A little later, the three men completed their fruitless search of the _Altair__ and confronted George on the afterdeck Two of the party were foreigners, disagreeable-looking fellows with tight mouths; the third was fat and soft and looked like the worst sort of Greek, perhaps a Salonikan. One of the foreigners spoke in a language that sounded to George like a form of Bulgarian. The fat man translated.
- Where is the man Bond?
- I know nobody of that name.
- You are lying. He was on this ship a few hours ago.
George shrugged. The fat man went on translating.
- There was an Englishman on board this morning, wasn't there?
- Yes. He didn't tell me his name. We had no dealings with each other.
- Where is he now?
- I have no idea. He did not confide in me.
- You are lying, you lump of excrement. Where did you last see this man? And this time see that you speak the truth.
- About fifteen miles away. At sea, south of Vrakonisi. He and his friends took over my boat and I theirs.
- Where were they bound for?
- I have already answered that. I don't know.
Before the fat man had had time to translate this, one of the foreigners shoved himself forward, caught George by the front of his shirt and shook him to and fro. At the same time he shouted his horrible language into George's face.
This was a mistake. Coming on top of the abuse, the false accusations of lying made in what was for the time being his own territory, and accompanied as they were by an odour of rotting potatoes, these ravings had the effect of making George forget that he was a Cephalonian and reminding him that he was a Greek. For the moment, it seemed to him that he could pick up these three tricksters one by one and drop them over the side. He brought his muscular forearm down hard on the foreigner's wrists and gave him a push that sent him staggering against the mast. With all the dignity he could muster, George said, - Unless you produce your documents immediately I must order you to leave my ship.
This was a much more serious mistake. The words were hardly out of his mouth before, slammed in the belly and pistol-whipped behind the ear, George was grovelling half-conscious on the deck. He heard his cousin cry out in protest, then in pain. The fat man spoke.
- Where is Bond?
- I don't know. I'd tell you if I did. I don't know.
There was a pause. Somebody gave an order. More pause. George, in the act of trying to get up on his hands and knees, was flung on to his back. His ankles were grasped and held wide apart. Then there exploded at his right knee a pain such as he would never have believed possible, a pain that instantly flooded up his thigh and into the whole right-hand side of his pelvis and through his guts. A pain compared with which all other pain was a mere discomfort, an itch, a tickle.
George had been struck with the heel of a shoe on the medial condyle of the femur, the boss of bone at the inside of the knee. This is the most immediately devastating assault that can be inflicted on the human frame. It triggers off vomiting in the strongest and bravest of subjects. George vomited.
- Now. Where is Bond?
-... I don't know. He didn't tell me. I think they turned east. I didn't notice.
Some discussion.
- Very well. Give the name of your boat and describe it fully.
George did as he was told; this was not a situation in which you kept your mouth shut. He gave a very full description of the _Cynthia__. He was still adding details when there was another explosion, inside his head this time, and the sun went out.
Chapter 17
In the Drink
GEORGE IONIDES had been right in his impression that Bond and his companions had moved off east after parting company with him, but his questioners would not have found it helpful to follow this up. As pre- arranged, no sooner had the _Altair__ disappeared to the south than Litsas had made a U-turn and headed straight back to Vrakonisi. By three o'clock the _Cynthia__ was anchored in a small bay on the southern coast of the island and almost at its eastern tip, a full eight miles by sea from the islet. A dozen small craft lay near by and there were groups of figures on shore.
The place was more a jagged hole bitten into the coastline than a bay in any full sense. In one corner a granite shelf just above the water-line, narrow but level, made landing comparatively easy. Next to this, a dozen yards of sloping shingle constituted as much of a beach as nine-tenths of all island bays provide. A succession of weird rock-formations ran along the other arm of the inlet, weird in their very regularity - cave-mouths and arches square-set enough to have formed part of a ruined Homeric palace, rectangular tower-shaped structures, tall isolated stacks like the piles of a vanished bridge, all coloured in delicate gradations between tan and olive-green. The land above was less precipitous than elsewhere in Vrakonisi, with vine-terraces and clumps of evergreens: myrtle, arbutus, and oleander.
With a gesture of finality, Litsas let down the tattered side-awning, screening the three of them from view as well as from the sun.
'We'll be safe here,' he said. 'Parties come all the time to bathe, God help them, and there's a piece of a temple up on the hill. It's mostly pavement, but the island has nothing else like this, and you don't know how small it is until you get there. Anyhow, nobody will notice a small boat of this type. I'm worried about our fuel, though. We've enough left for only about thirty miles. Shall we call quickly at the port after it's dark?'
'No.' Bond's voice was decisive. 'If, as we assumed, they do have a man at the harbour, they'll have two on tonight. We'd be risking blowing our cover. And tomorrow... we can get all the gas we want.'
