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Mannie appeared and pushed a cigarette at me. 'You know, Neil, women are funny creatures. Not at all as we imagine them. The biggest mistake we make is to see them as we think they should be. Sometimes the reality is quite different...'

'All right, Mannie, point taken.' Great heavy spots of rain darkened the dry earth and I took down an oilskin coat and pulled it on. 'I'll go and check on Sister Maria Teresa. I'll see you later.'

I'd taken up her bag of tricks, an oilskin coat and a pressure lamp, earlier in case the vigil proved to be a prolonged one. Just as I reached the outer edge of Landro, I met her on the way in with the mother walking beside her carrying her newly-born infant in a blanket, the father following behind.

'A little girl,' Sister Maria Teresa announced, 'but they don't seem to mind. I'm going to stay the night with them. Will you let Joanna know for me?'

I accompanied them through the gathering darkness to the shack the couple called home, then I went back along the street to the hotel.

The rain was really coming down now in great solid waves and I sat at the bar with Figueiredo for a while, playing draughts and drinking some of that gin I'd brought in for him, waiting for it to stop.

After an hour, I gave up, lit my lamp and plunged down the steps into the rain. The force was really tremendous. It was like being in a small enclosed world, completely alone and for some reason, I felt exhilarated.

Light streamed through the closed shutters when I went up the steps to the veranda of the house and a gramophone was playing. I stood there for a moment listening to the murmur of voices, the laughter, then knocked on the door.

Hannah opened it. He was in his shirtsleeves and held a glass of Scotch in one hand. I didn't give him a chance to say anything.

I said, 'Sister Maria Teresa's spending the night in Landro with a woman who's just had a baby. She wanted Joanna to know.'

He said, 'Okay, I'll tell her.'

As I turned away Joanna appeared behind him, obviously to see what was going on. It was enough. I said, 'Oh, by the way, I'll be flying up to Santa Helena with you in the morning. The mail run will have to wait.'

His face altered, became instantly wary. 'Who says so?'

'Colonel Alberto. Wants me to take a little walk with him tomorrow to meet some Huna. I'll be seeing you.'

I went down into the rain. I think she called my name, though I could not be sure, but when I glanced back over my shoulder, Hannah had moved out on to the veranda and was looking after me.

Some kind of small triumph, I suppose, but one that I suspected I would have to pay dearly for.

NINE

Drumbeat

I did not sleep particularly well and the fact that it was three a.m. before Hannah appeared didn't help. I slept only fitfully after that and finally got up at six and went outside.

It was warm and oppressive, unusually so considering the hour and the heavy grey clouds promised rain of the sort that would last for most of the day. Not my kind of morning at all and the prospect of what was to follow had little to commend it.

I wandered along the front of the open hangar and paused beside the Bristol which stood there with its usual air of expectancy as if waiting for something to happen. It came to me suddenly that other men must have stood beside her like this, coughing over the first cigarette of the day as they waited to go out on a dawn patrol, sizing up the weather, waiting to see what the day would bring. It gave me a curious feeling of kinship which didn't really make any sense.

I turned and found Hannah watching me. That first time we'd met after I'd crash-landed in the Vega, I'd been struck by the ageless quality in his face, but not now. Perhaps it was the morning or more probably, the drink from the previous night, but he looked about a hundred years old. As if he had experienced everything there ever was and no longer had much faith in what was to come.

The tension between us was almost tangible.