by Robb White
At last she said to Tony, ''Let the downhaul go a second and see if you can tell what time it is."
''It's quarter past eleven," he said, and she saw his right hand take the downhaul again.
Candy felt sick. There were only five and three quarter hours left before Tony had to go with Jasper to catch the plane.
Glancing at the light on the Point told her that they had hardly begun the long hammering out to the island.
She sat there, fighting the seas trying to come aboard the Faraway, fighting the wind, trying to go as fast as she could, but not cracking on hard enough to carry away something. And thinking.
She knew that by now the northeast wind would have worked up a strong current running around the south end of Pebble. If that current was striking the northern surge, they would have another barrier of huge waves to claw through. That would take time. It might also take a lot of time if she didn't hit the bell buoy on the nose. If they had to hunt around for that, it might take an hour or more to find it. Then, if Dr. Daniels talked, a lot more time would be wasted. The only good thing about it. Candy decided, was the way they would come home again. With that wand behind them she would have trouble keeping the Faraway in the water.
If everything went exactly right, Candy figured, they could just about make it. But if any one thing went wrong, they would be too late to catch the plane.
There was a sudden lull in the wind, and they went smoothly along for a change, rising gracefully to the tops of the waves and driving down their backs.
It was quieter for a moment, and Tony said, "Why'd you pick a night like this to come out here, Candy? Is something wrong?"
'Tes, there is,'' she said. ''The man out here may be dying. Tliere's a man waiting in town who says he might be able to save his life." Then she told him about Abraham Kruger. When she finished, Tony said quietly, ''We can really pay him back for being so good to me, can't we?"
"I hope so, Tony."
"Gosh," he said, his voice low, "I'm glad you asked me to come with you. Candy. I sort of feel like I'm helping him." j "I couldn't go without you. Back there, if you hadn't
i gotten the sail down in time, we would have been in bad
i trouble."
"I feel better and better," Tony said.
"Tony," Candy said, "it may take a long time to get back. It may take until after six o'clock."
He didn't say anything, but she knew that he understood what she meant.
"Of course," she went on, "if ever^thing goes all right, we may be able to get back in time. When I asked you to come, I didn't think it would take so long to break out of the Bay. I thought we'd have plenty of time, but now I'm not so sure."
Still Tony said nothing. She could see him sitting huddled in the forward end of the cockpit, his knees jammed against the centerboard well. It was too dark to see what his face looked like.
Candy said slowly, "If we keep on, Tony, and get back too late, Dr. Worsham will go away and mavbe not ever come back."
She could see Tony raise his head. "When I was in a lot of trouble that man on the island let me stay with him. He treated me swell all the time."
"He didn't exactly let you stay," Candy argued. "You had to make it so he couldn't get rid of you."
''But I understand that now. He was afraid that he was going to die, or get real sick. If that had happened, I would have been in a pickle. That was why he didn't want a blind boy on his island."
"Oh, my," Candy said. "I hadn't even thought of that. But that was the reason all right. Mr. Kruger said that nobody knew what the disease was, so they couldn't tell what it would do to people."
''And he was good to me. Candy," Tony said. "And you remember how much trouble I had then."
"Yes."
Tony said quietly, "Let's go on. Candy."
"Even if you miss the plane?"
"Yes," he said.
"Mr. Jenkins may get really mad, Tony."
"I can't help that."
"He may not let you stay there any more."
Tony did not answer.
"He may make you go to that Perkins place right away."
Tony said softly, "He can't."
"If he gets mad and makes you go away, you'll be right back where you were."
Tony's voice was suddenly angry. "Let's go! Let's go." Tlien it got quiet again. "That man was good to me, Candy."
"All right," Candy said. "We're going."
CHAPTER AiZj,
Everything went wrong. First there was so much spray thrown up by the waves breaking against the coast that Candy never could get the Hght on the Point hned up with the airways beacon. That made her miss the bell buoy off Pebble. For a bad half hour, as the Faraway wandered in the howling darkness, Candy was afraid that she had missed the islands entirely and was sailing straight out across the Atlantic Ocean.
Then Tony raised his head and said, ''I hear something. Candy. It's going bong, bong, bong. What is it?''
She could have hugged him, for she could not hear a thing. ''Which way is it, Tony?"
He pointed with his arm, and she turned the Faraway toward it. ''It's what we've been looking for," she told him. "It's a bell buoy out in the water so that people can hear it and keep from running into the islands."
After a while she could hear it, too, and could set a course for Dr. Daniels's island.
There was still time enough left for them to get back before the plane left, but when she came in toward Pebble Island they ran head on into another terrific rip caused by the collision of currents through the islands. This one wasn't quite so bad as the one at the mouth of the Bay, but the short racing
waves smacked the Faraway like bullets from a machine gun. Candy had to keep her teeth clamped together to prevent them from chattering as the Faraway slammed into the waves. It took precious minutes to drive her through the rip, and when at last they sailed out into the calmer water in the lee of the islands. Candy asked what time it was.
Tony told her, and she sat in silence for a little while. It would take a miracle to get back in time now, she thought.
Not a light showed from the island as she sailed into the lagoon and anchored. '*If you stay here, Tony, you can watch the anchor. If she begins to drag, holler. Just keep your hand on this rope, and you can tell she's dragging the anchor through the sand the way she'll go slack when a wave drives her backward."
Candy rolled overboard and swam ashore. The palm trees were thrashing around, and occasionally one of the heav^-butted fronds would tear loose and come down with a thudding crash. She kept watching out for them as she hurried up the path toward Dr. Daniels's little shack.
In the gloom she saw him outside trying to keep his house from blowing away. He had a length of rope and was attempting to lash his house down with it, but hunks of the thatch roof were blowing off and disappearing into the darkness.
She went over close to him and, almost yelling, said, ''Dr. Daniels!"
He whirled around, and for a moment didn't see her standing in the darkness. When he did, he came over close, stooped down, and peered at her. ''Candy? How in the world did you get out here in weather like this?"
"I sailed, and I brought Tony."
"What's the matter?" he asked, troubled.
"There's a man in town and he's looking for you."
She could tell that this new^s bothered him by the way his voice sounded when he asked, "What did you tell him, Candy?"
'*He sort of tricked me," she admitted. ''So he found out that I knew where you were."
He stooped down so close to her that she could see the wind blowing his hair across his eyes. ''Did you tell him where I am?"
"No. But he said that he knew you. He said that he might be able to save your life. So I came to find out what you want 4 me to do about him."
"Who is he?" Dr. Daniels asked.
"He said his name was Abraham Kruger."
Dr. Daniels straightened up and laughed. "Abe Kruger," he said, still laughing.
"He
's waiting," Candy said, "and I haven't got much time, because Tony has to catch the plane. So what do you want me to do?"
He stopped laughing. "Do? You can't do anything else tonight. Candy. Not in this weather. As soon as it blows out, we'll decide what to do."
"No," Candy said, shaking her head. "Tony has to catch the plane, so I've got to go back right away."
"Go back?" he said. "That's impossible. Candy. You can't run a Snipe in front of a wind like this. A squall would pitch-poll her."
"I watch out for them and Tony hauls the mainsail down. Anyway," Candy said stubbornly, "we've got to go. What do you want me to tell Mr. Kruger?"
He stood for a moment while the wind whipped his shirt against his body.
Then he said slowly, 'Til have to go with you. I can't let you go back by yourself. Candy."
"All right. Come on," Candy said, feeling Tony's time running out minute by minute as they stood there talking.
He ran into his shack and came out in a moment with a small wooden box in his hand. Then, together, they ran down to the beach.
Candy got aboard first and had the anchor aweigh by the time Dr. Daniels clambered into the cockpit. ''Hello, Tony/' he said, as he sat down and wiped the water oflP his face.
"Hello/' Tony said. **Are you going back with us?"
Dr. Daniels laughed. 'Tm going as far as we go/' he said, ''but I think we're all going to be swimming before we get very far."
"We got out here all right/' Tony remarked. "Candy can sail this boat."
"Haul 'em up, Tony," Candy said, crawling past them and back to the tiller. Then she had a sudden idea. "Here," she said, touching Dr. Daniels's shoulder, "you sail her."
"No," he said. "You know the water better than I do. Candy. And," he added, "I'm sure that you're far more able to handle her than I am. Do you want me to take Tony's place on the downhaul?"
Candy shook her head. "He does fine. You see, he never gets scared by the way things look."
Dr. Daniels laughed a little nervously. "You've got a point there all right."
"Okay," Candy said as she felt the first lift of the wind as they came out from under the lee of the islands. "Here we go."
They went. Candy set the sails wing and wing, and when the gale struck them the Faraway lifted and began to fly.
"We'll have to douse the jib when we get really in the open/' she said. "But we're in a hurry now."
"Where're you going, Tony?" Dr. Daniels asked.
"Boston," Tony said. "I'm going to an eye doctor and maybe get my sight back."
Dr. Daniels turned to Candy and, his voice lowered, said, "You know this is dangerous, don't you. Candy? If we went back to the island and waited until this blew over it wouldn't make a great deal of difference. A day or so."
"We can't/' Candy told him. "He's going to see Dr.
"3
W^orsham and he has to get there by the sixteenth, because the doctor is going away for a long time after that."
"Oh, I see. Well, I'll watch out for the squalls." He hesitated a moment and then said, so Tony couldn't hear, ''If she turns over. Candy, I'll get Tony clear of the sail. Can you take care of yourself?"
"I guess so," she said.
''And stay with the boat. She'll float, and we can hang onto her until someone comes."
"All right," Candy said.
She kept the jib on as long as she dared; but when the full force of the wind, unbroken by the islands, began to pour down on her she had to douse the jib. She could feel the Faraway's speed getting out of her control, especially when the huge waves picked her up and made her plane like a surfboard along their crests.
Taking the jib off slowed them down a little, but their speed was still terrific. Candy knew that she had never before—and she hoped she never would again—take a ride like this one.
She tried not to let Dr. Daniels or Tony find out, but she was actually terrified. Ahead of her the weaves were like rolling walls. The Faraway, driven by the wind, seemed to be forever relentlessly following them until she caught them. As the boat overtook the waves and rode up their backs. Candy could control her without too much trouble. But then, suddenly, the waves would grab the Faraway. They would add their rushing speed to hers and, for sometimes as long as a minute, Candy would be practically helpless as the Faraway was whirled along with half of her hull completely out of the water.
All that was bad enough, but the worst part came when at last the Faraway would win the deadly race and start down the front of the waves. It was here that Candy had to use every ounce of skill and control she had in her hands and in the feeling for a boat in the sea. The speed was so great that the slightest pressure on the rudder was instantly transferred into
a violent movement of the boat. And yet Candy had to guide her before the waves as the swirhng currents in them tugged and hauled at the boat, forever trying to drag her around so that the curling crests could fall down upon her and drown her.
As she hurtled down into each black trough Candy felt as though she were in some sort of horrible trap. If she did not move the rudder the fraction of an inch necessary, the wave currents would overwhelm the boat and take charge of her direction. On the other hand, if she moved the rudder a fraction of an inch too far, the Faraway would spin on her keel and broach to. Then every wave in the sea would pound down on her, rolling her over and over like a barrel.
And once Candy looked back over her shoulder. She was so horrified by what she saw that she never looked back there again. Towering above her was a black, glistening wall. It blotted out half of the sky and, as it reared up, it made a ghastly hissing and roaring noise. Along the top of it, framed against the black, torn-up clouds, there was a band of grayish white like lace, where the foam of the crest was being whipped away by the wind.
As she watched, the wall curved toward her, curved down^ the white lace falling directly above her. She did not know why it did not fall into the Faiawayy but it didn't—it fell just astern with a smashing wet thundering.
No one in the boat talked as the minutes went by. Every now and then Dr. Daniels would tell Candy that a squall was coming from either port or starboard, and she would watch it as well as she could, trying to keep sailing for as long as she could. Then, in the few seconds before the vicious wind would strike, she would yell *'Down!" and Tony would lunge against the downhaul. Then the Faraway would stagger and struggle like a wounded animal until the wind of the squall screamed over them and died, and she could begin to sail again.
At last Candy picked out the light on the Point flashing hazily through the cloud of spray floating back across the land.
She knew then that if they could get through the maelstrom of the rip at the mouth of the Bay they would, at last, be safe.
All that had gone before was nothing compared to the ordeal at the rip. Candy made a mistake right at the beginning and let the Faraway crash down almost broadside on to the sea. It threw solid water back on them all and, blinded by it. Candy had nothing but instinct to help her get the boat straightened out again. All the way through the rip Candy did not see a thing—water, sky, land, or light—because she could not wipe the water from her eyes.
She sailed the Faraway by feel and by sound. Through her band on the tiller she felt the drag and push of currents; through her body she felt the boat's body straining and being driven; she felt the force and direction of the wind against ber head and shoulders; she heard the roaring of the waves as they came and went away.
Still blind, her eyes burning, she felt the Faraway at last go •easy.
''Good going," Dr. Daniels said quietly, as they sailed out into the comparative calm of the Bay under a wind finally broken by the solidness of land.
Candy could at last wipe her eyes and look around. Astern there was the solid wall of white foam made at the rip. Ahead was the dim, flattened glow of Beachton's lights.
''Tony, you can make the halyard fast now and take it easy,'' Candy said.
She made the sheet fast and s
lumped back. All of a sudden, as though someone had hit her, she felt dog tired. All her muscles turned into limp strings, and it was all she could do to keep her eyelids from drooping down. And she couldn't quite close her lips—there just wasn't strength enough left in her to do it.
"We better put the jib back on," she said, dreading the extra work it would mean, but, she thought wearily, there may still be time left.
Dr. Daniels raised and set the jib and then sat down again. *'Candy," he said quietly, in the almost silence of a boat in a following wind, ''that was the finest piece of boat handling IVe ever seen in my life. Without you on the tiller we would have capsized a hundred times out there."
Candy didn't say anything. Really, she was too tired even to care. But inside, far down, what he said helped a little.
She waited a little longer, hating to ask, and dreading the answer, but finally she said, 'Tony, what time is it?"
For a long time he didn't answer. She could see him feeling the wrist watch, then closing the crystal on it. He sat back and turned his head slowly toward her. "Five minutes past six, Candy," he said, his voice dead.
Candy cried a little in the darkness.
Then Dr. Daniels said quietly, "When does the plane leave, Tony?"
"At five minutes past six," Tony said.
Candy heard the soft hammering sound and looked south. Against the wind-torn sky she saw the tiny, slow-winking lights, red and green. They pulsed like a beating heart as they came, invisibly suspended, toward the Faraway, and passed over her. Looking up. Candy saw the dark shape of the plane sweeping across the clouds.
"I guess that's it now," Tony said.
There wasn't anything else to say. The hammering from the sky faded out. To the east there was a soft glow of light which turned the surface of the water into a velvety gray.