`You were kicked out-cashiered?' Byron's voice was full of awe and admiration,

Gigi came back with the whisky and a light which she placed on the bar counter.

'No I wasn't. I quit. Of my own free will. The Navy was on my side. All the way. But there was a king-sized ruckus over the Walewska. The tanker company sued the. Government for millions. The court hearing went on for months and I was target number one. By the time it was finished I' d had the lot of them. Sure, I would have got another ship but I didn't intend to be strung along for the rest of my life at the end of a radio asking, "Please sir, may I do this, please sir, may I do that?" I was the captain of the frigate and I made the decision. I stand by it.'

'Fit for independent command,' murmured Byron.

'You're stuffed full of other people's cast-off phrases'

He shrugged. 'If the cap fits So, because you' don't like other people's querying your actions and decisions, you pulled up stakes and quit-to Santorin? An ex-Navy captain sailing aimlessly from nowhere to nowhere?'

'Just that. I was fed to the back teeth with the whole bunch of them: inquiry, Navy, lawyers, the lot. Anyway, who the hell are you to tell me what I should or shouldn't do?'

He touched my hand wonderingly. 'A million dollars up the spout!'

'If you go on fiddling with my hand I'll begin to think I'm Lady Macbeth or you're a lady-boy:

'Not in front of Gigi, please Struan!'

The wine-it had that fire which seems to be at the heart of all wines from volcanic soils -started to give me a warm feeling about Gigi; and I was wondering how to get rid of Byron, who was concentrating on the whisky, when Gigi exclaimed:

'Here's Ari now!

'Telegram for you, Boss. You must hurry.' He was puffing and grinning as if he'd run all the way down Thera's eight hundred steps. He clutched a buff envelope Only drachmas would loosen his grip.