Collection of Stories

From the motor-room, Perris called: “Seacock’s closed.”

“Get that pump going.” Koski examined his foot. The screw-blade had sheared off the side and toe of the boot. He felt of his own toes. They were all there. But his hand came away warm and sticky.

He felt weak.

Can’t droop off now, he told himself angrily.

Neither Mrs. Perris nor Ham Belton was aboard. It must have been one of that pair who had escaped on the Vigilant with Vaugh. Which one it was and what had happened to the other one, was of strictly secondary importance until Koski had learned what had happened to Mulcahey.

He lashed the wheel with a rope becket, went below to the galley, found a bottle of Cuban rum, nearly full.

He let half a pint bum his throat, poured the rest over his cut foot. The sting, inside and outside, braced him.

Perris emerged from the motor room under the companionway. “Pump’s running. But it’ll take a week to get her dry.”

“Not if you bail, too,” Koski snapped. “Grab a bucket and squat down there in the bilge. Get a pail to work.”

“I can’t,” Perris whined. “I can hardly stand.”

“You’ll stand. And for a lot, before this is done! Jump!”

“You can’t blame me for any of this.” The producer began to pour water into the galley sink.

“Not for your engineer’s death, I suppose?”

“Buzz?” The swollen mouth hung slackly open. “Buzz killed?”

“Back there in the cockpit. With his dome caved in.” Koski lifted a bunk cushion. There might be just room enough in the locker beneath to cram a body as big as the sergeant’s.

“I didn’t do it.” Perris shivered. “I’d never have hurt Buzz. He was a great little joker. I liked Buzz.”

“How about your steward? Like him, the same way?”

“I hate him. He’s Sydna’s pick, not mine. He does what she tells him, never sees anything she doesn’t want him to. I paid him off quick, when I got out here, but they tied me up and threw me in the lazarette before I could row him—”

Koski didn’t hear the rest of it; he was running aft.

The lazarette. How could he have been dumb enough to forget that a ketch like this would have to store its bottled gas, for cooking and refrigeration, in a cubbyhole beneath the stern deck!

The tiny hatch was right behind the wheel. He had been sitting on it while he lashed the becket in place!

He tore the hatch open, leaned over, stuck his arm down into the darkness. Water sloshing, tiller lines creaking. And rubber! Mulcahey’s slicker!

Koski glanced forward to make sure Perris was still emptying water into the galley sink. It would be too easy for somebody to bop him, once he squeezed into that deep, narrow compartment.

He let himself down, not daring to hope.

Yet why would Mulcahey’s body have been kept on board? More likely the intent had been to hold him as a hostage. That idea might have been abandoned after Vaugh took over the Vigilant.