“Here we go,” he said. “Keep your fingers crossed.”
“Right. But is there anything I can do of a more practical nature?”
“There will be, very shortly. Just wait here. It’ll be almost an hour before he has light enough to use that scope-sighted rifle, so I’m going to haul with the anchor windlass this time. We’ll get this schooner off or pull her in two.”
He hurried aft and gathered up the free end of the warp. Then he returned to the bow, threw five or six turns on the windlass drum, set the ratchet, and handed her the end. “Just hang on,” he said. He inserted the bar in one of the slots at the edge of the drum, and winched it upward. The warp came taut. Going aft again, he slacked the tackle and cast it off. The warp was clear the full length of the deck except at the corner of the forward deckhouse. It wasn’t much of a fairlead, but it would have to do.
She was on an absolutely even keel, as nearly as he could tell. If she was ever going to come off, she should do it now. He wondered if he should dog down the ports along that side. No, it would take a lot more weight on that boom than he had now to bring her down that far. “Hang on,” he called out to Rae Osborne. “We’re going to take a list.”
“Okay, Skipper,” she called back.
He slacked off the main sheet, and hauled on the guy. The main boom with its dangling cluster of ammunition boxes swung slowly outward. The deck began to list. The boom came up against the sheet and stopped. He ran back and pulled some more slack through the blocks, and hauled the guy again. The boom came directly outboard and the deck rolled down until the scuppers were almost awash. Then he wanted to cry out with joy; there had been a definite tremor under his feet, the feeling of a boat that was alive. She’d moved!
Rae Osborne called out excitedly. “I felt something!”
He laughed. “What you felt was a schooner trying to see if it remembers how to float.”
He quickly tied off the guy and made the main sheet fast to hold the boom in position. The ammunition boxes dangled just above the water, directly abeam. He ran forward. It was growing light now, and the tide was at a standstill. They had to get her off before it started to drop. Ten or fifteen minutes at the most, he thought.
He slid the bar into a slot in the drum, and heaved upward. The ratchet clicked, and clicked again. Just taking up the slack, he thought. Come on, baby. You can do it. The warp ran aft as rigid as iron. He took a fresh purchase and heaved. The ratchet clicked three times in rapid succession, and then once more, and Rae Osborne cried out, “Ingram! She moved—” Her voice broke, and he realized for the first time that she was crying.
They got a foot. Another foot. She stopped. He heaved upward with his shoulder under the bar, praying the anchor would hold and that the warp wouldn’t part. She came free, and moved back a few inches. Her keel’s still dragging in the sand, he thought. But if they could get her back another fifteen feet they’d have it made. Sweat was pouring off his face. Rae Osborne was leaning back with her feet braced against the deck, pulling against the windlass with all her strength. “You don’t have to pull,” he gasped. “Just keep a strain.” “I know,” she said brokenly, “but I can’t help it.” They were gaining steadily now. Five feet of warp came in over the stern. She stopped again. He put his shoulder to the bar. God, he prayed, don’t let her hang up now. Just a few more feet. Just a few more—She came free. She moved ten feet. Fifteen. The line began to come in smoothly, almost easily. The keel was off the sand now, and she was completely afloat. He dropped the bar and ran aft. Jumping down into the cockpit, he caught the warp and hauled.
She was moving freely, and they could pull her faster without the windlass as long as they kept her momentum alive. Rae Osborne ran back and joined him. They pulled side by side, gasping for breath, while the coil of dripping nylon grew larger in the cockpit. Then they were in the channel, with at least six feet of water under the keel. The warp began to lead downward. He took a turn and a hitch around the cleat, and stood up.
Rae Osborne straightened, and stood looking at him with tears streaming down her face. She brushed at them with her hand, and laughed, but her voice broke and she started to cry again. “Don’t mind me,” she said in a very small voice. “I’m just having the hysterics you promised me.” Then she was in his arms, and he was kissing her on the mouth and throat and all over the tear-streaked face. They both began to laugh, somewhat crazily, and collapsed on the cockpit seat.
“Ingram, you did it! You’re wonderful.”
“We did it,” he corrected.
“Was I any help?”
“You don’t think I could have done it alone, do you?”
“What do we do now?”
“Hold her here until the tide starts to ebb, and then let her drift down this channel until we’re at least out of range of Morrison and his rifle. Then we’ll have to wait for a breeze to sail her off the Rank. We’ve got no control over her at all this way, and we might go aground again.”
“Good Lord! I forgot all about Morrison. Why do you suppose he didn’t shoot at us when he saw we were getting away?”
“He may not know it yet,” Ingram said. “He must have gone to sleep. I just hope he doesn’t wake up until we get farther away.” He reached for the glasses and focused them on the sand spit, but the light was still too poor to see anything at that distance. He could be asleep behind the boxes, anyway.
“What’ll happen to him now?” she asked.
“He’s got water. He’ll be all right until the Coast Guard can send a boat or plane down to pick him up.”
They sat and rested, suddenly aware now with the release of tension just how near complete exhaustion they were. “Do you realize,” she asked, “that it was only two days ago, almost to the hour, that we landed out here?”
He shook his head. “It’s not possible.”
The schooner swung around. The tide was beginning to ebb. There was enough light now to judge the water’s depth with some degree of safety. He heaved up the anchor and let her drift slowly seaward, watching the water ahead. After about four hundred yards he let go the anchor again, gave her enough scope to hold, and took the warp forward so she would lie bow to the tide in the normal manner. He heaved the lead. “Fifteen feet,” he said. “And plenty of water on all sides. We’re at least a half mile from him now, so he won’t even bother to shoot. We’ll wait here till we get a breeze, and in the meantime I’ll start cleaning out the bilge so we can pump that gas overboard.”
The sun was just coming up. She looked around, and sighed, almost in wonder. “I just can’t seem to grasp the fact we’re off that sand bar at last.”
Something fell below in the cabin. It sounded as though books were sliding out of the rack because of the schooner’s extreme list to port. “I’ll take care of it,” Ingram said. “I want to open the rest of those portholes, anyway.”
He went down the ladder. The light below was quite good now, and he could see the lake of gasoline extending up out of the bilge along the port side for almost the full length of the cabin. He thought it was higher than it had seemed in the dark; the chances were that water had come in through some of Morrison’s bullet holes and the gas was floating on top of it. Well, no more could come in while she was over on her side, and he could take care of it as soon as he cleared the litter out of the bilge. The fumes were sickening. Two books had fallen out of a rack and were lying in the edge of the gasoline near the forward end of the cabin. He picked them up and tossed them onto a bunk.
“Youse is a good boy, Herman,” a voice said behind him. “I knew all the time you could do it.”