One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (18 page)

“Well, I’d better see about food,” she said. She pulled herself up and, balancing her brimming glass with exaggerated care, she maneuvered herself down the companionway with great skill. Charlie silently congratulated her but wondered if she could do it so well when she had finished the contents of the glass.

The meal was hearty, soup and a beef stew that Martha insisted she had prepared herself that morning, although nobody expressed any doubt, and they elected to eat it on deck in the fading afternoon light. They washed it down generously with wine. When they had had coffee, Charlie went below and helped Martha with the dishes. She swayed a bit at the sink but considering her intake, she managed very well.

When he went back up on deck, Jack rose. Charlie watched him closely. He looked a bit unsteady, but he braced himself with a hand on the boom above his head. “All set below?” he asked. Charlie nodded. “Well, we might as well get the gangplank in.” He managed the cluttered after-area without stumbling and went firmly down the gangplank. Charlie obviously had been needlessly alarmed by Jack’s drinking; he knew he couldn’t take that much himself. Jack looked competent as he untied one of the stern lines and threw it aboard. He untied the other and threw one end of it to Peter who caught it and gathered it in so that it remained looped around the bollard. He ran nimbly up the gangplank and lifted it on its davits after him. He uncoupled it from the deck and all three of them eased it in along the gunwale and lashed it down. “So long, land,” he said. He clapped Peter on the shoulder. “Come on, mate. Let’s get the anchor up.” He bent over to a panel behind the wheel and turned a key and pushed a button. The engine rumbled into life. He turned to Charlie. “You stay on the wheel. You can play that line out and pull it aboard when we’re clear.” He led Peter forward and they started heaving on a hand windlass with a great clatter of chain. Charlie was impressed. It had all been done quickly and expeditiously. He couldn’t really grasp that they were almost off. Martha appeared in the hatch and he grinned at her from behind the wheel.

“We’re leaving?” she called above the rumble of motor and the clatter of chain. He saluted the land with a gesture of farewell. They were moving slowly out into the middle of the harbor, the line playing out behind. When he came to the end of it, he flung it astern and pulled it rapidly on board, making sure to keep it clear of the propeller.

He was briefly seized by a sense of total unreality as he told himself that he was on a boat, cut off from land, with two near-strangers. How had it happened? Then he was caught up once more in the excitement of departure. Jack and Peter seemed to have encountered a snag with the anchor. The chain was silent. Jack was moving out along the bowsprit pulling at something. Peter heaved at the windlass some more and the chain gave a final rattle. Jack waved a signal astern. Martha, who had come out on deck and was watching, came back to Charlie and pulled a lever and adjusted the throttle and they moved forward under power. Martha stood beside the wheel while Charlie gave a wide berth to the end of the breakwater and headed for the open sea. As soon as they reached it, they were caught in a heavy swell. In another few minutes they were out in full sunlight again but the sun was low, just above the jagged outline of the Estérels. There was a pleasant southerly breeze. Charlie checked the compass mounted on the steering column and the wind-direction pennant at the top of the mast. Their course would take them on a nice easy reach if the breeze held.

“Let’s get the sails up,” Jack called. He was still standing forward with Peter.

Charlie glanced over his shoulder back to shore. They had plenty of sea room. He looked at Martha and nodded; she leaned over and cut back the throttle as he eased the bow into the wind. He held it there as they rolled and heaved on the swell. Peter ran back, pulling off stops as he came, as if he had been doing it all his life. He looked at Charlie and winked. He ran forward and he and Jack began hauling up the mainsail. As it opened and fell about them, Charlie had to fend it off, struggling to hold the boat in position against the swell. He didn’t know what had become of Martha. Gear banged and clattered about him. As the sail rose slowly, he eased off on the mainsheet and the great boom began to swing heavily, perilously close to his head. The sail was gaff-rigged and it took them another minute to get it set. Charlie rocked with the movement of the boat, clinging to the wheel. Jack and Peter seized another halyard and broke out a big jib that was carried on the mainstay out at the end of the bowsprit. It dipped toward the water but they got it up quickly and Martha materialized from somewhere and began to grapple with its sheet. Jack and Peter came running aft as he swung the wheel to port and grabbed the mainsheet. He handed it to Peter as the pitching bow fell off. He held it steady and eased it up as the sails took the breeze. Martha bent over and cut the motor. The bow bit into the water, the boat leveled and surged forward, the sea hissed along the hull. The momentary chaos was replaced by a deep, singing peace. Charlie looked at Peter and laughed joyfully. He was trembling with excitement.

“How about that?” he demanded into Peter’s shining eyes.

“Wow! It’s something. It must be nice to be the captain. The crew has to really work.”

“Aren’t you going to give us the mizzen?” Charlie asked Jack with a glance at the mast behind him.

“I don’t particularly like to use it at night. It’s just one more thing to bother about if conditions change.”

Charlie shrugged. “I wonder where this damn swell is coming from.”

“That’s the Med for you,” Jack said. “You get conditions from all over all mixed up together. It never makes any sense.”

“How about breaking out a bottle of wine? I feel like celebrating.” Even before the words were out, Charlie wondered if he should have made the suggestion. He glanced at Jack, telling himself that here was a man who knew his job. With a green crew, he had performed admirably. Perhaps he could drink a whole bottle of gin before dinner without showing it.

“I’ll get it,” Peter volunteered.

Jack and Martha were neatly coiling the sheets so that they could be easily freed.

“You might ease up on the main,” Charlie suggested. “This is your course. It’s almost on a quarter.” Jack did as he was told until the sail developed a slight luff. “Back in just a bit. There. That’s fine.”

“Jib all right?”

Charlie nodded. Jack looked around him and snapped his fingers and went below. Peter came back with an open bottle of wine and three glasses. Jack followed with the mileage log. He took it to the stern and threw it overboard and played out the line and attached the clock mechanism to the aft stay. He checked his watch and leaned over Charlie for a glance at the compass and went below again.

“Jack doesn’t want any wine,” Peter explained.

“None for me,” Martha said. “I may have a nightcap later.” She was sitting rather huddled up on the cockpit bench gazing out at the setting sun. She seemed suddenly silent and preoccupied. They were out far enough now so that the sun had escaped the mountains and was sinking directly into the sea.

Peter filled two glasses and they looked at each other and silently toasted themselves. Charlie had settled into the cushioned seat behind the wheel. There was just room for Peter to squeeze in beside him.

“You want to see how it feels?” Charlie asked. He took both glasses and moved over so Peter could take the wheel. As soon as he did so, they veered up into the wind. Charlie laughed and got them back on course with his foot.

Peter held the wheel intently for a few minutes. “I see,” he said finally. “You have to pay attention all the time. I’m still not quite sure which way to turn the wheel to get the compass marking in the right place.”

“Just think of it as being opposites. If you turn the wheel up this way, the compass reading falls off that way. I guess that’s right. It gets to be an automatic reflex. You’ll get used to it.”

“I’d better practice tomorrow. Hell, this is my watch coming up now, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be silly. I’ll take it tonight. You can stay with me and see how it goes.” They touched secretly as Charlie handed Peter his glass and eased himself back behind the wheel. He glanced around once more. The land mass behind them, the vast panorama of coastal towns backed by foothills rising to the distant peaks of the lower Alps, was already misty in the fading light. The sun was just touching the rim of the sea, a hotly blazing red sphere. He remembered “Red sun at night, sailors’ delight.”

The breeze was freshening, which surprised him. He would have expected it to die out as evening came. The wheel was developing quite a pull. The light changed abruptly from day to dusk. He scanned the horizon, looking for weather indications. Everything was gray, a gray sky meeting the darker gray of the sea. He was looking forward to the imminent night; sailing under the stars with this breeze would be marvelous, despite the troublesome swell.

Jack came up on deck and joined them. “How’s she going?” he inquired with evident pride of ownership.

“Great. I’m getting the feel of it. If it weren’t for this damn swell, I think I could really make her zoom. The wind’s picking up.”

“The barometer’s fallen quite a bit,” Jack said with a touch of anxiety in his voice. “Not that that necessarily means anything.”

Martha snapped out of her reverie. “What did you say? Do you think we should go back?”

“Now don’t start that,” Jack said sharply.

Charlie was astonished to realize that she meant it. She knew they were planning to be at sea for days on end—at least during the crossing from Sicily to the Gulf of Corinth—with no possibility of going back anywhere. They wouldn’t get very far if she wanted to return already.

“What is it? What’s the matter?” Peter asked, looking puzzled.

“Nothing,” Charlie assured him. “Jack thinks we might have some bad weather, that’s all.”

“It looks fine to me.”

Charlie continued to study the sea and sky. There were no clouds anywhere and the sea heaved in the swell that rolled away all around them. He slowly became aware of an odd smudge of darkness ahead of them. He realized that he had noticed it some time ago, but now it seemed to be intensifying. It had no shape or dimension, a black smudge he couldn’t relate to anything he had ever seen before. It looked unnatural, as if there were something wrong with his vision. He blinked, but it was still there. He looked away and let his eyes travel slowly along the horizon toward it to see if he could tell where and how it began. It had no definition. It was just there, getting darker now. Their course was taking them straight for it. “Do you notice anything funny up ahead,” he asked Jack.

Jack straightened and peered forward. “You mean where it’s getting dark? That’s just night coming, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but I’ve never seen it come in just one place before.”

“I see what you mean.”

Charlie watched as it continued to blacken and begin to swell a bit. He heard something that sounded like the approach of a thousand beating wings and glanced up in alarm. They were smacked over hard by a great gust of wind. Charlie immediately eased the wheel to right them, but the gust had already passed on. Then he saw what he’d been looking for, the darker gray and white of turbulent water ahead, and he welcomed it as something familiar, a relief from the eerie, black nothing that had been threatening them.

“We’re getting into something,” he said. He checked the mainsheet to make sure it was on a slip knot for immediate release.

“You think so?” Jack asked. “Hell. I guess maybe we’d better get the goddamn jib in. Come on, mate.”

Before he and Peter had even started forward, they were in it. The wind whistled in the shrouds and knocked them down again, but this time it wasn’t a solitary gust but a new condition to contend with. The turbulent sea was rushing at them with startling rapidity. Jack grabbed Peter’s arm and they both lunged forward.

“I’m not going to be able to help much,” Charlie shouted, grappling with the wheel. “I can’t hold her up in the wind in this swell. Don’t you want the motor?”

“We’re sailors, boy, not tourists,” Jack bawled.

The drink talking? It seemed foolhardy to Charlie to attempt any work on the deck without all the help at their command. The threat of unmanageable seas was clear and immediate. “Definitely no motor?” he shouted questioningly.

“Hell, no. Let go the jib sheet.”

“Not yet,” he ordered Martha quickly. She stared at him as if she didn’t know who he was, but didn’t move. His heart was in his mouth as he watched the two struggling forward, lurching and clinging to the rail. Hang on, for Christ’s sake, he prayed to Peter. He didn’t see how they were going to get the jib down without dropping it into the water. He was carrying as much luff in the sails as he could without killing their way entirely.

When they reached the mast, Charlie nodded to Martha. “Go ahead. Let go the jib sheet.”

She scrambled to do his bidding. The canvas leaped free and cracked back in a murderous assault on Peter and Jack. Jack grabbed it and struggled forward with it. Charlie was thankful to see that he was leaving Peter at the mast to handle the halyard. Jack straddled the bowsprit and battled with the flailing canvas as the jib came down slowly.

The strain on the wheel eased briefly. They were almost into the rushing white-capped sea. Charlie lifted and braced himself to meet it. The first big wave ran in and hit them. The bowsprit rose chillingly and pointed at the sky and fell with a crash and plowed into the water. Jack disappeared under churning sea. The bow scooped up gallons of water as the bowsprit sprang clear, Jack still straddling it, and sent a flood hurtling back along the deck. Charlie’s heart pounded up with terror as he saw Peter make a spring for the bowsprit and join Jack where he was wrestling with the jib. The bow fell and they both disappeared under the foaming sea. Martha leaned over the deck and vomited. That’ll get some of the booze out of you, Charlie thought savagely. He was beginning to get the feel of the boat under these challenging circumstances. She was reassuringly tough; with the jib down, she staggered painfully, but he could sail her. The mainsail probably should have been reefed, but it was too late for that now. Martha attempted to struggle to her feet and fell back. She repeated the attempt. On the third try, she succeeded and went skittering across the deck.