CHAPTER XVI
WITH THE HELP OF FIRE
“You did it!” Ken’s exultant shout broke the spell of silence that had fallen on the cabin.
“It looks like it.” Sandy laughed shakily. “Now all we have to do is get these ropes off before he comes to again.”
“If we could find a knife I could back up to you and hack through the ones on your wrists,” Ken said, his eyes traveling rapidly over the room. “There must be one here somewhere. He has meals on board.”
But there was no knife visible. There was no drawer in the table where one might be found. Their survey of the room revealed that the only place in the cabin which might conceal a knife was the row of cupboards high on the rear wall.
“I think I could pull the doors of those things open with my teeth, if I were standing up,” Sandy decided. “Anyway, it’s worth a try. Can you see to it that Cal goes on slumbering comfortably while I’m at it?”
Ken thought a moment. Bound as he was, it was unlikely that he could knock Cal out again if the man began to revive.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “Even if I sat on him, he’s big enough to throw me off. I’ve got it! I know how to take care of him. You go ahead, Sandy—if you’ve got the strength to move.”
Sandy was still breathing heavily. “I’m O.K.,” he said. “I seem to have got my second wind.” He began once more to work himself off the bunk.
Ken wriggled over to the armless wooden chair beside the kitchen table and began to shove it laboriously along the floor toward Cal. The man lay on his back, his head a few feet from the wall against which he had been knocked out. His sou’wester had fallen off, and an egg-shaped bump was beginning to swell up almost in the center of his crown.
Ken managed to get the chair between Cal’s body and the wall, and then shoved it forward until its legs straddled the man’s head.
“Now if I can just climb up on the chair,” Ken explained to Sandy, “with my feet on his chest, I’ll be able to give him a solid thump on the chin with my heels if he begins to stir. And if he tries to sit up suddenly he ought to knock himself out again by hitting the bottom of the chair seat.”
Sandy, who had managed to maneuver himself to a spot just beneath the high cupboards, sent Ken a congratulatory grin. “Brain conquers brawn again,” he said. “Good work. Do you need a boost up onto the chair?”
“I’ll make it—somehow,” Ken told him.
He struggled to his knees alongside the chair, maintaining a precarious balance by swinging his bound hands behind his back. Then he tried to jerk himself back and up, onto his bound feet. But his numb ankles gave way and he pitched forward on his knees again with an agonizing thump.
In almost the same moment Sandy, who was also trying to hoist himself into an erect position in front of the cupboards, toppled forward in a similar defeat.
After an instant’s silence each of them asked the same question. “You O.K.?”
“Sure,” Sandy said, past clenched teeth.
“Sure,” Ken echoed.
Ken edged himself into position once more, his chest almost touching the side of the chair. He took a deep breath.
“Wait for the roll,” Sandy said. “It’s coming.”
The barge dipped. Ken used all his energy in an attempt to straighten his knees. He got halfway up. For a second he seemed suspended in mid-air. Then his knees began to buckle. With a last desperate effort he twisted around. When he fell he hit the very edge of the chair and hung there, his body in a long slant that touched the chair seat midway between his hips and his knees. Almost immediately he began to slide downward as the barge reversed its tilt.
Ken threw his head far back. His bound hands scrabbled for a hold on the slippery wood. With all his might he pushed his heels against the floor, trying to hold his position against the pull of the deck beneath him.
He was fighting a losing battle when the barge reached the depth of its dive and began to climb.
Slowly, a fraction of an inch at a time, he moved backward onto the seat of the chair.
“You’re almost on!” Across the room Sandy had abandoned his own efforts for a moment in his anxiety over Ken. “Push!”
Ken gave one final shove and then let his breath out with a gasp. He had made it! He slumped against the chair back, his chest rising and falling with the gulps of air he was sucking into his lungs.
After a moment he swung his feet up off the floor and onto Cal’s chest. They landed some six inches from Cal’s chin.
“O.K.,” Ken said. “He’s under control. One little backward jerk and I can subdue any ambitions he might develop. The only trouble is I can’t see his face. So give me a signal if you see him beginning to open his eyes.”
“It will be a pleasure,” Sandy assured him.
Then the redhead returned to his own problem. The cupboard knobs were more than five feet above the floor. There was no way to reach them without standing up.
Sandy made one more gigantic effort to thrust himself upright from his knees.
For an instant he seemed to have succeeded. And then the barge gave an unexpected sideways lurch and Sandy fell heavily on his side.
He lay there perfectly still, his eyes shut in a face that looked startlingly white in the flickering light of the lamp.
“Sandy!” Ken jerked forward involuntarily but caught himself just before he lost his hard-won position on the chair. “Sandy!” he repeated urgently. “Are you—?”
Sandy opened one eye. “I’m—all right,” he gasped.
He raised his head slightly and his mouth tightened with pain.
“But I think I must have twisted my ankle a little when I fell,” he went on after a moment. “I don’t think I can put my weight on it for a while, even if I could get upright.”
“Don’t try it,” Ken said quickly. “You’re going to be no help if you’re knocked out.” His eyes searched the room frantically. “There must be something around here we can use to get out of these ropes.” His voice lifted suddenly. “Maybe Cal’s got a knife in his pocket!”
He leaned forward instinctively toward the body beneath him.
“Don’t get off the chair!” Sandy said quickly. “I’ll come over.”
Again hope seemed to have given him new strength. Slowly at first, and then a little faster, he squirmed his way over the floor. Sitting down near Cal, with his back toward the unconscious man, his bound hands began to fumble with the fastenings of Cal’s oilskins.
Five minutes went by, and then ten more, before Sandy had explored every pocket in the man’s clothes.
“Nothing,” he said. “I guess we’re—” A slight movement caught his glance.
Cal’s eyelid was fluttering. His head turned.
“Ken!” Sandy said quickly. “He’s coming to!”
Ken jerked his heels backward. They smacked against Cal’s chin.
Sandy bent forward for a careful look. “All right,” he said. “You’ve taken care of him.”
Neither of them spoke for a moment.
“We’ve done the hardest part,” Ken finally burst out. “We’ve got Cal out of the way. Don’t tell me we’re stuck now!”
Sandy didn’t answer.
“Do you suppose I could chew through those ropes on your wrists?” Ken asked.
Sandy grinned faintly. “In about three days, maybe—if they were well boiled first, to tenderize them.”
“But there must be—” Ken broke off. “Listen!”
“Listen to what?”
“The pump’s not running!”
Sandy concentrated, his head nodding slowly. The reassuring chug of the gasoline engine was no longer audible.
“How long ago do you think it happened?” Sandy asked quickly.
“I don’t know. I just noticed it.”
Sandy’s eyes sought the clock.
“Almost eight,” he muttered. A glance at the window told him that the hour was correct. The grayness outside would have been daylight if the weather were less stormy. “We’re probably pretty well out to sea,” Sandy said. “So the weather will be getting worse, if anything. A while ago we were afraid they’d turn back. Now....” His voice sank to a whisper.
“We’re not licked yet,” Ken said stubbornly. “We can’t be—not as long as this thing is still afloat and we’re still conscious.”
The barge shuddered as another solid wave poured over the bulwark and struck the cabin. The water seeping in under the door was coming faster now.
“As long as this thing is still afloat,” Sandy repeated, and shrugged. “That might not be long at this rate.”
“But if we’re really in trouble,” Ken said, “the barge up ahead will be able to tell—now that it’s getting light.”
“They may be able to tell,” Sandy agreed, “though I doubt if they can even see us in this weather. But there’s not much they can do about it except cut our towline if it looks as if this tub were really going down.”
“Would they do that?” Ken sounded incredulous.
“What else could they do?” Sandy asked. “You couldn’t expect them to hold on and be carried down with us.”
Ken swallowed. “We could always go overboard—with something to hang on to. Any piece of wood—”
“Sure,” Sandy said. “And how long do you think we’d last in this kind of a sea—even with something to keep us afloat—when we’re trussed up like this?”
“You mean,” Ken said slowly, “that unless we get that pump going there’s really a chance that—?”
Sandy didn’t wait for him to finish. “That’s just what I mean. The more water she ships,” he explained carefully, in a colorless voice, “the deeper she rides. And the deeper she rides, the more water she takes. It’s what’s known as a vicious circle.”
Crash! That time the water dove full over the cabin roof, pouring down the walls in solid sheets.
How many like that, Ken wondered, would it take to fill the barge to its gunwales and drag it under? How soon—?
But all thought blanked out of his mind as the barge careened far to one side. Ken fought to retain his place, digging his heels into Cal’s rocklike chest.
Sandy, with nothing to brace himself against, slid helplessly across the floor toward the hotly glowing stove.
“Sandy!” Ken shouted. “Watch out!”
But Sandy couldn’t check his headlong dive. His shoulder struck hot metal.
Even as he hit it he was twisting away, with all the strength of his muscles. But the smell of burned cloth quickly filled the air. And as Sandy managed to lunge himself toward the wall, and safety, Ken could see the charred black burn on the sleeve of his windbreaker.
“Did it go through?” Ken asked. “Are you burned?”
To his amazement Sandy’s answering voice was suddenly strong—almost cheerful.
“I just got warmed up,” he said. He twisted around so that Ken could see his face. “We’ll beat this thing yet, Ken.”
Ken stared at him. The thought popped into his head that Sandy’s mind might be wandering. A moment ago he had sounded completely beaten. Now Sandy was edging back toward the stove.
“What are you doing?” Ken demanded. “Sandy, stop!”
“Let me alone. I’m burning to get out of these things.” He lay down on his back in front of the stove and started to lift his legs into the air. “I’m not going to risk working on the ropes around my wrists,” he said. “Too tricky. I couldn’t see what I was doing and I might put my hands out of commission. And I’ll need ’em when we get out there to work that pump. But the ones around my ankles—”
Ken’s heart had stopped pounding in panic. In a sudden flash he had realized what Sandy was planning to do. He was going to burn through the ropes that bound his feet together.
“Can I help?” Ken leaned forward. “Maybe if I—”
“No,” Sandy grunted. “You stay where you are. But keep an eye on me. I can’t see very well from down here.” His feet were above the top of the stove now, and Sandy was lowering them carefully so that the ropes were directly above the metal edge. “How’m I doing?”
“Looks good from here. But be careful!”
New life sounded in both their voices now.
There was a low sizzling sound. The ropes had become damp from the water on the floor. Then again a scorching smell filled the cabin.
“Ouch!” Sandy yanked his legs away. “Too close that time.”
Once more he got into position. Once more the scorching smell rose from the vicinity of the stove.
“One strand gone,” Sandy muttered a few minutes later. He winced and jerked his feet upward but immediately lowered them again.
Ken winced in sympathy.
“There goes another one!” Sandy announced.
And suddenly his feet were free. The cord that had bound them lay in smoking tendrils on the floor.