Each morning for the next two days Billy rubbed one of the Virginia's backstays and whistled furiously, but still no winds came. The sun beat down relentlessly. The lumber strapped on deck began to split from one end to the other; the crew formed a bucket brigade to slosh it down with salt water before it became useless for building. Laura continued to take sun-sights, more for the practice than anything else, and was astonished to see that the schooner had begun to go backwards: with no wind to move her along, the Virginia was falling victim to the Gulf Stream current.
"We're being dragged back to New England," Laura said in disgust as she and Colin pondered the chart showing the pitiable progress of their last few days. "I really cannot stand this," she said, seething with frustration. "It's so ... impractical. A steamer would have been there by now." She threw a pencil across the chart. The cabin was stifling, and her thick long hair had begun to slip its braid and cling to her cheeks and neck. Nothing made her more irritable. "People will think we're dead. People will worry."
"Anyone with half a brain will understand that the ocean is a fickle mistress," Colin argued coolly. "The rest will be too stupid to worry."
"That is so easy for you to say. No one knows where you are; no one cares."
He looked up from the chart. "Are you so very sure of that?"
She compressed her lips. "I'm sorry. Naturally I have no idea what your personal situation is. How could I? You've never said a peep about it. I assume no one knows or cares where you are." She went back to her chart, staring at the tiny island that had become such an unattainable goal. "I assume you don't have a wife," she murmured.
"Have you always been so presumptuous?" he asked quietly.
"You bring it out in me. And anyway, you should talk," she snapped, her cheeks flaming one more time at the recollection of his kiss. She had thought of nothing else since then, despite the fact that Colin had not once alluded to it after he left her. And yet here she was herself—alluding. To the kiss, to his personal life; anything to break down the wall of professional reserve that he'd erected between them.
Laura dared to lift her eyes to his. She saw—nothing. Where was the passion, where was the heat? No one had that kind of control over his desire. Sam did not; and Sam was all she knew. So it boiled down to this: Colin Durant had seen an opportunity, and he'd tried to take advantage of it. It could have been worse. She closed her brass parallel rules with a snap and stowed them on a little shelf Sam had made for navigation tools. Neither one spoke. The only sounds were of Neil and the others laughing and splashing and diving from the bowsprit.
"I think tomorrow we'll begin to ration water more carefully," Colin said at last.
The cautious tone in his voice, almost more than what he actually said, sent adrenaline surging through Laura. "What on earth for?" she demanded, offended that he should think of it before she did. She would not have thought of it. "We've only used a little more than one barrel; we filled three."
"We've spent days without moving. When the wind finally does fill in it may well be from the southeast, almost on our nose. It may take us a while still to get there; I know very little about this boat's ability to go to weather," he explained calmly.
It was the calmness she couldn't stand. "This boat squares her tacks very well, thank you very much," she said angrily. "And not only that, but I resent your implying that I don't think ahead. I've thought about this trip from every possible angle. I have every chart, every light-schedule, every aid to mariners in print. I have lists of my lists!"
"You have a thirsty crew."
"And you have a lot of nerve! Who died and left you boss, anyway?"
He began rolling up the chart, watching her almost curiously. "Do I take that as a no? We will not ration?"
"No. No! We will not ration!" she shouted, then clapped her hand over her mouth. She was becoming hysterical. She waited a moment, breathing heavily, then bit softly on her forefinger. "It's the heat," she explained dully. "I'd give anything to feel a cool breeze—"
"Laura—"
A piercing scream, a little boy's scream, froze them both in place. Laura was the first to thaw. Flinging herself up the companionway steps, she raked the decks for evidence of her son, expecting to find blood, seeing no one. She ran to the bulwarks, saw Billy and Stubbs having a loud and violent water-fight under the bowsprit, but not her son.
"MAMA!"
It came from above her, as if Neil had been kidnapped by the gods and was resisting.
"MAMA!"
She squinted heavenward and saw his outline black against the sun: upside-down against the sun, hanging by one ankle, caught in one of the lines. Upside-down, five stories above the deck. Upside-down, clinging with his small arms to one of the nearby ratlines to keep himself from being rolled into the foremast, and smashed ....
Laura fought back a wave of nausea and ran to the ratlines. She climbed them barefoot, oblivious to the fact that her feet were not as calloused as the others'; oblivious to the fact that for all her fearlessness, she was afraid of heights. One thought only possessed her: if his ankle gets free, his arms will not be strong enough to keep him from falling.
She had managed to clear the belaying-pin racks and scramble around the light-board before she looked up: Colin was thirty feet above her. Where he came from, how he got there, she had no idea; nor did she stop climbing. One ratline after another she climbed, terrified to look anywhere but at her son, terrified even more to focus on his tenuous grip. He did not see her, for which she was oddly grateful, but was looking at Colin, watching his approach with eyes round with fear.
Colin was murmuring words of comfort the way she might: "Shhh ... I'm here ... you'll be fine, mate ... almost there ... hold on .... Okay."
Only then did it occur to Laura that Colin was climbing up the ratlines on the inside, not the usual outside, his body fighting the natural gravity of their inclination, so that he could more easily grab Neil. When he was alongside the boy he wrapped one arm around Neil's upside-down torso and said, "I've got you, mate. Shift your hold to me ... don't be afraid ... I've got you."
Somehow Neil found the courage to release his arms, one at a time, and transfer them to Colin's legs.
"All right, now ... I'm going to lift you up a little, and I want you to try to kick your ankle free of the line. Easy does it, now ... easy ...."
Nothing happened. Neil kicked, and nothing happened. Laura's heart dropped three more ratlines; it wasn't over yet.
"All right. We're going to try something else. We have to go a little higher first. Don't be afraid."
He carried Neil up two more ratlines. It was like the Virginia going backwards in the Gulf Stream—progress in reverse. But at least now there was real slack on the line that held Neil.
"Bring your ankle toward me," said Colin.
Laura watched as Colin shifted his free arm around the ratline, hanging by the inside of his elbow, and then reached toward the tangle. Everything seemed to happen in slow, excruciating motion. She saw a quick jerk of Colin's forearm. And Neil was free.
"Good for us, mate. Now we're going around to the outside—you don't mind if I take the easy way down, do you?" asked Colin, his voice infinitely relieved. "And I suppose you'd like me to put you right side up so that you can enjoy the view."
Once again Laura's heart beat someplace other than in her chest as she watched the last maneuvers. But Colin managed it, as he had managed it all so far, and he brought Neil down slowly, while Laura moved underneath them at the same pace, with some idea that she would catch them both, hold them both, if they fell.
She climbed awkwardly around the pin-racks and light-boards and stumbled onto the deck with legs of rubber. Stubby was standing there, his face beaming with relief. Billy was there too, his face crisscrossed with emotions: fear, horror, happiness, guilt, awe.
When Colin and Neil landed, Laura threw herself around her son, her face streaming with tears.
"Don't be mad, Mama. I know I wasn't supposed to," Neil said in a small, shaky voice.
"I'll spank you some other time," Laura said with a choking laugh. "For now let's see about that rope burn. Can you walk, sweetheart?"
He nodded and she began to help him toward the companionway, not all that steady herself. Then she stopped, and turned, and said to Colin, "I ... you must know—"
"I know," he said quietly.
****
"It doesn't hurt. It really doesn't," insisted Neil as Laura wrapped a bandage around his bruised and skinned ankle.
"Oh, no? Then why are you crying?" his mother said with a sympathetic smile, touching her finger to a rivulet that ran down his cheek.
Neil, eyes glistening, looked around the cabin to see that no one was near. "Because I was so scared, Mama," he whispered.
"We were all scared, darling," Laura said, putting one arm around him and kissing his cheek.
"No. Colin wasn't. I could tell."
Laura concentrated on rolling up the leftover gauze. "Colin is a brave man." She looked up and smiled determinedly. "Into bed, now. I think a little rest might be a very good thing." She patted the berth that recently had been designated Colin's but that in ordinary times was used as a sickbay.
Neil was horrified. "Not the sick-bed, Mama! If I stay there everyone will think I'm a sissy. Colin will think I'm still a baby!"
Laura did not want to add to her son's trauma, so it ended with Neil limping back to his own berth in the forecastle. Laura tucked him in, then went back to her own cabin and shut the door behind her. She craved a moment of privacy. For ten minutes she gave herself up to wracking, silent sobs for all the things that might have been. When it was over she still hadn't the heart to go up on deck and face the others, so she took out her neglected diary and made an entry:
"September 20, 1934. Neil was skylarking just now and almost plunged to his death. I do not know which was worse: the thought of having to live without him, or the crushing guilt I would have felt in having to face Sam with the news. Add to those a third, more horrible response: my fury at Sam—which I did not know until now that I felt—for having abandoned his wife, his family, and his livelihood to go off to play at yacht-racing. I see now that I shall never forgive him for it. I have made a foolish decision, yet no more so than he."
Laura closed her diary, turned the little golden key, and reflected. Then she opened the book again to add, "The worst of it all is that the substitution is absolute. Colin has befriended him, educated him, and now he has saved his life."
After that she crept forward for one more peek at her son, who was sleeping soundly. She returned to her cabin and within seconds had fallen asleep herself, fully clothed, in the berth that her little boy would doubtless decline to share now.
****
"20 September, 1934. What did I say! We have won, and are only one down. We came from behind—if only Neil could have seen us! It looked all up for us by the last leg—we was sure the Cup was going back to the Brits—Vanderbilt threw up his hands and gave the helm to Hoyt—and went below to eat—but Hoyt's an old fox—fooled the Brits into thinking the finish line was somewhere else—they got lost in the haze—all they found was a calm patch—but Bliss and Hoyt knew just where we was all the time—we all held our breath—and I will be damned if we did not win! It was a miracle!"
****
The brass ship's clock in Laura's cabin chimed seven times. Laura thought it was three-thirty; opened her eyes; saw darkness. So it was seven-thirty, then, or even eleven-thirty. Impossible. She staggered sleepily to the forecastle, listened for the sound of her son's breathing, and only then—as she reassured herself that Neil was sleeping peacefully—did it occur to her that the Virginia was under sail again. Impossible.
Laura went back aft, automatically steadying herself on grab-rails against the lift and fall of the ship. She looked up out of the companionway at an overcast sky. The cabin lamp threw a few watts' worth of light on the patched and dirty sails of the Virginia. There was a breeze, and the sails were drawing. The schooner was on her way again.
She scrambled up on deck; Billy was at the wheel. "Why didn't you wake me?" she demanded, trying not to sound sleepy. "I've missed my watch. What time is it?"
"Eleven-thirty. It was Colin's idea," Billy said in a low but perfectly cheerful voice. "The three of us split up the watches among ourselves. No one even missed you," he added, trying to reassure her.
"How nice to know." Automatically she checked the compass course; the wind seemed to be pretty much out of the east. "One thing about the wind this trip; when there is any, it's fair," she said, stifling a yawn. "I can't believe I never heard you raise sail. Where's Colin?"
"I 'spect he's curled up on deck somewheres. Stubb's below."
"Oh." She had a choice: relieve Billy at the helm, or check in with her first mate.
"I'll be back."
It was a dark night, damp and penetrating. She made her way forward, scanning the deck in the dimly lit green of the running light, looking for curled-up lumps in the shadows.
When she found Colin he wasn't asleep at all, but propped up against the inside of the starboard bulwark, smoking his pipe.
"Aren't you catching some spray up here?" she asked, sitting down beside him, afraid of waiting to be asked.
"There's not that much wind. Sleep well?"
"Like the dead," she replied, stretching her arms out in front of her. "I can't account for it. Usually I'm up at every sound. I guess ... a lot of things caught up with me."
From the corner of her eye she saw the bowl of his pipe glow brighter. Then he said, "Waiting and watching can take it out of you."
Somehow what he said struck a chilling note in her. "I just remembered that I had the most horrible dream," she said, wincing. "I dreamt of the day I first met my husband—only in the dream he was you. And he was—or you were—loading a keg of oil, the way he was on the day I met him. And the keg fell at my feet and split open, just like on that day. Only instead of oil spilling all over my dress, it was ... blood. There was blood ... all over me." She shivered and wrapped her arms more tightly around her knees. "It was horrible," she repeated. "I remember the sound of the tackle as the keg was raised up and up in my dream; it seemed to go on forever."
"You heard us hoisting the sails, I suppose," he said thoughtfully. "As for the rest of it—you don't have to be a psychologist to know that you were weaving what happened today with other significant events of your life."
Laura thought about it for a moment. "I see ... the keg was really my son, was it?" Her voice had an ironic, rather defiant edge to it. "You seem to know a lot about dream symbolism. Before you sailed off to the Pacific, did you have a clinic in Vienna?"
"I read a lot at sea," he said simply. "Just like you. We don't have to talk about your dreams if it makes you feel uncomfortable."
"No, not at all. It doesn't bother me a bit," she lied. "Since you were in my dream, does that make you 'significant'?"
"You tell me."
"All right, then ... I will. You are significant in my life—just now. I need you to get the boat to the Bahamas. I'll need you to get it back. I needed you—desperately—to save Neil this afternoon. It's reasonable that you should find your way into my dreams." It was the most bald-faced lie she'd ever told.
She watched him lift his pipe over his shoulder and tap it on the bulwark, emptying its ashes into the sea. He took the bowl, still warm, and placed it in the palm of her hand, then took her other hand and wrapped it around the top. "You're cold," he said softly, stroking her hair.
"How can I be?" she asked in a faint voice as he began to kiss her gently on her cheek, her nose, her ear, her neck. "We're at thirty ... degrees ... south ... latitude. Colin, please ... I came to thank you, that's all ... for everything. I won't ever forget it. Neither will Neil ... or Sam ...."
He took a deep breath; his back straightened. "Right," he said, and exhaled. He stood up and held out a hand to her. "Better dress warmly, skipper. It's your watch."
She smiled bleakly in the darkness, not daring to accept his outstretched hand. No one—not even Sam—had the effect on her that this man did. She wobbled to her feet unaided; and yet, reluctant to leave him, she asked wistfully, "Why did you take this job, really? Was it for the money? For the hundred dollars?"
"That helped. But I suppose it was because I was so drawn to you the first time I saw you."
She was incredulous. "Surely not then! With that idiot man pawing me—"
"That wasn't the first time," he said, surprised that she thought so. "The first time, you wouldn't let my group aboard. You were just closing up your shipboard dance, and you thought we might not get our money's worth."
For a moment she had to think. "But that group wore tuxedos—"
"Most of them. A couple of us were in ordinary blazers. You look surprised," he added wryly.
"I'm dumbfounded," she confessed. "Who are you, Colin? Are you rich or are you poor?"
"You can be either one and get around nicely in Newport, it turns out. That night I was actually visiting a crew friend of mine on board a yacht at another dock. There was a cocktail party aboard, a little too top-drawer for some of the guests, and they decided to beat it. They left the dock at the same time we did, and it ended with my friend and me being absorbed into their group."
He bent his head over hers and dropped a light, lingering kiss on her lips. "The rest is fate. Good night, love."