can only remember crazy pieces of it—Lillian asking me how the others were, and I’d say I’d go see, and I’d go into the forward cabin where they were both dead and then come back and say they were getting much better now and that she’d be over the worst of it in a little while. Then I’d go out of the cabin to pray, so she wouldn’t see me. I remember going up on deck once; maybe it would work better up there in the open. I hadn’t prayed for anything since I was a kid, and I guess I didn’t know how; it struck me once that it seemed like I was trying to negotiate with God, or strike a bargain, or something. I kept saying two of them were gone, couldn’t He leave one?
“Lillian died a little after six. When the sound of her breathing stopped, the silence was like something screaming in my ears, and I let go of her and ran up on deck and the sun was just going down. The sky was red in the west, and the sea was like blood, and everywhere there was that terrible silence that went on and on and on as if it was pressing in on me from all around the horizon…” Warriner dropped his face in his hands.
Tears were overflowing Rae’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” Ingram said, conscious at the same time of something that disturbed him. It was the word
Warriner shook his head. “There’s nothing worth going after. It’s all ruined by the water—radio, sextant, chronometer, everything—”
“How about clothes?”
“These will do. Anyway, I don’t think I
Ingram nodded.
Warriner’s face twisted. “Talk about the dignity of death, and last respects to the dead—pallbearers and bronze caskets and music and flowers. I dragged my wife’s body up a companion ladder with a rope—”
“Stop it!” Rae cried out. “You’ve got to quit thinking about it!”
“I understand,” Ingram said. “But you don’t have to go aboard; I’ll take care of it, if you’ll just tell me where to find things—”
“But there’s not anything, I tell you!”
“We ought to get your passport,” Ingram pointed out. “And whatever money you have aboard. We’re bound for Papeete, and you’ll need it for your passage home from there. Also, there’s the log and ship’s papers—”
Warriner gestured impatiently. “The log and ship’s papers and passport and money are all pulp and sloshing around in the bilges in three feet of water. If I haven’t already pumped them overboard.”
“I see,” Ingram said, wondering if he did. “But there’s another thing. Is she insured?”
“John.” Something in Rae’s voice made him turn. She went on sweetly, but with a glint in her eyes he’d never seen before. “I don’t think we’re being very hospitable, or very considerate. Mr. Warriner needs sleep more than anything at the moment, so I’m going to fix a bunk for him. If you’ll just come with me and move those sailbags, dear.”
She went down the ladder. Ingram followed, conscious of the rigidity of her back as she traversed the rolling cabin and went through the passage at the forward end. The narrow compartment in the eyes of the boat held two bunks, slanted inward toward each other like the sides of a V, but was used only as a locker now. There were cases of food, unopened buckets of paint and varnish, and coils of line, all neatly stowed, and the bunks themselves were piled with bags of sails. There was no hatch above, only a ventilator, and the compartment was dimly lighted by the two small portholes above the bunks.
She pulled the door shut and came close to him. “John Ingram!” It was a whisper, but forceful. “I’m ashamed of you; I never realized you could be this insensitive. Can’t you see that boy’s on the ragged edge of a nervous breakdown? For heaven’s sake, stop asking him questions and let’s try to get him to sleep.”
“Well, sure, honey,” he protested. “I realize what he’s been through. But we ought to make some attempt to salvage what we can—”
“He doesn’t want to go back on there. I’d think you could understand that.”
“He doesn’t have to. I told him I’d go.”
“But why? He said there wasn’t anything worth trying to save, didn’t he?”
“I know. But obviously water wouldn’t ruin everything. Clothes, for instance. Also, he contradicts himself.”
“What do you mean?”
“The radio, remember? He said it’d been ruined by the water. But he’d just got through telling us he called us on it.”
She sighed. “Why do men always have to be so literal? Do you think he’s some kind of machine? John, dear, he lost his wife and his two friends all in one afternoon, and then spent the next ten days utterly alone on a sinking boat, and he probably hasn’t closed his eyes for a week. I’d be doing well to remember my own name, unless I had it written down somewhere.”
“All right—” Ingram began.
“Shhhhh! Not so loud.”
“Okay. But you’d think he’d at least want to bring off some of her things, wouldn’t you? And there was another thing I was about to explain to him. If that boat’s insured, he’s going to have a hell of a time trying to collect, with no logbook and just his unsupported word she was in sinking condition when he left her—in a dead calm, with no weather making up. The underwriters are going to ask for a statement from me, and I can’t corroborate it. How can I? I’ll just have to tell ‘em she was afloat when I saw her. And that I hadn’t even been aboard and didn’t know how much water she was taking.”
“He said she probably wouldn’t last through the morning, and we’re not going anywhere in this calm, so well still be in sight when she goes down. But let him get some sleep!”
“Sure. God knows, he probably needs it.” Still vaguely dissatisfied, he tossed the sailbags into the other bunk and threw a lashing on them. He went back to the cockpit. Warriner was slumped on the starboard seat with the binoculars beside him, as though he’d been looking at the other yacht. Sunlight struck golden fire in his hair, which had been crew-cut originally but had grown long over his ears. Handsome kid, Ingram thought, and then wondered if that could be the reason for his—well, not distrust, exactly. That was overstating it. Call it reservation.
“You asked me if she was insured,” Warriner said. “I’m sorry to say she’s not. We thought the premium was too high for the risk involved. And also, that if she was lost, we probably would be too.”
“Is she pretty old?”
“Yes. Over twenty years. I guess we got stung when we bought her.”
“You didn’t have her surveyed?”
“Well—yes. That is, not by a professional, but a friend of mine who’s real savvy about boats.”
Ingram nodded but refrained from any comment. Under the circumstances, it was too much like kicking a man when he was down to elaborate on the foolishness of buying a twenty-year-old yacht without a professional survey, especially since this was a little on the self-evident side at the moment. “You don’t know what caused her to open up that way? Have any bad weather?”
Warriner shook his head. “Not recently. That is, except for a few squalls, which never lasted very long. It was just age and general unsoundness.”
Ingram was struck by a sudden thought. “You say you were bound from California to Papeete—aren’t you pretty far east? Seems to me you’d have crossed the Line nearly a thousand miles west of here.”
“We were taking it by stages. Down the Mexican coast to La Paz, and then by way of Clipperton Island.” Warriner made an attempt at a smile. “Look, I’m sorry I got dumped on you this way. But I can pull my weight, and it will shorten the watches. And I’ll keep out of your hair as much as possible; it’s not much fun having a third party around.”
“Forget it,” Ingram said, feeling uncomfortable for some reason. It was the first time he’d ever heard of a shipwreck victim apologizing for his existence, and he tried again to put his finger on exactly what there was about this boy that he couldn’t quite like. There didn’t seem to be any answer. “Hell, we’re just happy we came along when we did.”
