by Robb White
In the dark it seemed so totally useless, so like a dream of running away as hard as you could but not moving. The water against the paddles just seemed to slide away, the raft and Slewfoot remaining motionless under the stars.
At the end of the second hour they changed crews, Mitch and his gang climbing wearily back aboard while Sam, Jason, the Professor, Sko, and Murph climbed into the raft. Peter decided to paddle these two hours also just to get the thing settled down, for if he could keep them at it they were going to be paddling this way—two hours in the raft, two hours resting in Slewfoot —for a long, long time.
At the end of the second two hours the sun came up and they changed crews again. Peter, exhausted, could hardly pull himself up the rungs of the swaying boarding ladder. Archer was standing on the foredeck as Peter crawled over the side and lay for a moment, catching his breath.
Archer said, coldly amused, "I've heard of shoveling sand against the sea, but this is the first time I ever saw it done."
Peter got up on his hands and knees and then to his feet. Ignoring Archer he looked out at the raft. Mitch and Goldberg were arguing, but the raft was too far away for him to hear what they were saying. The other three men were just siting, paddles in their laps, listening. Peter felt utterly defeated as he stood, watching, and no paddle touched the water. But then they began, the paddles dipping in unison.
Peter turned then to Archer. "I want the food, Archer. All of it."
Archer looked at him for a moment and then said, "I've estimated that it will take us twenty-three days to reach the Philippines. I've divided the food into twenty-three portions, one portion to be again divided among all of us, once a day.
"Archer," Peter said, "I've mutinied against you, remember? From now on, I'm running this boat. Don't interfere with me."
"You can run the boat, but I am going to control the food."
"Don't you understand what I just said?" Peter asked him. Then he turned and went down the hatch.
In the dayroom the first crew were already sound asleep, flaked out in exhaustion on the bunks. Only Britches was awake and, to Peter's surprise, up on his feet, his arm in a sling Archer must have made for him.
"Are we getting there?" Britches asked.
Peter shrugged as he went on through the room. Britches followed him. "I'm feeling fine. I could paddle some."
"Maybe later," Peter said, trying the knob of Archer's cabin and finding it locked.
Peter slammed a shoulder against the door, breaking it open and realizing as he did it the mistake he had made with Britches standing there watching. "Lost the key," Peter said lamely as he went into the cabin and began bringing out the food. "What you can do, if you feel like it, is help me get up some chow for these guys. I think we've got about two days to go, but let's play it safe and make it three. Divide everything into three piles. We'll eat one a day."
"Hey, look at the peaches! Something to drink."
"That's an idea," Peter admitted, suddenly feeling his own thirst. "We'd better take it real easy on them in case it doesn't rain."
Then it was time to shift crews again, they stopped long enough for all hands to eat, Archer alone refusing any of it.
The food did them a great deal of good, and the brackish water combined with a little of the peach juice slaked the thirst that was now becoming a major problem.
Peter went into the raft for the next four hours, but at the end of them he was done. Goldberg helped him over the side and down the companion-way to his cabin, where he fell into his bunk.
He woke up to find the room dark and a strange sound outside, which, for a moment, he couldn't explain.
It was rain, a fine, gentle, windless rain. As he came on deck the first thing he looked for was the raft, and it was out there, Mitch's crew paddling steadily in the rain.
Sko and the others had already rigged up the gun covers and the rainwater was running beautifully into the tanks.
The rain had one drawback which Peter almost resented. He could not see a star in the sky. Now they had been paddling for more than twenty hours and Peter wanted to know whether or not it was accomplishing anything. Or, he wondered, was it really a dream and the boat was not moving.
He went into the raft with Sko's crew and paddled with them in the rain until it stopped. Then, as the sky cleared, he went aboard and ran for the bridge. In the dark he saw Mitch come out on deck and follow him.
"Want me to write down the time for you?" Mitch asked.
"Fine."
"What can you tell after you get a fix?" Mitch asked.
Peter looked at him, wondering what he really meant by this innocence and this innocent question. "I can tell whether you're pulling your weight in the boat," Peter said, handing him the chronometer.
An hour later, the sights worked out, the little triangle drawn on the chart, Peter could have cried—and would have cried if Mitch had not been standing at his elbow.
After twenty hours of paddling, Sletufoot had been pulled only five miles closer to the Admiraltys. And in that same twenty hours she had drifted a hundred and seven miles closer to the wastes of the Pacific.
"Not doing much good, is it?" Mitch asked. "Five lousy miles."
"That's five miles closer than we were last night," Peter said, putting the sextant and chronometer away.
The night was long, but it could not compare to the blazing day that followed. No wind blew to cool them as they sat in harsh discomfort in the raft and paddled, stroke after stroke, their hands raw now, their muscles like strings of fire.
And then it was night again, with the stars shining cool and faraway. Mitch was there again as Peter took his careful shots, catching the brilliant and magnified stars in the little square mirror and delicately bringing them to touch—and only touch—the far, dark horizon of the sea. With infinite care now—for to be right was important—he measured the angles, cautioned Mitch to be accurate to the fraction of a second, checked and rechecked the data from the tables.
In the twenty-four hours of heartbreaking work they had gained ten miles. The span of the dividers looked to Peter like salvation itself, until he put them back on the chart and walked them along the new course they were making.
If his star fixes were right—and he thought they were—Slewfoot was now only seventy-five miles away from the Admiraltys. Seventy-five miles south of the islands and twelve miles to the west.
He did the sums in his head slowly, step by step, for he already knew the answer and did not want to reach it again any faster than he had to. Rate of drift: five miles an hour. Distance along course of drift: seventy-five miles. Five goes into 75 fifteen times. And fifteen times meant fifteen hours left to paddle. In the twenty-hour period at the beginning, when they were fresh, they had closed the distance of five miles. In twenty-four hours they had closed it—because of the windless day—ten miles. But now the men were dead-tired, with raw and bleeding hands, with only two-hour snatches of sleep for more than forty hours. How could they, Peter asked himself, close those last twelve miles in only fifteen hours? Where could they find the strength and the endurance to do that?
He went down to the foredeck and watched as the raft was pulled back to the boat and the crews exchanged places. Peter followed Sko down the boarding ladder and picked up the extra paddle. "Let's go," he said, his hands so painful that he could hardly force his fingers to bend the grip the handle, now covered with some other man's blood.
Peter paddled with one crew or the other for the rest of the night and then on through the morning. For long periods he just squatted there, his arms moving the paddle in the slowing rhythm, his mind a blank, his body just one long pain.
At noon he got out of the raft and shot the sun, penciling in the line.
He noticed that his hands were dripping blood on the chart as he picked up the dividers and measured again.
The men had done well during the twelve long hours, closing the distance by seven miles.
The current, however, had done bette
r. There were no longer three hours left—only two.
Peter went out on the bridge and looked forward to where the men sat in the raft, slowly paddling. There was no strength left in them as they dipped the paddles and almost let them float aft, then lifted them only high enough to slide them back across the water.
And there, off to starboard, was an island. A green and cool and peaceful island with the palms growing almost down to the sea, their fronds hardly stirring in the gentle, warm wind. An island he could see across only a few miles of water, but they were, each one, a million miles.
Peter stared bitterly at the island and then slowly turned his head and looked northward at the awful majesty of the empty sea.
"Well, Mr. Brent," Archer said behind him.
Peter turned slowly to face him.
"There are your islands," Archer said, "but you'll never reach them. Your mutinous conduct has been all for nothing."
Peter heard someone yelling on deck and looked around. Britches was standing there, yelling and pointing with his good arm.
The men in the raft raised their heads from their chests and looked too. Over the water Peter heard Goldberg cry out, "Land! Land! Paddle! Come on, Mitch, paddle!"
The other crew, Sko's crew, came pouring up out the hatch to stand on the foredeck staring at the island which, already, seemed to be drifting away from them to the south.
Sko suddenly turned and went below. In a moment he was back with a coil of rope. He threw a bowline around the forward bitt and tossed the line into the water. "Come on, you guys, jump in." Then he began pushing them over the side. In a moment they were lined up along the rope, holding it with one hand while they swam toward the island with their free hands and feet. Peter could feel the faint acceleration as their swimming began to pull Slewfoot's bow around.
Peter ran into the chart house and took the carbine down from its rack. Running back out he shoved it into Archer's hands. "The least you can do is watch for sharks. Get up there!"
Then he ran down off the bridge.
He was passing the torpedo racks when he suddenly stopped and looked at them.
In the two racks were four torpedoes, 22 inches in diameter, 13 feet long, carrying in their noses 600 pounds of TNT. Running free they could make 33 knots and had a range of six thousand yards with their compressed-air turbines.
He was staring at them as Archer, carrying the rifle, strolled forward, saying, as he passed, "Give up, Mr. Brent. Haven't you punished these men long enough?"
Peter ignored him as he called over to Britches, "Disarm these fish and set them for low speed, depth four feet. Bear a hand!" Then he dived down the hatch and into the chain locker. Hauling out the biggest rope he could find, he dragged it back on deck and ran aft with it to the starboard rack. "Lock the rudders on number one and secure this forward of 'em, Britches."
Then he called out, "Goldberg! Pull her bow around—straight toward the island."
With a bight of the rope, he went forward and secured it to the bitt. Leaning over, he called down to the swimming men, "Haul her around to starboard, Sko. Get her lined up with the island. Then watch out. I'm going to let the fish go."
The men, swimming hard, only looked up at him and swam harder.
Slowly, slowly the bow of Slewfoot was pulled by the paddling men and the swimming men around against the current and wind until it was pointing at the island, now less than a mile away.
He ran back to the port rack and helped Britches two-block the line around the rudder of the top fish. "Okay, flip it," he said, helping Britches to roll the rack over and down. "Look out, forward!" he yelled to the swimmers. "Here she comes. Okay, Britches, let her go!"
The torpedo slid out of the rack and fell into the water. For a long moment it just lay there, long, oily and useless; but then the turbine began to turn and the twin counter-balanced propellers began to move and the fish slid away along the side of the boat.
Peter watched the loop of rope straightening out in the water and then snap taut, throwing a shower of sparkling water on the swimmers.
Peter felt the jar as the fast-moving torpedo lunged against the rope. It wasn't much of a jar—just a movement of the boat under his feet—but it was a movement and Slewfoot began to slide faster through the water.
"Lock the next one," Peter told Britches and then went below and came up with the fire ax. As he went forward with it he saw that Britches already had the picture and was securing the next loop of rope to the last port torpedo.
Archer was standing in the bow, the rifle in his arms, as Peter came forward and stood by the bitt.
"Very clever, Mr. Brent," Archer said.
Peter was counting the torpedo run and had no time for conversation. Now the boat was sliding smoothly, although slowly, toward the island, and he did not want to lose the momentum. Figuring the torpedo run at one hundred and ten seconds he decided to fire the second fish after one hundred seconds so that it would be off and running a few seconds before the first one stopped.
"Ninety-nine," he counted, and called down, "Look out, here she comes." Then to Britches, "Fire two!"
The second fish slid out, lay that long moment, then moved ahead. Just as the second loop snapped taut, the first one sagged back into the water. So as not to have the deadweight of the first torpedo acting as an anchor, Peter cut the line and let it drop into the water.
Perhaps he was imagining it, he thought, as he counted off the seconds, but now the boat seemed to be moving faster and faster.
He looked out at the raft, and the sight of Mitch and Goldberg and Willie and Skeeter and the Preacher paddling their hearts out made a lump in Peter's throat. These, he thought are now the men I used to know. The men of Slewfoot.
"You guys get out of the way," he called down to the swimmers. "We're going to fire from starboard now."
"She's moving!" Sko called up. "Really moving."
"Ninety-nine! Let her go, Britches!"
Number three slid out and down and was away. Peter cut the rope and counted. Then number four went off, running hot and true and he let it go all the way—a hundred and thirteen seconds—before he cut her loose. He dropped the ax and dived overboard. "We're going to make it," he said, grabbing the rope and beginning to swim. Then, near him, Britches crashed down into the water feet first and paddled with his good arm over to the rope. Without saying anything, he grabbed the rope and began a powerful stroke with his legs.
Peter looked at him and saw that his eyes were squeezed shut against the pain and that the blood was draining fast out of his face while the pain jerked his lips away from his teeth and Peter thought that he was going to cry out, but he swam on, soundlessly.
Then Goldberg's voice floated back to them from the raft. "Okay, you guys, all ashore as is going ashore."
Peter stopped swimming long enough to raise his head and look forward.
The men were out of the raft and wading, waist-deep toward the beach, the rope strung across their shoulders.
"Get back aboard and man the guns," Peter said as he turned loose the rope and dropped back to where Britches, eyes closed, was lying still in the water.
One by one they dragged themselves up the boarding ladder, half carrying Britches with them.
Peter was the last to come aboard and as he got to his feet he found Archer confronting him, the rifle in his hands.
"Well done, Mr. Brent," Archer said. "I was wrong."
"Yes," Peter said. Then he took the gun out of Archer's hands and went forward to watch Mitch's crew walking the rope across the beach and into the palms.
8
Peter was down in the engine room with Sko looking at the total wreck of the center engine when Archer leaned over the open hatch and said, "I think you'd better come on deck, Mr. Brent."
"Okay," Peter said, and turned back to Sko. "What do you think, Sko?"
The badly gnawed cigar drooped dismally. Peter had never seen it at such a dejected angle. "We'll never move this boat, Peter."
There was nothing to do but laugh. "Then we'll set up a little tropical paradise for ourselves and let the war go on without us."
On his way topside he looked in on Willie with the transmitter still in pieces all over the table. "Talk?" he asked.
"No talk. This one"—he waved his hand at the pieces—"is never going to talk again."
Peter made his way under the roof of palm fronds they had rigged over the boat as camouflage to where Archer was standing in the stern. "Yeah?" he asked.
Archer pointed seaward.
A small outrigger under sail was sliding past the island about two hundred yards off the beach. An old man and two boys were perched on the narrow seats, one of the boys bailing with a coconut shell. They were wearing only some sort of bark cloth around their waists, and to Peter it looked as though their hair was dyed a bright orange.
And then he noticed Jason in the sling of the Bofors, the long, mean barrel pointing flat-out at the little boat. "Hey, what are you doing, Jason?" Peter asked.
Jason looked from him to Archer and back but didn't say anything.
"They haven't seen us," Archer said.
"Hope they don't." Peter kept watching as the boat slid along smoothly in the bright blue water.
Then one of the boys suddenly stood up in the outrigger and pointed directly toward them. The other boy and the man turned to look and then, very fast, they sailed the boat around and got it on the other tack and started going in the opposite direction.
"You'd better stop them," Archer said.
Peter turned and stared at him. "Stop them?" he asked.
"If you don't, we'll have a tribe of those savages swarming over us."
"I can't shoot kids, Archer," Peter told him. "Jason, secure that gun."
Archer looked at him with a curious, remote expression and then turned away, saying, "I think you're going to regret this, Mr. Brent."
Peter stayed on the stern and watched the outrigger until it sailed out of sight around the island. And as he watched he remembered the words in the book—dangerous, cannibalism, treacherous—all of them.
Why was it, he wondered, that a year or so ago he was a college boy, and now he was a mutinous naval officer forced to decide whether to shoot, in cold blood, a man and a couple of kids he had never seen in his life in order to protect the lives of a dozen men in this strange part of the world.