Secret sea; (10 page)

"Take it easy," Pete said. "You live somewhere, don't you? You've got some sort of family?"

"I got an old drunk for an uncle. But I don't have to ask him," the boy said. "He'd be glad to get rid of me."

"We'll ask him," Pete said.

SECRET SEA

The boy's home was the worst hovel Pete had ever been in. A sloppy, unshaven man wearing an undershirt caked with dirt and sweat said he didn't care what the boy did, that he was no good anyway and ought to be in jail. Then the man suddenly said, "You can have him for fifty bucks, mister."

Pete was startled. Then he got mad. "I don't buy people," he said.

"I don't care what you call it," the man said. "But it'll take fifty bucks to get him."

"Don't give it to him," the boy told Pete. "It's a holdup."

Pete ignored the boy and counted out fifty dollars. The man's face fell open with surprise as he took it and shoved it into his pocket.

Outside, walking along, the boy said, "You shouldn't have given him a dime, Mac. The old boozer."

"Never mind," Pete said. Then added, as they came to a neon barber pole, "Next stop." "What for?" "You," Pete said.

The boy stepped back. "Let's get this straight, Mac. I don't take any bossing, see? Just like you said, you didn't buy me."

"Maybe not," Pete said. "But you're going in here and you're going right through a Turkish bath, a haircut, and a general overhauling, or we fight it out right here and now."

BLOOD ON THE FACEPLATE

The boy shrugged. "It's your dough."

"That's right. Now you be here when I get back."

Pete told them in the barbershop what he wanted done to the boy, adding, "And burn every rag he's got on." Then he sent telegrams to Johnny and Mr. Williams. Finally, in an Army-Navy store he spent twenty-two dollars on clothes for the boy: dungarees, sneakers, shirts, and two white outfits. He also bought a comb, brush, toothbrush and paste, and a stack of GI socks.

When he got back to the barbershop, he hardly knew his new shipmate. The boy was standing naked in the rubbing room, scowling, one eye completely closed now and purplish black, the other looking fierce. The barber had cut his hair until no piece of it was more than a quarter inch long and the attendants in the bath had scrubbed him until he was red all over.

"That's the last time I go through that," the boy said.

"First time's always hard. Here, put these on."

The boy's face softened a little when he looked at himself in the mirror. The dungarees were stiff and new, cuffs and shirt sleeves rolled up, but they looked good.

"By the way, what's your name?" Pete asked.

"Mike."

SECRET SEA

'Ever done any sailboating, Mike?'

BLOOD ON THE FACEPLATE

"Mine's Pete Martin." "Okay/' the boy said.

No one had been aboard the Tndra since they had left her; but when Pete and Mike cUmbed aboard, a harbor pohce boat came roaring out from the wharves.

"Those dummies," Mike said. "Where were they when we needed 'em?"

Pete proved that he was the owner, and the pohce went away, leaving him alone on deck with his new hand.

"Ever done any sailboating, Mike?"

"Yeah," Mike said. "I've sailed in everything from shrimpers to lumber boats. I even worked on a yat-chet one summer, but they caught me stealin' the silver spoons and got me thrown in the can."

"The spoons here are aluminum," Pete said.

The boy took a step toward him. "Listen, Mac," he said, "I ain't working for you. You ain't paying me a dime. I'm going along because I want to, see? Why should I swipe your stuflf if you ain't even paying me?"

"Good idea," Pete said. "Well, let's go."

"Now?"

Pete nodded.

"In the middle of the night?"

Pete nodded again. "After a while I'll tell you why, Mike." *

SECRET SEA

Mike shrugged. "Suits me, pal." Clear of the harbor, Pete turned off the engine, and he and Mike got sail on. Back in the cockpit they both sat down, Pete on the wheel.

"This old tub goes pretty good," Mike said. "Right on the wind."

"She's slow, but she's solid as a rock." They sat in silence for a minute or so. Then Mike drew in a long breath and let it out slowly. "This is okay," he said quietly.

"Yep. Now turn in. I'll rout you out in the morning."

"Don't think I can't handle her, Mac." "I don't. But I'll take her until dayUght." "Okay, if that's the way you want it." When Mike had gone below, Pete sat astride the wheelbox. The wind was fitful, sometimes dying so that the sails luffed and slatted. In one of the lulls he stepped over to the hatchway and tapped the face of the barometer. The tendency was still down, the temperature going up, humidity up. It was, Pete finally decided, a bad time to leave port.

Then he looked back at the glow of Miami and scanned the surface of the sea. Nothing appeared on it. The Indra had not been followed.

Pete looked up at the sails as they filled with a gust of hot wind. "Let her blow," he said to himself. "There's nothing like a good storm to hide a boat in." *

BLOOD ON THE FACEPLATE

Then he looked back once more across the sea. An icy shiver ran up his spine and tingled in the hair on his neck. The sea was so dark. A black boat could be within five miles of him and he would not be able to see it.

Pete thought of the mess still down in the cabin. The blood on the faceplate would be dry by now.

There was danger in this voyage.

JL he wind, which had been rising steadily since three in the morning, died at dawn. Pete, tired and relaxed, looped a leg over the wheel spoke as the sails sagged and slatted. The sun came up into the coppery-red sky and was a huge murky ball of red. Pete looked at it and shook his head. " 'Red sky at night,' " he said to himself, " 'sailors delight. Red at dawning, sailors take warning.' "

THE BLACK SLOOP

The sea became perfectly calm and oily and reflected the redness of the sky until it seemed as though the Indra were floating in a sea of blood. Pete left the wheel entirely and pulled the chart board out of the waterproof slide beside the companion hatch. Marking off the last hour's run, he measured the distance back to Miami. Off to starboard he could see a thin pencil line against the horizon made by Elliott Key. He tapped the barometer, and it was still going down.

Pete went back to the wheel. A storm was certainly coming, and he had to make his decision within the hour or it would be too late. To turn tail for Miami meant a beat to windward, and soon he would be too far down to run for shelter behind the keys. It depended, Pete finally realized, on how good a sailor Mike was. Pete had done enough sailing to know that the greatest danger of a storm was not the wind and the sea but the exhaustion of the people handling the boat. As soon as a man got tired, he began making little mistakes; he would keep a sail on too long because he was too tired to want to take it off; he would hold his boat on a squall for a second more than it would take because the efiFort of shifting sheets was so great to him.

Already Pete had been on the wheel for seven hours and had had no sleep for twenty-four. If Mike turned out to be, at best, a bay sailor, the

SECRET SEA

only thing to do would be to put about and run for Miami.

Ordinarily Pete's seamanship alone would have made him turn and run for shelter. There was no use punishing the boat, and to go back only thirty miles was no loss of distance compared to what he would lose fighting a three- or four-day storm. But Pete kept thinking about the thin man. In the night he had escaped from him; he was free now on the open sea. To go back would put him once more in a position where the man could attack him or at least follow him when he left port again.

It all depended on what sort of sailor Mike was.

Pete hove the Indra to and went below to the galley. When he had a huge, hot breakfast ready and coffee simmering on the Shipmate he woke Mike.

"Hit the deck, sailor," Pete said, standing in the door of the little cabin forward of the galley.

Mike scrambled out of his berth almost immediately. "Aye, aye, mate," he said cheerfully. "What's the word on chow?"

"Chow down, but bear a hand."

Pete took his breakfast up to the cockpit and soon Mike, his face actually washed and his hair wet but impossible to comb, came up with a plate heaped to the gunwales.

As he sat down Mike looked around the hori-

THE BLACK SLOOP

zon. "Maybe you wasted money getting my hair cut," he remarked. "Because pretty soon we're going to have a wind that would have blown it right off my head, roots and all."

Pete nodded over the rim of his coffee cup.

"Going back?" Mike asked.

"Don't know. Might,'' Pete said.

As soon as the sun's rim cleared the sea, the wind began to blow again. Pete noticed that Mike went to the jib sheet without any instructions.

While Mike was up there, Pete took time to glance across the compass card. When Mike came back, Pete gave him a course to steer which was a little too far off the wind for the way the sails were set. Mike climbed up on the wheelbox, still eating, and settled down, steering with one hand and one bare foot, eating with the other hand. Pete, trying not to let Mike see him, watched the compass as it swung over and steadied on course.

Pete almost held his breath as he waited. If Mike went on sailing without suggesting letting the sails out a touch more, then he wasn't good enough on the helm to risk putting the Indra through the coming storm. They would have to turn back to Miami—and the thin man would be waiting for them there.

Mike continued nonchalantly to sail and eat, and Pete felt a wave of disappointment rising. He hated to go back. Now that he had escaped to the open sea the thought of going back where Weber

SECRET SEA

was was almost like going into a pit of snakes. But Mike was apparently paying no attention to the set of the sails.

Then Mike, with his face full, mumbled, "How's about letting her out a Httle, Mac? Might as well get all we can out of the old tub before we get knocked silly."

Pete sighed and grinned. Mike was a sailor.

"Put her over on 197 and let's haul," Pete said. "I want to get away from your pals."

"You mean that narrow drink of water?" Mike asked, spinning the wheel over. "He's no pal of mine, Mac. If I ever see him again, I'll break his head."

"We'll never see him. Not where we're going," Pete said.

"Where are we going?" Mike asked. "All that diving gear looks like sponge fishing, but you ain't no Greek from Tarpon Springs."

"I'll tell you later. Keep her as close to 197 as you can and give me a buzz if you need any help. There's a buzzer right under the wheel shaft."

"Okay, I got her."

Pete grinned. "Good."

For a little while after he got into his bunk, he worried about Mike, imagining all sorts of mistakes the kid could make up there. But very soon he was fast asleep.

Pete woke up, looked at his watch, and came

THE BLACK SLOOP

vaulting out of the bunk. With nothing on but his skivvy pants he raced through the Uttered cabin and up the companionway.

Mike was sitting on the wheelbox steering with both bare feet. The wind was strong and gusty but Mike seemed perfectly calm as the Indra bucketed along, gray water swirling in and out of the lee scupper.

"Fm sorry, Mike. Didn't mean to sleep so long. Why didn't you buzz me?"

"If rd needed you, FdVe buzzed you, Mac," Mike told him. Pete got his clothes on and came back. "How are you at cook-he asked lieved Mike at the wheel.

7\^^m.^