Aground Read online

  “Oh, you mean Hollister.”

  “His name wasn’t Hollister.”

  He gestured impatiently. “So who cares what his name was? He’s dead. That’s why we need Herman.”

  Ingram was thinking he’d been betrayed by his own narrow professional outlook as much as anything. Nobody had made an effort to get her off, hence there was nobody aboard. This possibility hadn’t even occurred to him. He looked at the boxes, aware that at least they knew now why the Dragoon had been stolen. He should have guessed it before. “Where were you bound?” he asked. “Cuba?”

  The big man shook his head. “Central America.”

  “You’d never make it, even if you got her off.”

  “We’ll make it, don’t worry.”

  “What does he mean?” Rae Osborne broke in. “And what’s in all those boxes?”

  “Guns,” Ingram said.

  “Knock it off,” the big man ordered. “We can’t stand here all day flapping our gums. We’ve got that plane to take care of. Take a squint, Carlos, and see where it is now.”

  The Latin turned and looked out one of the small portholes. “The same. About a mile.”

  “Facing this way?”

  “More or less.”

  “All right, here’s the schedule, as the Limeys say—”

  “Listen,” Ingram interrupted. “Whatever your name is—”

  The big man laughed. “Did we forget to introduce ourselves? Wait’ll the yacht club hears about that. I’m Al Morrison. And this is Carlos Ruiz.”

  “All right,” Ingram said, “just what do you think you’re going to do?”

  Morrison shook his head. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you, if you’d shut up and listen. You’re going up on top, you and the cupcake. That pilot’ll be able to see you, but he couldn’t hear you if you yelled your lungs out. You look everything over, give it the old expert routine, and then you come back down and get on the horn and tell the pilot to go home. You’ve decided you can get her loose from the mud, and you’re going to stay aboard and sail her back to Key West.”

  “And then what?” Ingram asked.

  “As soon as he gets out of sight, we go to work. You’ve just been elected vice president in charge of transportation.”

  He couldn’t mean it, Ingram thought. He couldn’t be that crazy. “Look, Morrison—use your head, will you? Running guns is one thing—”

  Morrison cut him off. “Save it. I need legal advice, I’ll send for a lawyer.”

  “We can’t call the plane with this phone. They use different frequencies.”

  “Snow me not, Herman. I may not know my foot from a bale of hay about boats, but I do know something about radios and planes. Most of these crates in the Islands carry the intership frequencies. Carlos, you hold ‘em till I get set.”

  “Okay,” Ruiz said. He removed the automatic from the waistband of his khakis. Morrison went by them and disappeared into the passageway going forward. Even in the sloppy, unlaced shoes, he moved as though he were on pads.

  “How about it, Ruiz?” Ingram demanded. “You want to spend the rest of your life in prison for a few lousy guns?”

  Ruiz shrugged. “No spik Inglish.”

  Morrison called out forward. Ruiz motioned with the automatic. They went up the companion ladder and stood in the cockpit in brilliant sunlight. Ruiz was covering them from the ladder, his head still below the cockpit coaming. The forward hatch, just beyond the foremast, was slightly open, and he could see the muzzle of the BAR watching them like an unwinking eye. Smart, he thought. If they’d stayed below, Avery might conceivably have suspected something, but now it would appear from the plane they’d found nothing in the cabin and had returned to the deck to complete the inspection before calling.

  “Stay over to the right,” Morrison ordered. “Don’t get behind those masts. Try to jump over the side, and I’ll cut Dreamboat off at the knees.”

  “Well,” Rae Osborne demanded, “does he think we’re going to stand still for this?”

  “He seems to,” Ingram said.

  “Aren’t you going to do anything at all?”

  He turned and looked at her. “Can you suggest something?”

  Morrison called orders. They walked up the starboard side. He looked out at the plane, lying placidly on the water a mile away like a child’s toy on a mirror. It could just as well be in another universe. They crossed to the port side abaft the foremast and stared down in the water. “What happened to Hollister?” he asked.

  “He drowned,” Morrison replied from the hatch.

  “How?”

  “Trying to swim back to the boat.”

  From the dinghy, he thought. “What was he doing? And where did it happen?”

  “Right here. We ran aground during the night, and the next morning Hollister said we’d have to unload the guns to get her off. He took the skiff and went over to that little island to see if it was dry enough to stack ‘em on. On the way back the motor quit on him. The tide was running pretty fast, and he started to drift away. He took off his clothes and jumped in and tried to kick it along with his feet. He kept losing ground, though, and finally left it and started to swim. He didn’t make it.”

  “What day was this?”

  “Sunday, I think. What difference does it make? Now go back and start the engine.”

  They went aft. Ingram stepped down into the cockpit.

  The engine controls were beside the helmsman’s station. He switched on the ignition, set the choke, and pressed the starter switch. On the third attempt, the engine fired with a puff of exhaust smoke under the stern and settled down to a steady rumble that could easily be heard by Avery aboard the plane. Morrison might be crazy, but he wasn’t missing a bet.

  “Turn it off. Go back down.”

  They went down the ladder. Ruiz backed up to the forward end of the cabin. Morrison emerged from the passageway between the two staterooms with the BAR slung in his arm. He nodded toward the radiotelephone. “Get on the blower. Tell him just what I said.”

  Ingram shook his head. “No.”

  “Don’t try to play tough, Herman. It could get real hairy.”

  “You won’t shoot.”

  “No. But I’ll break Dreamboat’s arm. We don’t need her.”

  Silence fell, and tightened its grip on the scene. Ingram stared from one to the other. “I don’t think you would.”

  Morrison regarded him with bitter humor. “That’d be kind of a tough one to second-guess, wouldn’t it, Herman? This far from a doctor?”

  He held it for another second. Once that plane was gone, it wouldn’t be back. Morrison jerked his head at Rae Osborne. “Come here, baby.”

  Ruiz spoke then, in Spanish. “This I don’t like, Alberto.”

  “Shut your mouth, you fool,” Morrison snapped, also in perfect colloquial Spanish. “He may understand.”

  The suddenness of it caught Ingram by surprise. He fought to keep his face expressionless, hoping he’d recovered in time.

  “He doesn’t understand,” Ruiz said. “And this thing is very bad.”

  He would break the arm, Morrison replied. Likewise the other arm. And he would commit other acts, which he detailed at some length. Spanish is a language of great beauty, but it also has potentialities for brutal and graphic obscenity probably surpassing even the Anglo-Saxon. Faint revulsion showed in Ruiz’ eyes. Ingram believed he was being given an examination in the language, and managed to keep his face blank. He hoped Mrs. Osborne didn’t speak it, or if she did, that she had learned it in school.

  “See,” Ruiz said. “It is as I have said. He does not understand. Must we do this?”

  “We have no choice,” Morrison snapped. “Would you like to go back?”

  “It is unfortunate.” Ruiz spread his hands. “Well, if we must—”

  “What are you jabbering about?” Ingram demanded.

  “Which one to break first, Herman,” Morrison replied in English. “It’s not a very pretty sound
when it goes, but maybe she’ll yell loud enough to cover it. Let’s get on with it, Dreamboat.” He stepped across, caught her wrist, and began to bring it up behind her back.

  “All right,” Ingram said bleakly. “I’ll call him.”

  Morrison smiled, and let go the wrist. “Now you’re with it. Just pick up the mike.”

  He lifted the handset from its cradle on the front of the instrument. This actuated the switch starting the transmitter; the converter whirred. Morrison had already set the band switch to 2638 Kc. He pressed the button. “This is the Dragoon, calling McAllister plane.” He didn’t know the plane’s call letters. “Dragoon to Avery, come in, please.”

  There was a moment’s tense silence. Then Avery’s voice boomed in the loudspeaker. “Avery back to Captain Ingram. How does it look on there? Everything all right? Over.”

  Morrison nodded. Ingram spoke into the handset. “Everything seems to be in good shape. I think we’ll be able to kedge her off. We’ve decided to stay aboard and see if we can get her back to Key West. Over.”

  “You mean both of you?”

  “Yes. Over.”

  Avery’s voice came in. “I see. Well, if you run into any trouble and want us to come back or send a boat, call us through the Miami Marine Operator. Can you get her with your set?”

  “Yes. We’ve got that channel.”

  “Good. Any sign of what happened to the thieves?”

  Morrison shook his head, and made a rowing motion with his left arm. Ingram looked bitterly around the cabin. “No. Apparently they just abandoned her.”

  “Right. Well, if that’s all, I’ll take off. Good luck to you.”

  “Thanks. This is the Dragoon, off and clear.”

  He replaced the handset; the sound of the converter stopped. What now? Apparently Avery had accepted Mrs. Osborne’s sudden change of mind without question. There’d been no mention of the money she still owed McAllister for the charter, but they would merely take it for granted she intended to pay as soon as they reached Key West. It could be as long as a week before anybody even began to wonder about it.

  “What are you going to do with us?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” Morrison replied. “You’ll get your boat back when we’re through with it.”

  “And when will that be?”

  “As soon as we deliver the cargo.”

  “This is kidnap. You can get life for it. I don’t think you’re that dumb—”

  “Shut up,” Morrison ordered. “Go on top. I want you up there when he takes off.”

  They went up the ladder and stood on the after deck beside the cockpit with just the muzzle of the gun showing in the hatch behind them. “Don’t look around this way,” Morrison warned. They stared out at the plane. One of the propellers turned, shattering the sunlight, and then the cough and roar of the engine came to them across the mile of water. The other engine caught. The plane began to taxi toward the south. Ruiz is afraid of it, he thought. But that was no help; Morrison was in command, and he was the dangerous one. Well, he still had one small edge; they didn’t know he spoke Spanish.

  The plane had stopped now; it swung about, facing north. The engines roared and it began to gather speed. It went past them over a mile to the westward, lifted from the water, and began to dwindle away in the void. He felt sick. Morrison came up the ladder behind them, followed by Ruiz.

  Morrison sat down on the corner of the deckhouse with the BAR across his legs, and said, “All right, let’s get this scow off the mud. What do we do first?”

  “Jettison those guns,” Ingram said coldly.

  “Come again with the jettison?”

  “Throw ‘em over the side.”

  “Don’t bug me, Herman. The guns go on that island—”

  Ruiz broke in suddenly, in Spanish. “Look! The plane returns.”

  Ingram caught himself, but too late. He’d already turned to look. He saw Morrison’s jocose grin, and was filled with a dark and futile rage. That swept the series; he’d been made a fool of by all three of them—Hollister, Morrison, and now Ruiz.

  But it hadn’t been a deliberate trick; the plane was turning and coming back. “Hit the dirt!” Morrison barked. He grabbed the gun and ducked down the hatch after Ruiz. Ingram watched it silently. Maybe Avery did suspect something. But it was turning again now, in a steep bank only a few hundred feet above the water some miles to the north of them. It was as though Avery was trying to see something below him. At that moment the radio blared in the cabin. Morrison spoke from the hatchway. “Get on the horn. He’s calling you.”

  He ran down the ladder. Morrison had already started the transmitter. He passed over the handset and stood to one side, holding the gun. “Careful what you say, and watch me.”

  He pressed the transmit button. “This is the Dragoon back. What is it? Over.”

  Avery’s voice filled the cabin. “There’s something in the water down here. Hold it a minute. I’m coming over it again.”

  They waited in tense, hot silence unbroken except for the scratching of static in the loudspeaker. Rae Osborne watched from the hatchway. Then Avery’s voice came on again. “It’s a body, all right. Probably one of your thieves. Seems to be naked except for a pair of shorts. If you bring the raft, I can land and get him aboard.”

  He glanced at Morrison. “Tell him you’ll pick him up,” the latter ordered, “and take him into Key West.”

  He repeated this.

  “Very well,” Avery agreed. “Might save a bit of international red tape, at that. I make the position about three miles north-northeast of you. If you get here while the water’s still flat, you won’t have any trouble finding him. There are some birds sitting on him.”

  He saw Mrs. Osborne shudder at the image. Morrison gave a curt gesture that said: Get rid of him. He signed off, and replaced the handset. When they went on deck again, the plane was fading away in the northeast.

  Morrison perched on the corner of the deckhouse once more. “Now, how many of those guns do we have to unload?”

  Rae Osborne stared at him. “But what about the man?”

  Morrison shrugged. “So what about him?”

  “Aren’t we going to do anything at all?”

  “Like giving him artificial respiration, maybe? He’s only been dead for three days.”

  She took a step toward him, the green eyes blazing. “I’ve got to see him.”

  “A waterlogged stiff? Honey, you need help.”

  “Listen,” Ingram said, “it won’t take more than thirty minutes to row out there and see if she can identify him. She may know who Hollister was.”

  Morrison shook his head. “Fall back, Herman. I couldn’t care less who Hollister was, and we’ve got more to do than stooge around the ocean looking for him.”

  “I’m going out there,” Rae Osborne said. She started past him toward the raft, and violence erupted in the sunlit morning like the release of coiled steel springs.

  Morrison caught the front of her pullover, yanked her toward him, and slapped her back-handed across the face. She gasped and tried to hit him. Ingram lunged at him just as he drew back his arm and shoved, sending her sprawling along the deck. Ruiz’ arm flashed down, swinging the slablike automatic. Pain exploded inside his head and he fell forward against Morrison, who stood up, pushed him off with the BAR, and chopped a short and brutal right to the side of his jaw. His knees buckled and he fell beside Mrs. Osborne. When he tried to get up, the deck tilted and spun, and there was no strength in his arms. He dropped back. Blood trickled down across his forehead and fell to the deck in little spatting droplets just under his eyes.

  “Don’t ever try that again, Herman,” Morrison said. “You’re a big boy, but we’re in the business.”

  6

  In a moment he was able to sit up, wincing with the pain in his head. Rae Osborne had pushed to a sitting position with her feet on the cockpit cushions. She had an inflamed red spot on the side of her face, and there were tears of frustration and r
age in her eyes. “You’re not much help,” she said.

  He mopped at the blood on his face with a handkerchief, but succeeded only in smearing it. He threw the handkerchief overboard. A vagrant breath of air riffled the water astern and a gull wheeled and cried out above them in the brassy sunlight. This was about as helpless as you could get, he thought; he’d lasted less than three seconds.

  Morrison spoke to Ruiz. “As soon as the Champ’s able to row that raft, we get started. Go down and begin taking the lashings off those cases.”

  Ruiz went down the ladder. “How much will we have to unload?” Morrison asked.

  Ingram stared coldly. “How would I know?”

  “You’re the expert.”

  “I don’t even know what you’ve got aboard. Or where the tide was when you piled up here.”

  “I don’t know about the tide, but I can tell you what’s aboard. Six hundred rifles, thirty machine guns, fifty BAR’s, a half dozen mortars—”

  “I don’t need an inventory. I mean tonnage. Have you got any idea what it weighs?”

  Morrison thought for a moment. “The ammo’d be the heaviest. We’ve got over a hundred thousand rounds of thirty-caliber stuff in those two staterooms. I’d guess it all at six to eight tons.”

  Ingram made a rough calculation based on a water-line length of fifty-five feet and a beam amidships of sixteen. Call it thirty-five cubic feet displacement per inch of draft at normal water line. Each ton would put her down nearly another full inch. No wonder she’d looked low in the water.

  “You’ve got her overloaded at least six inches. If you’d hit any weather she could have foundered or broken her back.”

  “Never mind that jazz. How much do we take off?”

  “Probably all of it. How long have you been on here?”

  “Since Saturday night.”

  “And this is Wednesday. She’s never moved at all?”

  “No,” Morrison said.

  “Has the tide ever come any higher than it is now?”

  “How would I know?” Morrison asked. “You think we got anything to measure it with?”

  “Use your head. Has the deck ever been any nearer level than it is right now?”