“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.
There eyes met. He nodded. “Here we go. We hope.”
He put the engine in reverse and advanced the throttle. Bracing his feet against the end of the cockpit, he caught the tackle and hauled. Rae Osborne slid over beside him and threw her weight on the line. There was vibration from the engine, and water rushed forward along the sides of the schooner from the churning propeller, but the Dragoon remained hard and fast against the bottom with the unmoving solidity of a rock.
Thirty minutes later he cut the ignition and slumped down in the cockpit, exhausted. As the sound of the engine died, a bullet slammed into the furled mainsail above them. There was something mocking about it, he thought; maybe it was Morrison’s way of laughing at them.
10
Rae Osborne tried to look cheerful. “Well, there’s always tomorrow. Do you think the tide might be higher then?”
“It’s possible,” Ingram said. “But not necessary. We’ll get her off then. I’m going to haul her down on her side.”
“How?” she asked. “And what does that do?”
“It tilts the keel out of a vertical plane, so she doesn’t need so much water to float. That’s why I saved those boxes of ammunition. We’ll sling them on the end of the main boom and swing it out over the side for leverage. We’ll have to wait till after dark to rig it, though, so he can’t pick us off with that rifle.”
“Then there’s nothing that has to be done right now?”
He shook his head. “Why?”
She smiled. “At the moment, the thing that’d do more for my morale than anything else in the world is a bath. I think Morrison said they filled the fresh-water tanks—”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Use all you want. We may have to pump some of it overboard, anyway.”
“Wonderful.” She started to scuttle toward the ladder, but paused, her face suddenly thoughtful. “You don’t suppose any of those bullets are going through the hull? I don’t know why, but there seems to be something indecent about being shot at in the shower.”
He grinned. “Not at three hundred yards, and from the angle he’s shooting. They’re just gouging splinters out of the planking.”
She went below. He picked up the glasses and peered cautiously over the top of the deckhouse. Morrison was still lying behind his rest, smoking a cigarette while he casually reloaded the rifle. He’s got no food, Ingram thought, but he does have water; he could last for several days. But obviously he had to get back aboard; he might be able to swim that far, but not carrying a rifle or the BAR. However, if he managed to empty enough of those cases and could nail them together, he might make a raft of sorts on which to carry the gun. At any rate, he wouldn’t try it until dark, knowing they had Ruiz’ automatic. They’d have to stand watch all night.
He located the rod and sounded the two fuel tanks. As nearly as he could tell, the starboard one was still full and the port a little less than half. They had about two hundred gallons aboard. The fresh-water tanks were forward where he couldn’t reach them, but if they were even half full, they had at least that much water. Getting rid of some of it would help. The water could be pumped overboard, but there was no way to ditch the gasoline unless he could find a hose and siphon it out. He could, of course, start the engine and let it run, but the amount it would use up wouldn’t justify the noise. He disliked engines, anyway, and having to listen to them always irritated him. He went below and ransacked all the lockers, but could find no hose except a few short pieces that had been split for use as chafing gear. He heard the shower stop, and knocked on the door.
“Yes?” she called out.
“Just let it run and empty the gravity tank,” he said. That would help, and he could pump some more overboard later. He found a coil of new nylon line, gathered up an armload of the rope lashings, and went back to the cockpit to size up the job before it grew dark.