Webb loosened his safety belt, moved forward to the pilot. He bent down, lifted him.
The pilot said, “Get your damned hands off me.”
His chin slumped hard against his kapok life jacket. Webb dragged him to the rear of the plane. The co-pilot was lining the women up. The navigator waited until the loop was crossed about the first woman’s middle; then carrying the big life raft, the stepped out the escape hatch.
The co-pilot watched him go, an odd, sad expression on his face. He turned. “All you men, line up behind the women. Fast now. Move.” He spoke to the woman first in line. “There’s just a little slack between you and the navigator. When you get out there, lower yourself slowly. If you jump, put your arms over your face. You got that? The navigator will have the first cell inflated in the raft. There’s a rope ladder for you to climb into the raft. Okay, honey. Go ahead. See you in Sydney.”
Webb said, “The pilot’s unconscious. You better get him on that daisy chain as quick as you can.”
The co-pilot looped the rope about the pilot. Together they lifted the pilot through the hatch, sliding him over the side. They pulled their heads back in. “God, is it cold out there!” the pilot said.
They played out more slack, looped the next woman in the rope. Hardly conscious he was doing it, Webb looked about for Krayer’s wife. She wasn’t standing in the line. He tried to remember if she’d already gone over the side. He scowled, unable to remember.
Webb heard Krayer’s voice. “What’s the matter, pilot? Are you crazy? Twenty-eight people in one twenty-man raft?”
The co-pilot stared at Krayer a second without answering. He went back to work, looping the line about the waists of the other passengers.
Krayer moved, forward to where the pilot had dropped the utility raft.
“It’s defective.” The co-pilot’s voice was tired.
Krayer knelt beside the raft. “These things should have been tested. How do you suppose twenty-eight people will survive in one raft?”
The co-pilot looped two more lengths of line about passengers. His voice quavered. “Mister, I got all I need to worry about.”
“Sending all these people out there in one raft.” Krayer was working with the trigger of the defective raft.
The two women remaining in line were crying. The co-pilot jerked his head at Webb. They speeded up the line, moving the crying women out. Some of the men were praying now, voices quivering.
Krayer said, “My wife and I aren’t leaving this plane under such conditions.”
The co-pilot kept the line moving. His voice was so full of anger, it cracked. “Everybody leaves this plane exactly as I order. You … your wife … everybody. We’re together out there. We’ll be easy to find that way. By dawn the plane will find us.”
“By dawn that overloaded raft will be capsized.” Krayer’s voice was calm.
A man sobbed; it was a pain-filled sound. The other men were whispering prayers. The co-pilot kept them moving.
But Webb stopped working. He was aware of gas fumes in the plane, and his head ached. It was what Krayer had said that had stopped him, hit him hard. “My wife and I aren’t leaving this plane.”
Webb dropped the line, pushed his way through the knot of men. He was beside his own seat when he saw her. She was stretched out against the bulkhead. Her blonde hair was tumbled over the seat rest, and her fingers were white claws digging into the fabric.
Webb leaned over her. She looked up, eyes tormented, lines rutted about her mouth. “Will you help me?” she whispered. “Will you please help me?”
Webb knelt on the seat and tried to lift her. She gasped and her eyes dilated. He thought she was going to faint. She bit hard on her full underlip, digging her fingers into his arm.
“The seat … in front,” she gasped. “It was driven back on my foot. I can’t get free.”
Webb slid his hands down her legs to where the twisted metal had trapped her just above her ankle.
The co-pilot’s voice was loud as Webb worked trying to lift the broken seat. “There’s no more time in here. The fumes are too bad. Go out the hatch. Hold to the rope. No matter what happens, hold that rope. It’s rough out there. Be smart, move fast. Maybe you can loop the line about yourself as you go over the side. The hell with slack! Loop that line and jump. Feet first. Let’s go.”
The men clutched at the rope and scrambled up the ladder. The co-pilot found the end of it and stood and waited. His gaze found Krayer still working with the CO2 induction tube of the raft.
“Let’s go, Mr. Krayer. Water is coming in that hatch. We got no time.”
Krayer didn’t glance up. His voice was cold. “Go ahead, pilot, I’m no longer any concern of yours.”
The co-pilot reached for the gun on his hip. “I told you, let’s go, Krayer.”
Krayer glanced up with a contemptuous smile. “Shooting me seems a futile gesture at this juncture.”
The co-pilot stood there a moment longer, then went up the ladder and over the side.
Webb got both hands under the seat. He lifted, straining the muscles in his arms and shoulders. He put one hand on the metal. With the other he pressed down on Fran Krayer’s ankle with all his strength.
Fran screamed.
“Your foot’s free,” Webb told her. “Help me lift you out of here.”
She clasped her arms around him. “I can’t feel anything in my ankle.”
He lifted her and started through the aisle. His gaze took in a dozen disjointed scenes as he moved: a coat thrown across a chair rest; a magazine lying folded open; a box of candy on the deck.
There was sudden hissing noise from the raft on which Krayer was working. Krayer clutched the thing up in his arms and thrust his way up the ladder. He just made it to the hatch, clinging to a side cord as the raft began to explode and pop open.
The son of a bitch, Webb thought. He did it.
Krayer stood on the top rung, clinging with all his strength to the raft. “Take my wrist, Fran. Grab it with all your strength. Hold on. I warn you. We get separated, that’s it. I got all I can do to hold this raft.”
Webb shoved Fran all the way up the ladder, pushing Krayer through the hatch ahead of her. He saw Krayer clutch Fran’s wrist, pulling her after him over the side.
For a second they hung there: Fran trying to pull herself over the side, with water rolling in heavy against her, spilling down the ladder and running in long black lines along the aisle. Then Webb couldn’t see them. He looked around once and started up the ladder.
A wave washed over the plane and struck Webb, soaking him, spilling all around him into the plane. There was going to be no second chance. This was it. He had to get out before the next wave struck or he wouldn’t get out at all.
He pulled himself up through the hatch as far as he could. He got his knees against the sill and braced himself.
He saw the wave coming. It was mountainous. It was doom itself: cold black and growling down at him.
He sprang outward, as hard and far as he could go, trying to get away from that open hatch and the floundering plane. As he jumped he thought bitterly, They always warn you to jump feet first. Hell, that’s for people who go over the easy way.
FOUR
THEY WERE GONE. The life rafts and the people had been washed away into the blackness and the wind.
He rolled helplessly, caught in the swell of a wave. Finally, he caught a full breath. His nostrils filled with water and he felt himself strangling.
He struggled in the deep narrow trough between the waves and tried to right himself. Then he felt the next wave lifting him. No matter how he fought, he rolled, helpless in the kapok jacket.
He felt the surge of anger in him. Had the guys who made these things ever had to use them in water like this? Sure, you stayed on top, but that was no good if you bobbled like a cork.
He looked around in the darkness. When he reached a crest he could see over the tops of other waves. But they were all alike and he was alone in a
million miles of them.
He shivered. There was no sound but the wind. He thought about the raft and the way Krayer had inflated it. He wondered if Krayer had been able to hang on to it in this wind? Sure. Krayer might lose his wife, but he wasn’t going to lose that raft.
The shivering spread all the way through him. He touched his face. His flesh felt numbed with cold. The chill went through him like a slow sword.
He looked around again, without hope. Maybe if he kicked out of this damned jacket…. He’d have to swim then. How far could he swim? A hundred yards. Two hundred. What difference did it make? This jacket was good for only one thing, to help you to a slow death.
He pulled at the jacket. The knots had swelled, his hands were like fins. He couldn’t even close his fingers on the swollen knots.
Fine. He was freezing to death and he couldn’t get out of this life jacket. He’d have to lie chilled until he died of exposure.
He forced his arms and legs to move. Blood started circulating slowly, seeping sluggishly in his veins. He breathed deeply, rapidly, thrashing about and wondering all the time why he was doing it.
He felt the awesome depth of this water, the miles of sea beneath him. Hell with all that around him. He got the empty feeling of his vulnerable navel. He had to pull his lips into a smile at the thought. He was open to attack from below — that was for sure.
He told himself to lift his head, forget about it. One way of dying was like another. He stared up at the sky, littered with stars. He shivered, getting that same feeling of limitlessness. Either way it was infinite, and he got a feeling of loneliness he’d never even imagined until this moment — a cosmic loneliness.
He caught at his jacket, trying to rip it off. If only he could get out of this thing, he could swim enough to get warm. Just to die warm seemed suddenly good.
He cursed himself. He should know better than to wish for a quick death. This life vest was his curse and he was going to die slowly, sixty long seconds in every cold minute.
Something cracked him across the skull. It was as if lightning struck him. The sea and the sky changed places. He saw a sudden moon, bigger than the sun, close enough to touch. And then there were a hundred moons and he was blanking out.
He shook his head, trying to clear it. Even through the overwhelming sense of fatigue and pain, Webb knew if he fainted or slept he wasn’t going to wake up.
He kept moving his legs. His brain had got the message through and now that the legs had started kicking, they couldn’t stop.
He felt something hot streak along his cheek and then he tasted blood. His chill-rigid hand came up slowly, tracing along the gash in his scalp. God, he thought, if my blood ever gets warm enough to run again, I’ll bleed to death.
He jerked his hand away from the skull wound and his arm struck something. He fought himself around in the water and touched it: cold, flat, smooth. The next wave almost carried it away from him.
He struck out, swimming awkwardly, clinging to the debris that had struck him in the head. He clasped it, pulling himself to it. A piece of the wing. Probably it had been torn loose before the ship sank.
He ran his arm as far as he could across the wing. His heart beat faster. The piece of wing was so large he couldn’t reach all the way across it.
A building wave pulled at the wing and panic struck him. He closed his fingers, kicking his feet and fighting up on the wing. It sank slightly under his weight but was large enough to support him.
The thrust of the wave lifted him up on the wing. He caught the trailing edge and fell flat across it. As the wave started down, it almost carried him with it. He threw his arms wide and hugged at the wing.
This was going to happen every time a wave struck. He lay panting on the debris. Staying on this thing would keep him moving and warm and awake.
He dragged himself to the narrowest part of the wing, let his legs dangle. He kicked. When the next wave rose it carried him along the wing instead of off it.
He wiped the blood from his forehead. He didn’t bother to get mad. He was cold, and fatigue slid over him every time he relaxed for a moment. But his troubles weren’t over. Now there was the blood. And the blood would bring the sharks.
He kept kicking, kept sliding along the wing, moving with the waves. He began to lose the sense of motion and yet he kept his legs scissoring under the water. Time no longer meant anything. He forgot where he was. The winds rose and the waves grew higher, and then toward dawn, the winds died and the sea got calm.
In the first gray light he saw the raft.
• • •
First, he thought it was birds on the water. But there were no birds. It was the raft, less than a hundred feet away. There were two people in it. He saw the sun shining in her hair. He pulled himself up. He saw they had the fabric of the raft buttoned over them; only their heads and arms were out.
He trembled with excitement: they were under covers, they were warm. He sucked in a deep breath. He yelled, “Hello.”
Nothing happened. They went on sitting there in the circular raft, the man punching dully at the water with a hand paddle. The woman’s head was back. Webb felt panic. She was asleep. They were both asleep. They weren’t going to hear him.
“Hello … raft! For God’s sake … Hello!”
She jerked her head up. Hardly knowing he was doing it, Webb kicked his feet and tried to propel the wing toward that raft.
The woman stared at him, shading her eyes. Her voice carried clearly. “Alfred. It’s a man on a piece of debris!”
Alfred moved deliberately. Webb knew that made sense; you took your time moving around in a pneumatic raft. Everything Alfred Krayer did was deliberate. To Webb, waiting, it was like watching a slow-motion picture.
Alfred got to his knees. He waved his arms back and forth before his head. “Keep away from this raft.”
Webb stared. It took a long time to comprehend what Alfred had said. Keep away from this raft.
Webb’s teeth clattered together. He kept kicking, moving the wing toward them. Alfred called out again, “Keep away. I warn you. Keep away.”
Webb’s voice quavered. “God, Krayer, I’m freezing.”
Krayer’s voice was unemotional. “We can’t help you. Keep away. That wing has jagged edges. If you puncture this raft, you won’t help yourself.”
The woman said, “Alfred, he’s hurt. We’ve got to take him in this raft.”
Alfred just looked at her. He sat down then, turning slowly, moving deliberately. He picked up the small paddle and paddled with all his strength away from Webb.
Through a settling haze of madness and delirium, Webb watched the raft being pushed away from him. He tried to yell but his voice came just as a whine, a groan of agony ripped out of him.
He kept kicking. The wing was flat and it glided faster than the bulky, circular, two-celled raft. Webb moved his legs, churning them.
The woman grabbed at the paddle in Alfred’s hands. When he brought it near, she clutched at it. Each time she moved, the raft tilted precariously.
Alfred had to stop paddling on her side of the raft and the bloated tube turned, starting in a circle.
She said, “My God, Alfred, aren’t you human?”
“I certainly am.” He stroked deeply with the paddle.
She looked at Webb for a moment and then back at Alfred. Her voice was deadly calm. “I just made the choice for you. I’ll puncture this raft, Alfred, unless you pick that man up.”
He met her gaze evenly. “Will you? Then the gallant man’s saving you from the plane will have been futile, won’t it, my dear?”
“I don’t care. I’m not going away, leaving him there.”
Alfred stopped paddling, glanced over his shoulder. His voice continued emotionless. “There’s no land near. Small chance of a rescue plane. That man is nearly dead. Taking him on this raft adds weight, slows us down, adds one-third to the odds already against us. View it rationally, my dear. He must be almost dead from exposure. Ther
e is nothing we can do for him — ”
“We could get him dry. Get him warm.”
“And negate our own chances of reaching land.”
She studied Alfred’s face, finally took a deep breath. “You’re the one who isn’t thinking, Alfred. If you save that man, you’d have another man to help you work, help you stay alive, to keep watches, keep this raft moving as straight as possible. How long are you going to last alone? How much more help would he be than I am?”
Alfred dipped the paddle into the water, stopped. He gazed at her a long time, glanced again at the wing-tip. Finally he nodded. “I’m proud of you, Fran. Your logic is sound. Perhaps living with me hasn’t been a complete waste after all.”
“No,” she said. Her voice was empty. She turned on her knees, her arms over the side of the raft, and watched Webb. “No. At least, I’ve learned to reason like a scientist. Isn’t that wonderful?”
FIVE
HOW NEARLY he’d missed her even after he found the raft again….
Webb lay prostrated across the wing and watched Alfred Krayer get up to his knees in the raft. They were less than fifty feet apart and the sea was quieter. Krayer called out to him. “Can you hear me? Then listen. Listen and keep that wing away from this raft. Get off that wing. If you can swim to us, we’ll try to get you aboard.”
“Alfred, that’s cruel,” Fran said.
Alfred might have been speaking to a cretin idiot. “Not nearly as cruel as allowing him to puncture this raft.”
Webb rolled off the wing, flailing his arms and kicking his feet. His arms were almost completely paralyzed. He’d held them in one position all night and now when he tried to lift them, shafts of agony passed through him.
He kicked with his legs and tried to paddle with his arms under him. Alfred watched him, completely detached. Fran crouched over the side of the raft, arms extended toward him. He tried to keep his eyes on her face. A pink mist settled between him and the raft. Once he heard Alfred telling him he was swimming the wrong way.
The Naked Jungle Page 2
