange slacks appeared in the companion way. She stopped when she saw me. "Oh, you've arrived." She came forward quickly and shook my hand. "I'm sorry I wasn't here." She glanced at the glasses and her nose wrinkled. "I don't suppose Bert thought of offering you anything to eat?"

"I had a meal on the plane," I told her.

"Sure? I could knock you up an omelette very quickly."

"Quite sure."

She hesitated, her eyes taking me in. She was a good deal younger than her husband, a small, sturdy woman with dark eyes and a very clear olive-brown skin. Her black hair and the oval shape of her face gave her a madonna-like quality. But that was only in repose. She had a volatile personality, and this I learned later stemmed from her mixed parentage-her father had been English, her mother Cypriot. "Well, I'll make some coffee anyway." And she disappeared into the galley, which was aft of the saloon on the port side.

It was over the coffee that she asked me a question I should have been expecting. She wanted to know why I was going to Greece so early in the season. "Hardly anybody leaves the marina before May, most of them not until June." She was frowning slightly and there were little lines at the corners of her eyes as she stared at me, waiting for an answer.

Her husband sensed my reluctance. "When he goes is his own business, Florrie. He's the charterer, after all."

"I know that, Bert. But still … it is our boat. I think we should know." Her voice was subdued, but quite determined.

I don't think she suspected anything. It was just that the hasty fixing of the charter made her uneasy. And rather than attempt to invent a reason, I told them about my father's expedition.

She relaxed at once. "Oh, that explains it."

"Is it caves he's exploring?" Bert asked. "Or just a dig?"

"I've no idea," I said.

He asked me where the camp was, and when I told him he went up into the wheelhouse and returned with a chart of the west coast of Greece. "If it's caves I might be of some use," he said, spreading it out on the table. "As a kid I belonged to a spelaeological group-pot-holing, you know. We went to Spain one year-had a look at Altamira. That's the cave that's full of prehistoric paintings, on the north coast near Santander." His stubby finger indicated Jannina. "It looks as though Preveza would be the best port-Jannina is about sixty miles away and a good road by the look of it. We can make our entry at Pylos and then go straight up the coast, through the

narrows between Meganisi and Levkas. Do you know the Levkas Canal?"

I shook my head.

"A queer place-for Greece, that is. More like Holland really. Very flat, and a bloody great fort at either end. Preveza is only about eight miles beyond the north end of the canal."

We studied the chart for a bit, and then I said I was tired and went to bed.

I saw very little of Malta during the next two days, only Manoel Island and a few of the narrow balconied streets of Sliema. Whilst Bert finished the installation of the automatic steering gear and Florrie dealt with the stores, I completed the varnishing of the brightwork and started on repainting the bulwarks. "Not often I get a charterer who'll work as hard as you," Bert said. But I didn't mind. There was something very satisfying about getting that old boat ready for sea, and the work kept my mind off my own problems.

Saturday morning we took on bonded stores, cleared Customs, and after a meal ashore, we slipped and headed out towards the entrance of Sliema Creek under engine. It was blowing hard from the south-west and we turned under the battlements of St. Elmo and winched the gaff mainsail up and then the mizzen. The sun was shining on the piled-up mass of Valetta's honey-stoned buildings, and as we cleared Dragut Point a machine-gun rattle of firecrackers burst from the roof of one of the churches, little puffs of smoke against a cloudless sky to celebrate some saint's day.

Outside the entrance the sea was rough and it was cold, so that I was glad of the oilskins I had purchased. We were hoisting the jib then in flurries of spray, and when we had got it properly set at the end of the short bowsprit, Bert switched off the engine, and in the sudden quiet we sailed close under the stern of an American carrier of the 6th Fleet and set course for Greece on a bearing just north of east.

Visibility was good and it was not until almost 1700 hours that we lost the low line of Malta below the horizon. An hour later we broke the seal on the bonded stores locker and had

our first drink at sea, the boat sailing easily at about six knots with the wind on our starboard quarter. We had an early meal, and then, as darkness fell, we went into watches, Bert and I sharing the night turns, with Florrie relieving us for the dawn watch.

When I called her, at the end of the last night watch, the wind had strengthened to nearly force 7 and the helm was heavy with the ship showing a tendency to yaw. I think she was already awake, for her eyes were open when I switched on the light in their cabin. "Do you want to shorten sail?" she asked as she slipped quickly out of her bunk, her black hair tousled and her face still flushed with sleep. "I'll wake Bert, if you like." He was snoring gently in the other bunk.

"Better see what you think first," I said, and I went back to the wheelhouse. We had swung about a point off course and I brought her head back. The light of the compass was fading with the dawn. I could see the waves more clearly now. They were steep and breaking, the sea flecked with white to the horizon, the sky ahead a pale translucent green just starting to flush with the sun's hidden rays.

She didn't take long to dress, and when she entered the wheelhouse, she stood there a moment, looking at the sea and at the sails with eyes slightly narrowed, a cool, almost professional appraisal. Then she took the wheel from me and held it, getting the feel of the boat. "No, I think she's all right," she said. "It always sounds worse below." She gave a quick little laugh. "I'm inclined to get panicky when there's a lot of noise."

She was wearing a thick black polo-necked sweater and red oilskins. "It's hard on Bert," she said. "He did want to run that new engine of his. But I like it like this-just the noise of the sea." She was fully awake now and her eyes sparkled with the exhilaration of the speed and the movement. "Doesn't it excite you-the sea, when it's like this?" But then she laughed. "No, of course-you must have experienced plenty of really big seas."