Charles Williams - Aground

But he was beginning to be afraid now. He wasn’t getting enough oxygen for the tremendous exertion of pulling that anchor warp across the tide, and carbon dioxide was accumulating to dangerous levels in his body. Those hurried gulps of air weren’t enough; he had to stay longer on the surface, or drown. Then, suddenly, he could get no slack at all. He’d come out to the end. He took another breath, heard the bullet strike somewhere beyond him, and worked the anchor back and forth, digging its fluke into the bottom. He started back, going very fast now, pulling himself hand over hand along the warp. When he came up for air, Morrison wasn’t expecting him in this direction, and there was no shot. He had to surface once more on the way back, and then he could see the schooner’s stern ahead of him. Just as he was about to black out completely he came up under her side and lay on the surface too weak to move as he held onto the line and drank in air in long, shuddering breaths.

Rae Osborne was just above him, the fear still showing on her face. “Let’s don’t go through that again. I thought he was going to kill you.”

Ingram could only nod. It was two or three minutes before his strength began to return. “Toss the line up over the boom,” he directed, “and pass me the other end.” He caught the doubled line and managed to pull himself on deck. She disappeared down the ladder while he slipped on the khaki trousers, and when she came back she silently handed him a towel. He collapsed on the cockpit seat and mopped at the water running out of his hair.

“That was a little too much,” he gasped. “I guess I’m an old man.”

“Not old, Ingram. But a man.”

He glanced up quickly. There was sudden confusion in her face. “Well, thank you,” he said, surprised.

The old arrogance of manner was back now and everything was under control. “Forget it,” she said indifferently.

“Sure. But sometimes I wish I could figure you out.”

“Really? I thought you’d done a beautiful job of that— and expressing your opinion.”

“So I was wrong,” he said uncomfortably. “But I did try to apologize, didn’t I, when I found out it was just an act?”

“Oh, that.” She dismissed it with a shrug. “I was talking about Nassau, there in the Carlton House bar.”

He stared at her, completely baffled. “Carlton House? When were you in there?”

It was her turn to stare. She sank down on the opposite side of the cockpit just as one of Morrison’s 30-caliber slugs struck the foremast and went screaming off across the water; neither of them even noticed it. “Oh, good Lord! You mean you didn’t even see me?”

“No,” he replied. “I didn’t see you anywhere. Except there in your room.”

“Ouch! Don’t remind me of that. I guess I’m the one who owes you an apology. But I was furious. I thought you’d done it deliberately.”

“I’m sorry,” Ingram said. “That’s happened to me before. I’m an absent-minded goof at times, and I think I was reliving my past.” He was conscious of still being puzzled, however; she was too intelligent to get very upset over anything as petty as that.

She grinned. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the real beauty of it yet. Most of the time I seem to have all the social grace of a water buffalo. It’s just carelessness, but it can lead to some very embarrassing situations. You remember I got out of the taxi to go shopping, and asked you to take my things on to the hotel and register for me. I was two blocks away before it dawned on me this was a little on the casual side, to say the least, since I didn’t know anything about you at all. There was no telling what you might think, or how you might take it. And to make it worse, I couldn’t even remember exactly what I’d said. But of course when I got out to the Pilot House Club everything was all right. Apparently whatever I’d said hadn’t been that ambiguous, and I’d been embarrassed about nothing. It even struck me as a little funny—until I walked into the Carlton House bar where you were drinking beer and sat down around the curve of the bar and smiled at you, and you looked right through me and three feet out the other side. So much for the amusing little situation.”

“I am sorry,” Ingram said. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Maybe under the circumstances, we’d better just go back and start over.” She solemnly held out her hand. “I’m Snafu Osborne, the girl with two left feet and a stranded yacht.”

“Cousin Weak-eyes Yokum, ma’am,” he said gravely, and took her hand. “And I’ll get your boat back in the water if you’ll promise never to tell anybody I looked at you and didn’t see you. They might lock me up.”

She laughed. “Well, I’m glad we’ve got that straightened out. Now what’s next on the schedule?”

“All we have to do now is get a tackle on that anchor warp. You can help me reeve these blocks.” He slipped the T-shirt over his head and put his sneakers and the watch back on. After laying the two blocks out in opposite ends of the cockpit, he began reeving the line through the sheaves. When it was completed, he crawled forward along the port side of the deckhouse and made one end of the tackle fast to a cleat. Then he led the anchor warp in through the chock on the stern, hauled it as tight as possible by hand, and took a purchase on it with the tackle. He hauled again. With the multiplying leverage of the big four-sheave blocks the anchor warp came out of the water astern, dripping and as tight as a drumhead. The blocks were overhauling now. He stopped the warp off at a cleat on the stern, ran the tackle out again, took a new purchase, and hauled. The anchor was holding beautifully, and the warp ran straight out now, as rigid as a steel bar. He took a turn around a cleat to hold the strain, and looked forward along the deck. The Dragoon was on an even keel as well as he could tell, and the tide was still flooding almost imperceptibly onto the Bank. They might make it, he thought; they just might. He held up crossed fingers. She smiled as they faced each other crouched on the bottom of the cockpit.

“What do we do now?” she asked.

“Just hold what we’ve got. In a few minutes we’ll start the engine and try to back her off.”

“And if she doesn’t come off?”

‘We’ll try again on the next tide. In the morning.”

“I’m sorry I got you into this mess, Ingram.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “Ives did.”

“I’m still responsible. You just got caught in the line of fire.”

“Who was Ives?” he asked.

“My first husband,” she said.

“Oh.” He turned and looked out across the water. “That was the reason you didn’t tell the police?”

“No. I didn’t tell them because I still wasn’t sure then that Hollister was Patrick Ives. I wanted to find out definitely. There wasn’t much they could do, anyway, as long as the boat was out here.”

“And you were afraid something had happened to him?”

“No.” She smiled faintly. “I was trying to catch up with him for the same reason you were. I have a stubborn streak in me, and I hate being played for a sucker. To be quite frank, he made an awful fool of me. Did Ruiz say anything at all while I was down there getting the rope?”

“No. Except that I’d have to go ahead and shoot. He wouldn’t go back. I asked him if it was Ives they killed, but he wouldn’t say.”

“Do you think it was?”

“It could have been,” Ingram said. “It’s a cinch something happened to him between the night they stole the boat and the night they loaded the guns aboard.”

A bullet slammed into the hull just forward of them, followed immediately by the sound of the rifle. Maybe Morrison was trying to drive them crazy. He looked out at the surface of the water that was almost at a standstill now as the tide reached its peak. Reaching past her, he switched on the ignition, set the choke, and pressed the starter. On the second attempt, the engine rumbled into life. He let it warm up for two or three minutes and checked the wheel to be sure it was amidships.