Ted Shale shouted to the girl in the bathing suit. She turned, regarding him with the cold indifference of one who rebuffs an advance. Ted shouted again, and pointed. She lifted her chin and turned away.
Ted Shale sprinted across the soft stretch of sand which lay between the low tide line and the entrance to the yacht club. For a dozen steps, the powdery sand tugged at his ankles, then his feet were pounding down the yacht club float. He made a quick survey of the small boats, found one that had both oars and oarlocks, jumped in and jerked the painter loose.
Shale gave the skiff a quick push, and kept a precarious balance while getting out the oars. A few seconds later, he was rowing with quick, sure strokes. From the corner of his eye, he saw the girl in the bathing suit arch cleanly from the deck of the yacht, knife the water in a graceful, effortless dive, and start swimming. She stroked a well-timed crawl which sent her cleaving through the water.
Ted Shale gave the oars everything he had. The blades bit cleanly into the water as he flung his weight against them, pulling first with the muscles of the back, then snapping himself erect with a quick motion of the arms, twisting his wrists and feathering the blades as he sent them skimming back into position for another stroke.
He beat the girl to the site of the splash by a matter of seconds.
At first he could see nothing save the bluish green water, with reflections from the sun glancing from the wavelets to dazzle his eyes. The momentum of his small craft carried him past the spot where the girl had gone down. He grasped at the yacht’s mooring chain to check his progress. The cold slime of the metal slipped through his fingers. Water trickled along his wrist and up his sleeve. He saw a commotion in the water near the side of the yacht. A drifting blob of golden hair floated up near the surface. He heard the glug of sinister air bubbles, then, as the head started down once more, the hair floated up toward the surface, like golden fingers reaching for the sunlight.
Ted whipped off his coat and went overboard.
He braced himself for a struggle, but she was limp in his arms. Only once did he feel her stir, and then she gave a quick convulsive half-turn which helped him more than it hindered him, He rolled over on his back, slid her head up on to his abdomen, and swam with a powerful backstroke, holding her body clamped between his knees.
The girl in the bathing suit came splashing up to overtake Ted and his burden with quick businesslike strokes. She flung her head back, shook hair from her eyes, said very calmly in a voice so well-modulated that it might have been trained for the stage, “Making it all right?”
Ted met the clear hazel of her eyes, turned to get his bearings. “I’ll need some help when I get to the skiff.”
The girl in the bathing suit said nothing, but swam quietly along, using a breast stroke now which enabled her to keep her eyes well above the water.
“Don’t try the sides,” she warned. “Get around to the stern or the bow.”
Ted Shale’s voice held a trace of sarcasm. “Thanks for telling me.” He worked around toward the stern of the skiff, where it was lower in the water than at the bow.
“Can you hold her until I get in?” he asked.
“Certainly.”
“Be careful she doesn’t come to and start struggling. If she does, she’ll try to grab you and...”
She echoed the tone he had used with her as she repeated his words. “Thanks for telling me.”
Ted passed the limp body over to her by a deft leg motion, turned in the water, raised a right arm, his wet shirt hampering the motion, and caught the stern of the boat. He swung lip his left, pulled himself up, then dropped back so that he pulled the boat down in the water, at the same time getting all the body buoyancy possible from his immersion. He heaved himself up, and managed to get that essential upward crook in the left elbow. Two seconds later, he was sliding smoothly over the stern, conscious of the water which was pouring from his trousers legs, of the wet garments which clung to him with hampering insistence.
“All right,” he said, “let’s get her up.”
He reached over the stern, anchored his hands under the armpits of the limp figure, raised her until her hips were level with the water.
The girl in the bathing suit matter-of-factly swung up a glistening arm to the edge of the boat, placed her shoulder under the girl’s hips, said, “Here we go,” and Ted saw lean, sinewy muscles ripple under the bronzed skin of her arm as the dead weight of his burden was lightened. A moment later, he had the unconscious young woman dragged into the boat, where she lay, a soggy inert mass. Her blouse had been pulled loose from the yachting slacks, and had wrinkled up under her arms. Her wet hair plastered golden strings against her forehead.
Ted felt the boat sway, and saw that the girl in the bathing suit was pulling at the stern, trying to lift herself in. She couldn’t get quite high enough out of the water to throw her left elbow into that bend which would give her enough purchase to come up over the edge.
“Just a minute,” he said. “I’ll give you a hand.”
“You don’t need to.” She tried again.
Ted saw that she was getting weaker. He waited for her third ineffectual attempt, then bent over. She made no objection when he clasped fingers around her wet wrist, placed his other hand beneath her armpit, and lifted her high enough so she could slide in over the stern.
Once she was inside the skiff, Ted looked around toward the other yachts and toward the shore. Apparently the rescue had attracted no attention. The children still ran up and down the packed sand. The family parties that were grouped around lunch hampers lounged in the balmy morning sunshine. The float at the yacht club seemed deserted.
“Well?” the girl in the bathing suit asked.
Ted indicated the yacht, which was only a few feet away. “She evidently belongs on board,” he said. “There’s a landing ladder over on the starboard beam. If you’ll keep an eye on her, I’ll go aboard and make inquiries.”
She nodded, and Ted, picking up one bar, sculled the skiff over toward the landing ladder. The girl, who had shifted her position to the bow, caught the deck of the yacht, and held the skiff ready. Ted stepped aboard, conscious of his grotesque appearance, of the little puddles of water which marked each squishing step.
“Hello,” he called tentatively.
There was no answer.
“Ahoy!” Ted shouted, and, as he was greeted only with silence, walked over to an open companionway, and looked down into a sumptuous cabin.
It took a moment for his eyes to accustom themselves to the dim illumination of the interior. At first, he could see only splotches of sunlight where the sun poured through portholes, to splash vivid ovals on the carpeted floor.
One of those splotches of sunlight turned suddenly crimson, and Ted frowned as he watched it move slowly across the floor with the slight roll of the yacht. Then he saw it turn crimson again. His eyes slowly adjusted themselves to the relative gloom of the cabin. He saw something huddled on the floor, a grotesque something which sprouted out an awkward leg. Then he saw an arm, another leg, and still another leg. Two bodies lay sprawled on the cabin floor. A face stared upward with glassy, filmed eyes, and the slow swing of the yacht sent one of the oval splashes of sunlight across the death-distorted features.
Ted abruptly whirled and sought the open air.
He was hardly aware that his groping progress took him toward the landing ladder.
“Well?” the calm voice of the girl in the bathing suit asked.
Ted looked down at her. “We’re going ashore.”
“No one there?”
Ted didn’t trust himself to answer this question until he had descended the steps of the landing ladder, and thumped his weight into the stern of the skiff. His stomach felt cold and heavy.