Looking back on it, the Greek island of Santorin, on the Mediterranean tourist cruise belt about sixty miles north of Crete, was an improbable curtain-raiser for the desperate events half a world away on the Sperrgebiet, or forbidden diamond coast of South West Africa, which ended the Master's eight-hundred-year-old reign of influence. Had I been able even to guess at them I would have dismissed them as being as unreal as a nightmare, that soft late afternoon when I sailed my boat into Santorin's great lagoon in the sunset and headed towards the landing-place at Thera. The town's whitewashed houses on the cliff-top were still brilliantly spotlighted by the sun although the bay nearly a thousand feet below was darkening and taking on those unbelievable sapphires, blues, reds and golds which drive tour-, ists and artists ecstatic. I had really meant to tie up off the villa of Oia situated at the northern tip of the thirty-sevenmile crescent which constitutes the spectacular bay of Santwin. Thera is another three miles away; if I had carried out my first intention the odds are that I would never have received the summons which was waiting for me or, by the time I had, it would have been too out of date to be acted upon. What really switched me on to sail those extra miles was the prospect of a bottle of Thera's subtly sweet wine, because I'd had a blistering hot sail from Athens to Santorin on the meltemi or prevailing north wind. There is a bar on Thera's jetty, too, within easy reach of a mooring shelf of rock, compared with the mere offshore buoy at Oia. There is no regular steamer service to Santorin, only an intermittent cruise liner. Its berth was unoccupied on this occasion, which meant I'd have the bar virtually to myself. These were the small things which decided me in favour of Thera.