Dead calm

He slid back close beside her. “What do you make of it?”

“That thing about the bottle?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But grief does strange things—grief and complete isolation.”

“But just a sinking bottle—”

“Obviously it wasn’t a bottle he was seeing.” She paused, her eyes fixed moodily on the compass card. Then she went on, “What’s a sea burial like?”

“I’ve never seen one, thank God, but from what I’ve read, you sew the body in canvas and weight it with something. Why?”

“I’m not sure, but …” She gestured helplessly.

“I think I know what you mean,” Ingram said. “But I’m not sure I agree with you.” Wrapped in white Orion, with the water this clear and the boat lying dead in the water above them, the bodies would still be visible a long way down if you wanted to torture yourself by leaning over the side and watching them disappear into the dark down there. “But that’s only morbid. This was worse. Horror—I don’t know what you’d call it.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “I know. But being utterly alone afterward …” Her voice trailed off. The breeze had dropped to a whisper. Saracen ghosted through the bald spot for a few yards, the sails beginning to slat; then it picked up again, only to die out once more in less than fifteen minutes. Saracen rolled heavily, booms aswing. Ingram sheeted them in. He stood up, still disturbed, and annoyed at himself because he didn’t know why, and trained the binoculars on the other yacht. Then, with a gesture of impatience, he made up his mind.

“I’m going aboard her.”

Rae looked up. “Why?”

“I don’t know. There’s something about the whole damned thing I can’t quite swallow; no matter how I turn it, it won’t go down. Look, Rae, anybody who managed to get this far from land in a boat without killing himself must be a sailor, and that’s not the way a sailor abandons one. Just because somebody else comes along going in the same direction—like a hitch-hiker. You’d bring something off, or you’d go back for what you could salvage.”

“You don’t believe she’s sinking?”

“All I know is she’s still afloat.” He continued to study the other yacht. As far as he could tell, there was no change in her trim or amount of freeboard. Well, it didn’t mean anything, actually; it could be hours, or even days, before she went under. He was probably being silly.

“Did he say whether she was insured or not?” she asked.

“He says she’s not.”

“Then it’d be pretty expensive, wouldn’t it, just going off and leaving her in the middle of the ocean?”

He frowned. “Yes, but that’s still not what I mean. If she’s leaking at all, he’d never make port in her alone; she’s too big for singlehanded sailing, to say nothing of being at the pump all the time. He almost has to abandon her, but not the way he did. I keep getting the feeling he doesn’t want anybody to go aboard.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. Admittedly, it doesn’t make any sense. But look—you’ll notice he didn’t turn in until we were under way. And had cast his dinghy adrift.”

“That was probably just coincidence.”

“Sure. It could be.”

“You’re going to put our dinghy over?” Rae asked.

“No.” He turned, searching for the other one. He could still see it when it crested a swell, several hundred yards astern. “Well pick his up again. No strain, if we get another breeze.”

Saracen had begun to swing around on the swell, to a southerly and then a southeasterly heading. Ingram stood up again with the glasses and could see the water beginning to darken once more to the southward. He looked at his watch. It had been nearly thirty minutes since Warriner had gone below. He slipped down the ladder, crossed to the passage going into the forward compartment, and looked in. Warriner lay on his back, his eyes closed, breathing heavily.

He came back to the cockpit just as the breeze began to stir again. It was out of the south, to starboard on the heading they were on now, and the other yacht lay perhaps a mile and a half away on the port bow, with the dinghy somewhere in between. Saracen began to move ahead. He motioned for Rae to steady up where she was, and stepped forward to search out the dinghy. In a moment he saw it top a swell almost dead ahead. There was a long boathook lashed atop the deckhouse. He slid it free and looked down to windward, hoping the breeze would continue strong enough to give them steerage-way. As far as he could see the surface was riffled and dark. He stepped back to the break of the deckhouse and spoke quietly to Rae. “See it?”

She nodded. “Now and then. When it comes up.”

“Good. We’ll take it on the starboard side.”

Five minutes passed. The breeze faltered but came on again before they lost steerageway. It was less than fifty yards away now. Ingram motioned her a little to port and stood ready with the boathook. The dinghy began to slide past along the starboard side, less than ten feet off. He hooked it neatly at the bow, hauled it inward, and got hold of the painter. He led it aft and made it fast with a grin at Rae. “Nice going.”

It was a run almost downwind now to the other yacht. He started the main and mizzen sheets and studied her through the glasses. She was lying on a westerly heading, abeam to the breeze. “Right just a little,” he said to Rae. “Well come up astern and lay to about a hundred yards off.”

The gap began to close slowly, and then more slowly as the breeze faltered. It stopped altogether, and the sea became like heaving billows of silk, blinding off to starboard with the glare of the sun. Then, just before Saracen began to yaw on the swell, it came on again. The sails filled. The distance was less than a half-mile now.

“I don’t like that sluggish way she rolls,” Rae said.

“She’s got water in her, all right,” Ingram agreed.

“Are you sure it’s safe to go aboard?”

“Sure. She won’t capsize, with all that keel under her. And she won’t go under all at once.”

“But suppose you’re below? You might get trapped.”

“I won’t go below if she’s that close. I can tell when I get on her.”

They were still over two hundred yards away when the breeze died again. Saracen drifted forward a few yards and began to wallow as she slewed around. Ingram surveyed the remaining distance with exasperation, and searched the horizon on all sides. “Slick as a bald head,” he said and sheeted the booms in. “This’ll have to do. I’m going aboard.”

“Why not start the engine?” she asked.

“He might wake up.”

“I doubt it.” Then she caught his meaning. “Why? What difference does it make if he does?”

He hesitated; then he shrugged. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you on here alone with him. Unless he’s asleep, I mean.”

“Why, for heaven’s sake?”

“I don’t know. It’s stupid, I realize, but there’s just something about him I don’t quite buy. Not till I know more about him.”

“Well, of all the worriers.”

He grunted. “You’re probably right. But let him sleep, anyway.” He loosed the dinghy’s painter and hauled the boat up alongside. Before he stepped down into it he took a careful look around the horizon for squalls. It could be highly dangerous if one made up suddenly while Rae was alone, with all sail on her. There was nothing, however, that looked even remotely suspicious. “If you get another whisper of breeze,” he said, “work her on down and come about off the stern. I won’t be long.”

“Right. You will be careful, won’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Wait. Don’t you want to put on that life-jacket?” It was still lying where Warriner had taken it off.

He grinned. “What for?” Nobody could capsize a dinghy in a sea like this. At the same time, he wondered why Warriner had been wearing it. Timing himself with Saracen’s roll, he stepped lightly down