Then there was only the stars and many hours later the first steely
light of dawn growing steadily and expanding the circle of the dark sea
around the schooner.
Chilled to the bone by the night wind and the long hours of inactivity,
Jake swept the horizon back and forth as the light strengthened, and
only when he knew that it was empty of any trace of the warship did he
close the telescope, climb stiffly from the crows-nest and begin the
long slow journey down the rigging to the deck below.
Papadopoulos greeted him like a brother, reaching up to hug him and
breathe garlic in his face, and Vicky had the chop-box open and the
primus stove hissing. She brought him an enamel mug of steaming black
coffee and looked at him with a new respect tinged with admiration.
Gareth opened the hatch of the turret from which during the whole night
he had commanded the crew with a loaded Vickers machine gun and came to
fetch the other mug of coffee from Vicky and gave Jake a cheroot as
they moved to the rail together.
'I keep underestimating you,' he grinned, as he cupped his hands around
the flaring match he offered Jake. 'Just because you are big I keep
thinking you are stupid.'
'You'll get over it, 'Jake promised him. Instinctively they both
glanced across the deck at where Vicky was breaking eggs into the pan
and they understood each other very clearly.
She shook them both awake a little before noon. They were sprawled on
their blankets in the shade under one of the cars trying to catch up on
the sleep they had missed that night. However, they followed Vicky
without protest to the bows and the three of them peered ahead at the
low lioncoloured coast line, upon which the surf creamed softly and
over which the hard aching blue shield of the sky blazed with an
intensity that hurt the eyes.
There was no clear dividing line between earth and sky.
It was blurred by the low mist of dust and heat that wavered and
rippled like the yellow mane of the lion. Vicky wondered whether she
had ever seen such an uninviting scene, and decided she had not. She
began to compose the words with which she would describe it to her tens
of thousands of readers.
Gregorius came up to join the group. He had discarded the western
dress and donned instead the traditional sham ma and tight breeches.
He had become the man of Africa once again, and the smooth
chocolate-brown face, with its halo of dark thick curls, was lit by the
passion of the returning exile.
'You cannot see the mountains the haze is too thick,' he explained.
'But sometimes in the dawn when the air is cooler-' and he stared into
the west, with his longing expressed clearly in the liquid flashing
eyes and upon the full sculptured lips.
The schooner crept inshore, gliding over the shallows where the water
was like that of a mountain stream, so clear that they could make out
every detail of the reef thirty feet down and watch the shoals of coral
fish below like bejewelled clouds through the crystal waters.
Papadopoulos turned the HirondeUe to approach the shore at an oblique
angle so that the details of the coast resolved themselves gradually
