Simonson tugged on the line disconsolately. “It’s the Kriegsmarine, isn’t it? They radio our position to all the fish within a nautical mile.”
When they were still three hundred yards from shore, nearing the head of the bay, a fighter burst over the coastal bluff and dropped down almost to the sea. It headed straight at them. Alistair saw the pilot through the front panel of the aircraft’s canopy, goggles up on his forehead, staring back with perfect surprise over the block of his radial engine. Alistair had time to think: Oh, it is one of theirs. Then the plane was overhead, howling, barely missing the mast. The prop wash slammed into the sails, taking them aback and capsizing the dinghy.
Alistair gasped in the cold waves. The boat lay on its side with the sails flat on the water.
“Now we shall have to dry out our tobacco.”
“You told me you could sail these things,” said Simonson.
“It’s just that the wind’s a bit fluky at this end of the bay.”
They clung to the transom while Alistair released the sails and made ready to right the dinghy.
“We’ll swim the boat around so it’s across the wind, then we’ll bear down on the center plate until we come upright again. All right?”
Simonson glared at the receding fighter. “He’s an Italian, isn’t he?”
“I think so. I’ll bet he’s calling us in as a probable kill.”
Simonson spat salt water. “He’s off home to have a sailboat stenciled on the side of his fuselage. His ground crew will administer fellatio.”
As they began to swim the dinghy around, they heard the note of the fighter’s engine change. The pitch and the volume increased. Alistair saw the topside of the wings with their fasces roundels and realized that the airplane was banking around and coming back on them. It happened faster than the mind could usefully process, so that a part of him braced for emergency while another part enjoyed the tight curve the fighter was making, the dipped wing almost clipping the waves and a firm white contrail arcing over the glittering sea. The nose of the fighter lined up on them again. There was nothing at all to be done. Simonson, in a quiet voice, called the pilot a stone-cold bastard. Then the fighter roared overhead and no shots had been fired.
“The devil is he doing?”
“He’s getting lined up,” said Alistair. “New to the job, I should think.”
The fighter banked around again and came back at them. Alistair turned his legs toward the onrushing plane and lay back in the water, angling his body to present the soles of his feet as the smallest possible target. As he let himself sink back, he saw the Italian slide open the cover of his canopy. An ungloved hand emerged and let go something white, and as the plane roared overhead for the third time the scrap of white floated down to the sea. The fighter receded. The note of the engine faded into the chatter of the waves.
When it seemed that the plane was not coming back, Simonson swam for the thing the pilot had dropped. It was paper, balled up to float. Simonson smoothed it against the upturned hull. It was torn from the corner of an aviation map. In green navigation pencil the pilot had scribbled: Mi dispiace.
“He’s sorry,” said Simonson. “For capsizing us, I suppose.”
Clinging to the dinghy, they stared at the point on the horizon where the Italian had become indistinguishable from the sky.
“You never mentioned you knew Italian,” said Alistair.
“Mother has a place on Lake Como.”
Alistair laughed.
“What?” said Simonson.
“How gloomy for you, that one can no longer travel there.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Italy always seemed an awfully long way to go for fascism and olives.”
“I rather like olives.”
“Mother rather liked fascism. We had to burn all the photographs when war was declared.”
They worked the boat upright, and shivered while they bailed with their shoes. When all was seaworthy they went back for the trawling line. The wooden spool floated on the water. Simonson retrieved it and began reeling in, but the spinner had sunk to the seabed and snagged something. The line took an age to come. While Simonson worked, Alistair lay back and let the sun warm him. The water lapped the hull and the idle sails flapped. Storm petrels crackled and purred as they quartered the waves for prey.
Simonson could say what he liked, but Alistair liked Malta. This blameless blue sea softened the memories of the retreat through France. Even the enemy’s blockade had done him good. After a few sleepless nights with the terrors, the scarcity of alcohol had probably saved him. Now a rare beer made him cheerful—he no longer had to follow it into oblivion. He saw things clearly again: Hilda’s smile, the endearing effort she had made to keep her makeup fresh. He decided he would write to her. She might enjoy hearing about the warmth, the cheerful press of locals, the little island lost in the blue.