Aground — 111
radio, book racks, clothing lockers, and even in the
bilge. He found a carton of radiotelephone spare
parts which contained several tubes, but they were
apparently all for the receiver; at any rate, none
matched the type numbers stamped beside the
empty sockets. He moved into the two double
staterooms that faced each other across the narrow
passageway connecting the main cabin and the
galley, but found nothing except the suitcase which
had apparently belonged to Ives.
By this time Rae Osborne had been through
everything in the galley. “No tubes,” she said. “But
here’s a diving mask I found in a locker up forward.”
They went aft. Ingram looked at his watch; it was
2:20 p.m.
“Scratch the radiotelephone,” he said. “So we
either refloat the schooner or stay here.”
“Can we do it?” she asked.
“I think so—” He broke off suddenly and listened.
She had heard it too, and looked at him with some
alarm. It was a rifle shot, coming to them faintly
across the water. There was another. She waited
tensely, and then shook her head with a rueful smile.
“Makes me nervous, waiting for it to hit.”
“Don’t give it a thought,” he said. “If it’s going to
hit anything, it already has before you hear the shot.
The bullet travels about twice as fast as the sound. I
think he’s sighting in one of those rifles. Keep
listening.”
He had hardly finished speaking when something
struck the hull just forward of them with a sharp
thaaack, followed a fraction of a second later by the
sound of the shot. She nodded.
There were four or five more shots, and then the
firing ceased. “He’s warning us to stay off the deck,
so we can’t do anything about getting her afloat,”
Ingram explained.
She looked worried. “What do we have to do? And
can we do it?”
Aground — 112
“I think so. The first thing is to finish lightening
ship. I’ll need the mattresses off all those bunks.”
She gave him a burlesque salute, and a lopsided
smile that was inhibited on one side by the
grandfather of all shiners. “One order of mattresses
coming up. I wouldn’t know what for, but you seem
to know what you’re doing.”
He grinned briefly. “Let’s just hope you still think
so twenty-four hours from now.”
While she was bringing the mattresses, he picked
out three of the long wooden boxes that apparently
contained disassembled machine guns, and shoved
them up the ladder. After going into the cockpit
himself but staying down to keep out of sight, he
laboriously worked them up onto the deck and lined
them up end-to-end along the starboard side of the
cockpit. When he was putting the second one in
place, Morrison began shooting again. Two bullets
struck the hull, one directly below him. She was
pushing the mattresses up the ladder now. There
were ten altogether. He propped six up along the
outside of the machine-gun boxes and laid four in a
pile atop the deckhouse just forward of the hatch.
They should shield the cockpit against direct gunfire
and the danger of flying splinters. They knelt for a
moment behind them, resting in the shade of the
awning. “Cozy,” she said appreciatively. Just then
Morrison opened fire again with a string of three
shots. All three of them struck the same spot, the
outer mattress propped against the forward
machine-gun box.
Ingram frowned. “With iron sights, at three
hundred yards? He’s bragging.” Two more slapped
against the same mattress; they could see the upper
edge kick as they hit. He grabbed the glasses and
peered cautiously over the ones atop the deckhouse.
Morrison was firing from a prone position, using a
rest made up of one of the cases and what appeared
to be a rolled blanket, the one they’d left over there.
But it was the rifle that caught his eye and caused
him to whistle softly; it had a telescopic sight.
Aground — 113
“What is it?” she asked.
“Scope-sighted deal,” he explained. “Apparently
some of those were either sniper’s rifles or sporting
guns.”
“That’s bad, I take it?”
“Not particularly, but I’d have been just as happy
with something a little less specialized.” He was
thinking of having to take that kedge anchor out; it
was beginning to look considerably less simple.
Morrison could shoot, and he had something to
shoot with.
She looked at him curiously. “You sound like
another gun expert. Were you one of those jungle
commandos too?”
He shook his head. “I was in the Navy. I never shot
a rifle during the whole war, except in boot camp.
But I used to do a lot of hunting.”
“Where?”
“Texas, and Sonora, when I was a boy.”
“Where are you from?”
“Corpus Christi. My father was a bar pilot there.”
She looked around musingly. “You don’t suppose
this might set a new record of some sort for the
places Texans run into each other?”
“I doubt it. But I’d better get to work.”
“What can I do?” she asked.
“Nothing at the moment. Just stay back and keep
down.” He went below and began shoving the heavy
wooden cases up the ladder. When he had several in
the cockpit, he came up, lifted them onto the deck
on the port side, and shoved them overboard. There
was something very satisfying in the splash they
made; he was sick to death of Morrison and his
damned guns. It was a long, hard job, and he was
winded and drenched with sweat as he took a last
look around the cabin where nothing remained now
of its late cargo but the confused litter of rope. He
went above and shoved the last ones overboard, and
looked at his watch. It was 3:40. Glancing out across
Aground — 114
the water, he noted the incoming tide had slowed
now; it should be slack high in a little over an hour.
He wiped sweat from his face. “So much for that.”
Rae Osborne indicated the five cases of
ammunition still lined up along the port rail near the
break of the deckhouse. “How about those?”
Ingram shook his head. “We keep them for the
time being. They’re our hole card, in case this other
stuff doesn’t work.”
“I feel useless, letting you do everything.”
“I’ll have something for you in a minute. In the
meantime, whenever Morrison gets quiet over there,
check him with the glasses.”
“You think he might try to swim out?”
“I don’t think he will in daylight, but we can’t take
any chances. Keep your head low.”
Ducking down the ladder again, he went forward
to the locker beyond the crew’s quarters and dug
out an anchor. It was a standard type, with a ten-foot
section of heavy chain shackled to the ring; it would
do nicely. He carried it aft and came back for a
heavy coil of nylon anchor warp. While he was
getting this out, he came across a pair of foursheave
blocks and a coil of smaller line he could use
for a tackle. He grunted with satisfaction; it would
be better than the main sheet to haul with. Trying to
use the Dragoon’s anchor windlass up there on the
exposed fore-deck would be sheer suicide. Morrison
would have a clear shot at him with that scopesighted
rifle. He carried it all aft and dumped it in
the cockpit. At the same time Morrison cut loose
with a string of four shots as if he were practicing
rapid fire. One of them struck the side of the
mainmast and ricocheted with the whine of an angry
and lethal insect.
Rae Osborne watched with rapt interest as he
wedged the anchor’s stock and bent the nylon warp
to the ring at the end of the chain. “Where does it
go?” she asked.
Aground — 115
He nodded astern. “Straight aft as far as I can get
it.”
“But how do you take it out there?”
“Walk and carry it.”
She grinned. “So you ask a silly question—”
“No, that’s right. I’ll admit it’s not quite the
standard procedure, but it’s about all we’ve got left.
That’s what I wanted the diving mask for.”
“But how about breathing?”
“That’s easy. The water’s not over seven or eight
feet deep until I hit the channel, and then it’s not
over twelve.”
“What about Morrison and that rifle?”
“No problem,” he said, wishing he felt as confident
about it as he was trying to sound. He lowered the
anchor over the side and arranged the coil of line in
the bottom of the cockpit. “You pay it out. And when
you get within twenty or thirty feet of the end, hang
on.”
She nodded. “Roger.”
He took the automatic out of his belt and put it on
the seat beside her. “You know how to operate the
safety on this?”
“No. I don’t know anything about guns at all.”
He showed her. “That’s all there is to it, besides
pulling the trigger. If Morrison should make it out
here and get aboard, kill him. None of this TV
routine of pointing it at him and trying to impress
him. Put it in the middle of his chest and empty the
clip.”
She looked apprehensive. “I think I get the
message. All this is just in case you don’t come
back? Is this anchor really necessary?”
“Absolutely. But there’s no danger. I’m just
covering all bases.”
“All right. Anything else?”
“That’s all, except looking the other way till I get
in the water.”
Aground — 116
She turned away while he stripped down to his
shorts and dropped over the side with the mask.
Adjusting the latter, he went under. Some of the
boxes he had thrown overboard were piled up
almost to the surface under the schooner’s side. He
pulled them down so the schooner wouldn’t fall over
against them on the next low tide in the event they
didn’t get off this time. There was no hull damage, at
least on this side. Her keel was stuck in the bottom—
just how far, he couldn’t be sure. A lot would depend
on what kind of tide they got this time. He surfaced
for another breath, and Rae Osborne was leaning
across the deck looking down at him. “Be careful,”
she said. He nodded, went under, and picked up the
anchor.
It was still heavy, even submerged, but the weight
held his feet firmly against the bottom so he had no
difficulty walking. He noted with satisfaction that
the water was slightly deeper astern; once they got
her back as far as twelve or fifteen feet, they’d have
it made. He walked bent over and leaning forward to
cut down the water’s resistance. He turned and
looked back. The water was as transparent as air; he
was going straight, and the line was paying out
beautifully. He was about thirty feet past the stern
now. Dropping the anchor, but holding a bight of the
line in his hand, he let himself rise until his face
broke the surface, took a quick breath, and pulled
down against the weight of the anchor and its chain.
He picked it up and went on.
The bottom so far was all sand, with patches of
grass. There were numbers of conchs scattered
about in the grass, and once he saw a leopard ray
and a small barracuda. The current was beginning to
bother him now as he got more line out. The
schooner was fading out behind him, and it was
harder to keep in a straight line. He surfaced again.
Nothing happened. Morrison still hadn’t seen him.
The bottom sloped downward. He was going down
into the channel, in water ten to twelve feet deep.
Just before the schooner disappeared completely
behind him, he picked out an isolated clump of grass
Aground — 117
ahead for a landmark. The going was harder now; it
was backbreaking work pulling the line. He surfaced
again, and just as he sucked in his breath and went
under, something exploded against the water off to
his left like the slap of a canoe paddle. He felt a little
chill of apprehension. Morrison had located him at
last.
The next time he surfaced, the explosion was
nearer, and the third time he barely had his head
under when the bullet struck and ricocheted off the
surface so close to him he could feel the impact in
the water. Nobody could sight and shoot that fast;
Morrison was tracking him. He had his course
figured out, and how far he was going each time,
and was waiting. Well, he could solve that. He
picked up the anchor, but this time, instead of
plowing on until he was out of breath, he stopped
after three steps and began pulling the line toward
him and gathering it in coils. When he surfaced, he
was twenty feet short of where Morrison was
expecting him. When he went down again he was
able to make a fast thirty feet with the coiled slack
line he had. Both times, the shots were wide.
But he was beginning to be afraid now. He wasn’t
getting enough oxygen for the tremendous exertion
of pulling that anchor warp across the tide, and
carbon dioxide was accumulating to dangerous
levels in his body. Those hurried gulps of air weren’t
enough; he had to stay longer on the surface, or
drown. Then, suddenly, he could get no slack at all.
He’d come out to the end. He took another breath,
heard the bullet strike somewhere beyond him, and
worked the anchor back and forth, digging its fluke
into the bottom. He started back, going very fast
now, pulling himself hand over hand along the warp.
When he came up for air, Morrison wasn’t expecting
him in this direction, and there was no shot. He had
to surface once more on the way back, and then he
could see the schooner’s stern ahead of him. Just as
he was about to black out completely he came up
under her side and lay on the surface too weak to
Aground — 118
move as he held onto the line and drank in air in
long, shuddering breaths.
Rae Osborne was just above him, the fear still
showing on her face. “Let’s don’t go through that
again. I thought he was going to kill you.”
Ingram could only nod. It was two or three
minutes before his strength began to return. “Toss
the line up over the boom,” he directed, “and pass
me the other end.” He caught the doubled line and
managed to pull himself on deck. She disappeared
down the ladder while he slipped on the khaki
trousers, and when she came back she silently
handed him a towel. He collapsed on the cockpit
seat and mopped at the water running out of his
hair.
“That was a little too much,” he gasped. “I guess
I’m an old man.”
“Not old, Ingram. But a man.”
He glanced up quickly. There was sudden
confusion in her face. “Well, thank you,” he said,
surprised.
The old arrogance of manner was back now and
everything was under control. “Forget it,” she said
indifferently.
“Sure. But sometimes I wish I could figure you
out.”
“Really? I thought you’d done a beautiful job of
that—and expressing your opinion.”
“So I was wrong,” he said uncomfortably. “But I
did try to apologize, didn’t I, when I found out it was
just an act?”
“Oh, that.” She dismissed it with a shrug. “I was
talking about Nassau, there in the Carlton House
bar.”
He stared at her, completely baffled. “Carlton
House? When were you in there?”
It was her turn to stare. She sank down on the
opposite side of the cockpit just as one of Morrison’s
30-caliber slugs struck the foremast and went
screaming off across the water; neither of them even
Aground — 119
noticed it. “Oh, good Lord! You mean you didn’t
even see me?”
“No,” he replied. “I didn’t see you anywhere.
Except there in your room.”
“Ouch! Don’t remind me of that. I guess I’m the
one who owes you an apology. But I was furious. I
thought you’d done it deliberately.”
“I’m sorry,” Ingram said. “That’s happened to me
before. I’m an absent-minded goof at times, and I
think I was reliving my past.” He was conscious of
still being puzzled, however; she was too intelligent
to get very upset over anything as petty as that.
She grinned. “I don’t think you’ve grasped the real
beauty of it yet. Most of the time I seem to have all
the social grace of a water buffalo. It’s just
carelessness, but it can lead to some very
embarrassing situations. You remember I got out of
the taxi to go shopping, and asked you to take my
things on to the hotel and register for me. I was two
blocks away before it dawned on me this was a little
on the casual side, to say the least, since I didn’t
know anything about you at all. There was no telling
what you might think, or how you might take it. And
to make it worse, I couldn’t even remember exactly
what I’d said. But of course when I got out to the
Pilot House Club everything was all right.
Apparently whatever I’d said hadn’t been that
ambiguous, and I’d been embarrassed about
nothing. It even struck me as a little funny—until I
walked into the Carlton House bar where you were
drinking beer and sat down around the curve of the
bar and smiled at you, and you looked right through
me and three feet out the other side. So much for
the amusing little situation.”
“I am sorry,” Ingram said. “I don’t know what to
say.”
“Maybe under the circumstances, we’d better just
go back and start over.” She solemnly held out her
hand. “I’m Snafu Osborne, the girl with two left feet
and a stranded yacht.”
Aground — 120
“Cousin Weak-eyes Yokum, ma’am,” he said
gravely, and took her hand. “And I’ll get your boat
back in the water if you’ll promise never to tell
anybody I looked at you and didn’t see you. They
might lock me up.”
She laughed. “Well, I’m glad we’ve got that
straightened out. Now what’s next on the schedule?”
“All we have to do now is get a tackle on that
anchor warp. You can help me reeve these blocks.”
He slipped the T-shirt over his head and put his
sneakers and the watch back on. After laying the
two blocks out in opposite ends of the cockpit, he
began reeving the line through the sheaves. When it
was completed, he crawled forward along the port
side of the deckhouse and made one end of the
tackle fast to a cleat. Then he led the anchor warp in
through the chock on the stern, hauled it as tight as
possible by hand, and took a purchase on it with the
tackle. He hauled again. With the multiplying
leverage of the big four-sheave blocks the anchor
warp came out of the water astern, dripping and as
tight as a drumhead. The blocks were overhauling
now. He stopped the warp off at a cleat on the stern,
ran the tackle out again, took a new purchase, and
hauled. The anchor was holding beautifully, and the
warp ran straight out now, as rigid as a steel bar. He
took a turn around a cleat to hold the strain, and
looked forward along the deck. The Dragoon was on
an even keel as well as he could tell, and the tide
was still flooding almost imperceptibly onto the
Bank. They might make it, he thought; they just
might. He held up crossed fingers. She smiled as
they faced each other crouched on the bottom of the
cockpit.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“Just hold what we’ve got. In a few minutes we’ll
start the engine and try to back her off.”
“And if she doesn’t come off?”
‘We’ll try again on the next tide. In the morning.”
“I’m sorry I got you into this mess, Ingram.”
“You didn’t,” he said. “Ives did.”
Aground — 121
“I’m still responsible. You just got caught in the
line of fire.”
“Who was Ives?” he asked.
“My first husband,” she said.
“Oh.” He turned and looked out across the water.
“That was the reason you didn’t tell the police?”
“No. I didn’t tell them because I still wasn’t sure
then that Hollister was Patrick Ives. I wanted to find
out definitely. There wasn’t much they could do,
anyway, as long as the boat was out here.”
“And you were afraid something had happened to
him?”
“No.” She smiled faintly. “I was trying to catch up
with him for the same reason you were. I have a
stubborn streak in me, and I hate being played for a
sucker. To be quite frank, he made an awful fool of
me. Did Ruiz say anything at all while I was down
there getting the rope?”
“No. Except that I’d have to go ahead and shoot.
He wouldn’t go back. I asked him if it was Ives they
killed, but he wouldn’t say.”
“Do you think it was?”
“It could have been,” Ingram said. “It’s a cinch
something happened to him between the night they
stole the boat and the night they loaded the guns
aboard.”
A bullet slammed into the hull just forward of
them, followed immediately by the sound of the rifle.
Maybe Morrison was trying to drive them crazy. He
looked out at the surface of the water that was
almost at a standstill now as the tide reached its
peak. Reaching past her, he switched on the
ignition, set the choke, and pressed the starter. On
the second attempt, the engine rumbled into life. He
let it warm up for two or three minutes and checked
the wheel to be sure it was amidships.
There eyes met. He nodded. “Here we go. We
hope.”
He put the engine in reverse and advanced the
throttle. Bracing his feet against the end of the
Aground — 122
cockpit, he caught the tackle and hauled. Rae
Osborne slid over beside him and threw her weight
on the line. There was vibration from the engine,
and water rushed forward along the sides of the
schooner from the churning propeller, but the
Dragoon remained hard and fast against the bottom
with the unmoving solidity of a rock.
Thirty minutes later he cut the ignition and
slumped down in the cockpit, exhausted. As the
sound of the engine died, a bullet slammed into the
furled mainsail above them. There was something
mocking about it, he thought; maybe it was
Morrison’s way of laughing at them.
Aground — 123
10
Rae Osborne tried to look cheerful. “Well, there’s
always tomorrow. Do you think the tide might be
higher then?”
“It’s possible,” Ingram said. “But not necessary.
We’ll get her off then. I’m going to haul her down on
her side.”
“How?” she asked. “And what does that do?”
“It tilts the keel out of a vertical plane, so she
doesn’t need so much water to float. That’s why I
saved those boxes of ammunition. We’ll sling them
on the end of the main boom and swing it out over
the side for leverage. We’ll have to wait till after
dark to rig it, though, so he can’t pick us off with
that rifle.”
“Then there’s nothing that has to be done right
now?”
He shook his head. “Why?”
She smiled. “At the moment, the thing that’d do
more for my morale than anything else in the world
is a bath. I think Morrison said they filled the freshwater
tanks—”
“Go ahead,” he said. “Use all you want. We may
have to pump some of it overboard, anyway.”
Aground — 124
“Wonderful.” She started to scuttle toward the
ladder, but paused, her face suddenly thoughtful.
“You don’t suppose any of those bullets are going
through the hull? I don’t know why, but there seems
to be something indecent about being shot at in the
shower.”
He grinned. “Not at three hundred yards, and from
the angle he’s shooting. They’re just gouging
splinters out of the planking.”
She went below. He picked up the glasses and
peered cautiously over the top of the deckhouse.
Morrison was still lying behind his rest, smoking a
cigarette while he casually reloaded the rifle. He’s
got no food, Ingram thought, but he does have
water; he could last for several days. But obviously
he had to get back aboard; he might be able to swim
that far, but not carrying a rifle or the BAR.
However, if he managed to empty enough of those
cases and could nail them together, he might make a
raft of sorts on which to carry the gun. At any rate,
he wouldn’t try it until dark, knowing they had Ruiz’
automatic. They’d have to stand watch all night.
He located the rod and sounded the two fuel tanks.
As nearly as he could tell, the starboard one was still
full and the port a little less than half. They had
about two hundred gallons aboard. The fresh-water
tanks were forward where he couldn’t reach them,
but if they were even half full, they had at least that
much water. Getting rid of some of it would help.
The water could be pumped overboard, but there
was no way to ditch the gasoline unless he could find
a hose and siphon it out. He could, of course, start
the engine and let it run, but the amount it would
use up wouldn’t justify the noise. He disliked
engines, anyway, and having to listen to them always
irritated him. He went below and ransacked all the
lockers, but could find no hose except a few short
pieces that had been split for use as chafing gear.
He heard the shower stop, and knocked on the door.
“Yes?” she called out.
Aground — 125
“Just let it run and empty the gravity tank,” he
said. That would help, and he could pump some
more overboard later. He found a coil of new nylon
line, gathered up an armload of the rope lashings,
and went back to the cockpit to size up the job
before it grew dark.
The topping lift probably wouldn’t hold it alone,
not a half ton out there on the end of the boom; but
if he backed it up with the main halyard and
reinforced the halyard fall with this heavier line it
should be safe enough. The awning would have to
come down. He’d have to memorize the location of
everything; it wasn’t going to be easy, having to do it
all in the dark, by feel. He looked at his watch; it was
a little after six now, and the tide was beginning to
ebb off the Bank. A timber creaked as the Dragoon
settled a little and began her slow, inevitable list to
port. He began cutting the rope lashings to make
slings for the ammunition boxes. A cat’s-paw of
breeze blew out of the south, ruffling the awning and
making it cooler for a few minutes. The sun was low
in the west.
Rae Osborne came up the ladder. She looked
cooler and much refreshed in spite of the fact that
she had no other clothes to change into; her hair
was neatly combed now, and her mouth made up. He
looked at the handsome face with its spectacular
shiner, and grinned. “You look wonderful.”
She touched the puffed eye with her finger tips,
and smiled ruefully. “It’s a mess, isn’t it?”
“Well, as shiners go, there’s certainly nothing
second-rate about it. It seems to match your
personality, somehow.”
“You mean beat-up?”
“No. Colorful. Flamboyant. And undefeated.”
She laughed. “I’d better think about that. I’m not
sure but what it sounds like some biddy in a barroom
brawl.”
She went below again and returned after a while
with a plate of tuna sandwiches and a pitcher of
water. They ate facing each other across the bottom
Aground — 126
of the cockpit while daylight died in a drunken orgy
of color and the intermittent sound of Morrison’s
gunfire. She gazed westward to the towering and
flame-tipped escarpments of cloud beyond the
Santaren Channel, and mused, “I know it sounds
stupid under the circumstances, but I’m beginning
to see what makes people crazy about the sea. It’s
beautiful, isn’t it?”
“You’ve never been around boats before?” Ingram
asked.
“No. My husband just took the Dragoon in on a
business deal; neither of us had ever owned a boat
of any kind, or even wanted to. He planned to sell it
to get his money out of it, but he died just a few
weeks afterward—almost a year ago now. He was
killed in the crash of a light plane he and another
man were flying out to Lubbock to look at a cattle
ranch.”
“What business was he in?” Ingram asked.
“Real estate.” She smiled softly. “Or that’s one
way of putting it. Actually he was a speculator. A
plunger. It’s a funny thing—he was the gentlest
person I’ve ever known and he looked like an absentminded
math teacher in some terribly proper school
for young girls, but he was one of the coldest-nerved
and most fantastic gamblers you ever saw in your
life. He was forty-eight when he was killed, and he’d
already made and lost two or three fortunes.
Actually, it never made a great deal of difference to
me. Beyond a point, piling up money you don’t need
seems like a waste of time, especially if you have no
children to spend it on or leave it to, and most of the
time I wasn’t even sure whether we were rich or in
debt. He was away from home so much I had a
business of my own, just to have something to do. I
never was any good at that social routine. I’d worked
most of my life, and women from better backgrounds
and expensive schools always made me feel inferior,
and I’d get defensive and arrogant and make a fool
of myself. I’ve always been crazy about sports cars,
so I had a Porsche agency, a little showroom in a
shopping center near where we lived. I still have it.”
Aground — 127
“Why were you so long trying to sell the
Dragoon?” he asked.
“I couldn’t sell it. There was a tax lien on it. When
Chris was killed, several deals he had pending fell
through, and it developed he was overextended
again and pretty shaky financially. On top of that,
he’d just got an adverse ruling on an income-tax
thing, so the government froze everything until it
was paid. I didn’t want it sold at auction at a big
loss, so I held on and the lawyers finally got it
straightened out after about eight months. There
wasn’t a great deal left other than the schooner and
the house. Anyway, as soon as it was cleared up—I
think it was in March—I came over to Miami to see
some yacht brokers about selling her, and that’s
when I ran into Patrick Ives. For the first time in
thirteen years.” Her voice trailed off, and she stared
moodily out across the water.
“That’s when he went aboard?” Ingram asked.
“Yes. Maybe I’d better tell you about him. It’s not
very flattering, but since between the two of us we
seem to have dragged you into this, you’re entitled
to an explanation. I first met him in 1943 when he
was an Army Air Force cadet at an airfield near the
little town I came from. He was from Washington—
the state, I mean. We were practically in flames over
each other right from the first, and he wanted me to
marry him before he went overseas. I would have,
too, except that I still lacked a few months of being
eighteen, and my parents put a stop to it. We carried
on a torrid correspondence all the time he was in
England, and did get married when he was
reassigned to an airfield in Louisiana just before the
end of the war. When he was discharged, he decided
to go back to school. He wanted to study medicine.
He’d already had two years at the University of
Washington, before he went in the service. So we
moved to Seattle. I got a job, and he tried to start
over where he’d left off two years before. It just
didn’t work out. Maybe we were both too immature,
I don’t know. But that quonset-hut, GI-Bill, all-workand-
no-play type of college life, with another six long
Aground — 128
years of it staring us in the face before he could even
hope to graduate from medical school, was just too
much for us. We fought a lot, and he began to fail in
all his subjects.” She fell silent for a moment. Then
she made a weary gesture, and went on. “We split
up. I came back to Texas, and we were divorced that
summer—1946. I never saw him again, or even
heard of him, until the afternoon four months ago
when I was flying to Miami to see about selling the
Dragoon. He boarded the plane in New Orleans, and
took the seat next to mine.
“Those things when you’re very young are apt to
be pretty intense, but no bitterness lasts for thirteen
years, and after the first shock wore off it was more
like a meeting of old friends than anything. It took us
all the way to Tampa to get caught up. I told him
what I was going to Miami for, and I’ll have to admit
it didn’t lose anything in the way I said it: I was
running over to see about disposing of my late
husband’s yacht. That was a little childish for a
woman almost thirty-five years old, but for some
reason I seemed to think I had to impress him—
maybe because he was so obviously successful
himself. But anyway, that’s probably when he began
to form the picture of the wealthy widow.
“He told me about himself. He’d got his M.D. from
the University of California medical school and had
quite an extensive surgical practice in the San
Francisco hospitals—specializing in chest and heart
surgery. He was also connected with the medical
school as a part-time lecturer on surgical
techniques, which brought him to the subject of this
trip he was on. It seemed he and some scientist from
Cal Tech had worked out a new and more simplified
type of heart-lung machine for use in operations
where the heart had to be by-passed. I didn’t
understand any of it, of course, but it sounded very
impressive to me. He was demonstrating it at a
series of operations that had been scheduled at a
number of medical schools. He’d just been at Tulane,
and he was on his way to Miami, and he was as
tickled as a young boy when he learned I was living
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in Houston, because he was going to be in Galveston
in another week or so, at the University of Texas
medical school.
“You’ve met him. You know what he’s like. He’s a
very handsome man with a world of drive and
charm, and frankly I was flattered by all the
attention he gave me. He took me out for dinner and
dancing both nights I was in Miami, and rented a car
to drive me down to Key West to look at the
Dragoon. We were aboard her most of one
afternoon. He gave me a lot of advice about what
price to hold out for, and said he had a thirty-fivefoot
yawl of his own on San Francisco Bay. I knew he
had sailed small boats on Puget Sound when he was
a boy. He was very sharp with Tango for not keeping
the cabins and the decks cleaner, and they got in an
argument, which is probably the reason he was sure
Tango would remember him if he saw him again.
“Well, to cut a long and humiliating story down to
a short and humiliating story, about a week after I
got home he showed up in Houston. He was busy
down in Galveston during the day, of course, but he
took me out somewhere every night, and told me a
lot more about himself. He was a lonely and unhappy
man. He said he’d been married again but it hadn’t
worked out, and he was divorced now. Of course, by
this time I’d dispelled the myth of the wealthy
widow, but still one of the most infuriating parts of
the whole thing was the precise way he sized up just
exactly how much he could take me for. Seven
thousand, five hundred dollars. Any more and I
might have balked because I couldn’t afford it. Any
less and it might not have been worth all his trouble.
Apparently he must have spent his days appraising
everything I owned, like a professional weightguesser.
“The actual mechanics of the swindle were simple
enough. He and the Cal Tech scientist were forming
a small company to produce around a hundred of the
heart-lung machines already contracted for by
hospitals all over the country, and one of the original
five stockholders had dropped out. And while there
Aground — 130
was no question that the company would make a
great deal of money, the main thing was to be
careful about letting control fall into the hands of
sordid businessmen who might try to cut corners
and cheapen the machine. So for the sake of having
the odd share in the hands of somebody with
sympathy and understanding, and for old times’ sake
. . . You can take it from there. I gave him a check
for seventy-five hundred dollars. After two days went
by without any word from him, I called the dean’s
office at the medical school, and of course they’d
never heard of anybody named Patrick Ives. I hired a
private detective agency to find out if there was any
truth in anything he said. There wasn’t. He was
wanted in several places on the Coast and in the
Middle West for cashing worthless checks, always
posing as a doctor. This was probably the first time
he’d used his real name for years, and then only to
me. And when the Miami police told me about that
watch found in the Dragoon’s dinghy I had a feeling
it must be his.”
Ingram nodded. “And you thought if you could
catch up with him you might get some of the money
back?”
“No. It was four months ago, and the way he lives
he’d have spent it all by now. I just wanted to try to
get the schooner back, to salvage something out of
the mess. I’d been kicked where it hurt—right in the
pride—and I was pretty bitter about it. I think I even
took some of it out on you, that first night. When you
said you weren’t going to charge me anything for
helping me find her, I didn’t believe you, frankly. I
thought you had an angle too. Great little judge of
character, this Osborne girl.”
“Well, you couldn’t be blamed too much for
believing him,” he said. “After all, he wasn’t a thief
when you knew him before.”
“Don’t be so modest, Ingram. I was talking about
how wrong I was about you.”
“Apparently there was an epidemic of it that night.
I was wrong too. In fact, I was convinced I wasn’t
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going to like you, so I may have set a new record for
being mistaken.”
Her face was a pale blur across from him in the
thickening dusk. “Thanks, Skipper.”
He came alert then, suddenly aware it had been
twenty minutes or more since they’d heard a shot
from Morrison. Goofing off, he chided himself; they
could get themselves killed. “We’d better get on the
ball,” he said. “There are two ways Morrison can get
aboard now—up the bobstay under the bowsprit, or
up this anchor warp. Either way, though, he’ll make
enough noise so we can hear him if we’re listening.
I’ll be working back here, so you go forward. Lie
down on the port side of the forward deckhouse and
just listen. If you hear anything at all, sing out.”
“Right.” She disappeared into the darkness
forward.
He sat still for a moment. The vast silence was
unbroken except for another creak as the schooner
lay over a little farther on the outgoing tide. He
stood up and began taking down the awning. He
rolled it up, deposited it on the deckhouse out of the
way, and freed the main boom from its supporting
gallows. The mainsail was jib-headed, so there was
only one halyard; he unshackled it from the head of
the sail, bent a piece of line to it, and hauled down
on the fall at the base of the mast until he could
reach the wire. He made the new nylon line fast at
the thimble, hauled down on the other end again,
carried it aft, and shackled it to the end of the boom.
He also made two pieces of light line fast to the end
of the boom for use as guys, since he was going to
need the main sheet to hoist the ammunition boxes.
He freed the lower end of the sheet.
After raising the boom with the topping lift until it
was well clear of the gallows, he secured it, and
hauled on the halyard until—as well as he could tell
in the dark by feel—the strain was evenly divided
between the two. This was important, because if
either one had to take the load by itself it might part,
in which case the other would carry away too. He
Aground — 132
swung the boom over a little to port to get it away
from the gallows, and secured it with the guys. He
stopped then to listen, and to put a hand on the
tackle holding the anchor warp. There was only
silence, and no vibration of any kind on the line.
“You all right?” he called out softly in the darkness.
“Just fine, Skipper,” her answer came back.
The worst of it, he thought, was that there was no
way to guess what Morrison would do, or what he
might be planning out there in the dark. He was
dangerous, and would be as long as he was alive and
anywhere near. Even if there were no longer any
hope of escape, he’d still kill them if he got the
chance, just as pointlessly as he had killed Ruiz for
trying to cross him. The shots at his head while he
was taking out the kedge anchor proved that; if
Morrison couldn’t escape, nobody was going to.
He muscled the five boxes of ammunition aft along
the deck until they were under the outer end of the
boom. Locating the rope slings he had cut, he put
one about each box with a double wrap, crossing at
right angles, and tied it off with a free end about
eight feet long. He shackled the lower block of the
main sheet to the sling where it crossed and hoisted
away until the blocks were jammed and would go no
farther, caught the free end of the sling, and made it
fast about the boom and the furled sail several feet
inboard from the end so as to have room to suspend
all five of them. Then he slacked off with the tackle,
and disengaged it. The second box went up, and the
third. He stopped to listen for Morrison, and then
cautiously hoisted the fourth. He was working right
under the boom, and if anything carried away now
he’d be crushed. Before he hoisted the fifth, he stood
on it and reached up to push a hand against the twin
wires of the topping lift and the halyard. It was all
right; they appeared to be taking an equal strain. He
hoisted the fifth box. Everything held. He sighed
with relief and gently hauled the boom outboard just
enough to suspend the boxes over the water a few
feet off the port quarter. If it gave way now, at least
they wouldn’t come crashing down on deck. He tied
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