Dead calm

slick as oil. Saracen was hull down, fading over the rim of the horizon. Swept by fear for Rae and black rage at his own helplessness, he wanted to curse and slam the binoculars through the doghouse roof. Instead, he leaped down on deck and turned to the man, who was in the cockpit beside the woman. “How long have you been pumping?”

“It’s been getting a little worse every day for the past two weeks,” the other replied.

“And you haven’t been able to hold it at all, or locate the leaks?”

“I think all her seams are opening up. We could keep up with it at first by pumping two or three hours a day. After a while it took six. And for the past thirty-six hours there’s been somebody on the pump every minute—that is, till around sunup this morning, when he slugged me and locked us in there. No warning at all—the crazy bastard just blew his gasket and tried to kill us—”

Ingram cut him off. “We haven’t got time for the story of your life. How bad’s that cut on your head?”

The other shrugged. “I’ll live. Long enough to drown, anyway.”

“Better have it looked after.” Ingram addressed the woman. “Take him below and clean it and put Mercurochrome or something on it. If it needs stitches, cut the hair away, and call me—I mean, if you’ve got sutures and a needle. When you come back, bring up two buckets and a couple of pieces of line eight or ten feet long.”

“What for?” the man asked.

Ingram turned toward him. “That’s twice you’ve asked me that when I told you to do something. Don’t do it again.”

The other’s grin hardened. “So don’t throw your weight so hard, sport; you might throw it overboard. You may be Captain Bligh on your own boat—”

Ingram walked back to the break of the raised deck and stood looking down at him. “You finished?”

“For the moment. Why?”

“I’m going to tell you, if you’re sure you’ve said all you’ve got to say. You mentioned my boat.” He gestured bleakly toward the southwest. “There it goes. My wife’s on it, with a maniac, unless he’s already killed her. I don’t know what he is to you, and I don’t care, but he came off this boat, if you follow me. So let’s understand each other, once and for all; we’re going after him in this tub if we have to walk and carry it on our backs, and it’s going to stay afloat if you have to drink the water out of it with a straw. I haven’t got time to kiss you or draw you a diagram every time I tell you to do something, so don’t ask me any questions. And I’m pretty close to the edge, so don’t bump me. That clear now?”

There was no fear in the other’s eyes and no bluster, only that hard-bitten humor. “Sounds fair enough, sport, if you know what you’re doing. But be sure you do; I’m allergic to stupid orders.”

“Right,” Ingram said. “How about the radio?”

“Kaput.”

“The receiver too?”

“Yeah. Whole thing was powered by the main batteries.”

“Why didn’t you bring the batteries up here somewhere before the water covered them? That occur to you?”

“They were already discharged. No more gas for the generator.”

No power, no radio, no lights, Ingram thought bitterly. “All right. Go fix your head. And don’t be gone all day.”

They went below. He turned to the pump, which was located against the after side of the doghouse. It had a stirrup handle which was normally covered by a plate flush with the surface of the deck when stowed, but the plate was off now, the handle extending upward. Warriner was up here alone, pumping, when he sighted us, he thought. But instead of calling the others, he slugged the man and locked them in the cabin. Why? He muttered savagely and grabbed the handle; there was no time to waste wondering about the motivations of a psychopath. It was a good pump that could lift a lot of water, and there was no indication of its being clogged. He could hear the water going overboard in a solid-sounding stream as his back bent and straightened.

He started to think of Rae and then tried furiously to make his mind go blank. He’d go crazy. He stepped up the tempo of his pumping. Where the hell were those two? Were they going to take the rest of the summer? Then he realized they hadn’t been gone five minutes. They came back up, carrying two ten-quart buckets, one of them apparently the gurry-bucket from the galley. The man was carrying a length of small line. The blood was washed from his face, and he was wearing a Mexican straw hat with an untrimmed and unbound brim, to protect his head from the sun. “No hemstitching necessary,” he said.

“Okay. Take the pump a minute,” Ingram directed.

“Jawohl, mein Fuhrer.” He grabbed the handle as Ingram let go, and began throwing a hard, steady stream of water over the side. Ingram glanced at him as he stepped back to the cockpit. Clown? Hard case? Idiot? What difference did it make? The azimuth ring was still on the compass. When Orpheus rose to a swell he got a snap bearing of the tiny feather-tip of white that was all that remained now of Saracen’s mainsail. It was 242 degrees. Apparently Warriner was still holding the same course. What did that mean? Anything, or nothing, he thought. Dealing with a deranged mind—what was the use even trying to guess?

The ventilating hatch above the after cabin was closed and secured with a steel pin. He slid the pin out and threw the cover all the way back on deck. The opening was on the centerline, directly above the space between the two bunks below. The other two watched, the man continuing to pump, while he grabbed up the line, cut off a piece about eight feet long, and made one end fast to one of the buckets. He dropped it through the opening, gave a flip of the line to upend it as it landed in the water swirling back and forth across the cabin sole, and hauled it up again hand over hand. He pivoted and threw the water over the side. It was going to work, but it was awkward because of the main boom, which was directly over the opening. He freed the end of it from its notch in the center of the gallows frame, shoved it out to the end, and lashed it. It was all right now. He could stand right over the hatch with his legs on opposite sides. He dropped the bucket again, filled it, and flung the water overboard.

“Okay, let your wife take the pump,” he said to the man. “That’s a little easier. You bail here.”

The man made a burlesque bow to the woman, with a flourish toward the pump. “Pamela, little helpmeet —”

“Shut up,” she said. She began pumping. There was something puzzling about the exchange. Ingram didn’t know what it was—or care.

He handed the man the bucket. “You know how to dip water at the end of a fine?”

“Well, I once poured some out of a boot. Not that I like to brag—”

“Have at it,” Ingram said.

The bucket landed on its side, shipped a pint of water, came upright, and floated. After yanking the line back and forth a half-dozen times, the man succeeded finally in sinking it. He hauled the water up.

“I meant without taking all day,” Ingram said. “Look.” He demonstrated, flipping the bucket so it landed in a dipping position and came up full all in one motion. “I want five or six buckets a minute out of there.”

“Think it’ll do any good?”

“I don’t know,” Ingram replied curtly. “But you haven’t been able to keep up with it with the pump alone. If we don’t gain on it this way, put on your swim trunks. The nearest land’s over that way, twelve hundred miles.”

“Geez, don’t scare me like that. For a minute I thought you said twelve thousand.”

Ingram turned away without reply and gathered up the other bucket and the rest of the line. Between the forward side of the doghouse and the foot of the mainmast was another hatch, secured with dogs. He kicked the dogs loose with his feet and opened it. It was over the centerline of the main cabin, and in the dim light below he could see the debris-laden water pouring mournfully back and forth as Orpheus rolled. He made the line fast to the bucket and dropped it. He hauled it up, full, and threw the water overboard. This near the mainmast, the boom was in his way, and he had to crouch to avoid it. It was uncomfortable, and after a while it would be back-breaking.

Drop … haul … turn … throw … He counted. It was nine seconds. Call it a conservative six buckets a minute —ten a minute between them. They were ten-quart buckets, twenty pounds of water. Six tons of water an hour, with maybe half that much more from the pump. They’d soon know how fast it was coming in; if they didn’t lower it this way, and damned fast, they were done for. They couldn’t keep up this pace for very long, all three of them