William Faulkner - Mosquitoes

“I’ve got it,” he said, and as he spoke it leaped viciously at him and struck him upon the mouth. Then it became docile again.

They got started again, finally; and after a few false attempts they acquired a vague sort of rhythm though Mark Frost, favoring his hands, caught a crab at every stroke for a while, liberally wetting Mr. Talliaferro and Jenny where they sat tensely in the stern. Jenny’s eyes were quite round and her mouth was a small red O: a continuous soundless squeal. Mr. Talliaferro’s expression was that of a haggard anticipatory alarm. He said again, “I really think—”

“I suspect we had better try to go another way,” the Semitic man suggested without emphasis from the bows, “or we’ll be aground ourselves.”

They all scuttered their oars upon the water, craning their necks. The shore was only a few yards away and immediately, as though they had heard the Semitic man speak, needles of fire assailed the crew with fierce joy.

They bent to their oars again, flapping their spare frantic hands about their heads, and after a few minutes of violent commotion the tender acquiesced and crept slowly and terrifically seaward again. But their presence was now known, the original scouting party was re-enforced, and offing could not help them.

“I really think,” Mr. Talliaferro said, “for the ladies’ sake, that we’d better return.”

“So do I,” Mark Frost abetted quickly.

“Don’t lose your nerve, Mark,” Mrs. Wiseman told him. “Just a little more and we can take a nice long boatride this afternoon.”

“I’ve had enough boatriding in the last half hour to do me a long time,” the poet answered. “Let’s go back. How about it, you fellows back there? How about it, Jenny? Don’t you want to go back?”

Jenny answered, “Yes, sir,” in a small frightened voice, clutching the seat with both hands. Her green dress was splotched and stained with water from Mark Frost’s oar. Mrs. Wiseman released one hand and patted Jenny’s knee.

“Shut up, Mark. Jenny’s all right. Aren’t you, darling? It’ll be such a good joke if we really were to get the yacht afloat. Look sharp, Ernest. Isn’t that rope almost tight?”

It was nearly taut, sliding away into the water in a lovely slender arc and rising again to the bow of the yacht. Mrs. Maurier stood at the rail, waving her handkerchief at intervals. On the farther wall sat three people in attitudes studiedly casual: these were the captain, the helmsman, and the deckhand.

“Now,” Fairchild said, “let’s all get started at the same time. Talliaferro, you keep the rope straight, and Julius—” He glanced over his shoulder, sweating, marshaling his crew. “Durn that shore,” he exclaimed in an annoyed tone, “there it is again.” They were nearly ashore a second time. Commotion, and more sweat and a virulent invisible fire; and after a while the tender acquiesced reluctantly and again they attained the necessary offing.

“Give way, all!” Mrs. Wiseman cried. They dug their oars anew.

“Mine hurts my hands,” Mark Frost complained. “Is it moving, Ernest?” The tender was off the yacht’s quarter: the bows of the yacht pointed inshore of them. Mr. Talliaferro rose cautiously and knelt on the seat, putting his hand on Jenny’s shoulder to steady himself.

“Not yet,” he replied.

“Pull all you know, men,” Fairchild panted, releasing one hand momentarily and batting it madly about his face. The crew pulled and sweated, goaded unto madness with invisible needles of fire, clashing one another’s fingers with their oars, and presently the tender acquired a motion reminiscent of the rocking horses of childhood.

“The rope’s becoming loose,” Mr. Talliaferro called in a warning tone.

“Pull,” Fairchild urged them, gritting his teeth. Mark Frost groaned dismally and released one hand to fan it across his face.

“It’s still loose,” Mr. Talliaferro said after a time.

“She must be moving then,” Fairchild panted.

“Maybe it’s because we aren’t singing,” Mrs. Wiseman suggested presently, resting on her oar. “Don’t you know any deep sea chanteys, Dawson?”

“Let Julius sing: he ain’t doing anything,” Fairchild answered. “Pull, you devils!”

Mr. Talliaferro shrieked suddenly, “She’s moving! She’s moving!”

They all ceased rowing to stare at the yacht. Sure enough, she was swinging slowly across their stern. “She’s moving!” Mr. Talliaferro screamed again, waving his arms. Mrs. Maurier responded madly from the deck of the yacht with her handkerchief; beyond her, the three men sat motionless and casual. “Why don’t the fools start the engine?” Fairchild gasped. “Pull!” he roared.

They dipped their oars with new life, flailing the water like mad. The yacht swung slowly; soon she was pointing her prow seaward of them, and continued to swing slowly around. “She’s coming off, she’s coming off,” Mr. Talliaferro chanted in a thin falsetto, his voice breaking, fairly dancing up and down. Mrs. Maurier was shrieking also, waving her handkerchief. “She’s coming off,” Mr. Talliaferro chanted, standing erect and clutching Jenny’s shoulder. “Pull! Pull!”

“All together,” Fairchild gasped and the crew repeated it, flailing the water. The yacht was almost broadside to them now. “She’s coming!” Mr. Talliaferro screamed in an ecstasy. “She’s co—”

A faint abrupt shock. The tender stopped immediately. They saw the sweet blond entirety of Jenny’s legs and the pink seat of her ribboned undergarment as with a wild despairing cry Mr. Talliaferro plunged overboard, taking Jenny with him, and vanished beneath the waves.

All but his buttocks, that is. They didn’t quite vanish, and presently all of Mr. Talliaferro rose in eighteen inches of water and stared in shocked amazement at the branch of a tree directly over his head. Jenny, yet prone in the water, was an indistinguishable turmoil of blondness and green crepe and fright. She rose, slipped and fell again, then the Semitic man stepped into the water and picked her up bodily and set her in the boat where she sat and gazed at them with abject beseeching eyes, strangling.

Only Mrs. Wiseman had presence of mind to thump her between the shoulders, and after a dreadful trancelike interval during which they sat clutching their oars and gazing at her while she beseeched them with her eyes, she caught her breath, wailing. Mrs. Wiseman mothered her, holding her draggled unhappy wetness while Jenny wept dreadfully. “He — he sc-scared me so bad,” Jenny gasped after a time, shuddering and crying again, utterly abject, making no effort to hide her face.

Mrs. Wiseman made meaningless comforting sounds, holding Jenny in her arms. She borrowed a handkerchief and wiped Jenny’s streaming face. Mr. Talliaferro stood in the lake and dripped disconsolately, peering his harried face across Mrs. Wiseman’s shoulder. The others sat motionless, holding their oars.

Jenny raised her little wet hands futilely about her face. Then she remarked her hand and she held it before her face, gazing at it. On it was a thinly spreading crimson stain that grew as she watched it, and Jenny wept again with utter and hopeless misery.

“Oh, you’ve cut your poor hand! Dawson,” Mrs. Wiseman said, “you are the most consummate idiot unleashed. You take us right back to that yacht. Don’t try to row back: we’ll never get there. Can’t you pull us back with the rope?”

They could, and Mrs. Wiseman helped Jenny into the bows and the men took their places again. Mr. Talliaferro flitted about in the water with his despairing face. “Jump in,” Fairchild told him. “We ain’t going to maroon you.”

They pulled the tender back to the yacht with chastened expedition. Mrs. Maurier met them at the rail, shrieking with alarm and astonishment. Pete was beside her. The sailors had discreetly vanished.