by Robb White
It was late in the afternoon when Pete Martin trudged back down to the wharves. He felt tireder than he ever had in his life and com-
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pletely defeated. He felt angry, too, as he remembered the way men had laughed at him when he had asked them to sign on as a hand aboard the schooner. And he felt sorry for the men who had asked to go because the only ones who had asked were just hulks of men, derelicts, drunks, bums, and drifters who only wanted a place to sleep and something to eat. Pete had listened to them all, but not one of them was able-bodied enough to go to sea.
He called up Mr. Williams from a hash house and told him what had happened.
"Too bad, Pete. But the black sloop is still in her berth. Weber and his men have been gone since noon. .. . Whoa, here they come now. They're getting aboard her. Looks like something has happened to one of them—he's got a bandage on his head and the others are helping him aboard."
"Is it Weber?"
"No, it's one of the others. Anyway, Pete, with this storm making up you might as well sit it out in the bay."
"All right," Pete said. "I'll wait unless Weber makes a move."
Pete went out into the darkness, climbed down to his rowboat, and rowed slowly out toward the Indra, his back to her, his eyes looking at the white city.
When he bumped against the Indra he turned, 96
BLOOD ON THE FACEPLATE
threw the painter around the mainsheet bitt, and swung himself up on deck.
The first thing he saw was the new, bright scar on the mahogany hatch of the companionway. The hasp of the lock had been torn off, and the door lay back, both hinges broken.
On the deck, as Pete ran toward the companionway, were drops of blood.
Pete swung himself down the steep companion ladder and stopped in the doorway of the main cabin.
It looked as though a hurricane had swept through the interior of the boat. Books, charts, instruments littered the deck. All the diving gear had been taken down and thrown to one side. Looking through into the galley and his cabin, he saw that the same thing had happened forward.
Pete flipped on the overhead light and stepped into the cabin. Lying between the two diving suits, which looked almost like the collapsed bodies of men, was another body. Pete recognized the ragged khaki shirt, the baggy pants.
The boy was lying awkwardly, his neck twisted back and his face down on the faceplate of the heavy helmet. In the light Pete saw blood running very slowly across the glass faceplate and on down the polished metal helmet.
Remembering his instructions in the Navy not to move a man if there was any chance that his
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back had been broken, Pete stooped and felt for the pulse in the limp wrist and then he saw the faceplate cloud with the boy's breathing. Pete moved first one arm and then the other and then the legs. There was no catch in the limp, dead movement. Then, very carefully, he moved the head and at last lifted the boy up, convinced that the backbone and neck were intact, and carried him into his own cabin. There the mattress and bed clothes had been yanked off and thrown on the deck.
Pete put the boy down on the mattress and got a wet cloth from the kitchen. Swabbing back the matted, dirty hair, he saw a very ugly purple welt across the face from the temple down almost to the mouth. The skin had been smashed open at the cheekbone and was still bleeding.
Pete got the first-aid kit and put a sulfa powder dressing on the boy's cheek. He was looking for any other wounds when the boy came to and began to struggle. Pete put his hand on his chest and held him down.
"Take it easy, mate," he said.
The boy raised his head. **Where'd they go?"
"They've gone."
The boy settled back and put his hands to his forehead. He groaned a little and then opened his eyes. "You shoulda been here," he said.
"What happened?"
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The boy tried to sit up, and Pete helped him get his back against the soHd bunk.
**I thought it was you," the boy said, taking time out to feel around inside his mouth with the end of his tongue. "Thought Fd come out and chat a while. When I got on board, I saw how the hatch had been broken open. So I sneaked down into the cabin, and there were two joes taking the place apart. I went back to the lazaret and got a marlinespike and came back to the cabin.
"They were really wrecking the place. I sneaked along the bulkhead there." The boy pointed into the main cabin. "I let one of them have it with the marlinespike and went for the other one when the first one let out a grunt. I was doing fine until the third one came out of the galley. I only saw him for a second—a tall, skinny drink of water—before he slapped me in the face with a pistol."
"You're going to have a first-class shiner," Pete said. "What did the skinny one look like?"
"I hardly saw his face. I was watching the barrel of that gun." The boy pushed himself up with his hands and got to his feet. He held his head in both hands. "See any cracks in my head?"
"No. Just where he walloped you."
The boy looked out with his good eye from under the tangle of hair. "What were they looking for, mate?"
"For something they'll never find," Pete said 99
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slowly. **Something that is only in my memory."
''Good thing they didn't get in there. Look at the mess!"
Pete sat down on the framework of the bunk and looked into the main cabin.
Weber was closing in on him—fast. Pete knew that his only way of escape was the open sea.
He looked speculatively at the boy. The kid was certainly a scrapper. No one had asked him to take on Weber's gang singlehanded. And under all the dirt and matted hair the kid had intelligence in his eyes. Maybe, Pete thought. It's a long chance but I'm desperate now. I've got to get out on open water.
"How you fixed for beans, mate?" the boy asked.
"Would you settle for a steak dinner?"
The good eye looked suspicious. "Don't kid me, Mac."
Pete looked at him. "Son, I'm in no mood to kid anybody. Come along."
"Where are we going?"
"Ashore," Pete said.
When Pete tied up at the wharf, he told the harbor police what had happened and asked that they keep an eye on his boat for the next few hours. Then he took the boy into the nearest decent steak house. Across the table, with the linen tablecloth, the boy looked very much out of place in his ragged clothes and with the uncut
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hair. When the waiter came, frowning, Pete gave him fifty cents and ordered two steak dinners. Then he waited until the boy was half through wolfing the food before he said, "How would you like to sail with me?" "Sail where?" "Gulf."
"What's in it for me?"
"Maybe a thousand bucks, maybe nothing." "What's the gag?" "I need help, that's all," Pete said. The boy ate two or three huge mouthfuls before he looked at Pete again. "Do you mean that, mate?" he asked, his voice low. Pete nodded. "I eat every day?" "Three times," Pete said.
The boy put his knife and fork down on the clean tablecloth, pushed back his chair, and said, "Let's go."
"Hold hard," Pete said. "What about your parents? Will they let you?"
"I ain't got any parents, Mac. And nobody can tell me whether I can go or not, see?"
"Take it easy," Pete said. "You live somewhere, don't you? You've got some sort of family?"
"I got an old drunk for an uncle. But I don't have to ask him," the boy said. "He'd be glad to get rid of me."
"We'll ask him," Pete said.
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The boy's home was the worst hovel Pete had ever been in. A sloppy, unshaven man wearing an undershirt caked with dirt and sweat said he didn't care what the boy did, that he was no good anyway and ought to be in jail. Then the man suddenly said, "You can have him for fifty bucks, mister."
Pete was startled. Then he got mad. "I don't buy people," he said.
"I don't care what you call
it," the man said. "But it'll take fifty bucks to get him."
"Don't give it to him," the boy told Pete. "It's a holdup."
Pete ignored the boy and counted out fifty dollars. The man's face fell open with surprise as he took it and shoved it into his pocket.
Outside, walking along, the boy said, "You shouldn't have given him a dime, Mac. The old boozer."
"Never mind," Pete said. Then added, as they came to a neon barber pole, "Next stop." "What for?" "You," Pete said.
The boy stepped back. "Let's get this straight, Mac. I don't take any bossing, see? Just like you said, you didn't buy me."
"Maybe not," Pete said. "But you're going in here and you're going right through a Turkish bath, a haircut, and a general overhauling, or we fight it out right here and now."
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The boy shrugged. "It's your dough."
"That's right. Now you be here when I get back."
Pete told them in the barbershop what he wanted done to the boy, adding, "And burn every rag he's got on." Then he sent telegrams to Johnny and Mr. Williams. Finally, in an Army-Navy store he spent twenty-two dollars on clothes for the boy: dungarees, sneakers, shirts, and two white outfits. He also bought a comb, brush, toothbrush and paste, and a stack of GI socks.
When he got back to the barbershop, he hardly knew his new shipmate. The boy was standing naked in the rubbing room, scowling, one eye completely closed now and purplish black, the other looking fierce. The barber had cut his hair until no piece of it was more than a quarter inch long and the attendants in the bath had scrubbed him until he was red all over.
"That's the last time I go through that," the boy said.
"First time's always hard. Here, put these on."
The boy's face softened a little when he looked at himself in the mirror. The dungarees were stiff and new, cuffs and shirt sleeves rolled up, but they looked good.
"By the way, what's your name?" Pete asked.
"Mike."
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'Ever done any sailboating, Mike?'
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"Mine's Pete Martin." "Okay/' the boy said.
No one had been aboard the Tndra since they had left her; but when Pete and Mike cUmbed aboard, a harbor pohce boat came roaring out from the wharves.
"Those dummies," Mike said. "Where were they when we needed 'em?"
Pete proved that he was the owner, and the pohce went away, leaving him alone on deck with his new hand.
"Ever done any sailboating, Mike?"
"Yeah," Mike said. "I've sailed in everything from shrimpers to lumber boats. I even worked on a yat-chet one summer, but they caught me stealin' the silver spoons and got me thrown in the can."
"The spoons here are aluminum," Pete said.
The boy took a step toward him. "Listen, Mac," he said, "I ain't working for you. You ain't paying me a dime. I'm going along because I want to, see? Why should I swipe your stuflf if you ain't even paying me?"
"Good idea," Pete said. "Well, let's go."
"Now?"
Pete nodded.
"In the middle of the night?"
Pete nodded again. "After a while I'll tell you why, Mike." *
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Mike shrugged. "Suits me, pal." Clear of the harbor, Pete turned off the engine, and he and Mike got sail on. Back in the cockpit they both sat down, Pete on the wheel.
"This old tub goes pretty good," Mike said. "Right on the wind."
"She's slow, but she's solid as a rock." They sat in silence for a minute or so. Then Mike drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "This is okay," he said quietly.
"Yep. Now turn in. I'll rout you out in the morning."
"Don't think I can't handle her, Mac." "I don't. But I'll take her until dayUght." "Okay, if that's the way you want it." When Mike had gone below, Pete sat astride the wheelbox. The wind was fitful, sometimes dying so that the sails luffed and slatted. In one of the lulls he stepped over to the hatchway and tapped the face of the barometer. The tendency was still down, the temperature going up, humidity up. It was, Pete finally decided, a bad time to leave port.
Then he looked back at the glow of Miami and scanned the surface of the sea. Nothing appeared on it. The Indra had not been followed.
Pete looked up at the sails as they filled with a gust of hot wind. "Let her blow," he said to himself. "There's nothing like a good storm to hide a boat in." *
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Then he looked back once more across the sea. An icy shiver ran up his spine and tingled in the hair on his neck. The sea was so dark. A black boat could be within five miles of him and he would not be able to see it.
Pete thought of the mess still down in the cabin. The blood on the faceplate would be dry by now.
There was danger in this voyage.
JL he wind, which had been rising steadily since three in the morning, died at dawn. Pete, tired and relaxed, looped a leg over the wheel spoke as the sails sagged and slatted. The sun came up into the coppery-red sky and was a huge murky ball of red. Pete looked at it and shook his head. " 'Red sky at night,' " he said to himself, " 'sailors delight. Red at dawning, sailors take warning.' "
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The sea became perfectly calm and oily and reflected the redness of the sky until it seemed as though the Indra were floating in a sea of blood. Pete left the wheel entirely and pulled the chart board out of the waterproof slide beside the companion hatch. Marking off the last hour's run, he measured the distance back to Miami. Off to starboard he could see a thin pencil line against the horizon made by Elliott Key. He tapped the barometer, and it was still going down.
Pete went back to the wheel. A storm was certainly coming, and he had to make his decision within the hour or it would be too late. To turn tail for Miami meant a beat to windward, and soon he would be too far down to run for shelter behind the keys. It depended, Pete finally realized, on how good a sailor Mike was. Pete had done enough sailing to know that the greatest danger of a storm was not the wind and the sea but the exhaustion of the people handling the boat. As soon as a man got tired, he began making little mistakes; he would keep a sail on too long because he was too tired to want to take it off; he would hold his boat on a squall for a second more than it would take because the efiFort of shifting sheets was so great to him.
Already Pete had been on the wheel for seven hours and had had no sleep for twenty-four. If Mike turned out to be, at best, a bay sailor, the
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only thing to do would be to put about and run for Miami.
Ordinarily Pete's seamanship alone would have made him turn and run for shelter. There was no use punishing the boat, and to go back only thirty miles was no loss of distance compared to what he would lose fighting a three- or four-day storm. But Pete kept thinking about the thin man. In the night he had escaped from him; he was free now on the open sea. To go back would put him once more in a position where the man could attack him or at least follow him when he left port again.
It all depended on what sort of sailor Mike was.
Pete hove the Indra to and went below to the galley. When he had a huge, hot breakfast ready and coffee simmering on the Shipmate he woke Mike.
"Hit the deck, sailor," Pete said, standing in the door of the little cabin forward of the galley.
Mike scrambled out of his berth almost immediately. "Aye, aye, mate," he said cheerfully. "What's the word on chow?"
"Chow down, but bear a hand."
Pete took his breakfast up to the cockpit and soon Mike, his face actually washed and his hair wet but impossible to comb, came up with a plate heaped to the gunwales.
As he sat down Mike looked around the hori-
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zon. "Maybe you wasted money getting my hair cut," he remarked. "Because pretty soon we're going to have a wind that would have blown it right off my head, roots and all."
Pete nodded over the rim of his coffee cup.
"Going back?" Mike asked.
"Don't know. Might,'' Pete said.
As soon as the sun's rim cleared the sea, the wind began to blow again. Pete noticed that Mike went to the jib sheet without any instructions.
While Mike was up there, Pete took time to glance across the compass card. When Mike came back, Pete gave him a course to steer which was a little too far off the wind for the way the sails were set. Mike climbed up on the wheelbox, still eating, and settled down, steering with one hand and one bare foot, eating with the other hand. Pete, trying not to let Mike see him, watched the compass as it swung over and steadied on course.
Pete almost held his breath as he waited. If Mike went on sailing without suggesting letting the sails out a touch more, then he wasn't good enough on the helm to risk putting the Indra through the coming storm. They would have to turn back to Miami—and the thin man would be waiting for them there.
Mike continued nonchalantly to sail and eat, and Pete felt a wave of disappointment rising. He hated to go back. Now that he had escaped to the open sea the thought of going back where Weber
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was was almost like going into a pit of snakes. But Mike was apparently paying no attention to the set of the sails.
Then Mike, with his face full, mumbled, "How's about letting her out a Httle, Mac? Might as well get all we can out of the old tub before we get knocked silly."
Pete sighed and grinned. Mike was a sailor.
"Put her over on 197 and let's haul," Pete said. "I want to get away from your pals."
"You mean that narrow drink of water?" Mike asked, spinning the wheel over. "He's no pal of mine, Mac. If I ever see him again, I'll break his head."
"We'll never see him. Not where we're going," Pete said.
"Where are we going?" Mike asked. "All that diving gear looks like sponge fishing, but you ain't no Greek from Tarpon Springs."
"I'll tell you later. Keep her as close to 197 as you can and give me a buzz if you need any help. There's a buzzer right under the wheel shaft."