The schooner’s list increased as the tide approached dead low, and it was difficult clinging to the sloping deck. The shooting stopped for fifteen or twenty minutes, and then started again. He had to go back after more ammunition, Ingram thought. If he’s going to swim out here, he’ll do it on the flood so if he doesn’t get aboard he can make it back. He wouldn’t tackle it on the ebb because he might get carried out to sea. Flicking on the lighter for an instant, he looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past midnight. The tide should have turned already. There was another shot. I’d better go below and check now, he thought, while I’m still sure where he is. He told her.
“You think water’s coming in?” she asked.
“Maybe a little. If there is, we’ll pump it out.”
“You won’t be long?”
“No.”
“If anything happens to you—”
He kissed her. “What could happen?” He crawled aft and dropped into the cockpit just as Morrison shot again. Somewhere in the blackness below there was the sound of running water. That didn’t make sense. It couldn’t run in, not that way. He started down the crazily slanting ladder and even before his head came below the level of the hatch he smelled it, and the old nightmare of terror reached up to engulf him. He lost his grip on the handrail and fell, and wound up against the port bulkhead under the radiotelephone, on his hands and knees in the cold lake of gasoline that extended up out of the bilge as the boat lay over on her side. He could hear it still running out of the punctured tanks in the darkness behind him as he fought against the whisperings of panic. If he lost his head completely and ran into something the fumes might kill him before he could get out. He pushed off the bulkhead and reached upward, groping for the ladder. His fingers brushed it. Then he was up in the cockpit, stretched out on the cushions on the port side, shaking all over and trying to keep from being sick. His hands and his legs from the knees down were very cool from the evaporation of the gasoline.
11
He thought of her, and hoped she hadn’t heard him come up. He needed a few minutes alone to pull himself together; he couldn’t face her this way. But still he was going to have to tell her; there was no way to avoid it. Their chances of escape were almost gone now, and until he got the last of that gasoline out of there they were living on a potential bomb. A pint of gasoline in the bilge could form an explosive mixture in the air inside a boat, and they had two hundred gallons of it. Just one spark from anything—static electricity, a light switch, even a short circuit in the electrical system from one of Morrison’s bullets—and the Dragoon would go up like a Roman candle.
Using the engine was out of the question. Even if any fuel remained in the tanks when the schooner righted herself, trying to start it would be an act of madness when the slightest spark at the starter brushes or the generator could blow them out of the water. And even after he pumped the bilges dry, it wouldn’t be safe; not for days.
They had to be washed out, and ventilated. But the mere consideration of these technical matters was beginning to have its calming effect; potentially ghastly as they might be, they were still technical, and fear receded as the professional mind took over. They didn’t need the damned engine to get back to Florida, if they could only get her afloat. And there was still a chance of that—a slight one, but a chance. Pumping the gasoline out would lighten her by another thousand to fifteen hundred pounds, and they might be able to pull her off with the kedge alone now that he had the gear rigged to haul her down on her side. At that moment another bullet slapped into the hull up forward and the sound of Morrison’s rifle came to him across the water. That completed the job. He had hated few people in his life, but right now he hated Morrison, and he thought of him with a cold and implacable anger. They wouldn’t be defeated by him. If it’s the last thing I ever do on earth, he thought, I’m going to beat him.
He slipped forward along the deck. When he knelt beside her, she said, “I smell gasoline.”
“It’s on me, a little on my trousers.” He told her about it. She took it well, as he should have known she would. “I don’t think it’s going to change things too much. We may still get off on this tide. Just remember, don’t smoke. Don’t turn on a light. Don’t even go below. And that means even after I get it pumped overboard.”
“I understand. What shall I do?”
The schooner creaked as she came up a little in the darkness. “Just listen for Morrison,” he said. “As long as he’s shooting, it’s all right, but the tide’s flooding now and it’ll drive him off that flat pretty soon. If he’s going to try to get aboard it’ll be within the next few hours. Go right up to the corner of the forward deckhouse so you’ll be sure to hear him. The gasoline going overboard will make some noise.”
“Right, Skipper.”
“You’re magnificent. Or did I tell you that?”
“You can be as repetitious as you want. I don’t mind at all. Actually, I’m scared green. You just can’t see it.”
He took her face between his hands. “I’m going to get us out of here.”
“Have I ever doubted it?” she asked. “You might call me a fan. I’ve been watching you in operation for the past—good Lord, has it only been two days?”
“All I’ve done so far is lose.”
“That could be a matter of opinion, Ingram. But, listen—if you expect me to keep my mind on Morrison, we’re going to have to spread out.”
She disappeared into the darkness forward. He went back to the cockpit. There was no way now to tell what time it was, but it must be after one. High tide would be between 4:30 and 5:30; call it four hours from now. Using the power-driven bilge pump was out of the question now, of course, since they couldn’t start the engine, but the hand pump would empty it easily in less than an hour and still take care of any water that might seep in through Morrison’s bullet holes. It was on the narrow bridge deck between the cockpit and the break of the deckhouse. He groped around until he found the plate that covered it, grabbed the handle, and began pumping. He could hear the gasoline going over the side in a satisfying stream. Off in the darkness to starboard Morrison’s rifle cracked, but there was no sound of the bullet’s striking the boat. Five minutes went by. The gasoline continued to flow; he’d have it out in a half hour, he thought, the way it was going. Then the handle became harder to raise, and the sound of the stream died to a trickle. It stopped. He cursed, wearily and bitterly, sunk for a moment in utter despair. Damn Tango and his filthy housekeeping. There was no telling what kind of mare’s nest of litter there was in the bilges.
The answer, of course, was simple enough; go down there, locate the suction, and clear it. He thought of it, and shuddered—thought of the dead blackness so impenetrable that directions ceased to have any meaning, of kneeling in gasoline and running his arms down in it while the flaming torch that was Barney Gifford did its frenzied and spasmodic dance along the perimeter of his mind. He mopped sweat from his face. Well, she thinks you’re a grown man; either go down and do it, or go up there and tell her that she’s wrong. It’s all mental, anyway; as long as there’s nothing to set it off, it’s harmless, provided you come up for air before you breathe too much of it. He began taking off his clothes. He put the gun and his watch and sneakers on the seat beside them so he could find them in the darkness, and went down the ladder clad only in his shorts.
At the bottom, he turned and faced aft, visualizing the location of the pump. The cabin sole was dry here, near amidships; the gasoline that had come out of the bilge was out near the bulkhead as she lay over on her side. He could hear it still running out of the tanks, but not as strongly now. Kneeling, he groped around until he found the access hatch, and lifted it out. He started to think of Barney, and the nightmare began to crowd in around the edge of his mind. He pushed it back and concentrated coldly on the job. The fumes were choking him; it was time to go up for air. He went up the ladder until his head and shoulders were out of the hatch, breathed deeply for two or three minutes, and returned. Locating the opening, he groped around in the gasoline beneath it, but couldn’t find the bilge pump suction. He stepped down into it, in gasoline up to his knees, knelt down, and felt further aft. There it was. He could feel the soggy mass of papers around it. The fumes were beginning to make him sick now. He pulled the papers out and threw them toward the starboard side of the cabin. Then he became aware that there were more, both on the bottom under his feet and floating free where he had stirred them up with his splashing around. He felt one brush against his hand, caught it, and lifted it out, and from its size and shape he was pretty sure what it was. Somebody had stored cans of food in the bilges without removing the labels.