“Why not make the best of it right here?” Maeve argued. “We’re more resourceful than poor Rodney. Our survival skills are far greater than his. We can catch enough fish and fowl to keep us going until a ship comes by.”
“That’s the problem,” said Pitt. “We can’t survive on what we can catch alone. If Rodney’s missing teeth are any indication, he died from scurvy. A dietary lack of vitamin C and a dozen other nutrients I can think of weakened him until he could no longer function. At that stage of physical erosion, death was just around the corner. If a ship does eventually arrive and put a landing party on shore, they’ll find four skeletons instead of one. I strongly believe it is in our best interests to make every effort to push on while we’re still physically capable.”
“Dirk is right,” Giordino said to Maeve. “Our only chance at seeing city lights again is to leave the island.”
“Build a boat?” demanded Maeve. “With what materials?”
She stood, firmly, gracefully, her arms and legs slim and tan, the flesh taut and young, her head cocked like a wary lynx. Pitt was as captivated as he had been when they were together on board the Ice Hunter.
“A flotation tube from our boat here, the upper works from York’s boat there, throw in a few logs, and pretty soon you’ve got a vessel fit for an ocean voyage.”
“This I have to see,” said Maeve.
“As you wish,” Pitt replied airily. He began drawing a diagram in the sand. “The idea is to connect our boat’s buoyancy tubes under the deck cabin from York’s boat. Then we fashion a pair of beech tree trunks into outriggers for stability and we’ve got ourselves a trimaran.”
“Looks practical to me,” Giordino agreed.
“We need over 130 square meters of sail,” Pitt continued. “We have a mast and a rudder.”
Giordino pointed over to the tent. “York’s old Dacron sails are brittle and rotten with forty years of mildew. The first stiff breeze will crack and blow them into shreds.”
“I’ve considered that,” said Pitt. “The Polynesian mariners wove sails from palm fronds. I see no reason why we can’t weave fully leafed branches from the beech trees to accomplish the same purpose. And we have plenty of extra rigging from the sailboat for shrouds and to lash outriggers to the center hull.”
“How long will it take us to build your trimaran?” asked Maeve, doubt becoming replaced by growing interest.
“I figure we can knock together a vessel and shove oft in three days if we put in long hours.”
“That soon?”
“The construction is not complicated, and thanks to Rodney York, we have the tools to complete the job.”
“Do we continue sailing east or head northeast for Invercargill?” asked Giordino.
Pitt shook his head. “Neither. With Rodney’s navigational instruments and Admiralty charts, I see no reason why I can’t lay a reasonably accurate course for Gladiator Island.”
Maeve looked at him as if he had turned mad, her hands hanging limply at her sides. “That,” she said in bewilderment, “is the craziest notion you’ve come up with yet.”
“May be,” he said, his eyes set and fixed. “But I think it only appropriate that we finish what we set out to do ... rescue your boys.”
“Sounds good to me,” Giordino put in without hesitation. “I’d like a rematch with King Kong, or whatever your sister calls herself when she isn’t crushing car bodies at a salvage yard.”
“I’m indebted to you enough as it is. But—”
“No buts,” said Pitt. “As far as we’re concerned it’s a done deal. We build our hermaphrodite boat, sail it to Gladiator Island, snatch your boys and escape to the nearest port of safety.”
“Escape to safety! Can’t you understand?” Her voice was imploring, almost despairing. “Ninety percent of the island is surrounded by vertical cliffs and precipices impossible to climb. The only landing area is the beach circling the lagoon, and it’s heavily guarded. No one can cross through the reef without being shot. My father has built security defenses a well-armed assault force couldn’t penetrate. If you attempt it, you will surely die.”
“Nothing to be alarmed about,” Pitt said subtly. “Al and I flit on and off islands with the same finesse as we do in and out of ladies’ bedrooms. It’s all in selecting the right time and spot.”
“That and a lot of wrist action,” Giordino added.
“Father’s patrol boats will spot you long before you can enter the lagoon.”
Pitt shrugged. “Not to worry. I have a homespun remedy for dodging nasty old patrol boats that never fails.”
“And dare I ask what it is?”
“Simple. We drop in where they least expect us.”
“Both your brains were boiled by the sun.” She shook her head in defeat. “Do you expect Daddy to ask us in for tea?” Maeve had one remorseful moment of guilt. She saw clearly that she was responsible for the terrible dangers and torment inflicted on these two incredible men who were willing to give up their lives for her twin sons, Michael and Sean. She felt a wave of despondency sweep over her that quickly turned to resignation. She came over and knelt between Pitt and Giordino, placing an arm around each of their necks. “Thank you,” she murmured softly. “How could I be so lucky as to find men as wonderful as you?”
“We make a habit of helping maidens in distress.” Giordino saw the tears welling in her eyes and turned away, genuinely embarrassed.
Pitt kissed Maeve on the forehead. “It’s not as impossible as it sounds. Trust me.”
“If only I had met you what seems like a hundred years ago,” she whispered with a catch in her voice. She looked as if she were about to say more, rose to her feet and quickly walked away to be by herself.
Giordino stared at Pitt curiously. “Can I ask you something?”
“Anything.”
“Do you mind sharing how we’re going to get on and off the island once we arrive offshore?”
“We get on with a kite and a grappling hook I found among York’s gear.”
“And off again?” Giordino prompted, totally confused but unwilling to pursue the subject.
Pitt threw a dried beech log on the fire and watched the sparks swirl upward. “That,” he said, as relaxed as a boy waiting for his bobber to sink at a fishing hole, “that part of the plan I’ll worry about when the time comes.”
Their vessel to escape the island was built on a flat section of rock in a small valley protected from the breeze, thirty meters from the water. They laid out rail-like ways of beech logs to slide their weird creation into the relatively calm waters between the two islands. The demands were not cruel or exacting. They were in better condition than when they arrived and found themselves able to work through the nights, when the atmosphere was coldest, and rest for a few hours during the heat of the day, For the most part, construction went smoothly without major setbacks. The closer they got to completion, the more their fatigue fell away.
Maeve threw herself into weaving two sails from the leafy branches. For simplicity Pitt had decided to step the mast York had salvaged from his ketch, to take a spanker on the mizzen and a square sail on the mainmast. Maeve wove the larger sail for the mainmast first. The first few hours were spent experimenting, but by late afternoon she began to get the hang of it and could weave a square meter in thirty minutes. By the third day, she was down to twenty minutes. Her matting was so strong and tight, Pitt asked her to make a third sail, a triangular jib to set forward of the mainmast.
Together, Pitt and Giordino unbolted and lifted the ketch’s upper deckhouse and mounted it over the forward part of the steering cockpit. This abbreviated section of the ketch was then lashed on top of the buoyancy tubes from their little boat, which now served as the center hull. The next chore was to step the tall aluminum masts, which were reduced in height to compensate for the shorter hull and lack of a deep keel. Since no chain plates could be attached to the neoprene buoyancy tubes, the shrouds and stays to support the masts were slung u
nder the hull and joined at a pair of turnbuckles. When finished, the hybrid craft had the appearance of a sailboat perched on a hovercraft.
The following day, Pitt reset the ketch’s rudder to ride higher in the water, rigging it to a long tiller, a more efficient system for steering a trimaran. Once the rudder was firmly in place and swung to his satisfaction, he attacked the forty-year-old outboard engine, cleaning the carburetor and fuel lines before overhauling the magneto.
Giordino went to work on the outriggers. He chopped down and trimmed two sturdy beech trees whose trunks curved near their tops. Next he placed the logs alongside the hull and extended them out with the curved sections facing forward like a pair of skis. The outriggers were then lashed to cross-member logs that ran laterally across the hull near the bow and just aft of the cockpit and were braced fore and aft. Giordino was quite pleased with himself, after he put a shoulder against the outriggers and heaved mightily, proclaiming them solid and rigid with no indication of give.
As they sat around the fire at dawn, warding off the early morning chill of the southern latitudes, Pitt pored over York’s navigational and plotting charts. At noon he took sights of the sun with the sextant, and later, at night, he shot several stars. Then with the aid of the nautical almanac and the “Short Method” tables that cut trigonometry calculations to bare bones, he practiced fixing his position until his figures accurately matched the known latitude and longitude of the Misery Islands on the chart.
“Think you can hit Gladiator Island on the nose?” Maeve asked him over dinner on the second evening before the launch.
“If not the nose, then the chin,” Pitt said cheerfully. “Which reminds me, I’ll need a detailed map of the island.”
“How detailed?”
“Every building, every path and road, and I’d like it all to scale.”
“I’ll draw you a map from memory as accurately as I can,” Maeve promised.
Giordino chewed on a small thigh from a frigate bird Pitt had managed to shoot with his miniature automatic pistol. “What do you make the distance?”
“Precisely 478 kilometers as the crow flies.”
“Then it’s closer than Invercargill.”
“That’s the beauty of it.”
“How many days will it take to arrive?” asked Maeve.
“Impossible to say,” answered Pitt. “The first leg of the voyage will be the hardest, tacking to windward until we pick up friendly currents and easterly breezes blowing off New Zealand. With no keel to carve the water and prevent them being blown sideways, trimarans are notoriously inept when it comes to sailing into the wind. The real challenge will come after we set off. Without a shakedown cruise we’re in the dark as to her sailing qualities. She may not tack to windward at all, and we may end up being blown back toward South America.”
“Not a comforting thought,” said Maeve, her mind clouded with the appalling implications of a ninety-day endurance trial. “When I think about it, I’d just as soon remain on dry land and end up like Rodney York.”
The day before the launch was one of feverish activity. Final preparations included the manufacture of Pitt’s mystery kite, which was folded and stowed in the deckhouse along with 150 meters of light nylon line from York’s boat that had retained its integral strength. Then their meager supplies of foodstuffs were loaded on board along with the navigational instruments, charts and books. Cheers erupted over the barren rocks when the outboard motor coughed to life after four decades and nearly forty pulls on the starter rope by Pitt, who felt as if his arm was about to fall off.
“You did it!” Maeve shouted delightedly.
Pitt spread his hands in a modest gesture. “Child’s play for somebody who restores antique and classic automobiles. The main problems were a clogged fuel line and a gummed-up carburetor.”
“Nice going, pal,” Giordino congratulated him. “A motor will come in handy during our approach to the island.”
“We were lucky the fuel cans were airtight and none of the contents evaporated after all these years. As it is, the gas has almost turned to shellac, so we’ll have to keep a sharp eye on the fuel filter. I’m not keen on flushing out the carburetor every thirty minutes.”
“How many hours of fuel did York leave us?”
“Six hours, maybe seven.”
Later, with Giordino’s help, Pitt mounted the outboard motor to brackets on the stern section of the cockpit. For a final touch, the steering compass was installed just forward of the tiller. After the woven-mat sails were attached to the mast, gaffs and booms with spiral lacing, the sails were raised and lowered with only a minor bind or two. Then they all stood back and stared at their creation. The boat looked reasonably businesslike, but by no stroke of the imagination could she be called pretty. She sat squat and ugly, the outriggers adding to her look of awkwardness. Pitt doubted whether any boats that ever sailed the seven seas were as bizarre as this one.
“She’s not exactly what you’d call sleek and elegant,” mused Giordino.
“Nor will she ever be entered in the America’s Cup Race,” added Pitt.
“You men fail to see her inner beauty,” said Maeve fancily. “She must have a name. It wouldn’t be fitting if she wasn’t christened. What if we call her the Never Say Die?”
“Fitting,” said Pitt, “but not in keeping with mariners’ superstitions of the sea. For good luck she should have a woman’s name.”
“How about the Marvelous Maeve?” offered Giordino.
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Pitt. “It’s corny but cute. I’ll vote for it.”
Maeve laughed. “I’m flattered, but modesty dictates something more proper, say like Dancing Dorothy II.”
“Then it’s two against one,” Giordino said solemnly, “Marvelous Maeve she is.”
Giving in, Maeve found an old rum bottle cast off by Rodney York and filled it with seawater for the launching. “I christen thee Marvelous Maeve,” she said, laughing, and broke the bottle against one of the beech logs lashed to the buoyancy tubes. “May you swim the seas with the speed of a mermaid.”
“Now comes our fitness exercise,” said Pitt. He passed out lines attached to the forward section of the middle hull. Everyone looped one end of a line around their waist, dug in their feet and leaned forward. Slowly, stubbornly, the boat began to slide over the tree trunks laid on the ground like railroad tracks. Still weakened from a lack of proper food and their ordeal, the three quickly used up their depleted strength dragging the boat toward a two-meter precipice rising from the water.
Maeve, as was to be expected by now, pulled her heart out until she could go no further and sagged to her hands and knees, heart pounding, lungs heaving for air. Pitt and Giordino hauled the great deadweight another ten meters before casting off the lines and dropping to the ground ahead of Maeve. Now the boat teetered on the edge of the ends of two beech-log ways that angled down and under the low rolling waves.
Several minutes passed. The sun was a quarter of the way past the eastern horizon, and the sea was innocent of any sign of turbulence. Pitt slipped the rope loop from around his waist and threw it on the boat. “I guess there’s no reason to put off the inevitable any longer.” He climbed into the cockpit, swung the outboard motor down on its hinges and pulled at the starter rope. This time it popped to life on the second try.
“Are you two up to giving our luxury yacht a final nudge over the edge?” he said to Maeve and Giordino.
“After having gone to all this work to stir up my hormones,” Giordino grumbled, “what’s in it for me?”
“A tall gin and tonic on the house,” Pitt replied.
“Promises, promises. That’s sadism of the worst kind,” Giordino groused. He slipped a muscled arm around Maeve’s waist, pulled her to her feet and said, “Push, lovely lady, it’s time to bid a fond farewell to this rockbound hell.”
The two of them moved aft, stiffened their arms, hands against the stern, and shoved with all their remaining strength. The Marvelous
Maeve moved reluctantly, then picked up speed as the forward section dipped over the edge onto the ways, and the stern lifted. She hung poised for two seconds, then dove into the water with a heavy splash that flew to the sides, before settling flat on the surface. Pitt’s rationale for starting the outboard motor now became apparent as he had instant control of the boat against the flow of the current. He quickly circled it back to the edge of the low cliff. As soon as the bow gently bumped against the sheer rock, Giordino held Maeve by her wrists and gently lowered her down onto the roof of the deckhouse. Then he jumped and landed on his feet, as agile as a gymnast, beside her.
“That concludes the entertainment part of the program,” said Pitt, reversing the outboard.
“Shall we raise my sails?” asked Maeve, personalizing the pride of her accomplishment.
“Not yet. We’ll motor around to the leeward side of the island where the sea is calmer before we test the wind.”
Giordino helped Maeve step past the deckhouse and into the cockpit. They sat down to rest a moment while Pitt steered the boat through the channel and into the swells sweeping around the north and south end of the two deserted islands. They no sooner reached the open sea than the sharks appeared.
“Look,” said Giordino, “our friends are back. I’ll bet they missed our company.”
Maeve leaned over the side and peered at the long gray shapes moving under the surface. “A new group of followers,” she said. “These are makos.”
“The species with the jagged and uneven teeth only an orthodontist could love?”
“The same.”
“Why do they plague me?” Giordino moaned. “I’ve never ordered shark in a restaurant.”
Half an hour later, Pitt gave the order. “Okay, let’s try the sails and see what kind of a boat we’ve concocted.”
Giordino unfolded the woven-mat sails, which Maeve had carefully reefed in accordion pleats, and hoisted the mainsail successfully while Maeve raised the mizzen. The sails filled, and Pitt eased over the tiller, skidding the boat on a tack, heading northwest against a brisk west wind.
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