He swore softly in the darkness, and managed to fish out three more. A bullet tore through the planking with a splintering sound and slapped into the bulkhead somewhere just forward of him. He shuddered, thinking of the electrical circuits, but went on groping. Then it occurred to him that he was doing more harm than good. As long as they were lying on the bottom they probably wouldn’t get into the suction, but he was stirring up more than he was getting out. He climbed back to the cockpit, wiped the gasoline off his legs and arms with the towel, and began pumping. In five minutes the suction was clogged again.
He went down into the blackness and the fumes and the border country of nightmare once more, and was crouched knee-deep in gasoline with his face just above its surface when he froze suddenly and the skin along his back drew tight with the stabbing of a thousand needles. It was a sound, the familiar, homelike throbbing of an electrical appliance nobody ever really listened to—the refrigerator motor. He’d forgotten all about it until now; the thermostat had tripped, and it had come on. He waited for the white and blinding flash of the explosion. Nothing happened. Seconds ticked away. His legs were trembling, but he breathed again, softly, almost tentatively, as though even daring to hope might tip the scales the other way.
There was nothing he could do. He could go forward to the galley and disconnect it, but breaking the circuit while there was a load on it would cause a spark. None of the switches or electrical fittings aboard were vapor-proof. He went on waiting. A full minute must have gone by now. Maybe the fumes weren’t as dense up there, since the bulk of the gasoline was aft. Strength began to return to his legs and arms, and his mind cleared sufficiently to warn him of the other and ever-present danger—asphyxiation. He hurriedly cleared the pump suction and went back up the ladder. The motor was still humming its industrious way along the edge of eternity.
He caught the pump handle, and for a second he was conscious of a crazy impulse to laugh and wondered if he’d begun to crack. Even this simple act of pumping the stuff overboard could blow it up; the friction of the gasoline against the walls of the pipe and against the air and the water as it fell over the side into the sea generated enough static electricity to set it off. Except for the saving grace of the almost saturated humidity around them, they’d probably be dead already. He went on pumping. After a while you get numb, he thought; you can’t absorb any more, so it rolls off. This time it was nearly ten minutes before the pump clogged. As the trickle died and silence closed over the boat once more, he became aware that the refrigerator motor had cut out. He went below, groped his way forward, and pulled out the plug. He cleared the suction, and returned to the pump. In less than two minutes it choked off again. He went below and cleared it. When he came back he vomited over the side and his skin was inflamed and itching from immersion in the gasoline. He pumped. It was scarcely twenty strokes before the stream died to a trickle and quit. He sat down on the cockpit seat.
It was hopeless. He was never going to pump it overboard until it was light down there and he could see those papers and get them all out at once. Dipping the towel over the side to wet it, he scrubbed at his legs and arms in an attempt to get some of the gasoline off them, and put his clothes back on. The taste of defeat was bitter in his mouth and he wanted to smash his fists against the deck. Maybe they would never get the Dragoon off. They were doomed to stay here forever—or until some random spark blew them into flaming wreckage.
No! He stood up. They weren’t whipped yet; there was still the fresh water. He slipped forward and knelt beside Rae Osborne. “I may have got a third of it out,” he added, after he had told her about it. “Pumping some of the fresh water overboard will help too. We’ve still got a chance.”
“Of course we have. She’s coming up all the time.”
He’d been oblivious to the passage of time, and wondered how long they had now until high tide. “How long has it been since there was a shot from Morrison? I forgot about him.”
“Nearly a half hour.”
That was ominous. He hated leaving her up here alone, trying to watch both ends of the boat at once, but he had to get that water out. Every pound was important. Then he had an idea. “Did you ever do any fishing?”
“Once or twice.” She sounded puzzled. “Why?”
“That’s what you’re going to do right now.” He went aft to the cockpit and groped around for a piece of line that was long enough. Making one end fast around the anchor warp, he came forward, paying it out, and put it in her hand. “Pull it taut, and just hold it. If he gets on back there, you’ll feel him.”
“Fine. Where will you be?”
“In the galley. Just yell, and I’ll be here in five seconds.”
He slipped down the forward hatch and felt his way back to the galley. The pump was over the sink. He groped around until he found several pots, filled them with water, and set them aside for insurance. There was no telling how much was in the tanks, and if he pumped them dry before he realized it, they would be in trouble. He began pumping into the sink and letting it run overboard. The gasoline fumes weren’t as bad here as in the after cabin, but they were still too strong to breathe for very long. He opened the porthole above the sink and leaned forward to get his face in front of it. He was all right then. A timber creaked as the schooner righted herself a little more on the rising tide. He wondered how much longer they had, and increased the tempo of his pumping. Sweat dripped from his face. If he could get even a hundred gallons overboard it would lighten the schooner by at least another eight hundred pounds. Then it occurred to him that if many of Morrison’s bullet holes were below the water line as the tide came up and she righted herself, salt water might be running into the bilges faster than he was pumping out the fresh. Well, there was nothing he could do about it. Maybe it was hopeless, and had been from the first. It was beginning to seem now that he had been aboard this grounded boat forever, and he wondered if he would even recognize the feel of one that was afloat and free beneath his feet.
He heard her footsteps on deck, and then she spoke softly near the porthole. “Skipper?”
Morrison, he thought, and felt for the gun against his stomach. “Yes?”
“Everything’s all right. I just wanted to tell you it’s getting pink in the east. I can see the water a little now, and it seems to be hardly moving.”
He hurried on deck. She was right. It was still too dark to see the sand spit, but there was definitely a touch of color in the east. He strained his eyes outward toward the surface of the water, and could make out that the tide was flooding very slowly now. They’d be at the peak in less than half an hour.