Hammond Innes: Levkas man

But I couldn't help it. I couldn't help any of the things

that had happened. It was all part of the pattern that had started way back in the house in Amsterdam. I could only bless them that they had a boat with fuel tanks that gave a range of over 3,000 miles, and those tanks three-quarters full. And then I was in the Meganisi Channel, the bulk of Tiglia just visible and the sound of the engine beating back from the rocks on either side. I was thinking of the old man then, our two lives meeting for the last time in the dreadful interior of that cave-the red bull and Holroyd's body floating up through that blow hole. My hands were shaking, the palms wet with sweat, and I prayed. Prayed that he had died quietly, that he was at peace now.

I couldn't see the gut where Pappadimas had landed me, or the overhang. The steep slopes rising to Mount Porro were one dark mass. But I saw the end of the promontory, the open sea beyond, and with a feeling of relief I turned on to 225° and switched to automatic. I thought he was lucky in a way. Lucky to have found what he had been searching for and to die there in the certainty that he was right, his theory proved at least to his own satisfaction.

I was drinking coffee then, smoking a cigarette, my hands still trembling. He was dead, and I was still alive-his violence, his restlessness, still living in me. At dawn I should be alone, with nothing between me and the Libyan coast but 300 miles of open sea. I could turn west then to North Africa or Spain. Or I could turn east. I thought I'd turn east-Beirut probably. If he were right-if we were going to destroy ourselves-better to be at the centre of it than die on the periphery by remote control.

I switched on the radio, but all I could get was music and the voices of men talking in languages I did not understand. The night had become very dark, no stars now, and my world reduced to the dim-lit area of the wheelhouse. Shortly after midnight I picked up Guiscard light on the north end of Cephalonia. In two hours I should be clear of Greek waters-free and on my own. I felt the blood stirring in my veins, and I left the boat to steer herself while I got myself a drink.

Down below, in the saloon, the golden gleam of the goblet Kotiadis had been fondling caught my eye. I remembered a cardboard box Florrie had discarded. I got it from her cabin, a blue box with the name of a boutique-Asteris-and underneath: Souvenir of Rodos. It had contained a mug she had bought for the boat and I packed the goblet into it, bedding the priceless piece of beaten gold in cotton wool. Somewhere, some time, I would post it to them-a souvenir of the voyage. And then I sat there, smoking a cigarette and smiling to myself, amused at the thought of Bert telling somebody else what a kind, generous man Borg was.

Later, much later, the dawn broke, spilling pink across the sky. I was on deck then, tired and bleary-eyed with lack of sleep, watching as the last of Greece faded away astern, the mountains of Cephalonia a dark cloud-capped rampart low on the horizon. The sea was flat calm, no breath of wind touching the surface, and there was no ship anywhere in sight. I watched as the clouds were edged with gold and the sun rose above them, a great burning orb, and then I swung the wheel over and turned the bows to the south.