Chapter 14

CHAPTER 14

The late sun hung brassy on his port beam. The trades were still heavy, but were gusting, which meant that they were losing their strength for the night.

He shifted his position on the spreader, accidentally bending the tiny transmitter’s antenna as he did so. He straightened it carefully, flicked its switch to “TEST” for the fifth time in the last hour. It glowed reassuringly.

But it would be useless after dark, when local flights would stop. Sunset was at 1855, only fifteen minutes away. The flights had probably stopped already.

Again he considered leaving the search area to clear himself from the radio interference of Moorea, and trying to call Papeete again. But he could not bring himself to leave her.

He squeezed his eyes shut to relieve them. The sunlight was a golden freeway leading to the west. His eyes, unable to stand the glare, slipped idly downward to rest.

The ketch was immense seen from above, and beautiful! The tapering bow and stern, with sweeping lines straight from the Vikings, were in flowing harmony with the bow-wave and the wake. Lindy had always looked tiny from here, sunbathing on the deck at sea or sanding and scraping in port while he worked on the rigging. Without her, the boat was empty, a Flying Dutchman groping in a wasted sea.

He had to start the generator. He wanted bright lights tonight. He swung his foot over the yardarm, waited for the pain in his back, and, when it had passed, lay face-down along the yard. He let himself roll off, as he had recently learned, and hung suspended underneath it for a moment by hands and legs. Then he let his legs go and groped until he found a rung.

It did not work so well this time. He wondered how much longer he could overcome his weakening back to climb up and down the mast. He descended the rungs stiffly. Grasping the cabin-top handrails against the roll, he sidled crabwise to the cockpit.

He hesitated. Before starting the generator he had better plumb the fuel level in the tank that fed it. To unscrew the fuel cap, he raised the hinged cockpit seat. He grunted in surprise, then yelled exultantly.

The waterstained, battered logbook, memory of the boat, lay on the tank. She must have stuffed it there to protect it from wind and spray, before dealing with whatever had brought her topside, the cat or her half-hourly routine.

Shakily, he began to leaf through it. A dash of spray wet his face, but he did not notice. He found the last smudged page. Her penciled, rounded figures hopped up at him.