Do you know where we are, Ernie? I'm no navigator, Miss Sunshine, but we are west of the coast of Africa, how far off I haven't a clue, but somewhere out there is Africa. Yesterday at noonsight, we weremiles offshore.'I'm sure you're right, Ernie nodded. All I know is we've got the current helping us, and the wind also- He turned his face up to the sky. if only we can use the wind. Have you got a plan, Ernie? Always got a plan, miss, not always a good one, I admit. He grinned at her. Just get this rope finished first. As soon as they had a single length of rope, twenty feet long, Ernie handed her the clasp knife.
Tie it around your middle, luv. That's the ticket. We don't want to drop it now, do we? He slid over the side of the raft and paddled like a dog to the dragging wreckage. With Centaine heaving and shoving under his direction, they worked two of the salvaged spars into position and lashed them securely with the hemp rope.
Outriggers, Ernie spluttered with seawater. A trick I learned from the darkies in Hawaii. The raft was dramatically stabilized, and Ernie crawled back on board. Now we can think about putting up some kind of sail. It took four abortive attempts before the two of them were able to rig a jury mast, and hoist a sail hacked from the canvas of the boat cover.
We aren't going to win the America's Cup, luv, but we are moving. Look at the wake, Miss Sunshine. They were spreading a sluggish oily wake behind their cumbersome craft, and Ernie trimmed their tiny sail carefully.
Two knots at least, he estimated. Well done, Miss Sunshine, you're a game one, and no mistake. Couldn't have done that alone. He was perched on the stern of the raft, steering with a salvaged length of timber as a tiller. Now you settle down and take a rest, luv, you and I will have to stand watches, back to back. All the rest of that day the wind came at them in gusts and squalls, and twice their clumsy mast was thrown overboard. Each time Ernie had to go into the water to retrieve it, and the effort required to lift the heavy spar and the wet canvas, then to restep and lash it back in place, left Centaine trembling and exhausted.
At nightfall the wind moderated and held steady and gentle out of the south-west. The clouds broke up so they had glimpses of the stars.
I'm tuckered out. You'll have to take a turn at the tiller, Miss Sunshine. Ernie showed her how to steer, and the raft responded sullenly to the push of the tiller. That red star there, that's Antares, with the small white star on each side of him, just like a sailor on shore leave with a girlfriend on each arm, begging your pardon, Miss Sunshine, but you just keep heading towards Antares and we'll be all right. The old seaman curled up at her feet like a friendly dog, and Centaine crouched on the stem of the raft and held the crude tiller under one arm. The swells dropped with the wind and it seemed to her that their passage through the water was faster. Looking back, she could see the green phosphorescence of their wake spreading out behind them. She watched the red giant Antares with his two consorts climb up the black velvet curtain of the sky.
Because she was lonely and still afraid, she thought of Anna.
My darling Anna, where are you? Are you still alive?
Did you reach one of the lifeboats, or are you, too, clinging to some scrap of wreckage, waiting on the judgment of the sea? Her longing for the solid bulky assurance of her old nurse was so intense that it threatened to turn her into a child once more, and she felt the childlike tears scalding her eyelids, and Antares glaring red light blurred and multiplied before her. She wanted to crawl into Anna's lap and bury her face in the warm, soapy smell of her vast bosom, and she felt all the resolve and purpose of the day's struggle melt in her, and she thought how easy it would be to lie down beside Ernie and not have to try any more.
She sobbed aloud.
The sound of her own sob startled her, and suddenly she was angry with herself and her own weakness. She wiped the tears away with her thumbs and felt the gritty crunch of dried salt crystals on her eyelashes. Her anger grew stronger, and deliberately she turned it away from herself to the fates which so afflicted her.
Why? she demanded of the great red star. What have I ever done that you single me out? Are you punishing me? Michel, and my father, Nuage and Anna, everything I have ever loved. Why do you do this to me? She broke off the thought, appalled at how close she had come to blasphemy. She hunched over, placed her free hand on her own belly and shivered with the cold. She tried to feel some sign of the life in her body, some swelling, some lump, some movement, but she was disappointed and her anger returned full strength, and with it a kind of wild defiance.
I make a vow. As mercilessly as I have been afflicted, so hard will I fight to survive. You, whether you are God or Devil, have thrust this upon me. So I give you my oath. I will endure, and my son will endure through me. She was raving.
She realized it but did not care, she had nsen to her knees and was shaking her fist at the red star in defiance and anger.
Come! she challenged. Do your worst, and let's have done! If she had expected a blast of thunder and a lightning bolt, there was none, only the sound of the wind in the rude mast and the scrap of sail, and the bubble of the wake under the stern of the raft. Centaine sagged back on to her haunches and gripped the tiller and grimly pointed the raft up into the east.
In the first light of the day, a bird came and hovered above Centaine's head. It was a small seabird, the dark blue-grey of a rifle barrel with soft white chalky marks over its beady black eyes, and its wings were beautifully shaped and delicate, and its cry was lonely and soft.
Wake up, Ernie, Centaine cried, and her swollen lips split at the effort. and a bubble of blood ran down her chin. The inside of her mouth was furry and dry as an old rabbit skin, and her thirst was a bright, burning thing.
Ernie struggled up and looked about him dazedly. He seemed to have shrunk and withered during the night, and his lips were flaky and white and encrusted with salt crystals.
Look, Ernie, a bird! Centaine mumbled through her bleeding lips.
A bird, Ernie echoed, staring up at it. Land close. The bird turned and darted away, low over the water, and was lost to sight, steel-grey against the dark grey sea.
A-A in the middle of the morning Centaine pointed ahead, her mouth and her lips so desiccated that she could not speak. There was a dark tangled object floating on the surface just ahead of the raft. It wallowed and waved its tentacles like a monster from the depths.
Sea kelp! Ernie whispered, and when they were close enough, he gaffed it with the tiller arm and drew the heavy mat of vegetation alongside the raft.
The stalk of the kelp was thick as a man's arm and five metres long, with a bushy head of leaves at the end. It had obviously been torn from the rocks by the storm.
