Complementing the American submarines were the British Devastation-class nuclear subs. Bellatrix was at anchor in Port Victoria, Mahe Island, largest of the Seychelles group in the northern Indian Ocean. The Seychelles, a 5,000-square mile agglomeration of islands, atolls, cays and coral reefs, lie about one-third of the way between East Africa and India. This group stands at the head of another immense chain stretching away boomerang-shape for over 1,000 miles to the south-east. The northern pivot is Mahe and the southern Mauritius. These islands-often no more than a fringe of coconut palms round a strip of sand a few feet above water-level-have been named collectively Limuria. They are inhabited by fewer than 2,000 people spread over tens of thousands of square miles of sea. The islands are believed to be the last visible peaks of a drowned continent which once lay between Africa and Australia. The inhabitants-descendants of pirates, natives and slaves-speak Creole, a tongue which has mutated as far from its original French as have the strange animals of Limuria from their African homologues. Limuria is a never-never land of soft tropical islands and languor, a surfeit of sweetness among the endless palms, lagoons of breath-taking loveliness at dawn and sunset. Here, some years ago, Britain had established her big missile base. I screwed up my eyes against the afternoon sun and watched the big jet bank round Mount Howard, Mahe's northern tip, and circle over the densely wooded ravines and peaks which back Port Victoria. I lost it momentarily, then it reappeared from behind Morne Seychellois, the highest peak in the island, to make its landing approach. I turned away from it, sick at heart, dreading it for what it represented: the publicity ordeal of Peace's funeral, with myself as the chief mourner.

What secret did that hard face hold below the glass, the secret which he had summoned me to tell and yet, for reasons which had died with him, had held back for one week, a week which was to prove his last on earth? My eyes searched the dead face, tried almost to get beyond the half-closed lids, to find out.. What was it all about, I kept asking myself, as I had done while we had raced towards the Seychelles from