They let the boat drop heavily back on its side, and the oars fell out. Still calmly, refusing to become excited, Pieter picked them up and placed them in the oar locks. Again Ramsay understood. Both men knew this for a furious storm but both had underestimated its fury. At the best, should they be able to get the boat into the lake, they would have a split second to float her and the oars had to be ready. It was better to take a chance on losing an oar than to have the boat driven back onto the beach.
Kneeling, Ramsay felt his muscles stand out like stretched cords as he gave every ounce of strength to turning the boat around. He was sweating again—and short of breath. Only the pressing urgency and the great need for immediate action gave him the strength to continue.
Then the craft seemed to move a little easier, and Ramsay glanced around to see Marta working beside them. Noting them from the house, and understanding their mission, she had thrown a shawl about her shoulders and raced out to help. With almost maddening slowness the boat turned until its curved nose faced the lake.
Ramsay on one side and Pieter on the other slid it down the wet sand toward the water. The boy bit his lip fiercely to help keep control of himself. Nothing must go amiss here, and a wrong or panic-stricken move could mean disaster. Because this launching demanded machine-like precision, Ramsay fought to control the fire in his brain. Carefully he thought out each exact step.
Get the boat into the lake until it floated. Then leap in beside Pieter, grab an oar and time his strokes to Pieter's. Fight their way out to the stricken Spray and rescue those aboard her.
It seemed a simple matter, but never before in his whole life had Ramsay faced anything more complex. It couldn't be done, his mind said, while at the same time something else told him that it could and must be done. He glanced around and curiously, as though the picture were registering somewhere other than in his own eyes, he saw Marta Van Hooven.
She was standing at the edge of the lake, her dress and shawl sodden-wet and her rain-soaked blond hair clinging like a seal's fur to her head and shoulders. One hand covered her mouth, as though to stifle a cry that was half-born there, and in her eyes were a great pleading and a great prayer as she watched her husband. But the cry did not find life. She uttered no sound. While she did not want Pieter to go, at the same time she knew that he must. Only if help came did anyone left alive on the Spray have even a faint chance of staying alive.
Then they were in the lake, and a mighty wave burst like a water-filled bomb about them. It staggered Ramsay and sent him reeling, but it did not unnerve him. Because he had practised in his own imagination what he must do from here on in, he could do it.
He felt cold water creeping about his shoes and then up around his knees. The boat which they had been dragging steadied itself as they reached water in which it could float. Through the blinding spray that lashed at them Ramsay looked across at Pieter. He saw him only indistinctly, but it was as though they read each other's thoughts. At exactly the same moment they flung themselves into opposite sides of the rower's seat and each grabbed an oar. The boy bent his back to the man-killing job of rowing.
The boat was sluggish, and again half-filled with water. But it floated, and as soon as they were free of the mighty waves that smashed against the beach it floated a little more easily. Ramsay looked back across the steel-gray turmoil to see the Van Hooven farm, and Marta still on the shore. Then he returned all his attention to the task at hand.