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steward.'

    Andropulos took his glass  --  a scotch and not a small one, and disposed of half the contents in one gulp.

    'My goodness, I needed that. Thank you, Commander, thank you. Not as young as I was nor as tough, either. Age cometh to us all.' He quaffed the rest of his drink and sighed.

    Talbot said: 'Jenkins, another for Mr Andropulos. A slightly larger measure this time.' Jenkins looked at him expressionlessly, closed his eyes momentarily and left.

    'The Ariadne, Andropulos said. 'Rather odd, is it not. Greek name, British vessel.'

    'Courtesy gesture to your Government, sir. We are carrying out a hydrographic charting exercise with your people.' Talbot saw no point in mentioning that the Ariadne had never carried out a hydrographic exercise in its life and that the ship had been called Ariadne to remind the Greeks that it was a multi-national vessel and to persuade a wavering Greek government that perhaps NATO wasn't such a bad thing after all.

    'Hydrographic, you say. Is that why we're moored fore and aft  --  a fixed platform for taking bearings.'

    'A fixed platform, yes, but in this instance the purpose is not hydrographic. We've had quite a busy afternoon, Mr Andropulos, and at the moment we're anchored over a plane that crashed into the sea just about the time we were receiving your SOS.'

    'A plane? Crashed? Good God! What - what kind of plane?'

    'We have no idea. It was so wreathed in smoke that it was impossible to distinguish any important features.'

    'But surely - well, don't you think it was a big plane?'

    'It may have been.'

    'But it could have been a big jet. Maybe hundreds of passengers.' If Andropulos knew it wasn't a jet carrying hundreds of passengers, his face wasn't saying so.

    'It's always possible.' Talbot saw no point in telling Andropulos that it was almost certainly a bomber and equally certainly not carrying hundreds of passengers.

    'You  --  you mean to tell me that you left the area to come to our aid?'

    'A reasonable enough decision, I think. We were pretty certain that there were people alive aboard the Delos and we were also pretty certain that there was no one alive aboard that plane.'

    'There could have been survivors aboard that plane. I mean, you weren't there to see.'

    'Mr Andropulos.' Talbot allowed a certain coldness to creep into his voice. 'We are, I hope, neither callous nor stupid. Before leaving, we lowered one of our motorboats to circle the area. There were no survivors.'

    'Oh dear,' Irene Charial said. 'Isn't it awful? All those people dead and there we were, busy doing nothing except feeling sorry for ourselves. I'm not being inquisitive, Captain, and I know it's none of my business, but why do you remain anchored here? I mean, there can't possibly be any hope now that some survivors may surface.'

    'There is no hope, Miss Charial. We're remaining here as a marker until the diving ship arrives.' He didn't like lying to her but thought it inadvisable to tell her that there was no rescue ship hurrying to the scene and that, as far as he knew, the only other people who knew of the disaster were the NATO HQ in Italy. More especially, he didn't want any person or persons in her company to know.

    'But  --  but it will be too late to save anyone.'

    'It's already too late, young lady. But they'll send divers down to investigate, to find out whether it's a passenger-carrying jet or not and to try to ascertain the cause of the accident.' He was looking, without seeming to look, at Andropulos as he said the last words and felt almost certain that he saw a flicker of expression cross his face.

    Andropulos's captain, Aristotle, spoke for the first time. 'How deep is this plane, Commander?'

    'Seventeen, eighteen fathoms. Just over thirty metres or so.'

    'Thirty metres,' Andropulos said. 'Even if they do get inside - and there's no guarantee that they will be able to do so -won't it be difficult to move around and see anything?'

    'I can guarantee they'll get