Dead calm - By Charles Williams Page 0,3

line it up dead ahead, and checked the compass course. Three-fifteen was about right.

“Honey,” he called down the hatch, “when you come up, will you bring me a cigar?”

“Right, Skipper. But don’t get there too fast. If we’re going calling, I’ve got to dress and put on my face.”

“Take your time. It’ll be a half-hour or more.”

She came on deck in about five minutes, dressed in Bermuda shorts and a white blouse. Her still-damp hair was combed back and tied with a scrap of ribbon, and she’d put on lipstick. He lit the cigar she handed him. She picked up the binoculars and turned forward, searching for the other craft. The sun struck coppery highlights in her hair as she swayed with the motion of the ketch, balancing easily on bare feet.

“Still can’t tell whether there’s anybody on deck,” she said.

“She’s a long way off yet,” Ingram replied. “And they could be asleep—” He broke off at a muttered exclamation from Rae. “What is it?”

She spoke without lowering the glasses. “I thought I saw something else. Between here and there.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. It was just a speck, and it’s gone now—no. Wait. There it was again.”

“Turtle?” he asked.

“No-o. It’d have to be bigger than that; it’s too far away. Here, you take a look.”

He slid over and stood up in the cockpit. She took the wheel and repeated the compass course. “It’s almost dead ahead,” she said. “I only had a couple of quick glimpses of it, but I think it was right in line with the other boat and probably three-quarters of the way over to it.”

He put a knee on the starboard cockpit cushion and leaned to the right to get out of line with the masts as he adjusted the glasses. He picked up the other craft and studied it for a moment. Ketch-rigged, he thought, and probably a little larger than Saracen. There was no one visible on deck. She was almost abeam to the swell and rolling sluggishly. He lowered the glasses a bit and began to search the slickly heaving surface of the sea that lay between.

“See anything?” Rae asked.

“Not yet.” Then he did. It was only a speck in the distance, showing for an instant as it rose to the broad crest of a swell. It dropped from view. He marked the location in reference to the other craft and tried to hold the glasses steady to catch it when it came up again. Saracen rolled, and he lost it. “Had it,” he said. “Wait—here it is again.” It was in view for several seconds this time, and he was able to make out what it was—”Dinghy,” he announced.

“Adrift?” she asked.

“No. There’s somebody in it.”

“Odd place to go for a row.”

Ingram frowned, still studying the tiny shell. “I think he’s coming this way. Must have sighted us and started to row over.”

“That’s doing it the hard way,” she remarked with a puzzled glance at the back of his head. “Why wouldn’t he crank up the auxiliary? He must have one.”

“I don’t know,” Ingram said. “Unless it’s out of commission.”

In another few minutes the dinghy was within easy view without the glasses, continuing to advance across the slick undulations of the sea as its occupant pulled rapidly at the oars, never pausing or even slowing the beat as he turned his head from time to time to check his course. It would have been long since obvious to him that Saracen was under way and headed for him, and Ingram wondered why he didn’t merely rest on the oars and wait. Judging from the distance remaining to the other yacht, he’d already rowed well over a mile, apparently at that same racing beat. The occupant was a man, bareheaded, wearing a yellow life-jacket.

He was less than a hundred yards away now. Ingram reached down and cut the engine, and in the sudden silence they could hear the creak and rattle of oarlocks as the dinghy came on, its pace unchecked, across the closing gap. Saracen slowed and came to rest, slewing around on the swell, port side toward the approaching boat. The man looked around over his shoulder but did not hail. He was going to hit amidships. Ingram stepped quickly up on deck and knelt at the rail. He caught the bow of the dinghy and tried to fend it off, but a last explosive pull at the oars had given it too much momentum, and it bumped anyway. It swung around against