The Sea Break by Antony Trew Page A

Newt mentioned her?
    At that moment Olympia Stavropoulus rounded a corner and sailed past them, looking to Widmark like a battle cruiser on the measured mile. Without appearing to notice him, she managed a general glare which was a mixture of hatred and triumph. Widmark shuddered and looked at his watch. God! he thought. She must have seen me in her room! To Di he said: “I’ll have to get under way. I’m astern of station.”
    “That sounds terribly naval.” She thought of something and her eyes and voice were contrite. “Oh, Steve! I haven’t congratulated you. I hear you did terribly well in the Med. Two D.S.C.s and buckets of glory.”
    The lines round his mouth tightened and he gave her a wintry look. “I’m not so sure about the glory.” Then he was gone.

Chapter Seven
    To Otto Stauch it was intensely irritating that he had to go and see von Falkenhausen and not the reverse. Whereas Stauch had been in Mozambique for fifteen years, the Freiherr was a comparatively new arrival in the territory; indeed, it was only four months ago that he had come and then after six weeks he had disappeared again and of course they were not permitted to know where. Oh, no! He was too important for that. The first time he had stayed at the Polana, but now on this return visit he had a flat in the Ponta Vermelha area and what was more all the work of finding and renting it had fallen upon Stauch. “ Mein Gott ! ” The fat man puffed and blew as he climbed the stairs to the flat. “Anyone would think I am his servant.” Then he comforted himself with the thought that what he did was for the Fatherland and not for the Freiherr, and with that uppermost in his mind he reached the landing and pressed the bell. While he waited he saw that the name on the white card in the brass frame was still “Jorge Andrada Cavalho.” That was sensible.
    The door was opened by an African. Stauch followed him down a book-lined passage into a study which was clearly a bachelor’s. There was a tray on a low table, with a whisky decanter, soda siphon, beer and glasses. The African disappeared and Stauch was alone. He walked round the room examining the pictures on the walls, some prints of early Lisbon, shelves of well-bound books with an unread look about them and various other odds and ends including a collection of ivory elephants. He stopped before a framed photograph taken on safari: Senhor Cavalho, evidently, standing with his foot on the trunk of a dead elephant, the tusks gleaming large and white behind him, a rifle in the crook of his arm.
    Stauch’s thoughts were interrupted by von Falkenhausen coming down the staircase into the study; tall, brown eyes unsmiling, he moved quietly for a big man. There was no friendship between these two. The Freiherr, warm and sympathetic by nature, had learnt on his last visit that Stauch was unapproachable, and he accepted this with the philosophy of a man who has other and more important things to worry about. He knew that Stauch was loyal; a painstaking man whose services in Mozambique were of great value to the Third Reich, but Stauch was, the Freiherr knew, inordinately jealous and given to ambitions which far outran his capabilities.
    The men greeted each other formally and sat down. Von Falkenhausen offered his guest a cheroot.
    “No thank you, Herr Baron.”
    “A drink, then, Herr Stauch?”
    The fat man would have liked to refuse, but his thirst and the appeal of the frosted bottles were too much. “If you please,” he said curtly.
    The Freiherr poured the beer into a porcelain stein with a pewter top, passed it to Stauch, and helped himself to a whisky and soda.
    Without waiting for his host, Stauch raised his glass. “ Prosit ! ”
    The Freiherr said: “ Prosit !” and smiled thinly at Stauch whose long look round the flat ended with a censorious, “You live very comfortably.”
    “In the moments when I’m here, Herr Stauch. At other times not quite so comfortably.”
    The rebuke had