Dead calm

by Charles Williams

  Down in the water and behind the dinghy, he could see nothing at all. Another fifteen minutes went by. The dark undulations of the swell rolled up under them and slid past in silence except for the creak of oarlocks. “Maybe if I stood up—” she said.

  “No. You’ll capsize. We’re bound to pick her up in a minute. We’re still right on course? Bellew, I mean; don’t look down at the light yourself.”

  “Due west all the time,” Bellew replied. Then he went on, an undertone of ugliness in his voice. “You know what, sport? Wouldn’t it be a real gas if you didn’t see any masts over there?”

  “I saw masts,” Ingram said coldly. It was for Mrs. Warriner’s benefit. He had no interest at all in what Bellew thought.

  There was a sudden cry from Mrs. Warriner. “I see her! I see her!”

  “Where?”

  “Way off to the left. My left.”

  “All right,” he said calmly. “Don’t take your eyes off it. Bellew, pull your left oar till she tells you to steady up, and then check your compass.”

  Bellew came around. “Steady. Right there,” Mrs. Warriner said.

  “Almost due south,” Bellew reported. “One-eighty-five to one-ninety.”

  Ingram swam out from behind the dinghy, and when they rose to the next swell peered into the darkness ahead. He could see nothing at all. He was too low. But why was she so far off course? At a distance of even eight miles she should have passed within a few hundred yards of them. “Can you see the port running light?” he asked.

  “No. Only the masthead light,” Mrs. Warriner replied. “She must be a mile, or two miles away. Wait. I think I saw the red light then. Yes, there it is. She must have been going away from us, and then turned.”

  “All right,” he said. “Forget the compass for a minute. You can keep Bellew headed straight. Take both your flashlights and hold ‘em as far over your head as you can—”

  He was interrupted by a sudden cry from Mrs. Warriner, and at the same instant he saw it himself. A rocket arched into the sky ahead of them, hung poised for an instant, and began to float down like some great glowing flower.

  “She’s lost herself,” Bellew said. “Hell, I thought you said she could take a bearing—”

  Ingram cut him off savagely. “Save it!” Then he went on to Mrs. Warriner. “As soon as that goes out and she can see again, start waving your lights, pointed straight at her.”

  She held them ready but made no reply, and he wondered if she were prey to the same chilling thoughts that were running through his own mind. Probably. Anybody but a stupid meathead like Bellew would know something must be wrong aboard Saracen. Was she hurt? Or had she killed Warriner and now was beginning to go to pieces? Then the flare went out ahead of them, and Mrs. Warriner was signaling. Several minutes went by while they rose and fell in silence.

  Then Mrs. Warriner cried out. “She’s turned. I can see both running lights!”

  Ingram sighed. She’d sighted them and was coming.

  16

  The range was closing. ahead of her the flashing lights were less than a quarter-mile away. Then it occurred to her he might be in the water instead of the dinghy, and she left the wheel long enough to run forward and hang the ladder over the side. Her knees were suddenly too weak to support her, and she almost fell coming back to the cockpit. It was difficult to breathe, and she was conscious of the pounding of her heart. She stared ahead at the two flashlights as if trying to burn away the darkness surrounding them. Two hundred yards …

  She brought the throttle back and reached inside the hatch to turn on the spreader lights. The sea was illuminated for twenty or thirty yards on all sides of her, but she could still see the signals dead ahead.

  She came hard left, and then right. She pulled the lever into reverse and backed down, racing the engine. Saracen came to rest, and the lights were less than fifty yards away, directly abeam. She reached down and yanked the wires apart, and in the sudden silence she could hear the rattle of oarlocks. He was in the dinghy. She leaned across the cockpit seat, staring outward.

  Now she could see it. It was coming into the outer limits of the spreader lights. There were two people in it. John was rowing, and there was somebody smaller in the stern. She thought it was a woman— It wasn’t John rowing. He was bigger than John. It was somebody she’d never seen before, and the other one was a woman, and there was nobody else. Then she saw the head come out from behind the dinghy, the man swimming, and the upraised arm waving to her. She slid down into the cockpit seat with one hand still feebly clutching the lifeline above her, unable even to raise her head, and her diaphragm began to kick so she couldn’t exhale. Every time she would try to breathe out, it would kick and she would inhale again.

  Ingram saw her slide down and could see no sign of Warriner. “Ill go aboard first,” he said to Mrs. Warriner. She was staring straight ahead, and when Saracen rolled down she thought she saw something on the other side of the cockpit, beyond Mrs. Ingram. Something sprawled. “Yes,” she said in a controlled but very fragile voice. “Yes. Thank you.”

  Ingram lunged ahead and went up the ladder while they were coming alongside. Rae was sitting up now, and was apparently unhurt except for that bruise on her face. Beyond her he could see Warriner’s body, but in the same glance he saw the bound wrists and the line going forward to the stanchion, and all the breath went out of him at once.

  Rae was still looking up at him. “He smash—he smu—he smu—” She tried to point, but he had already seen the uncovered and empty binnacle, like an eyeless socket, and understood. Probably wrecked the other one too, he thought. So she came all the way back and found us with nothing at all. He wanted to say something, but his eyes had begun to sting, and he didn’t trust his voice. Without even looking around, he gestured for the others to come aboard and reached down for her arm. She made it to her feet. She went down the ladder, and when she was in the darkness at the bottom of it, she turned.

  She still couldn’t say anything. She couldn’t even cry. She was wrung out, drained, emptied of everything. She could only manage to get her arms up around his neck and cling while his went on crushing her, moving up and down her back as if they couldn’t find any place they wanted to stay, while water dripped on her and whiskers ground into her face and the voice was saying, “Oh, Jesus Christ—oh, Jesus Christ—” against her throat.

  The last handhold crumbled then, but instead of falling she was floating upward into some welcoming and completely sheltered oblivion, like a child’s going to sleep. She felt herself being lifted and placed on the bunk. The arms still bound her, and the voice went on with its profane and ragged whispering, this time into her hair. Then, just before she disappeared entirely into the mist, she heard her own voice say something at last.

  “Did you have any lunch?” she asked.

  “No,” he said. He swallowed and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “I guess I forgot.” He kissed her again but knew she was gone. He still knelt beside her, and now he brought a hand up and placed the finger tips very gently against her throat to feel the pulse. And even after he was reassured she was all right, that she had merely reached the limit of endurance and stopped for a moment, he left the hand there, feeling her life run steadily on beneath his fingers. He didn’t even know why he did it.

  He got up for a cloth to bathe her face, and when he switched on the lights he saw the battered shotgun barrels on the deck beside the ladder. He took a long and shaky breath and shook his head.

  She was just beginning to stir again when he heard the voices above him, the one a lashing impassioned whisper, “Leave him alone!” followed by the sharp slap of palm on flesh, and hoped she hadn’t heard too. After what she’d been through, she deserved at least a few minutes of thinking it was all over. He thought of what was ahead of them and suddenly felt very old and tired. But the only chance they had was to meet it now, and head-on. He ran up the ladder.

  Mrs. Warriner was trying to get up from where she was sprawled back o
n the cockpit seat. Beyond her, Bellew was standing on the narrow strip of deck, trying to turn Warriner’s face up with the toe of his shoe. “Wake up, old Hughie-boy, and see who’s here.”

  “All right, Bellew,” he ordered, “leave him alone.”

  The other turned, and in the glow of the spreader lights above and forward of them he could see the insolence in the eyes. “Easy does it, Hotspur. You got your boat back, so just simmer down. This is mine.”

  “That’s right; I got it back. And I give the orders on it. You heard what I said.” There was no area for compromise here, not with Bellew. If it meant forcing the issue now, within the first five minutes, force it. But at that moment Mrs. Warriner sat up, the side of her face still red from the slap. Her voice was level and very cold as she spoke to Bellew. “I warn you. Don’t touch him.”

  Bellew sat down on the opposite side of the cockpit. He leaned forward and tapped her on the knee with a forefinger. “Don’t crowd me. I’ve had it. With you and your gold-plated fag.”

  Twelve hundred miles, Ingram thought, in a forty-foot yacht, with the third one crazy. He wondered what Lloyds would quote you on that. “That’ll do,” he snapped. He felt a little better now that Bellew had sat down. The situation wasn’t going to explode as long as Warriner was asleep, or knocked out, or whatever he was. If he could leave the three of them alone for as long as five seconds he might find out.

  “It does seem to me,” Mrs. Warriner said then, “that one of us might make at least some casual inquiry as to how Mrs. Ingram is.” She turned to him. “Is she hurt?”

  “No,” he said. “Not as far as I could tell. She’s had a little too much for one day, and she fainted, but she’s coming around now.” He turned to go back below. It should be safe enough now, and Mrs. Warriner would sing out if anything happened.

  “How’d she get the creep tied up?” Bellew asked.

  “How the hell do I know?” he said. “I had some stupid idea that after a whole day of it I might get a chance to talk to her for a minute and a half—” He broke off, realizing he had to keep his temper.

  “Sure, sure.” Bellew grinned coldly. “I can understand you might have been a little worried. That’s where I was one up on you, chum. I didn’t have to worry about mine; I knew where she was.”

  That was the question you always had to ask yourself, Ingram thought, before you jumped all the way down his throat. Suppose it had been Rae? But it didn’t change anything; it would be as stupid as hating the Pacific Ocean because she’d been swept overboard by a sea. “Bellew, for Christ’s sake, don’t you think I realize what it’s like? But it’s just something you can’t change; you’ll only make it worse—”

  “What do you mean?” Mrs. Warriner interrupted.

  She knows, he thought; she knows, all right, but she just won’t accept it. At that moment Rae’s head appeared above the hatch. So he wasn’t even going to get a moment to talk to her alone, to fill her in on who these people were and what had to be done. In fact, for at least the next twenty to twenty-five days—assuming they lived that long—he’d never have a minute completely alone with her. He was conscious of a dark and futile anger but choked it off. The situation was still far too dangerous to be crying over lost privacy and interrupted honeymoons.

  He sprang to help her and seated her on the after edge of the deckhouse. “Are you all right now, honey?”

  She managed a smile. “Yes. Just a little weak from the reaction.”

  “Aren’t we all?” He turned, indicating the others. “This is Mrs. Warriner. And Mr. Bellew.”

  “Hi,” Bellew said. Mrs. Warriner leaned forward and took her hand, and said simply, “Thank you. And I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” Rae said. “It’s all over now—” She broke off and gasped. “John! The other compass! He smashed that too. We haven’t got anything.”

  Ingram nodded. “I figured he had, or you’d have had it up here. But it’s all right. There’s one in the dinghy. I can make it do.”

  He stepped forward and lifted it out. The others had already removed the flashlights and the oilskin package containing their passports. He cast off the painter and pushed the dinghy away from the side. Holding the compass very carefully, he went below and stowed it in a drawer. It was beyond price now, and nothing was going to happen to it until he could get it secured in or on the binnacle. He still didn’t know what was going to happen up there. He went back and sat down beside Rae. “All right, honey, if you’re up to it now, can you tell us what happened? How did you get him tied up?”

  “Codeine,” she said. “I gave him three of those codeine tablets from the medicine chest, in a glass of lemonade. I think he’s still all right, and it’s been over six hours.”

  The others watched silently while he stepped over and reached down to check Warriner’s pulse. He knew Mrs. Warriner would have already, but he wanted to be sure himself. It was steady. “He’s okay,” he said. He came back.

  Rae told them the rest of the story. When she had finished, she looked at Mrs. Warriner. “I still don’t know. I mean, if the codeine idea hadn’t worked, and he hadn’t smashed the shotgun.”

  Mrs. Warriner touched her on the arm. “I understand, dear. And you’ll forget it eventually. We all just thank God it ended the way it did.”

  “Well, don’t break up, girls,” Bellew said. “Mama’s precious is a-l-l right; he’s not hurt. Tomorrow you can draw straws to see who’s the lucky girl he’ll kill next.”

  Rae shot a startled and puzzled glance at Ingram. “What happened to him? I couldn’t make any sense of what he was saying. Something about a shark.”

  Before Ingram could reply, Mrs. Warriner and Bellew both spoke at once. Bellew overrode her. “Well, nothing much.” He spread his hands in a deprecating gesture. “He killed my wife, and then this morning he slugged me and locked us in the cabin on there to drown when he abandoned ship. But, I mean, hell, nobody minds these little jokes as long as they keep Hughie happy—”

  “He didn’t kill your wife!” Mrs. Warriner lashed out. “And why don’t you go ahead and tell the Ingrams why he locked us in there?”

  “Wait a minute! Hold it!” Ingram cut them both off. “Rae’s entitled to know what this is all about.” As briefly as he could, he told her something of it.

  Then he went on, to Mrs. Warriner and Bellew. “I want both of you to listen to me a minute. After your experience on Orpheus I shouldn’t think you’d have too much trouble understanding what we’re up against. We’re twelve hundred miles from land, we still don’t know when we’ll pick up the Trades, and with the very best of luck it could be twenty days or more we’re going to be jammed in here. There are five of us on a yacht with cruising accommodations for two, and one’s unbalanced and dangerous and is going to have to be tied up and watched every minute to keep him from killing himself or somebody else—”

  “Unh-unh,” Bellew interrupted. “No sweat at all, pal. All he’s going to need is a basket.”

  “So you’re going to kill him? In front of three witnesses. Just what do you do then? Kill us too?”

  “I’m not going to kill him. You think I’m stupid, or something? You might say I’m going to immobilize him—”

  “Maybe you’d better wait till I get through,” Ingram said. “You might change your mind. If you don’t, there’s a good chance none of us will ever reach land. We’ve got enough food, and the water will stretch, with rationing. But that’s not it. I’m the only one on here that can take this boat down there—the only one who can navigate well enough, in the first place, and the only one who can compensate that compass so we won’t be wandering all over hell and halfway back, trying to make a landfall. And I’m not going to stand here and just look on—any more than Mrs. Warriner is—while you make a cripple or a permanent imbecile out of a boy who’s not responsible for his actions—”

  “Jesus Christ, you too?”

  “I said wait till I get through. To beat up a man in his mental condition, y
ou’d have to be sicker than he is. And as I told you, none of us is going to stand here and watch it, so if you lay a hand on him this thing is going to blow wide open. I’d say there’s a good chance you can whip me, but if I get beaten up so badly I can’t sail this boat or navigate, you’re not doing yourself any favor, unless you think you’d like drifting around out here while your tongue swells up and you go crazy.

  “And there’s another thing I don’t think you’ve thought of. He’s scared to death of you, and if you touch him he’ll go completely berserk. You may be stupid enough to want to see what’ll happen when a man runs amok on a forty-foot yacht with four other people on it, but the rest of us are not. Also, this is no hospital, so what do you do if he dies? So far, everything that’s happened has been the result of an accident or bad luck or his crackup, and nobody’s committed a deliberately criminal act—”

  “You call what he did to my wife an accident?”

  “For Christ’s sake, Bellew, he panicked! You want to beat him to death because he got scared and lost his head?”

  “Captain Ingram!” It was Mrs. Warriner this time. Well, he’d been expecting it.

  He turned to her. “Bellew’s right,” he said wearily, “and you know it. I don’t know why you want to saddle yourself with the blame for the whole thing, but your husband didn’t crack up because he thought you and Bellew tried to kill him. That’s just another place to hide, another way to try to pass the buck. There’s no doubt he’s afraid of Bellew, and he’ll be ten times as afraid of him now, but nobody in his right mind who’d known you for as long as an hour would ever believe anything as stupid as that. He was already irrational when he came up with that gem—”