The man followed him, a huge, dark, moving shape coming toward him.
Bill got the jib sheet free before the first fist struck him and knocked him reeling and stumbling. He fell over the forward hatch cover, landing in the ground tackle.
The man jumped, coming down with both feet as though to stomp him; but Bill rolled clear and, on hands and knees, got back to the pin ring. He got both
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jib and main halyard flying before the man reached him; but the mainsail, full of wind, would not drop.
Then began a nightmare as Bill tried to get the sail off by hauling on the downhaul, while, at the same time, the man beat him mercilessly around and around the mast.
Until the sail was down Bill could do nothing even to protect himself from the sledge-hammer blows. Slowly, they beat him until he could barely think; all he could remember to do was keep on dragging at the downhaul.
At last the peak came past him and he was through. He stumbled away as the sloop swung slowly into the wind. The forward, sailing movement left her; the seas took charge. She wallowed and rolled, slathering the boom and sail into the water, dragging them out again, dipping them in. Everything aboard her rolled and rattled, the wheel spinning idly back and forth.
Now Bill could pay full attention to the man and the fight he had on his hands.
It was short, bloody, and disastrous.
A blow struck him squarely between the eyes and on the bridge of his nose. He went backwards, his feet
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clear of the deck, his body sagging. His heels, finally, touched again, banging across the lazaret plates.
Then he fell forward on his face.
The Venture rolled wildly in a deep sea and Bill Grant rolled slowly with her, his body being stopped for only a moment by the backstay, before it rolled slowly on and dropped into the sea.
In the wildness the splash he made was nothing. He felt the warm, dark, moving water fold around him.
When he came up he saw the stern of the Venture looming above him, then moving slowly away.
Then clouds swept across the moon's face and left all dark on the water.
Bill could see nothing now. In the emptiness of dark sky and dark water, he slowly closed his eyes.
Cnapter 4
NO, BILL GRANT WAS NOT MUCH OF A FIGHTER. WHEN
he was a kid the boys had claimed he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, even if it was wet. And, yet, nobody picked on Bill—not more than once, anj^way.
The thing that made him dangerous was not his fists but the way he thought. He never let anger or pain stop the clear running of his mind.
Up there on the fantail, falling. Bill had decided that he could not endure the man's fists any longer. He was tired of them and the fact that they could knock him unconscious did not suit his plans at all.
So he had fallen and let himself be rolled overboard. But, before he went, he had caught the loose end of the
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mainsheet and pulled it down with him. And he had it now.
The Venture, sail off, was lying with her bow a few points off the wind so that the force of wind against hull and mast was moving her slowly backward through the water.
This movement soon brought Bill up under the long overhang of the stern, hidden from anyone on deck. There, he caught the rudder gudgeon to keep the ship from running over him, and waited, resting and thinking.
He could hear the man's feet on deck and then, for a long time, the man's voice calling, shouting, ''Hey, fella. Hey, Mac. Where are you?''
Then the feet thudded again and, in a little while, Bill heard a splash and saw the dim white ring of a life preserver floating in the water.
After a while, apparently convinced that Bill had drowned, the man stopped calling and stopped walking too.
Then Bill heard the sail slides rattling in the tracks. This scared him because he did not think the man knew how to sail. But, soon, the rattling stopped. The man
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must have felt the wild surge of the ship with only a little sail up and it must have scared him.
Being under the stern was rough, the ship often shoving him deep into the water. Bill, staying close against the hull, moved forward a little until he was hanging to the sheet under the counter.
Now it was time to begin thinking again.
To go on deck with nothing but his fists was useless. Even if he could surprise the man and hit him first, Bill doubted if he had the sheer weight and strength it would take to knock him out.
There was nothing on deck he could use for a weapon. The Venture was a racing yacht without belaying pins or billies of any sort. Even the oars in the dinghy were lashed down. The anchor was a QED type with no stock he could easily take off to use for a club.
Bill thought of trying to get on deck way up forward and, without being seen, unlash one of the oars. But, he realized, there was terrible risk in that; and, if the man wasn't in a really clear space, it would be hard to get to him with an oar.
He would have to think deeper and clearer.
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He remembered the man's voice calling ''Hey, fella. Hey, Mac/'
Bill thought about that, remembering the tone of the voice. The man had been afraid; it was in his voice.
What did that mean? Bill asked himself. Was he simply afraid of being left helpless on the boat?
Or—did it mean that the man was not a real killer? That he was now sorry-—sorry and scared—because he had caused a man to be drowned?
Bill tried to put himself in the man's place. He was a landlubber. He had a crippled kid on his hands aboard a boat he couldn^t sail on a wild night. And even a landlubber would know that this storm was just getting started.
So what would he feel like? With a murder on his conscience; with a kid knocked cold or even killed by the gun butt. Helpless in a drifting ship under a stormy sky.
Wouldn't he be afraid? Bill asked himself.
And—wouldn't he be glad to know that he had not drowned anyone?
If he had any decency at all, Bill decided, that's the
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way he'd feel. He'd be almost glad to get Bill back aboard again.
At any rate, Bill decided, that's the only chance.
He got ready carefully, looping the mainsheet in his left hand.
When he was ready, he got a little water in his mouth and then, in a strangling voice, cried, "Help. Help."
He lay, waiting.
The man's feet pounded and soon he began to yell, ''Hey, fella! Hey! Where are you?"
Bill was not sure, but he thought that the voice had fear in it, and great relief, too.
He called again, strangling, "Help. Oh, help!"
Then, above him, he saw the man's head and shoulders outlined dark against the stormy sky.
Once more, his mouth half full of water. Bill gurgled, "Help." Then he let a wave wash his body forward a little.
The man lay down on deck and reached down for him, sliding farther and farther out, as he grabbed and missed while the waves carried Bill up and dropped him down.
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Bill watched him, always measuring the distance.
It was time now, and Bill was ready.
He flipped the loop of the mainsheet up and over the man's head. When Bill felt it come taut, he hauled down with all his strength.
At first, the man came down slowly, then he lost all grip with his legs and came tumbling. Bill got in close against the hull and let him fall. At the same time he threw a half hitch in the sheet and dropped that over the man's head.
The man came up floundering and gasping for breath. Bill spun him half around and caught his arms with another hitch. Then he dove and secured the feet.
Now the man was face down in the water and helpless. Bill climbed the sheet to the deck and tried to lift the man aboard but could not. Running, he unshackled the main halyard and, using that through the masthead block, rai
sed the dripping body up and swung it over, dropping it down into the cockpit.
Still moving fast. Bill retied the knots with new rope on wrists and ankles, pulling the man's arms down behind him, his legs bent up at the knees. Then he took
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the strangling rope off his throat and turned him on his side in the cockpit.
Reaching down inside the hatch, Bill grabbed the big electric torch and shone it down on his brother lying beside the man in the cockpit.
"John. Johnny/* Bill said softly, his voice almost choked.
The light showed where the skin had been peeled away in a slice down John^s forehead by the rifle butt. Bill felt carefully with his fingers all around the wound but the bone was solid and unbroken.
Trying to be as gentle as he could with the ship rolling all over the place. Bill got John down the hatch and stretched out on the catwalk above the bilges. He got one sleeping bag under him, the other on top, and then set to work with the first-aid kit. He sprinkled sulfa powder all over the wound and then wrapped it loosely with bandage. Blood soon soaked through but not dangerously.
Then Bill looked at John's ankle. It had swollen a lot and looked painful, but there wasn't anything he could do about it.
For a moment Bill felt as though all his strength had
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been poured out of him like water pouring out of a bucket. He sat down limply, his feet almost in the bilges, and shut his eyes.
John came to then and saw Bill sitting there. ''Bill?'' he said, his eyes not yet focusing.
Then, as Bill turned, John's mind came all the way back. 'Took out for that man. Bill!"
*1 have," Bill said wearily. "How do you feel?"
John relaxed. "Okay. That guy's strong as a bull."
"I know."
"Where is he now?"
"Lashed up in the cockpit."
"How'd you get him?"
"Luck."
"He worked you over some though."
"Yeah." Then Bill looked down at his brother. "Johnny, we're in a mess and I don't know what to do."
"I wish my doggone foot was all right. I could help."
"It isn't that," Bill said slowly. "I can handle the boat by myself. It's just the whole thing. Sweiner after us; this gook on deck; the storm— Everything. If Sweiner catches us out on the open sea with no one around he'll be very rough, Johnny. Very rough."
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*'Don't you think we're all clear of him by now?''
*'No, I don't. He's probably been working ever since the war to go get that dough— Look at that schooner he's got, and that deep-sea diving rig. Those things cost him plenty. He won't give up easy, Jawn."
*'No, I guess he won't."
"And this guy. What can we do with him? Just let him lie around like a trussed-up hog?"
John closed his eyes. '1 don't know, Bill. I can't think straight for some reason." Then he opened his eyes again. ''But we decided to take a chance, didn't we. Bill?"
''Yeah, but we didn't know we were going to get into stuff like this. We're in serious danger, Johnny."
"And that money's still there—for the first one to get
it."
Bill looked at his brother. "Okay. We'll go on.'*
"You've got all the load."
"You'll be limping around by tomorrow."
On deck again Bill didn't waste time even looking down at the man. The storm was coming now with that peculiar sound and feel of a storm coming across the sea. Bill needed sea room and lots of it.
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The wind had shifted about 90 degrees and was now blowing the boat steadily back toward the shore.
That meant driving her. He couldn't coast along in front of the wind any more. It meant sailing her, beating her— It meant long, long hours of work and fear and strain. And he was tired and sick already.
Bill dragged the mainsail and jib up again and reefed them both. Even reefed down, the Venture seemed to be trying to kill herself.
Bill got a good grip with his knees on the wheelbox and settled down to the battle he knew was coming up.
Many things combined to stir a deep anger in Bill's mind, as he sat braced on the wheelbox fighting for every foot of sea room the Venture made. As a sailor, he hated to punish a ship the way he was punishing the Venture now. Instead of letting her run easily before the wind she was beating herself against every wave as she clawed to windward.
She was rearing and plunging like a wild horse, jamming her bow into the backs of waves and then trying to throw them as a horse tries to throw a rider. Solid water flowed down the length of her deck and spilled in cascades past Bill and on over the fantail. The
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man in the cockpit was often just able to keep his head above the water while the self-bailers slowly emptied it. The Venture groaned and cried and screamed and seemed to beg Bill to stop driving her.
He hated to punish her and he hated to think of John sufiFering down below with every movement of the sloop sending agony through him.
All of these things seemed to add up to one object upon which he could concentrate his anger—Adolph Sweiner. The German was responsible for everything.
Slowly, as the night wore on, Bill realized that he hated Sweiner more than he had hated even the Japanese during the war. It was a deep, bitter, and dangerous way to feel about a man.
Lightning started flashing around two in the morning. Curiously, it brought a lull in the storm which Bill welcomed although he knew that it was only a gathering of the real storm which would soon fall upon him.
A blossom of lightning rose behind the rimming clouds—a dirty, lasting, hard-dying flame.
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In its light Bill saw the man lying in the cockpit, saw the eyes looking up at him.
Bill reached out with his bare foot and touched the man's shoulder. '1 asked you once who you are. Now I want to know.'*
''And I told you to skip it," the man said.
The lightning flashed again, harder, brighter. Bill was surprised to see that the man's face was young. He got the torch and turned it full on the face.
The man didn't look much older than John. His face was broad with a big, oddly humorous mouth, dark blue eyes, and a lot of freckles. It was a very American face, and his voice was American too. Not Southern exactly—just American.
''So you're one of Sweiner's pals," Bill said bitterly.
"Shut up and let me sleep," the boy said.
Bill's anger flared up. He reached over and hauled the boy closer. With one hand on the wheel, he reached down with the other and pulled a soggy wallet out of the boy's hip pocket.
In the light from the binnacle, he found two $i bills, some folded papers, and dog-eared cards. One of these was a meal ticket with nearly all the 5^ marks
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punched out. Scrawled on it and still legible was the name Sticks Neal.
^'Sticks Neal/' Bill said aloud.
'Wouldn't it be funny if I had found that meal ticket?"
'*Not half as funny as your knowing which piece of paper Tm looking at when you can't even see it," Bill told him.
*'You'd look good in Dick Tracy."
Bill put the wallet back in Neal's pocket and then searched him all over. "Any guns, brass knucks, or knives?"
"You're keeping me awake. And I want to be all nice and rested when Sweiner comes."
"You've got plenty of time. Sweiner isn't coming this way, Neal."
"Get up to date," Neal said. "In the morning he's going to be right beside you."
"Yeah?"
"Ever heard of radar?" Neal asked.
"Heard it mentioned," Bill said.
"Sweiner's got radar on his boat. So he'll be along, chum." Neal laughed as lightning lit his face.
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Bill sat at the wheel as though something had struck him. For a moment he had not believed Neal but had immediately changed his mind.
What could be mo
re simple than radar? With it Sweiner could follow him wherever he went. Just as the submarines had trailed their targets—unseen, unknown, hidden, but always watching with the magic eye of radar.
Sweiner could follow him, staying just below the horizon, and he would never know it. Lurking there, waiting, watching the green dot he would make on a radar tube, trailing until at last the green dot stopped moving. Then Sweiner would close in on him.
Bill was almost sure of the answer but he asked, *What sort of boat has Sweiner got?''
*'One that can run rings around this tub,'' Neal told him. 'It's big/'
''How many masts has it got?"
Neal thought a moment. "Two, so it's twice as fast."
That must be the schooner with the bobtailed masts, Bill decided. Probably stepped his radar grid on the main instead of a topmast.
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In a quiet, bitter voice, Bill said, "You're a clean, fine, upstanding Nazi buzzard/'
Then, as the storm at last broke, there was no more time for chatting. Bill managed to leave the wheel long enough to drag the boy up on the cockpit seat so he wouldn't drown. Then to reef the jib to a handkerchief and the main down to the battens.
Eleven squalls roared down on him that night. In all his sailing years he had never felt anything like them. There was a wild, uncontrolled fury in the wind and sea which, each time, made him wonder how the Venture could live through the next few seconds. But, each time, she came through, fighting her way back from the sea grave she plowed through. She struggled out from under enormous waves which fell crashing on her deck; she fought upright again after seas put her over on her side so far the shrouds and ballywrinkle were in the water. Somehow, after each blow, she would slowly answer Bill's commands on her rudder and sail again, staggering, mauled, awash but still afloat.
When dawn came—just a slight graying of the darkness—Bill was beaten, an automaton on the wheelbox steering and handling lines only by a dying instinct.