Blade looked at Annie's windblown beauty and wondered how he would have answered that question if he had not been bound hand, foot, and tongue by the Official Secrets Act. Would he have to tell Annie about the pirates of Neral, whom he had fought both for and against, and about how he had learned seamanship from the sadistic she-pirate named Cayla and the tough old fighter Tuabir aboard the galleys of the pirate Brotherhood? And if he had decided to tell her about these things, could he have made her believe him? Perhaps not. Perhaps the Official Secrets Act had saved him more than once from being branded a madman. There was so much he had learned, so much he had seen, during his adventures. And so much of it would have seemed incredible even to Blade if he had not lived through it himself.

Suddenly a shout of surprise from Annie made him turn and look out across the whitecaps to where her slender arm was pointing. A larger patch of foam was spreading across the sea, breaking up on the fringes as the waves tossed it about. From its center rose a squat black tower, rising still higher as Blade watched, and then a long black hull lifted from beneath the foam and sliced through the waves. One of England's diminishing fleet of submarines was on the surface again, heading into Portsmouth after a long patrol in the depths of the Atlantic.

Blade watched tiny figures appear on the submarine's bridge, and then a patch of white that grew suddenly larger as the wind caught it and whipped it out stiff and brilliant in the sun-the white ensign of the Royal Navy. An impulse to follow what had once been tradition moved Blade. He reached for the halyard of the motorsailer's own flag and pulled gently, so that it dipped twice. Across the water there was a flurry of motion on the submarine's bridge. Blade realized he had caught them by surprise with the traditional gesture. Probably no one aboard the submarine, from the captain on down, had ever witnessed this act. But then the white ensign shivered and moved down and then up with stately grace. Blade smiled-the Royal Navy could usually come up punching.