line across the water to the ship. There was no time left to loiter, he would simply have to steal a boat. Why not? he reasoned. If he could kidnap a donkey he could pirate a boat.
Within a few minutes he found a well-used dory with a high flaring Carvel hull and a rust-coated one cylinder gasoline engine. Fumbling in the gloom his fingers found the throttle linkage and the ignition switch.:
The flywheel was massive and it was all Pitt could do to crank it over. Every aching muscle strained at each silent revolution. Sweat broke from his forehead and dripped on the engine. His head throbbed and blurriness crept into his vision. Time after time he pulled the crank handle rubbing the flesh from his hands. It seemed hopeless; the engine would not fire.
If the need for speed had been vital before; it was desperate now. Precious minutes were running down the drain as he attempted to get the balky engine into action. Pitt reached deep, drawing from the last untapped reservoir of his strength. Clenching his teeth he gave a mighty pull the engine popped briefly and died. He pulled the crank again and slumped exhausted into the oily bilge water. The engine coughed once, then twice, wheezed, coughed again, caught and settled down to a popping thump as the solitary piston began to ram up and down inside its ring-worn sleeve. Too tired to rise, Pitt leaned over and cut the line with the faithful paring.
knife and kicked the gear lever in reverse. The shabby little boat, its paint peeling down the hull in scaly sheets, chugged backward into the harbor, circled in a hundred and eighty degree arc past the old Roman breakwater and headed out to sea.
Pitt jammed the throttle full against its stop as the dory reeled through the low swells, making perhaps a top speed of seven knots. He hauled himself erect in the stern seat, clutching the tiller tightly between his hands, bleeding from the harsh rasping caused by the rusty crank handle.
A half hour passed, an interminable lapse of time under a cloudless sky and a brightening east horizon, and still the boat chugged steadily around the island. The progress seemed agonizingly slow to Pitt. But every foot gained was a foot closer to the First Attempt. He caught himself dozing off from time to time, head dropping on his chest, then reawakening with a start. He urged his hazy mind on, driving it with a frenzy he didn’t know he possessed.
Then his dulled eyes saw it, a low, gray shape, resting beyond the next small point of land, just over a mile away. He recognized the two white, thirty-two point lights on bow and stern that signified a ship at anchor. The probing rays of the sun were rapidly stretching into the sky, clearly silhouetting the First Attempt against the eastern horizon; first the superstructure, then the crane and radar mast, then the indiscriminate piles of scientific equipment scattered around the deck.
Pitt talked to the noisy old engine, begging it for more revolutions. The lone cylinder snapped, crackled and popped in reply, turning the warped and bent propeller shaft until it rumbled ominously inside worn and exhausted bearings. The race against the dawn was going to be close.
The hot, orange ball of the sun was barely poking its dome over the watery horizon when Pitt abruptly slowed the little engine, tardily jammed the throttle in reverse and bored clumsily into the side of the First Attempt.
“Hello the ship?” Pitt shouted weakly, too fatigued to move.
“You dumb ass,” returned an irate voice. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?” A shadowed face appeared over the rail and peered down at the dory, bumping against the big ship’s hull. “Next time let us know when you’re coming so we can paint a target on the side.”
In spite of the tension and fiery agony of his wounds, Pitt could not help smiling. “It’s too early in the morning for jokes. Can the wisecracks and get down here and give me a hand.”
“Why should I?” said the lookout, straining his eyes in the early shadows. “Who the hell are you?”
“I'm Pitt and I’m injured. Now stop screwing around and hurry.”
“Is it really you, Major?” the lookout asked hesitantly.
“What the Goddamn hell do you want?’ snapped Pitt, “a birth certificate?”
“No, sir.” The lookout vanished behind the railing and a moment later reappeared on the boarding ladder with a boathook in one hand. He caught the dory on the aft port gunnel and pulled it to the ladder.
Securing a line to the little boat’s stern, he leaped on board, caught his foot on a cleat and fell sprawling on top of Pitt.
Pitt clamped his eyes shut. grunting from the impact of the other man’s weight When he opened them again he found himself staring into the yellow beard of Ken Knight.
Knight started to say something, but then he more clearly saw the bloody and ragged body beneath him.
The sight of Pitt’s condition made the young scientist wince and his face turned ashen. He sat rock-bound in unbelieving shock.
Pitt’s lips twisted into a bemused grin. “Don’t waste time sitting there like a broken crutch. Help me into Commander Gunn’s cabin.”
“My God, my God,” Knight murmured, shaking his head dazedly and slowly from side to side. “What in the name of God happened?”
“Later,” Pitt snapped. “When there’s time.” He swayed forward onto his hands. “Help me you dumb bastard before it’s too late.” There was a desperation, a burning fierceness in Pitt’s voice that startled Knight into action.
Knight half carried, half dragged Pitt up the ladder and onto the deck. He stopped at Gunn’s cabin and kicked at the door. “Open up, Commander Gunn. It’s an emergency.”
Gunn threw open the door dressed in nothing but a pair of shorts and his horn-rimmed glasses, looking like a confused professor who was just caught in a motel room with the Dean of the University’s wife.
“What’s the meaning.. “ He stopped suddenly, staring at the blood-caked apparition supported by Knight His brown eyes swelled to Immense proportions behind the thick lenses. “My God, Dirk, is that you? What happened?
Pitt tried to smile again, but it was only a slight curl of his upper lip. “I’m a dropout from hell!” His tone was low, then it came on strongly. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?”
Gunn didn’t answer. Instead, he ordered Knight to get the ship’s doctor. Then the bespectacled little skipper led Pitt into the cabin and gently lowered him on the bunk. “Just rest easy, Dirk. We’ll have you patched up in no time.”
“That's just it, Rudi, there is no time,” Pitt said, grasping Gunn’s wrists with his ripped hands. “Do you have any meteorological equipment on board?” he repeated urgently.
Gunn looked down at Pitt, his eyes reflecting bewilderment. “Yes, we have instruments to record various meteorological data. Why do you ask?”
Pitt’s hands released their grip and fell away from Gunn’s wrists. A smug cold smile gripped his eyes and spread his lips as he struggled up on his elbows. “This ship Is going to be attacked any minute by the same aircraft that raided Brady Field.”
“You must be delirious,” Gunn said, moving for ward to help Pitt sit up.
“My body may look like hell, but my mind at this minute is sharper than yours,” Pitt said. “Now listen, and listen closely. Here’s what has to be done.”
It was the lookout perched on the great A-frame crane, that first spotted the little yellow plane against its vast blue background. Then Pitt and Gunn saw it too, not more than two miles away, flying at eight hundred feet. They should have seen it sooner, but it was coming at the First Attempt straight out of the eye of the sun.
“He’s ten minutes late,” Pitt grunted, holding an arm aloft for a white goateed doctor who worked quickly and skillfully at bandaging his chest.
The elderly physician, oblivious to Pitt’s movements on the: ship’s bridge, cleaned and dressed the raw cuts without bothering to turn and look at the approaching plane. He tied the final knot tightly, making Pitt twinge and display a wry face. “That’s the best I can do for you, Major, until you stop running up and down the deck, shouting orders like Captain Bligh.”
“Sorry, Doc,” Pitt said without taking his eyes from the sky. “But there was no time for a formal office call. You better get below now. If my little battle tactic doesn’t work, you’re going to do a land office business in about ten minutes.”
Without answering, the wiry, deeply tanned doctor closed a large worn leather case, turned and ducked down the bridge ladder.
Pitt drew back from the railing and glanced over at Gunn. “Are you connected?”
