He ducked under the surface and pulled her across his shoulder. When Saracen rolled down to starboard, he got one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder, caught a lifeline stanchion with his free hand, and heaved upward, with Rae helping from above to haul her in under the lifeline until her body was on deck. He came on up himself. They lifted her down onto one of the cockpit seats. Her hair was plastered to her face and she was bleeding from a half-dozen barnacle cuts on her bare legs and shoulders, but she appeared to be uninjured otherwise.
He turned her face downward and began applying artificial respiration. Water ran out of her mouth and drained from her hair, but there was no movement. A minute went by. Two. Three. He was on the point of turning her on her back to try the mouth-to-mouth method he’d read of when he felt her begin trying to breathe again.
She retched and began to gag from the salt water she’d swallowed. He stepped back. She was breathing regularly and without difficulty now. In a few more minutes she opened her eyes. She looked around, blankly at first, and then she screamed. She came off the seat, trying to get to her feet to lunge toward the rail where they’d all gone over. He’d been expecting it. He caught her and forced her back. She fought him, still screaming. Then just as abruptly all the strength went out of her again and she collapsed. She lay face downward while her whole body shook with sobs.
Rae had disappeared. She came running up the ladder now, carrying a glass. Between them they got her upright and forced her to drink. They eased her gently back on the cushion. In a few minutes the crying ceased and she lay still.
“What was it?” he asked.
“Codeine tablet,” Rae said. She fumbled a cigarette out of her pocket, but it fell from her fingers into the bottom of the cockpit. She made as if to reach down for it, then merely sighed and collapsed on the other seat. Ingram bent and picked it up for her, but with his wet hand and the water pouring off him and down his arm it was mush by the time he’d straightened. He tossed it overboard. Saracen rolled. They looked at each other in silence.
Then Ingram’s face twisted. “Maybe if I hadn’t hit him …”
She looked up. Her voice was thin and very near the edge as she said, “Stop it! And never say that again. He was going to do it, no matter what you did, and you know it. And you saved her, didn’t you?”
“I guess you’re right.”
She rubbed a hand across her face. Then she brought the hand down and looked at its trembling. She clenched it into a fist and opened it. “With luck,” she said, “maybe I can keep from thinking about it for ten minutes, and keep from hearing—from hearing—” She swallowed, and went on. “That should be—just about long enough—to get her into that forward bunk and into dry pajamas and wrap a towel around her hair. And then take one of those codeine things myself. Because if I don’t make it, you’re going to be picking up springs and cogwheels the rest of the night. Let’s go.”
* * *
Ingram awoke just at dawn. He ached all over, and his stomach muscles felt as if he’d been run over by a truck. He turned his head in the beginnings of light inside the cabin and looked at Rae asleep in the opposite bunk. She was wearing the same sleeveless short pajamas she’d had on yesterday morning, and the mop of tawny hair was spread across the pillow, encircled by her arms. The only thing different was the discolored and swollen area on her face where Warriner had hit her. Just beyond his feet the tea kettle slid and bumped gently against the rails that kept it on the galley stove. Dishes shifted minutely in their stowage above the sink. A timber creaked. It was hot. And it was still dead calm.
He rolled out of the bunk and donned khaki shorts, remembering he could no longer run about the boat naked or clad only in a towel. His eyes softened as he looked down at Rae, and as he put on water for coffee he was careful to make no sound. He went up on deck. It could be yesterday morning all over again, he thought; everything topside was wet with dew, and the surface of the Pacific was as slick as oil except for the heaving of the swell. It was full daylight now, and the few clouds overhead were already edged with pink. Wind or no wind, it was morning, it was beautiful, and it was good to be alive. Then suddenly he was thinking of Warriner and Bellew somewhere in the eternal darkness and the ooze two miles below, and he swore softly as he tried to wrench his mind away. He knew that for years it would keep coming back, leaping out at him in odd moments and without warning to hit him with that unanswerable question: Would something different, some other way, have worked?
No. Nothing could have changed it. He’d done everything he could, and in the only way it could have been done. If he’d let Bellew’s deliberate provocation go unchallenged, any control he might have had over the situation and any chance he’d have had of saving all of them would have been gone forever. Once authority was lost, you never got it back. And with Bellew doing as he pleased, Warriner would have been doomed anyway. And at some other time, particularly if they were under way, he might not have been lucky enough to save Mrs. Warriner.
He took a look around the horizon for squalls and went back below. He made the weather entries in the log and wound the chronometer. Just as he finished pouring the water through for the coffee, he heard Rae whimper in her sleep. He set the tea kettle down and stepped swiftly over beside her bunk.
Her head was turning from side to side now, and the little cry of pain or of terror was growing in her throat. He dropped to his knees and put his arms about her and began to whisper softly in her ear. She jerked spasmodically, fighting the grip of his arms, and cried out once, but then she was awake. Her eyes were wide with terror, and then confused for a moment before she relaxed and all the tension went out of her. “Just hold me for a minute,” she said.
“It won’t last forever. You’ll quit dreaming about it.”
She nodded. “I know. But it may be a long time. The rest of it you could handle, but—oh, God, if only he hadn’t said that, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy—” Her chin began to quiver and she clenched her teeth to stop it, but tears welled up in her eyes.
“He tried to kill you,” Ingram said. “Does that help any?”
“No.”
“I guess it wouldn’t.” He was silent for a moment, and then he went on, “There’s not going to be much privacy on here till we get to Papeete, so I want to tell you this now, while I can. I love you.”
“That does.”
“Does what?”
She managed a smile. “Helps.”
He put his mouth down and whispered against her ear. “You’re the only one they ever made. Nobody else could have done it—”
“Never mind the junk about what I did. Just tell me again that you love me.”
He told her. Then he nodded toward the door into the forward compartment. “While I’m pouring your coffee, take a look in there and see if she’s all right.”
She rolled off the bunk, opened the door a crack, and peered in. She closed it and nodded. “Still sleeping quietly,” she whispered.
She dressed, and they took their coffee on deck to drink it. Ingram lit a cigar, and they watched the sun come up, neither of them saying anything. She started to tremble once as she looked down at the water, but got control of it. He went below to get the compass, to see what it was going to take to secure it in the binnacle, but when he was opening the drawer he heard Mrs. Warriner moving in the forward cabin. He stepped back up the ladder and motioned to Rae. She came down. “Take her something to put on,” he said quietly, “and a comb and whatever else she needs to fix herself up. Ill pour her some coffee and take it up on deck.”