Dead calm

Bellew turned his head, trying to see the dying band of color along the western horizon. “I’m blind,” he said, “with that glare in my face.”

“Set the compass between your feet,” Ingram said to Mrs. Warriner. “Line it up with the bow, and hold a flashlight on it so he can see it.”

She did. Bellew began to pull slowly ahead. Ingram held onto the transom very lightly with one hand and kicked with his feet. When they were a hundred yards away he turned and looked back. It was like a scene from hell, he thought, with the red glare reflected on the black and oily heaving of the sea. The first great pillar of flame had died now that the sails were gone, and they were already in the edge of the surrounding darkness, but she was burning fiercely from bow to stern. The glow in the sky would still be visible for miles.

“Will it last long enough for her to get here?” Mrs. Warriner asked above him.

“No,” he said. “It’ll burn to the waterline and sink in twenty minutes or so. It’ll take her an hour, or an hour and a half. But it doesn’t matter; she’ll take a bearing on it and have a compass course.”

She made no reply. They went on toward the darkness. He thought she might turn for one last look, but she didn’t. She remained quite still, her face lowered over the compass between her feet. It was possible she was crying, but if she was, he thought, nobody would ever know it except her.

The same question was in both their minds, he knew, the same dread of what they might find aboard Saracen. He thought of the shotgun and shivered.

* * *

She’d got under way again because she had to keep moving as long as she could. The silence was out there waiting for her, and once she stopped and killed the engine with the acceptance of final defeat she would be defenseless and she wasn’t sure she would survive it.

It was 7:20 p.m. There was still enough faint light and dying color along the rim of the horizon to show her where west was, and there would continue to be, probably, for another ten minutes. Everywhere else it was already night. Across from her, Warriner’s naked shoulders and golden head were only a faint gleam in the darkness. She was standing up, holding the wheel with one hand and staring ahead into the north, when something flickered on the extreme edge of her peripheral vision. She turned her head and saw the little tongue of reddish light lick upward over the edge of the world far off to the eastward.

For a second or two she could only stare at it in a sort of stunned disbelief. Then tears came up into her eyes and blinded her for an instant as this gave way to a great surge of joy, but by then she already had the wheel hard over and was coming around. She lined it up alongside the masts and reached for the throttle. The engine noise increased to a roar as it came up the final notch to full wide open.

How far? She’d seen nothing there before, even with the binoculars, which meant it was clear over the horizon—six, eight, or even ten miles away. But John must have seen her against the sunset and then deliberately set Orpheus afire because he had no other way to signal her. The only way he could have seen her would have been from the masthead, so there were probably others aboard. But that was unimportant at the moment. She had something to guide her now. That was all that mattered.

In another few minutes the little tip of flame was no longer showing over the horizon, but the glow was clearly visible against the sky. She felt a moment’s uneasiness. How long would it burn before it sank? If it were even eight miles away, it would take her nearly an hour and a half to get there. It was almost due east, but that was no help once the last of the light was gone from the west and all directions were the same. She had to have a star or some constellation she could recognize, one still low enough on the horizon to give her the direction. But ahead of her, above the glow, the sky was becoming overcast. Almost instinctively she glanced to the north before she remembered Polaris was below the horizon now. They were south of the equator.

She turned to look astern, and saw the answer, if the sky remained clear enough in the west. Venus had just emerged from behind a cloud. It was perhaps three hours behind the sun, well down toward the horizon directly behind her. She faced forward, less worried now. Twenty minutes passed. The faint reddish glow was still visible ahead, reflected from the underside of the clouds above it. She kept it lined up beside the masts. It began to fade. Then, thirty-five minutes after she had first sighted it, it disappeared with the abruptness of a snuffed-out candle. Orpheus had gone down.

Venus was still bright behind her. She went on. It was awkward and not very accurate, trying to steer looking over her shoulder, so she stood up, facing aft directly before the wheel, and tried to keep the planet poised over the end of the mizzen boom. She reached inside the hatch and switched on the running lights. Venus began to disappear in the edge of another cloud. She tried to guess its bearing, but when it reappeared fifteen minutes later it was far around to starboard. She’d been running almost south.

She swung the wheel to bring it astern again and turned herself, to look forward, searching the horizon on both sides and ahead for any tiny pinpoint of light. She must be within two or three miles of them. On all sides the darkness was unbroken. Then Venus faded and disappeared again. The western sky was becoming overcast. Directly overhead stars were visible through holes in the clouds but there was nothing anywhere that was low enough on the horizon to guide her. In two more minutes she was hopelessly lost, with no more knowledge of direction than if she were at the bottom of a well.

She jerked the throttle back and threw the engine out of gear. It was absolutely imperative now that she stay exactly where she was; every turn of the propeller could be taking her away from them instead of nearer. She pulled the twisted wires apart to stop the engine’s noise so she could listen as she climbed atop the main boom to search the darkness all around. There was no light, no cry. She came down from the boom and ran below for a can of flares.

* * *

There was no fire behind them now; Orpheus had gone down nearly fifteen minutes ago. “Still nothing,” Mrs. Warriner said above him in the darkness. Each time they crested a swell she searched the sea ahead, while Bellew continued to pull at the oars.

“What time is it now?” he asked.

She held her watch under the beam of the flashlight. “Eight-ten.”

It had been fifty minutes. They should have picked up Saracen’s masthead light by now. “You’ve got too much light under you,” he said. “Hold the flashlight by the lens so it’s completely covered by your hand except one spot right over the compass. Bellew will still be able to see it. Then put that bundle of oilskins across your lap so no light seeps up at all. And when you locate the horizon, don’t look directly at it; look a little above. Night vision’s better out of the edges of your eyes.”

Down in the water and behind the dinghy, he could see nothing at all. Another fifteen minutes went by. The dark undulations of the swell rolled up under them and slid past in silence except for the creak of oarlocks. “Maybe if I stood up—” she said.

“No. You’ll capsize. We’re bound to pick her up in a minute. We’re still right on course? Bellew, I mean; don’t look down at the light yourself.”

“Due west all the time,” Bellew replied. Then he went on, an undertone of ugliness in his voice. “You know what, sport? Wouldn’t it be a real gas if you didn’t see any masts over there?”

“I saw masts,” Ingram said coldly. It was for Mrs. Warriner’s benefit. He had no interest at all in what Bellew thought.

There was a sudden cry from Mrs. Warriner. “I see her! I see her!”

“Where?”

“Way off to the left. My left.”

“All right,” he said calmly. “Don’t take your eyes off it. Bellew, pull your left oar till she tells you to steady up, and then check your compass.”

Bellew came around. “Steady. Right there,” Mrs. Warriner said.

“Almost due south,” Bellew reported. “One-eighty-five to one-ninety.”

Ingram swam out from behind the dinghy, and when they rose to the next swell peered into the darkness ahead. He could see nothing at all. He was too low. But why was she so far off course? At a distance of even eight miles she should have passed within a few hundred yards of them. “Can you see the port running light?” he asked.

“No. Only the masthead light,” Mrs. Warriner replied. “She must be a mile, or two miles away. Wait. I think I saw the red light then. Yes, there it is. She must have been going away from us, and then turned.”

“All right,” he said. “Forget the compass for a minute. You can keep Bellew headed straight. Take both your