chair.
“And how are
Stone choked down a big bite of eggs. “Yes, sure,” he managed to say without spraying her with food.
“I was certainly very comfortable in bed,” Sarah added unnecessarily.
“Good,” Stone said. “What’s up for the day?”
“Oh, you’re coming sailing with James and me,” she replied, taking James’s arm in a proprietary way. “James is just learning to sail.”
James nodded, clearly her prisoner.
“Great; what time?” Stone asked, longing to return to his eggs before they got any colder.
“Five minutes,” she said. “We’ll meet in the mud room and get you some gear.”
“Great,” Stone replied, returning to his eggs. They wandered away.
Monica appeared with two cups of coffee and sat down on the rug at his feet. “Good morning,” she said. “I hope you’re feeling better rested today.” Her voice dripped with meaning.
“Yes, thanks. I’m sorry about last night,” he said, accepting the coffee and setting it on a small table beside him. “It must be the jet lag.”
“We’re going sailing shortly,” she said.
“I heard.” He was shoveling in breakfast as fast as he could. He set down his plate and picked up the coffee. Black. He hated coffee without sugar, but he forced himself.
“I do hope you won’t wear yourself out too much today,” Monica said, archly. “Perhaps a nap in the afternoon?”
Outfitted with a slicker and a pair of rubber sailing boots, Stone climbed into a Range Rover with Monica, Sarah and her James, and Lance and Erica. Sarah drove like a madwoman, tearing down a narrow, winding track until she skidded to a stop at a dock, where a yacht of forty feet or so lay waiting on a pretty river.
“This is the BeaulieuRiver,” Sarah said over her shoulder to Stone. She pronounced it “Bewley.” “Up there a ways is the village of Beaulieu, and the other way is the Solent.”
Everyone climbed aboard, Sarah started the engine, and there was much scrambling with lines and sails. As Sarah motored down the Beaulieu, Stone began hoisting, first the mainsail, then a medium genoa, assisted by James, who clearly didn’t know what he was doing and didn’t seem to be getting the hang of it. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged from the river into the Solent.
Sarah set a course to the east, and Stone trimmed the sails. “Anybody else on this boat know anything about sailing?” he asked.
They all shook their heads as one person.
“Swell,” he muttered under his breath.
The sky was a mix of blue and clouds, and they beat into a stiff breeze of close to twenty knots. Stone zipped up his slicker and wished he had a hat. What with the breeze, it was chilly. They sailed up the Solent, Sarah pointing out the sights, until they were abreast of a town and harbor to starboard.
“That’s Cowes,” she said, “England’s capital of yachting; maybe Europe’s.”
Everyone looked glumly at Cowes. Sarah seemed to be the only person really enjoying herself.
Stone thought it wasn’t too bad. Then Sarah bore away, and he had to let out the sails to go downwind. Off the wind, headed west again, the breeze seemed to diminish, and everyone was more comfortable, even though the yacht was rolling enthusiastically. James climbed out of the cockpit, knelt at the rail, and tossed his breakfast into the Solent. He seemed to feel better then, and he went and stood on the afterdeck behind Sarah, holding onto the backstay to steady himself.
Stone began to enjoy the sail. He hadn’t been on a yacht since his trip to St. Marks some years before, and he had never sailed in England.
“Have you done much sailing?” Monica asked.
“At summer camp as a kid,” Stone replied. “And I spent three summers in Maine, as a hand on a yacht. We did a lot of racing up there.” He looked up at the mainsail and saw a slight curl as the wind flirted with it. They were sailing dead downwind, and the boom was fully extended.
Stone leaned over and said quietly to Sarah, “You’ll be sailing her by the lee in a minute, if you’re not careful. You don’t want to gybe her.”
“I know what I’m doing, darling,” Sarah shot back. Then, as if to prove that she didn’t, she gave the wheel a slight turn, and the rear edge of the mainsail began to flap.
“Watch it,” Stone said, trying not to reach for the wheel to correct her, and then it happened, and fast. The wind got behind the mainsail, and the yacht gybed. The boom whipped across the deck, catching James on the side of the head and catapulting him overboard. He disappeared into the water.
“Christ!” Sarah yelled, fighting the helm. “Gybing back!” She put the helm over.
It took Stone less than a second to think:
The water was colder than he expected. Pushing the buoy ahead of him, Stone kicked his way toward the spot where James had gone under. He shucked off the slicker and took a moment to get rid of his rubber boots, which had filled with water. Moving faster now, he reached what he thought might be the spot where James had gone down. He dove under, feeling, looking, seeing nothing but greenish water. Again and again he dove, until he had no breath left. He came to the surface and looked around him. No sign of James, and the buoy had blown away from him. He treaded water and looked for the yacht. She was lying abeam to the seas, two hundred yards away, her genoa aback and the main flapping free.
He got his second wind and started diving again, and it quickly became apparent that his actions were futile. He was very cold and tired now, the yacht was a long way off, and he didn’t know if he could swim that far. He began to try.
He swam slowly, his arms heavy with fatigue. Lance was taking the genoa down on the yacht, and someone, probably Monica, was lying on top of it, trying to keep it from blowing overboard. He thought he heard the engine start. He hoped to God he heard right.
Suddenly, he was only fifty yards from the yacht, and it was headed toward him. Sarah brought the boat to a halt when he was abeam of the helm. “Switch off the engine,” he called out weakly. He didn’t want to get chewed up by the prop.
Somebody tossed him the other horseshoe buoy, and he grabbed it gratefully. Lance was reaching out to him, grabbing at his clothes.
It took Lance, Monica, and Sarah to haul him aboard, and he wasn’t much help. He lay in the cockpit, shivering and gasping for breath.
“Did you see him?” Sarah asked, oddly calm.
Stone shook his head. “He’s gone.”
Chapter 12
STONE WOKE SLOWLY. THE ROOM WAS dark, but faint daylight showed around the edges of the heavy curtains. Something had woken him, but he wasn’t sure what. Then there was a knocking at the door.
“Come in,” he said, as loudly as he could, struggling into a sitting position.
The door opened, and Lance Cabot walked in. “Good morning,” he said.
“Morning?”
