Nearly six inches in seven hours.”

Ingram glanced down at him and then returned to his scrutiny of the other boat without comment, still aware of that nagging sense of dissatisfaction. Something about the whole thing disturbed him, but he couldn’t put a finger on it. Just what was it? Warriner was certainly in a position to know how much water was coming into her. And when you stopped to take a good look at it, saving her was only a pipe dream. Even if they could pump her out enough to plug a few of the leaks, the kid would never make land in her alone. She was too big for one man to handle, even without the necessity of being at the pump twelve to fifteen hours a day.

3

The sun was hotter now. He turned, searching the horizon for any darkening of the surface of the sea that would indicate the beginnings of a breeze. Rae came up the ladder. “Your bunk’s all ready, Mr. Warriner. Try to sleep until this time tomorrow.”

Warriner smiled. “Please call me Hughie. And I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You don’t have to. Just get some rest.”

“In a little while. For some reason, I don’t feel sleepy at all.”

She nodded. “You’ve been wound too tight for too long. But I know how to fix that.” She disappeared down the ladder and came back in a minute with a bottle containing a little over an ounce of whisky. She poured it into the cup that was still beside him. “There’s just about enough here to do it.” He drained it and accepted the cigarette she held out. “By the time you finish that,” she said, “you’re going to collapse all over. Just try to make it to the bunk when you feel yourself start to go.”

“Thank you,” Warriner said. “You’re very nice.”

She tossed the bottle overboard and perched on the edge of the deckhouse to light a cigarette for herself. The bottle landed with a faint splash just off the port quarter, rolled over as a swell passed under it, and started to fill. It righted itself, its neck out of water. Ingram glanced at it indifferently, and then forward, conscious that Warriner’s dinghy was bumping as Saracen rose and fell. They’d have to cast it adrift; there was no room to stow it on deck, and of course they couldn’t tow it. He looked around and was about to mention this when he stopped, arrested by something in the other’s face.

Warriner was staring past him with an almost frozen intensity, apparently at something in the water. Ingram turned, but could see nothing except the bottle, which was about to sink. It had rolled onto its side again as another swell upset it, and water was flowing into its mouth. A few bubbles came up, and it went under.