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A shadow fell across the doorway. The other man was near. A new tenseness gripped her, constricting her heart so that she could hardly breathe.

‘You can babble away as long as you like, my friend, but I won’t be persuaded,’ she heard him say. His voice was low-pitched and pleasantly slow, but quite decisive.

When he came into the tiny cubicle he was so big there hardly seemed room for anyone else. His head touched the rough ceiling, his shoulders were as wide as the doorway. The doctor moved to make space for him. He took a step towards the bed and Minella stared at him openly, the tenseness becoming a shield against vulnerability, because instinct warned her not to trust him. His shirt was now tucked firmly into a pair of tight, faded jeans, and he looked almost aggressive. His hair was dark, but lightened in places by the sun, and the neatly trimmed beard round his angular chin was threaded here and there with grey. The square face was bronzed and handsome with deep-set eyes beneath straight, dark brows, and the line of his mouth was firm and masterful.

‘Sam, just for once will you listen to me . . .'

'Henrique, I’ve told you, I don’t
want
the child in my house,’ said Sam.

Minella summoned all her will-power and found strength to protest.

‘Child!’ she said, in the loudest voice she could manage. ‘I’m
not
a child, and I can look after myself, thank you very much!’

He raised his eyebrows in surprise and a smile touched the stern mouth which had surely murmured gentler words earlier. She hadn’t dreamt it.

‘The little bird has talons, Henrique,’ he said. Then he addressed her for the first time. ‘Can you tell me your name?’

She frowned and tried so hard to remember that it brought fresh pain to her temples. How ridiculous! She shook her head slowly.

‘No,’ she said, sadly. ‘I kept repeating it out loud when I was in the water, and now I’ve forgotten it.’

‘Then I shall call you Sparrow,’ said Sam. He turned to his friend. ‘How about that?’

‘Eh, what is that?’ The fat man lifted his shoulders in perplexity.

‘It is a little brown English bird. It suits her, don’t you think, in spite of the sharp claws.’

‘Ah, yes, yes.’

Her limbs felt as if they didn’t belong to her, but she managed to extricate an arm from the blanket, and she touched her red-brown hair. It was dry now, but sticky with salt water and she knew she must look an awful mess. Her arm was bare. Someone had removed her sweat-shirt, and when she moved one foot against her leg she discovered that her jeans were missing, too. It dawned on her that she was probably naked under the blanket, and these two men must have been responsible for taking off her clothes. True, one was a doctor and used to such things, but the thought of the other one looking at her body made her burn with embarrassment. Her hand fell on to the pillow. She had never felt quite so weak.

His eyes were on her, his expression unfathomable. ‘Don’t worry, Sparrow,’ he said. ‘Dr Porva will look after you.’

He seemed influential. The doctor in no way intimidated him, and he was not going to be told what to do. The set of his head and his whole bearing were full of self-confidence.

‘I’d prefer that,’ said Minella. For some reason she felt a need to assert herself, to let him know she didn’t want to be dependent on any begrudged hospitality even if he changed his mind.

He lifted her hand from the pillow, turning it in his.

Her nails had suffered while she was crewing and the skin of her palms was still crinkled from being in the water so long, but he held her hand gently, like something fragile, and seemed about to make quiet comment. Then, with a careless change of tactics, he dropped it back on the pillow.

‘I’m going into town,’ he said curtly. ‘I’ll let the Border Authorities in Horta know you’re here. Perhaps they’ll send someone to collect you as soon as you’re able to travel.’

‘Where
is
Horta?’ she asked. ‘Where am I?’

‘Las Ilhas Atlanticas,’ said Sam. ‘The Azores to you.’

‘And she is not fit to be moved as far as Horta for many hours yet,’ said Henrique Porva, ‘unless you arrange an ambulance. But you could take her to your house in a car.’

Sam’s eyes blazed and it was easy to see he was not used to having his decisions questioned. ‘I repeat, I am
not
taking charge of her. There are plenty of women in the village capable of it. If money’s the problem, I’ll pay someone.’

Minella propped herself up gingerly, anger now making her head spin.

‘When you’ve finished discussing me as if I’m a bit of flotsam you found washed up perhaps
I
can have a say in the matter!’ she cried. ‘I
want
to go to Horta, if that’s where I can find out who I am, and what’s happened to the people who were with me.’

‘I shall try to find out for you,’ said Sam. ‘
You
will stay here.’

And he strode away, ducking his head under a low beam as he left the tiny room. A bang reverberated through the whole building when he slammed the main door.

‘Well!’ gasped Minella, lying back with relief.

‘Ah, he is a difficult man,’ said Dr Porva, gesticulating with his hands. But there was a canny twinkle in his eyes which meant the reproof was not to be taken too seriously. There was obviously a strong bond between the two men. ‘Today I will see my patients and not ask them to lie down. If anyone needs to lie down they must come again tomorrow. Today they will
all
come here, but only because they know I have a beautiful young girl in my surgery who was rescued from the sea. Curiosity ... is that what you call it? But I shall tell them you are sleeping. You will sleep now, won’t you, Spar—ho.’

She smiled for the first time. ‘Sparrow,’ she corrected.

‘You are a brave girl,’ he said, and leaned over to pat her arm.

He went away, and came back a short time later with something rather like porridge in a dish, and helped her to eat it. Surprisingly she managed it, and even found it tasted good.

She tried not to think about the storm that had come up with hardly any warning, the violent gale that had driven them off course, but it kept coming back to her. A vague, unpleasant ache brought a frown to her forehead as fragments of conversation she had heard refused to make sense, and she found it hard to distinguish between dreams and reality. Dr Porva had talked about more survivors, but that must be because he thought she had come from a shipwreck. He didn’t know she had been washed overboard and was the only one missing from a crew of six. Everyone else would be all right. But what had they done when they found out what had happened? Had they tried to turn back, facing into the terrible wind to search for her, and were they searching still? Or had they abandoned hope of finding her and carried on? Her brother would be frantic with grief.

She started trying to tell the doctor what had happened, but it was too complicated just then, and she only managed the one elusive fact that meant so much to her.

‘Dr Porva, I’ve remembered my name. It’s Minella Farmer.’

‘That is very pretty,’ he said. He busied himself with bottles in a cabinet on the wall, shook two tablets into his hand, then fetched a glass of water from the other room. ‘Now, I am going to give you something to make you sleep, and when you wake up you will feel rested. Then you can tell me all about yourself.’

She swallowed the tablets and lay down again when he touched her shoulder authoritatively.

‘Why doesn’t the man called Sam want me at his house?’ she asked. ‘Tell me about him.’

Henrique Porva shrugged. ‘Sam Stafford is a very good friend, but he has some ... hang-upwards.’

‘Hang-ups,’ giggled Minella, loving his attempt at colloquial English.

‘Yes. I do not think he likes women.’

‘Oh.’ There was so much she wanted to ask this kind Azorean doctor, but she was very drowsy. ‘Why doesn’t he like them?’

If he answered she didn’t hear him. Her limbs felt deliciously relaxed and she closed her eyes. She would have to ask him again later.

When she awoke again there was a woman speaking excitedly in Portuguese to Dr Porva. Minella, fascinated, wished she could understand them. After a while the woman came into the room, a bright smile lighting her face when she saw that Minella was, awake. She wore a coloured, peasant-type skirt with a black blouse, and a cotton scarf covered her black hair. It was difficult to guess her age, but her figure was ample, to say the least, and a tracery of lines creased the skin at the corners of her eyes.

‘
O
senhora
, we are come to take you somewhere more comfortable,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘I feel fine now,’ said Minella, and sat up quickly, swinging her legs off the bed without thinking. To her relief she saw that she was still wearing her bra and pants, but then the room started spinning round again and she fell back on the pillow with a little groan of frustration.

The woman clucked like a worried hen. ‘There, there, you are still very weak. Do not worry, I will get Vasco to carry you. It is why I brought him. Vasco is my nephew. I am Benita.’

Dr Porva came into the room behind her, full of apologies.

‘I am so sorry, I cannot keep you here. I was on the telephone to Benita because she is a good woman and will look after you.’ He came and put a hand on her forehead, then took her pulse, and the twinkle was back in his eyes. ‘I must take this first, young lady, before you see Vasco. He is a very handsome boy, and I have told him you are a beautiful girl. He cannot wait to see you.’

‘We will put these on,’ said Benita. She was holding Minella’s jeans and sweat-shirt which had been rough-dried. They were hard and uncomfortable, but she felt happier with them on, especially when Benita signalled for her nephew to come in.

The tiny room was overcrowded, yet she could breathe more easily than when Sam had been standing there. His aversion had created an atmosphere and his size had been intimidating. But Vasco was different. Minella had a knack of making good spot judgments, and decided at once that he would be a friend she could trust. He looked to be about her own age and had real Latin charm; black hair, a lithe, sinewy body, and shining black eyes which lighted on her with equal appreciation.

‘The doctor, he was right,’ said Vasco, smiling warmly.

‘Hello,’ said Minella.

Dr Porva was still full of apologies while he made sure the blanket was securely wrapped round her.

‘I wish I could take you to Benita’s myself, but already I am late with my visits, so I have a taxi waiting. Vasco will take you out to it.’

‘But I can walk,’ Minella protested.

‘And disappoint him? No, it is better not.’

She held out her hands to the doctor and thanked him for all he had done, then once again she was picked up in masculine arms, only this time it was not the same. Vasco was not so tall or so broad as Sam, and he was clumsy.

‘Be careful with her,’ Benita warned, as he carried her out into the sunshine.

‘I shall see you again,’ said Henrique Porva, and the words were comforting, because Minella had a momentary feeling of unease once she left the security of the four walls. She had recollections of bandits on foreign islands who abducted people and held them to ransom. Not that it would be worth the trouble where she was concerned, but she was at their mercy and she wished, illogically, that the Englishman hadn’t disappeared quite so quickly.

She looked around and saw that she was in a fishing village where low stone walls climbed gradually upwards from a bay, and square cottages were only a stone’s throw from the whaleboats pulled up on the beach. There was an air of tranquillity about the place, as if time stood still.

The taxi was an old, bulbous Chevrolet. Vasco deposited her on the back seat while the driver held open the door, and they talked together in their peculiar Portuguese which could almost have been mistaken for French. She smiled, knowing they were talking about her, and when Benita settled her bulk in the seat beside her, giving the car a decided tilt to one side, it was hard to keep a straight face.

The taxi revved and coughed, and started an uncomfortable journey out of the village along a lonely road where other motor transport seemed to be nonexistent. But the jolting was soon forgotten. Minella had never seen such colourful landscape, or realised there were so many shades of green, and she gazed out of the window in wonder. A patchwork of fields, richly green and yellow and blue, was stitched together with low rocky walls, and meadows were edged unbelievably with beautiful blue hydrangeas. The road was narrow and winding, and round one comer they had to pull up sharply to make room for an ox-cart with high wicker sides, a harvest of straw piled so high it looked top-heavy. The wooden wheels with their sawmill screech made her cover her ears until the load was out of sight.

Benita didn’t speak, but Vasco turned now and then to smile at Minella, as if making sure she was still there. Her face was bathed in perspiration and she unravelled herself from the blanket, feeling suffocated and anything but attractive. It was surprising he looked at her at all.

A bit further on, Benita leaned forward and gave instructions to the driver. He turned off the road and on to an even narrower track, which didn’t please Vasco at all. He began to quarrel with Benita. Their voices rose, as deafening as the ox-cart wheels, but they probably sounded angrier than they were because she didn’t understand the language. Minella shrank into the corner of the car. When it stopped a few minutes later she was greatly relieved, and half afraid to look out of the window. But when she saw the view everything else was forgotten.

They had arrived at a low cottage with a rust-red tiled roof and whitewashed walls, much like others she had seen, but bits had been added to make the shape irregular, and one wall was covered with vines. The garden was overflowing with azaleas and flaming canna lilies. Below it, at what must have been the bottom of a steep drop, was a lake, the water as clear as blue stained glass, and on the far side sheer cliffs climbed up towards the sky.