Denver Is Missing

by D. F. Jones

  Finally we emerged into the open air, the first part of our job completed. Bill’s face was scarlet, and he was down to a pair of very brief shorts. The sweat poured off him.

  For all his flow of invective about shipwrights in general, and the guy who had installed the bunk in particular, he had been thinking ahead. We got no rest.

  “Bette—nip up to the forepeak. You’ll find a block and tackle stowed right forrard. Bring that—and a couple of strops.”

  She soon returned with the gear.

  “Right,” said Bill. “Now listen, all of you. We’re going to heave her down. We’ve got to be careful in case we do more damage, so I want you to understand what we are doing. We’ll secure one end of the tackle to that.” He pointed to an insignificant palm stump beside the water. “The other end will be secured to the mast about a foot above deck level. Then we all get on the hauling rope of the tackle. This’ll double the strength of our pull, and we’ll cant Mayfly over a bit more this way, thus exposing the hole still more as the tide falls. Right?”

  It sounded simple, but in practice there was more to it. For a start, Bill and I crawled around under the leaning hull, removing every stone or bit of driftwood that might damage the hull as she moved over. Then he splashed around, checking that the deep keel was free of obstructions, which it wasn’t, and we sweated away with an entrenching tool underwater, clearing the sand from the keel.

  Finally we got on that hauling rope and lost some more weight, and at last got the yacht hove down another five to ten degrees. The hole was above water.

  It was a nasty, jagged hole, some six inches in diameter, surrounded by splintered wood. We had nearly two minutes rest while Bill surveyed it, and then it was all action again.

  Bette and Karen were detailed off to pump out. Bill got down to it, kneeling in the water, cutting away the splintered wood with a pad-saw. I dug out a spare length of plank he kept under the mattress of the bunk, and he cut a piece to fit the hole. He would fit this from the inside, filling the joint with oakum and white lead. I would do the same from the outside. Then he would screw a retaining batten across the back of the repair to hold it, while I cleaned off the surrounding hull, ready for what he called a “tingle.”

  We worked away, Bill’s colorful language giving the lurid melody to the steady rhythmic thump of the pump as the girls kept at it in the cockpit. I was quite thankful when the new piece of wood was in position and Bill’s voice diminished to a low rumble.

  He’d finished, and joined me when Bette leaned over the side, pushing back her hair from a sweat-streaked face, and announced that the hull was clear of water.

  “Good,” said Bill, not taking his eyes off the hull. “Now, you and Karen take the dinghy, and go and dive for the anchor cable. Get it up, and buoy it with something— driftwood, or an empty plastic container.”

  Bette nodded and went off to give the glad news to Karen. Bill took off for a final inspection of the patch inside, and it was just Karen’s luck to meet him.

  “Bill, can I get at our swimsuits?”

  Naturally, these were some of the few items that had remained dry, being kept in an upper drawer under the double bunk, now buried under bits of the single bunk. Bill practically exploded.

  “What the bloody hell d’you think this is! I’d parade the pair of you Harry Starkers on TV if it’d get that cable back ten minutes faster! We kedge off at the next high water, and we need that anchor, so get moving!”

  Karen got moving. Bill disappeared below, muttering something about “women.”

  By now the heat was colossal, sheltered as we were from the slightest breeze. I could hear Bill putting in a final screw or two, while I scraped bare the hull surrounding the hole. I took time out to give the girls a longing look— in more ways than one. They were swell. I had glimpses of their white bodies, glistening in the sun, as they came up from a dive, or slipped into the water from the orange dinghy…. They looked like a couple—

  Bill dropped onto the sand, stared at the repair, then glanced at the girls. “Godalmighty! Haven’t they found it yet?” The fine view of one of their rear ends as she clambered into the dinghy meant nothing to him. He produced a sheet of copper and a bag of copper tacks.

  “Is that a tingle?”

  He grunted, examining my work minutely. “Um. Not bad.” We applied another liberal coat of white lead, then the copper tingle. Bill was meticulous; it had to be just right. We sweated away until the job was done. He stood back, oblivious to everything except that patch. I saw then that the one true and enduring love of his life was Mayfly. That repair had to be as good as he could make it, not just because our lives could so easily depend upon it, but because it was a repair to Mayfly. Watching that tense face, the sweat coursing down each side of the beaky nose, I knew a lot more about the man.

  Bill splashed and wallowed around the hull, inspecting it. He was pleased to find that there was little marine growth on it, and that pleased me as well. Otherwise we’d have been at it, scraping the whole boat. We manned the tackle once more, and slowly eased the yacht back to her original list. Again Bill checked the hull.

  A shout from the diving party drew our attention. Karen was standing up, balancing precariously in the dinghy, holding aloft the end of the cable. In that position, the cable wasn’t the only thing on display, but it was all Bill was interested in. He waved his acknowledgment.

  “Thank God for that! We’ll have to kedge off, and without that we would be right up a gum-tree.”

  The girls were coming back, excited and very proud of themselves. Both had shirts draped over their shoulders against the sun. Before they could land, Bill ordered them off to the north shore to recover the stern line.

  “There’s nothing more we can do now,” said Bill reluctantly. “We can only wait. It’s me for a swim.” Without further ado he stripped off his shorts and plunged in and I followed. It was marvelous. It seemed impossible that this stuff that now afforded such luxury should be the same thing that had me in the last stages of fear so few hours before. We splashed around as the girls rowed back to the beach. Bill’s idea of a swim was well timed; it gave the girls a chance to get ashore and into some pants in reasonable privacy, which they did, and a few minutes later they called us in.

  They were both, very reasonably, pleased with themselves. Diving in twenty or more feet of water had been no joke after the first ten minutes. They had had to find the anchor which was in the shallows, and then work outward for the end of the cable. Bill said a few suitable words, and that went over well. Then they produced their surprise: two coconuts, found wedged up among the palms on the north shore. Again Bill congratulated them, and said we would have the nuts with our meal. All trivial stuff, but it kept the atmosphere relaxed and friendly, and I had a suspicion that Karen, now that the danger was past, was only waiting for an opening to start something.

  We had a meal of melting corned beef, crackers, and a can of beer each. Bill ordained that the girls should have the milk from the coconuts, and we all shared the soft flesh, scraped out of the shells, which was first-class. There is as much difference between the fresh nut and the fairground specimen as there is between fresh and dried apricots.

  Bill allowed us no rest. Perhaps he too sensed that Karen was looking for trouble, and did not want to slap her down, which he would surely do if she got in the way of Mayfly’s deliverance. He directed the girls to get on with the reloading of the stores, for everything was bone dry after a few hours in that sun. Bill and I took the three-quarter-inch nylon and rowed out to the buoyed anchor cable. He joined the two with some intricate knot, then I pulled back to the beach, with Bill paying out the nylon. It was backbreaking work, the rope got steadily heavier as we reached the shore, and, decently, I was allowed nearly five minutes rest.

  Bill, who knew what he was doing, had been saving his strength for the next operation. This was hauling in the nylon. Some of it came in by hand, but there was no question of getting all the slack in that way.
There the block and tackle came into play once more; I was beginning to dislike that device quite a lot. By securing the standing part of the tackle to the mast, and the other to the nylon rope as far out as was practicable, we got in the slack, and that was as far as we could go in that direction. With the dinghy free, the girls were sent off to look for any more coconuts, which sounded like a gag to me, but they swallowed it.

  By six the heat was off in more ways than one. The sun was well down, and Bill could not think of anything else to do. He estimated that high water would be at approximately nine o’clock. The girls had not had much luck: one coconut and two of our missing oranges.

  We had a final swim before the sun left us. By tacit consent, there was no chat about swimsuits. I had a sneaky feeling that Bill, who habitually wore the British-type short shorts, would have liked to keep them on, but didn’t dare. Not that this was a gay bathing party with orgy to follow. We had all been at full stretch since dawn, with no time or inclination for anything except the job in hand. It had been evident to me, with my special knowledge of what was lurking in Karen’s mind, that she was very anxious to say a few words, but Bill appeared not to notice. Mayfly was first, and the rest nowhere. Karen could have been a three-headed ape for all he cared, so long as she did her job. Maybe that added to her foul disposition. She sprang what could have been a tricky situation while we bathed.

  Three of us were just paddling around, relaxing and saying nothing. Karen was kneeling in the dinghy. Suddenly, impulsively, she straightened up, pulled one breast slightly to one side, and called out, her voice loaded with artificial surprise, “Mitch—look what you did!” There were four livid marks, finger marks.

  I swallowed some Pacific. “Who—me?”

  “Yes, you—you know when!” She sounded as coy as a nightclub hostess dressed as an olde worlde shepherdess. She let go of her damaged member, clasped her hands behind her head, and smiled with incredible brightness at me. This was sheer exhibitionism. Nice too, but not like this.

  “Like hell I do!” I did not look at Bill, and I stopped looking at Karen as well. Was she going to blow the gaff on my rush of blood to the head of the night before?

  Then she let down. I think she knew she was hitting me with her swings at Bill. “Yes—up on the ledge this morning! You practically dug holes in me!” Again the bright smile, this time beamed at Bill. He refused to be drawn.

  “If that’s all that SARAH did to you, be thankful!” His tone was uncompromising, warning. He turned and pad-died off for another look at Mayfly, leaving Karen with the problem of how to get her arms down and still look as if the whole thing had been accidental. Bette had swum quietly off; I decided I’d had all the relaxation I could take, got ashore, and dressed.

  Supper came and went, another “alfresco” meal eaten in the gloom of the atoll walls. Karen was back in her shell, Bill and Bette exchanged remarks about the launch of the yacht, and I kept quiet. None of us even mentioned the tidal waves; the experience was too recent. Also Karen and I were close to complete exhaustion; Bill was kept going by Mayfly and her needs. Bette? I didn’t know about her.

  Bill and I had filled in the time before supper collecting driftwood, and as night descended like the sudden, silent lowering of a theater curtain, we got a fire going. Bill wanted all the light he could get for the launch attempt, and we made some more tea, conserving our butane supplies in the process. Bill got jumpier all the time, watching the rising tide, and inspecting the yacht every few minutes. At eight o’clock he said this was it, and we got moving. He had run over the drill while we were waiting, several times.

  The line out to the anchor was already taut. Now we got the moving part of the tackle secured to this line, and the other end lashed to the stern post. All three of us had to do was to haul the yacht back into the water. Karen handled a flashlight and was generally available to be sworn at.

  It was a very tough job; our first few attempts produced nothing except blisters. I marveled at Bette’s stamina; she worked as hard as a man, but without the grumbling or cursing. In between our efforts, Bill clucked around his boat like an old hen. For a short distance the generous curve of the hull on the starboard side would have to take a lot of weight, and slide over rough sand, which might conceal lumps of sharp rock.

  We tried again. Time was getting short; only another fifteen minutes, Bill estimated, to high water. If she did not move then, we would have to wait for another twelve or so hours, and squatting on that sand, Mayfly was not going to get any looser with the passage of time….

  “Now, come on, this time—everything you’ve got!”

  We gave it everything. For an age we strained, our feet deep in the sand, yet still slipping. My back was sheer agony.

  Karen cried out, “She moved! She moved!”

  At that, we put in a little extra. There was no doubt the yacht had moved, then stopped.

  “Right! Give it a rest!” Bill’s face was impossibly ruddy in the light of the dancing flames. He inspected the hull once more.

  “Right. This time no jerking, a good steady pull.”

  He got his steady pull. Mayfly moved, stopped, moved again, grating over the sand. Karen cried out in excitement. Bette and I fell over as the tackle went slack. Bill, of course, kept his feet. He jumped into the water and disappeared from our small circle of light. We heard him splashing as he floundered aboard. “Come on, Mitch!”

  I stopped to take my shirt and pants off. When I scrambled aboard he had an oil lamp lit. He spoke as if I had taken time out to see a movie on the way.

  “Ah, there you are! Get that tackle unrigged and stow it in the forepeak.”

  Shivering, I did it. He walked the nylon line forrard from the stem to the bow. We didn’t dare start the engine with loose rope over the stem, near the propeller, and he wanted steerage way on her quickly. Drifting on a rock-bound lagoon in the dark is not healthy. I took the rope, Bill started the engine. Cautiously I hauled in, bringing the yacht’s bow around to face the anchor. He engaged the clutch and we began to move. We had scarcely got started when he disengaged the engine again.

  “Bugger!” Bill said softly. Then he raised his voice. ‘‘You girls coming?”

  Bette answered, “Not if we have any option! The sleeping cabin’s a wreck. Pick us up at dawn—okay?”

  “Right. See you then.” The girls vanished from his mind. “Mitch—haul the line in as we motor up to the join in the cable. Shout if I get off course.” He stifled his impatience while I put on a sweater.

  We reached the end of the cable and got that secured once more. I thought we might call it a day but Bill had other ideas. “Watch her, Mitch, we can’t afford to swing too much. Don’t forget there’s no stern line tonight.”

  He went below to check for leaks. When he returned he was smiling for the first time in hours. “So far, so good. The patch is all right, and there’s no sign of a leak round the keel. Shan’t be long.” He disappeared below again.

  I heard a lot of hammering and cursing, and it was a half hour before he emerged, clutching the rum bottle and two glasses.

  “Been refixing the bilge-pump,” he explained, adding with great intensity, “God! I’d like to meet the gent who fitted that! Still, it’s back.” He poured out two large drinks, which I certainly needed. I seemed fated to stand around without pants. He did not appear to notice my state, or, for that matter, his own soaked condition. “Well, here’s to us.” He waved the bottle toward the dying embers of the fire ashore. “And to Grant’s Island—and Grant.”

  “Grant nothing! If it weren’t for you we’d all be cold turkey by now!”

  He pulled out his pipe and pouch—waterproof, naturally—and said, “Pure self-interest, old boy. Actually, I think we’ve all borne up pretty well in trying circumstances.”

  “Trying circumstances! That’s a swell description!”

  He grinned faintly. “With all you Yanks aboard, I have to be British now and then.” He looked toward the fire. “Hope the gir
ls are comfortable. A night ashore may do ’em good.” He did not amplify that statement, and went on in a different tone. “We’re a selfish lot of bastards really, when you get down to rock bottom. Till now, I’ve not had a single thought about the effect of those waves elsewhere, have you?”

  In actual fact it had occurred to me after supper, but this was no time to introduce a discordant note. “We have been a mite busy.”

  He was staring into his glass. “We’d never have made it at sea, you know, Mitch. When that line parted I really thought we had had it. Bette was bloody terrific!” He shivered. “Must get out of these clothes. We’ll have to go into two watches for the night. Toss you who has the first one.”

  He lost. We had a final drink, he changed, then I went below, amazed at the lack of strain between us. Karen could be right—maybe he had laid my girl the night before, and yet at that moment it meant nothing. Possibly I just didn’t believe it. Karen was as jealous as hell and could well be wrong as hell, too.

  The sleeping cabin was a shambles—the single bunk dismantled, drawers and flooring piled on the double bunk, the bare hull and ribs of Mayfly gleaming wetly in the light of my flash—but as he said, there was no sign of a leak.

  I got someone’s pants on and went back to the saloon, cleared a space, and was asleep the second I hit the cushions.

  The night passed peacefully, and at first light we got moving. We had checked the hull for leaks every hour, and apart from one very slight weep, the hull was watertight. Bill shouted across to the girls to get ready, and we motored close to the beach. Within a half hour we had loaded the few remaining stores, stowing the stuff anywhere out of the way. Bill was in a fever of impatience to get to sea; he restarted the engine before Bette and I had the dinghy out of the water. Slowly we turned and headed out through the gap to the open sea and a light breeze. It was only then I realized why he was in a hurry. This was high water, and he did not want to risk scraping that rim of the crater again.