Dead calm

to row over.”

“That’s doing it the hard way,” she remarked with a puzzled glance at the back of his head. “Why wouldn’t he crank up the auxiliary? He must have one.”

“I don’t know,” Ingram said. “Unless it’s out of commission.”

In another few minutes the dinghy was within easy view without the glasses, continuing to advance across the slick undulations of the sea as its occupant pulled rapidly at the oars, never pausing or even slowing the beat as he turned his head from time to time to check his course. It would have been long since obvious to him that Saracen was under way and headed for him, and Ingram wondered why he didn’t merely rest on the oars and wait. Judging from the distance remaining to the other yacht, he’d already rowed well over a mile, apparently at that same racing beat. The occupant was a man, bareheaded, wearing a yellow life-jacket.

He was less than a hundred yards away now. Ingram reached down and cut the engine, and in the sudden silence they could hear the creak and rattle of oarlocks as the dinghy came on, its pace unchecked, across the closing gap. Saracen slowed and came to rest, slewing around on the swell, port side toward the approaching boat. The man looked around over his shoulder but did not hail. He was going to hit amidships. Ingram stepped quickly up on deck and knelt at the rail. He caught the bow of the dinghy and tried to fend it off, but a last explosive pull at the oars had given it too much momentum, and it bumped anyway. It swung around against Saracen’s side. The man let go the oars. One of them started to slide overboard, but Ingram grabbed it with his other hand and dropped it into the dinghy. “Okay,” he said soothingly. “Just take it easy.”

The other paid no attention. His lips moved, but he uttered no sound, his eyes reflecting some furious intensity of concentration that excluded all else. Ingram took a turn around a lifeline stanchion with the dinghy’s painter and held down a hand to help him on deck. The man caught his arm between elbow and wrist with a grip that made him wince. The other hand caught the stanchion, and he came up all in one plunging and desperate leap that kicked the dinghy backward against its painter and almost capsized it, clawing his way over the lifeline and catching the handrail along the edge of the deckhouse. The suddenness of it caught Ingram unawares, and when the man crashed into him he fell backward and sat down abruptly on the deckhouse coaming. For some reason his glance fell on the other’s hand, the one holding on to the handrail. It appeared to be infected from a small wound or cut across the knuckles, but it was the grip itself that caught his attention. The fingers were locked around the handrail so tightly they were flattened and white beneath the tan.

Hunger? he wondered. No, a starving man wouldn’t have had the strength to lunge aboard that way. More probably thirst. “Water,” he said quietly to Rae. “Not too much.”

But she had anticipated the request and was already going down the ladder. The man inched his way aft, clinging tightly to both the lifeline and the handrail along the deckhouse, as though suspended over some terrifying abyss. Ingram followed closely behind him to catch him if he stumbled. The man made it to the cockpit and sank down on one of the cushions, looked around him at the sea with a shuddering motion of his shoulders, and slumped forward with his face in his hands.

Rae came hurrying up the ladder from below with an aluminum cup partly filled with water. Ingram took it and touched the man lightly on the shoulder. “Here you go,” he said. “Just take it slow, and there’ll be more in a minute.”

The other looked up, blankly at first, and then with dawning comprehension as though aware of them for the first time, and Ingram was conscious of the thought that the face bore none of the ravages he’d always read of as associated with extreme and prolonged thirst—no cracked and blackened lips or swollen tongue. It was, in spite of the growth of golden beard, a boyish and strikingly handsome face, tanned and slender but not haggard, and unmarked by anything except perhaps exhaustion. The gray eyes were red-rimmed as if the man hadn’t slept in a long time. Besides the life-jacket he wore only white sneakers and a pair of faded khaki shorts, and it was obvious he was not only quite young, probably still in his early twenties, but powerfully built and in top physical condition.

“Oh,” he said. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.” He reached for the water, almost indifferently, drank, and put the cup down beside him on the cockpit seat. Ingram saw with surprise that he hadn’t even finished it. He drew a hand across his face and made a shaky attempt at a smile. “Man, am I glad to see you.” Then he added abruptly, like a small boy suddenly remembering his manners, “My name’s Hughie Warriner.”

“John Ingram,” Ingram said, holding out his hand. “And my wife, Rae.” Warriner started to get up, but Rae shook her head and smiled. “No. Just rest.”

“What’s the trouble?” Ingram asked.

Warriner gestured wearily toward the other yacht rolling on the groundswell a mile away. “She’s going down. She’s been sinking for days, and I doubt she’ll last through the morning.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” the young man replied. “She just seemed to open up all over. I’ve been at the pump for a week, and almost continuously for the past two days, but I couldn’t keep up with it. And since around midnight it’s been gaining faster all the time.”

Ingram nodded. It would, as she settled lower in the water and additional seams were submerged. Warriner went on, “I thought I was done for, till I looked over here awhile ago and saw you, and then I was scared to death a breeze would come up and you’d go on without ever seeing me. I fired off a couple of flares, but nothing happened. I guess you couldn’t see ‘em that far away in sunlight—”

“It was probably while we were below eating breakfast, anyway,” Ingram said. “And the water’s up in your engine now?”

“Yes. But it hasn’t worked for a long time anyway. I tried calling you on the radio, but of course if you hadn’t seen me you wouldn’t have yours turned on, not out here. So my only chance was to try to get over to you with the dinghy before you caught a breeze.” He sighed and brushed a hand across his face again. “And am I glad you saw me.”

“Yeah, that’s cutting it a little fine.” Ingram grinned briefly and reached for the ignition key to start the engine again. “But we’d better get on over there. How many aboard?”

“Nobody,” Warriner said. “I’m alone.”

“Alone?” Involuntarily, Ingram straightened and looked out across the metallic expanse of sea toward the other yacht. Even at that distance it was obvious she was larger than Saracen. “You were trying to take her across the Pacific single-handed?”

“No. There were four of us when we left Santa Barbara…” Warriner’s voice trailed off, and he stared down at his hands. Then he went on quietly. “My wife and the other couple died ten days ago.”

2

“Oh, how awful!” Rae cried out and checked herself barely in time to keep from adding, “You poor boy!”—in spite of Warriner’s being in the neighborhood of six feet and probably not more than six or eight years younger than she was. Already drawn by the clean-cut, boyish appearance, good looks, and obvious good manners in the face of disaster, she felt a stab of almost motherly compassion and an illogical desire to take him in her arms and comfort him. “How did it happen?” Then she went on hurriedly, “But never mind. You can talk later. Can I get you something to eat? Or some more water?”

“No, thank you, Mrs. Ingram, I’m all right,” Warriner replied. “But I could use a cigarette if you have one.”

“Of course.” She produced them from the pocket of her shorts and held out the lighter. “And why don’t you take off that life-jacket? It’s hot enough without wearing that thing.”

“Oh… sure.” Warriner looked down at it uncertainly and began unfastening it. He placed it on the seat beside him. “I guess I forgot I had it on.”

Ingram’s cigar had gone out. He relighted it and tossed the match overboard. “What happened?” he asked.