“In a lot of ways he was a very gentle person, Bill. He was nice, until that fear started eating him up. He’d never told me a lie before. I thought he was entitled to one. So I stayed.”
She stopped and sat with her head tilted back a little, looking at the sky. Then she said quietly, “So I ruined everything for you.”
“No,” I said. “I would have come, anyway, even if you’d telephoned me. And nothing’s ruined. We’ll get away.”
She shook her head, still not looking at me. “I’ve been doing this a little longer than you have. There’s no escape.”
Fourteen
The breeze held steady out of the northeast, day after day, and the miles ran behind us. I’d bought time for us, but I hadn’t bought much, and every day’s run was bringing us nearer the showdown. I knew what would happen when we got down there and couldn’t find any shoal. Something had to happen before then; we had to get a break. But days passed and we didn’t. I watched them. I studied the pattern of their movements, looking for the flaw in their complete mastery of the situation, but there was none. When one was asleep the other was watching me, never letting me get too near. And there was always Shannon Macaulay. They had me tied, and they knew it. It was unique, a masterpiece in its own way; we were at sea in a 36-foot sloop, so all four of us had to be sitting right on top of the explosion if it came. I couldn’t hide her or get her out of the way.
Shannon was silent for long periods when she sat in the cockpit with me on the night watches. The wall of reserve was still there between us. Perhaps it was because of the others there, never more than twenty feet away, or perhaps it was Macaulay, or both, but I could sense she wanted to be left alone.
When Barclay had the helm, from midnight to six, I slept in the cockpit—when I slept at all. Most of the time I lay awake looking up at the swing of the masthead against the sky while my thoughts went around in the same hopeless circle. There had to be a way to beat them. But how?
It was noon the fourth day out of Sanport. I had taken a sight and was working out our position at the chart table in the cabin. Barclay was at the helm, and Barfield lounged shirtless and whiskery on the other settee, eating an apple. Shannon stood near the curtain, watching me silently to see where I put us at noon. She realized what those little crosses meant, marching across the chart. They were steps, going to nowhere.
I was nearly finished with my figures when Barfield tossed the apple core out through the hatch and leaned forward. “How about it, Admiral Drake?” he asked. “When do we get there?”
I glanced at the chart, about to mark the position on it, and then paused. An idea was beginning to nudge me. We wouldn’t pass near enough to Scorpion Reef to sight it, so they had to take my word as to where we were. Barclay knew approximately, of course, because he checked the compass headings against each day’s position, but he had to accept my figures for the distance run.
I was thinking swiftly. It might work.
Twenty or twenty-five miles beyond the point where Macaulay was supposed to have crashed lay the beginnings of the Northern Shelves. If there was a shoal or reef in a hundred miles it would be out there. The chances were a thousand to one that it was somewhere in that vast shallow area that he had actually gone into the drink, even though they were about a hundred billion to one against our ever finding where. So if I put us out there when they thought we were on the location she had given me—We might find a shoal. And any shoal would do. “Oh,” I said to Barfield, as if I had just remembered his question. “Have it in a minute.”
I set the little cross down 15 miles to the westward and a little north of our actual position and tore up my work sheet. Subtract ten miles tomorrow noon and I’d have it made without exciting Barclay’s suspicions. We’d be twenty-five miles ahead of where Barclay thought we were, right in that shoal area of the Northern Shelves when he thought we were 50 miles north-northeast of Scorpion Reef, the position Macaulay had given her. We would also run through Macaulay’s position in getting there, so we’d have two chances instead of one of finding something. Taking up the dividers, I stepped off the distance. “Let’s see, this is Wednesday. Sometime Friday afternoon, if this breeze holds.”
He nodded and went on deck to tell Barclay. Shannon was watching me. “That means,” she said quietly, “that by Saturday night or Sunday, if we don’t find anything, the animals will be growing ugly.”
I started to tell her what I was doing. The words were almost out of my mouth when I stopped. I couldn’t. The object of the whole thing was to get her off the boat, and if she knew why I wanted her off she wouldn’t go. She’d have some foolish idea about not letting me face it alone, and I’d never convince her that alone was the only way I had a chance.
I looked down at the chart. “Maybe we’ll find the shoal,” I said.
“If we don’t, I’m going to jump. Don’t come after me.”
I had to say something. “No,” I said. “When they start it, climb on Barfield. Just hang on. Bite him. Anything. I’ll try to get to Barclay. He’ll have the guns.”
It was a stall, and I knew it. They’d slug me and tie me up before they started to work on her. But maybe she hadn’t figured that out and it might give her something to live with.
* * *
I worked star sights at dusk, and again just at dawn Thursday, checking our leeward drift and course made, trying to pinpoint our position as closely as possible. At noon I dropped our ostensible position back the other ten miles.
Barclay apparently suspected nothing. He merely nodded, seemingly satisfied with all the effort I was making to put us over the right spot.
Friday morning was clear again, and the breeze was dropping a little. I took a series of star sights just at dawn and worked them out while Barclay took the helm. Barfield smoked a cigarette and watched me, surly at having been awakened so I could come down into the cabin.
My sights checked out within a mile of each other. We were right on the nose, 45 miles northeast of Scorpion Reef. I marked the position on the chart as being 20 miles northeast, and went on deck.
“We’re far enough south,” I said, “but still setting too far to the westward. Have to come a little north of east.”
“I don’t think she’ll sail that close to it,” Barclay said. “Have to tack.”
I took the helm, relieving him, and we came about on the starboard tack. It was lucky, I thought; we’d cover that whole area pretty thoroughly beating up against the wind. The sun was coming up now. Barclay went below, and I heard him telling Barfield to start making some coffee.
It was a beautiful morning. A very light sea was running, not breaking now in the gentle breeze. The deck was wet with dew. I lit a cigarette and kept watching the horizon, looking for white water. It was the same unbroken blue as far as the eye could see, with not even a tinge of shoal-water green. But it was all right. We had two chances this way, instead of one, and I didn’t really expect to find anything around here. Macaulay had been completely haywire in his reckoning. By late afternoon, when they thought we were arriving on Macaulay’s position, we’d be on the edge of the Northern Shelves and in much shallower water. The chances should be reasonably good for seeing surf somewhere. And when we did, the odds might swing, ever so slightly, in our favor.
Shannon came up from the cabin and brought me a cup of coffee, carrying another for herself. Her face was pale, and she was very quiet. It would be even worse for her, I thought, if she realized that this empty blue expanse of water we were tacking across right now was the position Macaulay had given her.