The Peter & Charlie Trilogy

by Gordon Merrick

  “Go below,” Charlie shouted at him.

  In answer, Peter crashed into the cockpit and was flung against the leeward bulwark and vomited over the side. He was trembling from head to foot. Charlie lunged forward and grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him to him. Peter fell on his knees against him.

  “Go below,” Charlie shouted. “Get dry. Put blankets over you. Stay there.”

  Peter looked up at him with an exhausted but jaunty smile. “I’ve got to stay with you.”

  “Don’t be a damn fool. Nobody can do anything now. I’ll get you if I need you.”

  “Promise?”

  Charlie nodded and gave him a little push. He scuttled across the deck almost on his hands and knees and crashed against the hatchway door and dropped down the companionway. Charlie drew a deep breath of relief, and then remembered Jack. He looked forward and saw him slumped down on the deck halfway aft, vomiting in his turn over the side. Drunken bastard, Charlie thought. “Get back here,” he yelled.

  Jack crawled back and collapsed into the cockpit. “Jib’s secured,” he called brokenly.

  “Go rest,” Charlie shouted. “Turn on the running lights. Come back when you’re feeling better.”

  Only when he was alone did Charlie fully register how dark it was. He lifted himself cautiously and peered ahead. Hi skin crawled and he went cold all over.

  His first thought was that he was sailing into the gates of hell. The dark smudge had become a seething black mass that was about to engulf them. He looked behind him. There was still some gray light back there. His hands were trembling on the wheel. Should he turn back? He would never be able to get the boat about alone. Would the motor help? Perhaps, but when he thought of the moment when they would have to take the seas broadside, he quailed. He tried to reason with himself. It was only weather. As a kid, he had been through what everybody had agreed was pretty rough stuff. This was the sunny, blue Mediterranean; if they hit some freak disturbance, it was bound to pass over quickly. So long as it didn’t take them with it.

  Charlie gripped the wheel and braced himself in his seat. He gritted his teeth to summon up every ounce of courage in him and looked again. It was like looking into a bubbling cauldron of tar. It writhed and bulged. He was struggling to suppress a shout of terror when he was in it. It was like having his head plunged into a bottle of ink. The boat rose like an elevator and came crashing down. A ton of water fell on him. The sea swirled around his knees. Were they sinking? He had to get to Peter. Suddenly a great jagged fork of lightning came crackling at him and he ducked as his ears were split by an explosion of thunder. Sea streamed away around him. He found that only his feet were still sloshing about in water. He remembered Jack telling him it was a self-bailing cockpit.

  He glanced at the small glow of the lighted binnacle and saw they were heading almost fifty degrees south of their course. Should he check the mileage and make a note of the time? His teeth were chattering and he clamped them shut. He felt the boat rising under him again, still rising until it felt as if it was leaving the water, and then falling sickeningly away until it settled with a crash. Another mountain of water fell over him. There was a succession of small shocks as if they were grinding into a rock. He heard chaos break out below, things falling and smashing and banging against each other. The whole boat shuddered beneath him and then gathered itself together and surged forward. He couldn’t see anything. He was steering by the feel of the wind against his face and by those moments when he could gauge clearly the stress of the wheel. Lightning glared and crackled again and there was another detonation of thunder. In the brief, blinding light, he saw that the mast and sail were still there. He took a fresh grip on the wheel and squared his shoulders and cursed the elements. He didn’t have time to be terrified any more. All his muscles were tensed, his mind intent on countering the terrible battering of the sea and wind. His greatest fear was that the wind would be knocked out of the sail. If the great boom began to swing, it could take the mast with it. He was so intent on his labored manipulations of the wheel that he didn’t see Peter until he tumbled down beside him. He was wearing some sort of coat with his bare legs sticking out from under it.

  “Christ, what’s happening?” he shouted into Charlie’s ear.

  “Plenty,” Charlie answered in the same way. “I’m glad to see you. It’s lonely up here.’

  Peter put his arm around him and leaned against his soaked back. “It’s taken me about fifteen minutes to get here,” he shouted. “We going to be all right?”

  “Pray, baby. I’m doing my best. Is that shit Jack going to give me a hand?”

  “Martha says he’s sick. Can’t I help?”

  Charlie’s words were drowned as another wall of water fell on them. “Go below, baby,” he shouted when he could speak again. “You’re taking my mind off my job. Be careful, for God’s sake. Tell Jack sweet dreams.”

  “I want to stay. You might need me.”

  “All I need is somebody to take the wheel. I can’t let you do that. Go below.”

  “I wish I knew more about it.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m OK. If anything really bad happens, get up here as fast as you can. Thanks for coming. I’d hug you if I could let go this fucking wheel.”

  Peter slipped off his coat. The wind grabbed at it, but he helped Charlie shoot one arm into it, and then the other. Charlie realized it was one of their smart city raincoats, soaked through. Peter was naked except for shorts.

  “I’ll be back,” he shouted.

  Charlie watched his pale form teeter across the deck and disappear. Although he was shaking all over, he wasn’t really cold. The sodden coat was some protection against the wind. He felt a glow of gratitude for Peter. Somebody was still functioning on this damned boat. He was beginning to respond automatically to its wild careening. He was finding ways to correct to some slight degree the worst of the heaving and pitching. Water rushed at him from every direction. Swirling down the decks, tumbling into the cockpit, falling on him from above and behind. He thought it might be raining but couldn’t be sure. His eyes were beginning to make out dim shapes, the shape of the sail, the shape of the cabin housing. The noise was stupefying: the roar of the sea, the crack and rattle of the rigging, the strange thumps and crashes from below.

  Charlie’s eye was caught by something white quite high above him moving toward him. It couldn’t be, his mind protested. Not a wave up there. His blood froze. His mind went blank with terror. The boat was seized by chaos: it rose, it crashed, it shuddered to a halt, it lurched free, it shook itself and crashed again. Charlie’s hands were locked to the wheel and he was slumped over it, his eyes closed, unable to breathe as he was pummeled and submerged by water. God keep Peter; it was his only coherent thought. He was simply a pair of clutching hands. All the rest of him had surrendered to the cataclysm that had fallen on him. Slowly, he became aware that he was still there. He could breathe again. The boat was still under him. They were plowing on. A new noise had been added to the din, a spasmodic, giant hammering somewhere forward. He shook water out of his eyes, waiting for his vision to clear from the stinging salt. He was still alive, or passed over into an eternity of furious sea. There was a splintering flash of lightning and this time there was a beat before the explosion of thunder. Peter was beside him again, wearing another coat.

  “Was that really bad?” he called.

  “If we get anything worse, we’ve had it. What’s going on down there?”

  “It’s a shambles. A great pile of water came down the hatch. I was up to my knees. It’s run off somewhere.”

  “What are the fucking Kingsleys doing?”

  “Not that, I’ll bet. I guess they’re sick.” He was cut off by the great hammering. “What the hell is that?”

  “I don’t know.” Charlie strained his eyes forward and noticed that the shape of the cabin housing had changed. There was a bulge along the side that hadn’t been there before. “The goddamn dinghy. It’s come loose!”
/>   “Should I do something about it?”

  “Christ, no! Let it go.”

  “I was scared shitless down there. I’m going to stay with you.”

  “Maybe you better. All I could think about was you when all that was going on.”

  “If we’re going to drown, I’d like us to do it together.”

  It was such a comfort having Peter beside him that Charlie began to feel some slight, grim pleasure in his battle. Nothing changed, except that the interval between lightning and thunder lengthened by a second or two. The boat continued its wild gyrations. The sea continued to fall on them unrelentingly. Peter had his arm around his waist and was clinging to him.

  “Is this what it’s been like up here?” he shouted.

  “This and worse.”

  “You’re fantastic. I’d have given up long ago.”

  “If we get through it, I’m going to drink a whole bottle of whisky.”

  Charlie had lost all sense of time. The constant battering was working his nerves into knots. He began to worry about things outside the immediate stresses of the storm. He wondered about bigger boats; there must be liners in and out of Corsica. He could discern a faint glow where the running lights should be. He assumed they must be bright enough from forward but would any lights be really visible in this sea? He couldn’t alter his course much no matter what turned up in his path. He began to imagine them being cut in two after his endless struggle to keep them afloat.

  “For God’s sake, tell me if you see anything out there!” he shouted at Peter. They leaned their heads together.

  “I can’t tell what’s water and what’s sky,” Peter called against his ear.

  “That’s the trouble. Not sick any more?”

  “I’m getting used to it. Have you been through things like this before?”

  “God, no. Don’t worry. We’re going to make it.”

  Peter hugged him. Charlie’s eyes stung with the salt and were beginning to ache from the strain of staring into the black frenzy of the night. He kept seeing dark forms in front of him that dissolved when he blinked. He didn’t know how long he had been clinging to the wheel. An hour? Five hours? As the possibility of survival emerged and became a coherent hope, his nerves knotted even tighter. Could he hold out? He had to, even if it took all night. Aside from the lives depending on him, it was a struggle he had committed all of himself to, a challenge he had accepted. Another hour—another five?—passed in grim repetition of all they’d already been through, the pitching and tossing, the sickening falls. Charlie didn’t know when he became aware that water was no longer falling on them in breath-stopping masses, but was being flung at them in solid sheets of spray. This was doubtless an improvement. Sometime later, he realized that it was costing him less effort to hold himself braced in his seat. He looked up at the sky and let out a whoop of joy and triumph. Peter started up from a doze.

  “What? What is it?” he exclaimed.

  “Look up there,” Charlie shouted. “There’s a star.”

  “That’s good, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, God. ‘Good!’ It’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Oh, my holy Christ! We’re getting out of it. Oh, my baby, the goddamn thing must be almost over.”

  Little by little, the signs turned more favorable. The air around them ceased to tear at them with screaming frenzy and settled into a full-throated roar of wind. The sea was still enormous, but the rise and fall of the boat was less extreme; the elevator sensation passed. More stars appeared. Eventually, Charlie cautiously eased the sheet and worked his way back on course. Since he judged that they could have made very little progress in these harrowing hours, he made no attempt to compensate for them. They might make a landfall a few miles farther south than Jack expected. What difference did it make? They were alive and the boat held solid beneath them.

  After another passage of unmarked time, they were sailing under a sky full of stars. The sea remained rough and the wind strong, but these were reasonable conditions and the boat was obviously made for them. She skudded along, heeling only slightly, taking on very little water.

  Charlie took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. He felt the strain in his muscles slowly relax. He had forgotten it was possible for his body to move easily. “God, baby, go get us a bottle of whisky,” he exclaimed. He still had to speak loudly, but he didn’t have to shout. “Don’t bother with glasses. They’ll just slop it around. I want it inside me. Put on a dry sweater and bring me one. And check the time, will you?”

  Peter kissed him on the side of the face and went off. He returned with the things Charlie had requested. Charlie took a thirsty pull on the bottle before quickly shedding his coat and shirt and wriggling into the sweater, using his feet to hold the wheel.

  “God! More whisky. What time is it?”

  “About ten after two.”

  “You’re kidding. Is that all? I feel as if it had been a week.”

  “I know. Normally, we’d just be thinking about going to bed. It’s unbelievable. Still, you’ve been on since a little after seven. That’s seven hours. I don’t see how you did it.”

  “There were moments when I didn’t think I could.” The whisky was untangling Charlie’s nerves. He felt a surge of pride in his achievement. Damn few men could have managed it, beginning with the male passenger below.

  “I wish I could take over for you now. You must be really bushed.”

  “No, I feel wonderful. This is the way I love it. Feel the way we’re roaring along. Look at that sky. It’s beautiful.”

  Peter laughed. “You’re a regular old sea dog. I’ve never seen you like this.”

  “I love it and I’m good at it, damn it. An hour ago, I swore I’d never get on a boat again if we got through the night. Listen, I think there’s a flashlight hanging over the chart table. Get it and check the dinghy, will you? We might as well see if we can do anything about it, since it’s still with us. But be careful. We’re still bouncing around.”

  “I don’t mind this. This is fine.” He went off and Charlie saw a beam of light playing along the side of the cabin before he returned. “I think it’s all right,” he reported. “It’s wedged in against the rail and one line seems to be more or less holding it.”

  “God, Jack doesn’t even know how to lash a dinghy. I’m going to have to go over everything carefully tomorrow and see what else needs attention.” He took the light and flashed it at the mileage log behind him. Thirteen miles. It figured. Maybe eight or nine miles the first hour-and-a-half and straight up-and-down ever since. Corsica was still a long way off. Jack might not like to go into strange ports at night, but Charlie had no qualms about it. This wind would have to hold if they hoped to get in before sundown tomorrow. Today, he corrected himself.

  He urged Peter to stretch out on the bench beside him, since he didn’t want to go back below, and he was soon asleep. The whisky lulled Charlie so that whole blocks of time seemed to spin off into shapeless reveries. It seemed quite soon when he noticed a lightening of the sky. Dawn coming already? It must be after four. He considered asking Peter to go down and wake Jack and decided against it. He didn’t want him up here. Let him make a thorough louse-up right at the beginning. Him and his schedule of watches. If they had been depending on him to get them through, they’d all be at the bottom of the sea. Faggots to the rescue. He and Peter could handle the boat without anybody’s help. He reached out and stroked the golden head, white now in the growing light. The hair was almost dry and curled softly over his ears. Peter laughed in his sleep. My lover, Charlie thought, my mate. The only person he had cared for deeply and passionately in all his life. Devoted, loyal, true—and capable of treachery. He could think it now without a pang. He felt more complete in himself than he ever had before, assured and self-sufficient. If he could conquer the elements, he could surely conquer himself. Was this the way it happened—the slow loosening of bonds without pain? He looked up at the sail and wondered if he could ease up more on
the sheet.

  The sky was growing brighter in the east. At last, a rim of gold appeared on the horizon and then the sun rose rapidly as if it were on runners. Within minutes, he was in a sparkling world of blue sea and tumbling whitecaps. No land was visible. Charlie’s chest felt as if it would burst with gratitude and joy. He had longed so for this day; its coming was a vast release from terror and fatigue. He felt wonderful. He leaned forward and touched Peter’s head again, tugging gently at his hair. Peter opened his eyes and saw him and smiled. Then his eyes rolled around, and he sat up quickly.

  “Hey. Look at us.” He sprang to his feet, revealing an erection. He looked down at himself and laughed and adjusted it in his tight jeans. “Dreaming of you. God, what a day. There’s nothing anywhere.”

  “Nope. We’re at sea.”

  “Can’t I take it now? You must be dead. Don’t you want to pee?”

  “I’m about to burst.” He moved over and Peter sat behind the wheel. “There’s nothing to it now. Just hold her on course.” Charlie rose stiffly and stretched himself all over. He got up onto the stern and released what seemed to be several gallons of water. The shorts he had been caught in the evening before were still wet, but he could feel the sun burning into him. They’d be dry soon enough. He returned to Peter’s side. “Do you think you can get the jib up alone?” he asked.

  “Sure. There’s nothing to it. Getting it down is the problem.”

  Charlie laughed. “I hope it won’t be like that again. You might as well take that sweater off. You’ll get a bit wet.”

  Peter handed over the wheel and threw off his sweater. Charlie’s eyes followed the graceful body as he ran up along the deck. “Bring the sheet back first,” he called after him in reminder. He realized that the leeward deck would have to be cleared of the dinghy before they could get the jib up. He hoped Peter could manage that alone. He wanted to get the boat really operating before anybody came up from below. The night had given him a proprietary right. He didn’t want to relinquish the wheel to anybody but Peter, under his supervision, although he supposed he would have to sleep sooner or later. Peter moved about in the bow for some time. Eventually he led the sheet back along the leeward deck and climbed over the dinghy. His T-shirt was wet and clinging to him.