as the yacht heaved and a wave broke over the deck, 'England here we come.'
'Oh no we don't,' said Hutchmeyer and put the helm over in order to avoid the possibility that they were heading out into the Atlantic. He stared out into the darkness and then down at the binnacle. At that moment Romain du Roy took a terrible turn, water flushed along the rail and into the cockpit. Hutchmeyer clung to the wheel and cursed. Beside him in the darkness Sonia squealed, whether from fear or excitement Hutchmeyer neither knew nor cared. He was wrestling with nautical problems beyond his meagre knowledge. In the dim recesses of his memory he seemed to remember that you shouldn't have sails up in a storm. You rode storms out.
'Hold this,' he yelled to Sonia and waded below into the cabin to find a knife. Another wave broke over the cockpit and into his face as he emerged.
'What are you doing with that thing?' Sonia asked. Hutchmeyer brandished the knife and clung to the rail.
'I'm going to make goddam certain we don't hit land,' he shouted as the yacht scudded forward alarmingly. He crawled along the deck and hacked at every rope he could find. Presently he was writhing in canvas. By the time he had untangled himself they were no longer scudding. The yacht wallowed.
'You shouldn't have done that,' said Sonia, 'I was getting a real high out of that zoom.'
'Well, I wasn't,' said Hutchmeyer, peering into the night. It was impossible to tell where they were. A black sky hung overhead and the lights along both shores seemed to have gone out. Or they had. Out to sea.
'Christ,' said Hutchmeyer dismally. Beside him Sonia played with the wheel happily. There was something exhilarating about being out in a storm on a dark night that appealed to her sense of adventure. It awoke her combative instincts. Something tangible to pit herself against. And besides, Hutchmeyer's despondency was reassuring. At least she had taken his mind off Piper and off her too. A storm at sea was no scene for seduction. And Hutchmeyer's efforts in that direction had been heavy-handed. Sonia had sought refuge in Scotch. Now as they rose and fell with each successive wave she was cheerfully drunk.
'We'll just have to sit the storm out,' said Hutchmeyer presently but Sonia demanded action.
'Start the motor,' she said.
'What the hell for? We don't know where we are. We could run aground.'
'I want the wind in my hair and the spume in my face,' yelled Sonia.
'Spume?' said Hutchmeyer hoarsely.
'And a man at the helm with his hand on the tiller...'
'You got a man at the helm,' said Hutchmeyer taking it from her.
The yacht lurched into the wind and waves sucked at the dragging mainsail. Sonia laughed. 'A real man, a he-man, a seaman. A man with salt in his veins and a sail in his heart. Someone to stir the blood.'
'Stir the blood,' muttered Hutchmeyer. 'You'll get all the blood-stirring you want if we hit a rock. I should never have listened to you. Coming out on a night like this.'
'You should have listened to the weather report,' said Sonia, 'that's what you should have listened to. All I said was...'
'I know what you said. You said, 'Let's take a sail round the bay.' That's what you said.'
'So we're having a little sail. The challenge of the elements. I think it's just wonderful.'
Hutchmeyer didn't. Wet, cold and bedraggled he clutched the wheel and searched the darkness for some sign of the shoreline. It was nowhere to be seen.
'Challenge of the elements my ass,' he thought bitterly, and wondered why it was that women had so little sense of reality.
