By The Sea, Book Three: Laura (12 page)

Durant wiped his dripping brow into a
sleeve. "And what will we load into the hold for ballast on the
return trip? Bahamian slaves?"

That got her Midwestern hackles up. "Mr.
Durant, I
don't
think—"

"It was a joke, skipper."

"There is
nothing
funny about
slavery. I know quite a lot about Newport's infamous Triangle
Trade. I read about its ships running slaves from Africa to the
Caribbean, and sugar cane from the islands to New England, and
processed rum from New England back to Africa. And I didn't laugh
once."

"Sorry. And anyway," he added with a tired
smile, "I got the Triangle wrong, didn't I?"

She searched his face. "Don't you take
anything seriously?"

He stood up, winging his shoulders back with
a grimace. "Yes. Lunch. Are we having any?"

Laura served the crew dried kippers and
bread, aware all over again that she was one of very few to wear a
cook's cap and a captain's hat at the same time. She stayed aloof
from the three, bored by her son's pesky, nonstop adoration of
Colin Durant. It was a childhood disease, like chicken pox; it
would have to run its course. After lunch she went up to Durant and
announced her decision: they were going to sail directly offshore
to the Bahamas. On the return trip they would load up with rocks
for ballast, if worst came to worst.

She finished her little speech and he said,
"I signed on for a coastal trip."

"I've changed my mind. We sail the rhumb
line," she replied firmly.

"Have you telephoned the old man for his
permission?"

"How? And besides, I don't need to,"
answered Laura. Then she added, "You can walk away if you want
to."

"And leave you with them for crew."

"It's been done that way for hundreds of
years."

"Then you won't mind my tagging along to see
how you pull it off."

"Fine." She had no idea whether that meant
he was coming as first mate or as an observer for the
National
Geographic,
but at least he was still with them. For one
panicky moment she thought he wouldn't be coming at all.

They split up and went back to work. By
early evening the last of the lumber was lashed down and the cargo
hatch covered with tarpaulins. The wind, which had been blowing
hard from the north all day, picked up as it often does when the
sun goes down, filling Laura with such misgivings that she hired
one of the dockhands on the spot to fill out the
Virginia's
complement. He had a passing familiarity with boats. His name was
Stubby and she got him cheap.

Their departure from the dock was more
dramatic than the day before. There were some awkward moments, and
some shouting and screaming, but at last the
Virginia
was on
her way again, backtracking out of Long Island Sound and headed for
open water. They had a fair tide and a fair wind, but as the sun's
light ebbed, so did Laura's confidence. She'd been insane to think
she could assume responsibility for four people's lives, quite
insane. She'd been so ambitious, so completely dazzled by the
money, and now it was too late to turn back. And it was cold, so
much colder than September had a right to be.

Laura buttoned up her sea-jacket and pulled
her watch cap down over her hair. She felt the schooner lift to the
following seas—the wind had gone more west—and she headed the
Virginia
up a little, forcing the seas to break on the
boat's quarter. In another hour Billy would relieve her at the
helm.
And then I can hide below in my cabin and wring my hands
like the silly female I am.
How she hated to see the last of
the sun go down. Now there was only black night, dusted by stars.
The dark seemed to her an evil thing, filled with demons that she,
and only she, had the responsibility to quell.

From the dimly lit cabin Laura saw a shadow
emerge in the companionway; she jumped. Colin Durant, sensibly
bundled in warm clothing, came out and sat beside her at the helm.
He took out a pipe and began to fill it.

"Too bad there isn't a moon," he said,
divining her thoughts. "It lets you see all those things that go
bump in the night."

"You too?" she confessed, trying not to
chatter. "I thought it was only me."

He laughed softly. "I doubt that there's a
man alive who wouldn't rather leave by moonlight. Or a woman," he
amended.

"Do you think so? And yet my husband seems
to take it all in stride. When the weather is foul he never
complains, and when it's fair he never rejoices." She was missing
Sam tonight.

"They don't make men like Sam anymore," said
Durant. "I don't mean that as a cliché." He put a match to his pipe
and sucked it into life. "He's one hell of a man."

They said nothing for a while: Durant smoked
while Laura, her mood lightened by the company, became aware that
she was suddenly in no hurry for her watch to end. The sky around
her, starrier now, seemed more magical than menacing. Well over to
starboard she could see the low lights of Long Island's north
shore, the last twinkles of stateside civilization; impossible to
believe that they came from cars and houses and street lights. Once
they rounded Montauk Point, all that would fall away and they would
have only the lights of their kerosene lamps to light their way in
the black, black sea.

"You know," said Laura rather shyly, "your
watch isn't for three more hours; you're missing sleep. Or did you
come up to take one last look at land?"

His pipe had gone out. He made a business of
relighting it. "I'm always jumpy at the start of a passage," he
said gruffly. "Am I bothering you?"

"Not at all!" She said it more fervently
than she'd intended. To change the subject she asked, "Are you sure
you'll be happy with Stubby as your watch-mate? Would you rather
have Billy?"

"I'd rather have you," he answered bluntly,
making her heart do an unexpected spiral. "Or anyone else with a
working knowledge of English."

"Oh. Well, that can be a—"

"Damn! This tobacco's sodden. I may as well
try smoking sea kelp."

Wincing, she said, "I suppose you stowed
your tobacco pouch on the shelf above your berth?"

"Right under a major leak," he said, not
bothering to hide his annoyance. "There goes my pleasure this
trip."

"Sam keeps his tobacco in a tin in the
galley; I think there's some left."

He said nothing at first. Then: "Thanks. I
may have to take you up on that." He stood up; the boat lifted to a
quartering sea, and he lurched slightly, his weight brushing
against Laura. He snorted self-consciously. "Guess I haven't
unpacked my sea legs yet. Sorry."

Her smile in the darkness was almost bleak.
"That's all right. But you should try to get some sleep."

He yawned and said, "I think I just may. See
you in a few hours; if you need me, yell."

He was halfway down the companionway steps
when Laura suddenly called out, "Colin!"

"Yes?"

"We can sail close along the shore if you'd
rather."

She could hear the smile in his voice as he
said, "You sounded in a hurry to be back with your husband; we'll
give your way a shot. What the hell."

The forty-five minutes that passed before
Billy relieved her felt like forty-five hours.

****

During that same forty-five minutes, Sam
Powers was chewing on the end of his sharpened pencil, trying to
arrange his powerful feelings into thoughtful prose:
"4
September, 1934. Feel worse then yesterday. Wrong to let him
aboard. She wont know what to do. More crew needed. The races start
in 2 weeks. If only she was back by then. God. Hard all nite long.
Tired all day long. The work is less fun now. All talk is of the
Brit boat.
She
is faster both upwind & down. But
our men are not afraid. Bad feelings on both sides. First their men
quit and good men too. And now they say we are too light. It is
true the
Rainbow
is an empty shell. So they have took
out
their
tub and a lot else. They should take off
the wife. Send her back to England. A woman belongs at
home."

****

By the time the
Virginia
had gone
through her first complete change of the watch, Laura felt better
not only about herself but about the crew she had assembled around
her. Colin Durant was undeniably skilled in big-boat handling.
Billy was reliable, quick as a monkey, and able to follow
directions, even if he'd never be able to give any. And Stubby!
Stubby turned out to be a find: he was a natural on the helm, and
he had no trouble steering a compass course. It turned out that he
used to drive a dairy truck before his license was taken away for
chronic speeding. There was only one little thing wrong about him,
and that was that he tended to get seasick in the hammock they had
rigged for him in the very bow of the schooner.

Laura was able to write, in her diary entry
of the fourth of September,
"I wonder why I was so afraid
before. The weather is superb and the
Virginia
fairly
eats up the miles. The mood aboard is excellent; Stubby has even
begun to help with the cooking. He and Billy have become fast
friends. Everyone seems to have coupled off but me—the captain's
lot is a lonely one,"
she wrote, not at all certain that she
was being ironic.

There was a banging on her cabin door, which
immediately swung open; Neil had taken to not waiting for her "come
in" on this trip, reasoning, no doubt, that his mother had little
use for privacy.

"Mama,
look
what Colin gave me to
keep for my own!" he cried, waving a small pouch at her. "A
shagreen
money pouch, isn't it swell? It's like Colin's
ditty bag, only smaller. And that's almost not the best part," he
said with breathless intensity, pulling open the drawstring and
jamming his small fist to the bottom of the bag.

"Look.
A Swiss
centime
, and a
Turkish
piaster,"
he said, carefully laying out each coin
for his mother, pronouncing their names with obvious pride. "And
this one is a ... a
stotinki
from Bulgaria, and this one I
don't remember, but it's from India and it sounds like 'no price.'
Can you believe it? They're all mine!"

"And what did you have to give Mr. Durant in
return?" Laura asked, smiling despite herself. "Your best fishing
rod?"

"Nothing! That's just it, nothing!" Neil
replied, picking up his treasure coin by coin and returning it to
his sharkskin bag. "He said that I was a sport for giving him my
top drawer to use. Except for you, I love Colin more than anyone in
the world," he said fervently. "Except for Dad," he added.

"Really? What about Billy?" his mother asked
innocently.

A look of pained indecision clouded his
sea-blue eyes. "Maybe Colin is a tie with Billy," he murmured,
distressed to have to put his benefactor nearly at the bottom of
the totem pole of his friends and relations.

"Neil, sweetheart," began Laura softly.
"Colin is very exciting to be around, isn't he?"

Her son nodded and she said, "But you
mustn't forget people who've loved you for years and years, because
the chances are those people will love you for years and years
more. Chances are they won't go away and leave you all alone after
a bit. Do you know what I'm talking about, honey? Loyalty?"

Neil nodded again and then looked up at his
mother, looping the drawstrings of the shagreen pouch around his
forefinger. "But I'm not unloyal," he protested.

"Maybe not, but I don't think you've said
three sentences to Billy today. He's your old pal, remember? Maybe
he'd like to do a little trolling with you from the stern."

"He's off watch and napping," said Neil,
"and you're here and Stubby's steering, so who else is there?" He
was sounding a little petulant, as if it wasn't his fault that fate
threw Colin and him together this way.

Laura sighed and kissed his forehead. "I'll
let you work it out," she said softly, and patted his behind as she
shooed him out of her cabin. She could use a nap herself. She
stripped down to her ribbed undershirt and cotton drawers and threw
herself onto the covers of her berth.

It was ten in the morning. Bright sunlight
streamed through the round porthole of her cabin, promising another
fair day and easy wind. Her morning sun-fix put the
Virginia
nearly abreast of Bermuda. Once they got a couple of hundred miles
farther south, they would be out of the gale zone and the rest of
the trip would be a milk run. She had done her homework and studied
her charts, alone and with Colin during the few minutes they
overlapped at each changing of the watch. They did have to consider
the possibility of a hurricane, but Laura was convinced that
without an engine they would be in far more danger along the coast
than out at sea. And besides, Laura knew in her heart that they
would not encounter one. She knew it in her heart.

****

The hours between noon and one-thirty were
everyone's favorite. The crew all congregated around the helm for
lunch, and Laura made a point of serving some treat—fresh oranges,
or hardtack covered with blackberry preserves, or sticky saltwater
taffy. Billy and Stubby played checkers, with Stubby directing his
own moves from behind the wheel, which he rarely gave up. Laura and
Colin attacked the crossword puzzle book she'd brought along, and
Neil was in charge of the dictionary. It was a pleasant time, a
time to chat and tease and mingle.

"I've been saving this puzzle; it has a
nautical theme," Laura announced, crossing her legs underneath her
and settling in. "We ought to be able to whip through it in thirty
seconds. All set? One across: small space in the bows of a ship aft
of the hawsepipes. Six letters. Good lord, this is going to
be—'