The 34th Degree

47

T he outer harbor of Brindisi hummed as the dockers loaded the last stores onto the Independence, a Greek freighter from Andros Shipping that was part of the convoy about to depart Italy for Greece.

On the bridge was Captain Paniotis Tsatsos, a big, hairy bull of a man in a sailor’s top and black baggy pants. He had a handlebar mustache, and his dark, swarthy face was crowned by silvery hair under a Greek captain’s cap. He was barking orders between the steady stream of curses with which his Greek crew was well accustomed. Now that Andros ships, like all Greek ships, were banned by the British from sailing the Mediterranean, Captain Tsatsos was reduced to short runs between Italy and Greece. That meant spending less time with his first love-the sea-and more time holed up in ports dealing with German and Italian authorities. It made him more ornery than ever.

Tsatsos was now arguing with the commander of the Italian gun crew, Lieutenant Lamas, a thin fellow in uniform with a thin nose and thin mustache. They were leaning over the chart table, going over the route to Piraeus, when there was a shout from the deck.

Tsatsos looked up from his charts. Coming up the quay was a man in civilian clothes flanked by two Italian officers-the convoy commander and the port officer.

“What is it now?” he complained to Lamas. “The holds are full, and the deck is already a hazard with all the extra stores.”

“Easy, old man,” said the Italian. “I’ll go see what they want.”

Lamas went down the ladder, and Tsatsos watched him greet the party on the deck. They were too far away for Tsatsos to hear anything, but there was something about the civilian that seemed familiar to the old sea captain. He turned to his first mate, the clean-cut Karapis. “Give me your field glasses.”

Tsatsos took the glasses and fixed the sights on the civilian. He could hardly believe his eyes. “Look!” he cried. “It is Christos Andros.”

“The son of General Andros?” Karapis said. “Impossible. He’s in America, been there for years.”

“Heh?” Tsatsos pulled down the glasses and gave his first mate a sharp look. “I was sailing ships when you were bathed in a tub by your mother. You don’t tell me it’s impossible. Look for yourself.” He was about to hand Karapis the field glasses when Lieutenant Lamas returned to the bridge.

“You have a passenger,” the Italian announced. “A diplomat, it seems. The naval escorts can’t take him because he’s a civilian. Regulations. He says he would like to lie down and get some rest.”

Tsatsos exchanged glances with Karapis. “My cabin is his, Lieutenant.”

The Italian disappeared, and the old captain looked at his first mate and said, “Diplomat, my eye, Karapis. I taught that boy how to play his first rembetika song on the bouzouki. You think I can’t recognize him? It is Christos Andros, I tell you.”