Neil walked through the gates, past the immigration and customs buildings. Ahead there was a lot of shouting and blaring of jukeboxes from bars with names like Spitfire Club and The Captain’s Table. He came to a restaurant where he bought food for the two days’ crossing: a length of salami, ham, cured beef, olives and oranges and toadstool loaves of bread, a hunk of cheese and three dozen eggs.
Outside, a grey-haired sailor sat in the street muttering to himself. The dusk was falling fast now, the city lights winking on across the bay. Neil was about fifty yards from the port gates when he saw the Renault Gordini. It stood in the shadow of the immigration offices. There was no-one inside it.
He hurried past the gates, showing his passport as he began to run, clutching the bag of food, turning and sprinting down the quay towards the fuel bunkers. There had been lights inside the offices and he had heard several voices talking together.
The ‘Serafina’ was tied up with a fat pipe screwed into her side like an umbilical cord. The two harbour police stood by watching. Neil leapt on board, almost dropping the food over the side, and yelled at Van Loon, ‘Get us out of here! Those two Frenchmen are down by the gates!’
Van Loon nodded gravely. ‘Two minutes,’ he said.
‘Not two minutes — now!’
The Dutchman went over and shouted something at the Greek mechanic tending the pipe. Neil glanced fearfully towards the immigration offices. He didn’t think anyone had seen him. Jadot was probably making a routine check of the port. Van Loon had counted out the money to the mechanic and the pipe was being unscrewed. ‘Come on, start her up!’ Neil yelled.
‘O.K., O.K.,’ said Van Loon calmly.
Neil, watched him begin to untie the ropes. To spare himself the suspense he ducked into the galley with the parcel of food. There was a mild explosion and something hit him hard in the face just below the eye. He stepped backwards and heard a peal of laughter. A cork bounced against the galley wall. Pol came swaying through with the second bottle of champagne; his colour had improved and his eyes glittered. ‘Where’s your glass, Monsieur Ingleby?’
‘You damn fool!’ said Neil, rubbing his cheek. ‘That Captain Jadot — he’s down at the gates!’ Behind him the engines started up with a loud whine, as Van Loon let the throttles full out. Neil ran back to the wheelhouse.
They were coming down the quay, about a hundred yards away. Jadot was in front with the thick-set man at his heels. ‘Let her go!’ Neil cried.
The deck tilted and shuddered; there was a churning and splashing through blue smoke; and the jetty suddenly swung away, the bows heading into the open sea.
Jadot had broken into a run. Neil remembered about him being able to hit a man in the head with a pistol from forty metres. The needle on the rev-counter jerked round the luminous dial. The boat would be out of range in a few moments now. Jadot reached the harbour police and stopped. He would hardly try to shoot it out with them around, Neil thought.
Pol came into the wheelhouse with the bottle of champagne. ‘My old friend Jadot, eh?’ he said with a grin, handing Neil a glass. ‘Did they see you?’
‘I don’t think so. But they’ve certainly got our descriptions from the immigration people.’ Neil emptied the champagne in one gulp; he was pale and his hands shook.
‘They don’t know who we are,’ said Van Loon, ‘they think we are just tourists.’
‘Jadot and his friend will know who we are,’ said Neil grimly, ‘and they’ll know we’re not just going over to Crete for a dirty weekend.’
Pol shrugged. ‘They’re left behind — they can’t do anything now. We’ll have other things to worry about after tomorrow,’ he added ominously, returning to the wardroom.
Van Loon was marking one of the navigation charts, plotting a course due-south across the Saronic Gulf past Aegina and Hydra, down the Peloponnese coast between the isles of Milos and Cythera, then south-west of Crete into the Mediterranean. Neil stood beside him and watched the dipping lights of Athens drift away to the east.
The sea was growing darker, the sky a luminous velvet with a large round moon corning up over the horizon. The swell began to smack against the sides of the boat; but there was no wind. Neil switched on the radio and tuned in to Europe Number One. There had been nineteen deaths during the day in clashes between the Secret Army and French security forces in the capital of the Protectorate. An hour ago nearly a quarter of a million people had gathered in the Place de la Nation in Paris to demand Government action to crush the revolt. The demonstrators were chanting: ‘Le Fascisme ne passera pas!’ It sounded to Neil as remote and nostalgic as a snatch of Christopher Isherwood read again after many years.
Back in the wardroom Pol was peeling the foil off a third bottle of champagne. Neil sank down and drank with him, to the steady beat of the engines. Later they made a meal of the salami, bread and cheese, drank more champagne, and Pol talked about his wife. ‘The Germans killed her,’ he said, chewing quietly, ‘they shot her in Nancy in 1942. They caught her trying to contact some Canadian prisoners.’
‘You were both in the Resistance?’
‘Yes, we worked together.’ He paused: ‘I’m too old for women now. Too old, too ugly.’ His face had collapsed suddenly, utterly sad, staring at nothing. ‘She was something of a bitch,’ he went on, pouring more champagne, ‘before the war she went off and lived with a man in Hungary. She came back to me after the attack on
