Deep danger

by White, Robb, 1909-1990

  DEEP DANGER

  wouldn't be hard for Sweiner to find out approximately where it was.

  Or, Bill suddenly thought, he might just get out in the general vicinity and wait for the Venture to show up. Then ambush it.

  They had to sail tonight, weather or no weather. Their only safety was out on the sea, ahead of Sweiner.

  Bill tripped on a piece of seine, got tangled in it and almost went down. When he got his balance again he shone the light farther down the wharf. It swept over a bollard, then a tangle of rope and finally straightened out.

  Centered in the beam of the flashlight were men's legs.

  Three men were standing motionless on the wharf in front of him. On the khaki trousers of the nearest one there were splashes of wet blood.

  Bill moved the beam of the light up the legs, past the ^ belt, up the chest and then stopped it.

  The man's shirt had been almost torn off. Blood dripped from his face to his chest and was dark red on the pale skin.

  Bill moved the light a little higher.

  DEEP DANGER

  There was the scarred, terrible face, the hairless eyes, the burned away lips.

  **Sweiner,'' Bill said. Ja.

  The two men behind Sweiner moved, coming toward Bill with a rush. Bill played the flashlight on them as he dropped the tank and got set.

  The men came fast, one of them holding some sort of club. Bill tried to blind them but they came on, thudding on the wharf planking.

  Then the truck driver at the end of the wharf began to yell. *'Hey, Grant, hurry up. I got to get home.''

  Sweiner said something in German.

  The two men ran on past Bill. Then Sweiner brushed past him. *1 will see you again,'' he said in German.

  Bill yelled and all three of them began to run. They appeared for a moment under the street light then disappeared.

  Leaving the air tank. Bill ran along the wharf and jumped over on the Venture,

  John, bloody and unconscious, lay in the cockpit.

  Cnapter 3

  THE FLASHLIGHT SHOWED BRUISES ON JOHN S FACE

  and a dribble of blood coming from the corner of his mouth. Bill dropped down into the cockpit beside him and touched him, feeling his arms and legs.

  The touch must have brought John back to consciousness. He tried to crawl away, backing up against the cockpit seat.

  ^'Johnny. It's me. Bill.''

  John turned around slowly and sat up. Then, when he moved his leg, he winced with pain and grabbed his ankle. Slowly his eyes cleared. "They clobbered me," he said. 'Tour of them."

  Bill touched John's ankle, feeling it gently but carefully.

  DEEP DANGER

  *'Take it easy/' John said, wincing again. *That hurts/'

  "It's twisted a Httle. Are you hurt anywhere else?"

  '1 don't think so. I feel a little sick, though."

  "Lie down awhile." Bill helped him up to the padded cockpit seat and eased his ankle down on it.

  "Was it Sweiner?" John asked.

  "Yes."

  "I didn't see any of them clearly except Sweiner. They just came down on me like a tent."

  Suddenly a voice from the wharf startled them. "Hey, what's going on?"

  Bill flashed the light around. It was the truck driver.

  "Somebody trying to rob the boat, I guess," Bill said. "They beat up my brother."

  "Well I be dog. I saw 'em running. One of 'em pretty bloody."

  "I got in a few licks," John said.

  The truck driver had brought two of the tanks. As Bill covered John with a sleeping bag, the driver went back and got the rest of the tanks. Bill helped him store them in the rack.

  DEEP DANGER

  The truck driver looked down at John. 'Want me to drive him over to the hospital?''

  Bill turned. ''How do you feel now, Johnny?'*

  "Okay."

  "Ankle hurt much?"

  "Some. If I move it. And somebody's driving nails in my head."

  Bill said to the driver, "I think he's all right. If he isn't I'll get a doctor to come look at him, thanks all the same."

  "Hope those goons don't come back."

  "So do I," Bill said.

  When the driver had gone Bill turned to John. "We've got to get out of here if we can. But if your ankle's really bad we'd better have it looked at."

  "I don't think anything's wrong with it. Just a little twist when they knocked me down. Let's go."

  "Lie down. The wind's not too strong yet. I can work her out by myself. I'll need plenty of you later on."

  "It's going to be rough."

  Bill nodded. "But not as rough as staying here where Sweiner can get to us. When it starts to blow we'll reef her down to a handkerchief."

  DEEP DANGER

  "Won't Sweiner follow us?'*

  "Guess so. But a black sloop on a black night won't be easy to spot once we get to sea," Bill said, taking off the mainsail stops.

  "What would happen if we told the police?"

  Bill thought for a moment. "We might be able to pin it on him but it'd take a couple of weeks anyway. I think we can slip out from under him tonight. If the Venture will just stay in one piece."

  Bill cast off and, with the mainsail hanging limp, let the boat drift stern first away from the wharf. In clear water, he snapped the jib on her and the wind brought her around fast. Clamping the mainsheet he held her bow toward the open sea and let her drive. Channel lights dropped astern, and soon there was nothing but the gray of rolling water and the gray of the storm sky above them, the moon seeming to slide wildly into and out of the scudding clouds.

  Bill reached over and snapped on a flashlight they had rigged inside the binnacle so he could read the compass at night. Some of the light fell down on John's face, on the long, dark eyelashes, now closed tight with pain.

  DEEP DANGER

  Then he looked back. Key West glowed a dirty white against the darkness and the long line of the Keys faded away, car lights moving like fireflies on the highway.

  What was Sweiner doing now? Kill wondered.

  He searched the darkness but saw no boat moving.

  Somehow, not knowing what Sweiner was doing was more threatening than knowing.

  John pushed up on his elbows. 'Want to reef her now?''

  Bill tested the wind against his face, and looked up at the peak of the mainsail. He was sailing wide open —the jib winged out, in a heavy, wet wind which was, however, still steady and holding straight out of the east. *'Let's get as much sea room as we can. Then, when she begins to get rough well heave to and sit it out.''

  The sea now was moving fast, waves fading away like long gray mountains. Bill didn't look aft again as the seas rose up behind the sloop, hung over her, then, almost miraculously, fell and slid under her. They made a sick, slithering noise along the hull and, everywhere in the darkness, there was the restless, rushing sound of a storm.

  DEEP DANGER

  Bill glanced down at his brother who seemed to be asleep.

  Until now going to get the money had seemed so simple. He had thought of the trip in terms of sunshine, of daylight, and hours under the calm water of the Gulf. He had not added danger to his list of things to overcome.

  He had not counted on Sweiner.

  Now he and John were deep in danger. They were no longer competing only with the sea and whatever might lie under it. Sweiner, Hitler's trained spy, was haunting them.

  Bill looked back once more, shivering, but saw nothing against the dark sky.

  Ahead there was a patch of moonlight pouring down through a break in the clouds. It shone like old silver on the wild sea and seemed filled with a floating dust as spray leaped in it.

  The Venture slid into the light and Bill used the moon to check his ship. The wind was heavier now, pressing hard against the racing sails of the racing sloop. The stainless steel shrouds were taut against the chain plates; all the rigging whined and moaned

  DEEP DANGER

  in the win
d. The mast's heel ground in the wooden step and the timbers of the boat cried as the waves kneaded the whole hull

  She wouldn't take much more, Bill decided, but did not ease her. He wanted sea room. More, he wanted to put a lot of night and distance between him and Sweiner. The thought of the German with his cold, unshielded eyes staring at him made Bill feel cold too and, he admitted, afraid.

  The circle of moonlight in which he now sailed seemed almost to move with him, the hole in the low clouds moving along with the sloop.

  The light was dim, soft, and ghostly and when Bill looked forward again he saw a man standing in the companion hatch.

  For a second he thought that John had gotten up but he saw his brother still lying, asleep, the blood now dry on his face.

  The man was outlined by the moonlight and was huge. His shoulders filled all the hatch. A long billed cap hid his face, but the moonlight shone on his bare, muscled arms and big hands.

  The moonlight also shone on John's .22 rifle which

  DEEP DANGER

  the man was holding, the muzzle a dim ring around a black spot, pointed straight at Bill.

  Bill Grant wasn^t much of a fighter. In the first place, he didn't know how. And he didn't like fighting. Nor did he think of himself as being a brave man. During the war he'd been scared a lot of times and it didn't do him any good to hear that everybody else was scared too.

  The huge man standing there with the rifle scared him now so that he felt paralyzed. His mouth was perfectly dry, his throat tight, and he felt dizzy and weak.

  Bill must have made some movement because the man leaned forward and said, *'Sit still!"

  Bill didn't move.

  The voice must have waked up John. In the darkness of the cockpit he moved, pushing himself up on his hands so that his head came shoving up into the moonlight.

  Moving with the speed of a snake, the man stepped forward and swung the rifle butt, jabbing with it.

  Bill heard the hard wood strike. John moaned as a man dreaming sometimes moans and then fell back and slowly rolled off the seat down to the cockpit deck.

  DEEP DANGER

  The movement, the sound of the rifle butt smashing, the dark, still lump of his brother cleared the dizziness in Bill's mind.

  He sat still, steering the ship by instinct, as he looked at the man. First, he thought, I must get the rifle away from him. As long as he has the rifle Tm helpless against him.

  Bill's breath felt dry and hot as he said, 'Who are you?

  "Skip it,'' the man said. *'Turn the boat around and go back to Key West."

  Bill suddenly remembered that John had said four men had attacked him back there at the wharf. Four. And yet there had been only two with Sweiner. This man must be the fourth and so must also be a goon of Sweiner's.

  Bill then thought of something else. No sailor would say ''turn around." You could "wear," "come about," "jibe" to get around but not "turn around."

  Bill felt that, because this man was probably not a sailboat sailor, he had a slight advantage, a small weapon. Very small, perhaps, and he was not sure yet how he could use it.

  DEEP DANGER

  The man moved the rifle threateningly. '1 said turn around. Get moving.''

  As Bill answered him he was thinking about something else. 'We can't turn around. This boat couldn't live going against the wind."

  But he was thinking: What would a man do if something came flying at his head? Would he throw his arms up to protect himself first? Or would he duck first?

  'Turn it around," the man said.

  Perhaps, Bill thought, he would duck first. That's bad. But maybe he'd throw his arms up at the same time.

  He had to get rid of that rifle.

  "You turn it around," Bill said. Then he waited, tense. If the man was 2l sailor he could come aft, club him off the wheelbox with the rifle butt, and sail the Venture,

  ''Don't get smart," the man said. "I can get along without you—and him too. Now get going for Key West."

  "All right," Bill said.

  It was time now to get the rifle. He knew that what

  DEEP DANGER

  he was starting might end in total failure. It might even tear the Venture apart but, as long as the man stood there secure from any attack, Bill could think of no other way to do it.

  As he reached behind him to touch the mainsheet,

  the man growled, "Keep your hands where I can see

  > >> em.

  The main boom was now against the starboard shrouds, the ship sailing wide open, winged out. If Bill left the mainsheet as it now was the coming force would probably rip the port shrouds out and even break the boom.

  *1 m sorry," he said, *'but if you want it turned around Til have to move some. I can't just sit here with both hands on the wheel. It's not a car, you know.'*

  "Fm watching you,'' the man said. 'Tou try anything fast and I'll shoot you, see?"

  *l'm not a fool," Bill said. '1 want to keep on sailing this boat. Because I don't think you know how. You'd drown us all."

  Bill reached back again, slowly, for the mainsheet. Straining against the weight of the wind, he hauled in a few feet of it and then belayed it hard on the bitt.

  DEEP DANGER

  Now, though still sailing dead before the wind, the boom was no longer touching the shrouds.

  Bill put both hands back on the wheel.

  They were under a wild, broken sky now, sailing into and out of pools of moonlight.

  Now, Bill thought, if this man is a sailor he will stop me and Til be trapped then and helpless under the threat of the rifle.

  But, he thought, if he is not a sailor the battle between us is starting right now though he does not know it. This was like the war in submarines. Long before a surface ship knew that she was being tracked down, even to the instant when the torpedoes reached her, she did not even know that she was being attacked.

  Bill, really afraid now—afraid for the Venture and afraid of what would happen if he failed in what he was now going to do—started pushing the wheel over, spoke by spoke.

  No seaman in his right mind would have done that. Not in the wind that was blowing; not with a fragile racing yacht like the Venture. It was asking for disaster, begging for it. Under any conditions a jibe all standing was an extremely dangerous thing to do to a sailboat

  DEEP DANGER

  and yet Bill Grant kept putting the wheel over, spoke by spoke.

  He waited, his whole body tense now as he felt the response of the ship. In a moment he felt the first signs of mushiness—a sickening feeling of complete lack of control of the ship. He had given her over to the wind and sea now. The rudder no longer pressed against the flowing water; the Venture was no longer being held in safety by a man's hands.

  Then, as she sped into darkness and out again into moonlight, Bill saw the long boom begin to lift.

  It was going to be terrible and he would have stopped the jibe now but he could not. It had gone too far now, far beyond any control of his. It must go all the way.

  Bill watched almost with terror as the boom continued to rise, going up and up, hinged at the gooseneck, the sail spilling wind and folding around the boom.

  It was going to fall; Bill knew that. And when it did it was going to swing from starboard to port. The swing would start slowly, the boom falling down first, but then the swing would gain speed and, soon, the wind would get in behind the sail and start driving.

  DEEP DANGER

  Then the speed of the boom was going to be savage.

  The boom fell, the swing began.

  Bill watched it coming and, for a split second, looked at the man. He had come one step up the ladder so that now he was well out of the hatch, half his body above the top.

  Would a man duck first, then raise his arms? Or raise his arms first?

  Bill had risked everything—his ship, perhaps his life and John^s—on his belief that a man would raise his arms to protect his head before he ducked.

  The boom was
coming fast now, pure murder sweeping across the ship. Wind screamed around it and the sail snapped like a cannon shot.

  Then Bill yelled, ''Look out!"

  For an instant the man just turned his head, looking at the boom rushing toward him.

  Bill waited, absolutely still.

  If the man didn't do something the boom was going to kill him. If it hit him it would tear him in two.

  The man threw his arms up and ducked.

  Bill moved then. He shot off the wheelbox, took one step in the cockpit, and grabbed.

  DEEP DANGER

  His hands closed around the barrel of the rifle and then yanked. For a second there was resistance, then the rifle was his.

  But the boom, sweeping over him, took the rifle away from him and threw it into the sea.

  The boom went on, the wind hard in the sail now, the weight tremendous. The mainsheet, which had been in limp coils, flashed out straight and caught the whole blow of the boom and sail against the bitt. For a second the Venture shook all over, ropes screamed, and wood and metal groaned under the savage slam of the boom.

  Somehow everything held together and, in a moment, the ship was racing ahead again, driven hard by the wind.

  Now the battle was in the open with Bill still standing empty-handed in the cockpit, the man coming out of his crouch in the hatch.

  It was no match. Bill was slight and wiry, weighing around 140. The man was well over six feet and must have weighed close to 200.

  And—for the man there was only one opponent-Bill Grant. But for Bill there were two things he had

  DEEP DANGER

  to fight. First, the sea and the wind. He could not even think of the man until he had first handled the ship.

  To stand there and fight was suicide. Bill had no doubt that the man could whip him. Bill even knew that the man was, eventually, going to whip him. Before it happened, though, he must get sail off the boat. Once the man knocked him out the Venture, with sail up, would capsize and drown them all.

  The man leaped, huge in the moonlight.

  Bill slid under the fists, twisted clear of the big body, and scrambled up out of the cockpit. As the sloop wallowed into darkness. Bill ran close along the scupper, vaulted the lashed-down dinghy, and reached for the pin ring on the mast.