Somewhere, from afar, he heard Jones speaking in bored tones.
“Bull,” he was saying, almost lazily, “you know how I dislike unnecessary violence in any form. If you hadn’t shoved the boy, this little scene would never—”
And that was the last Sandy was to hear for quite a while.
CHAPTER NINE
To the Freighter
When Sandy came to, the first thing he was aware of was a terrific headache. This was accompanied by such severe dizziness that when he tried to sit up he sank back immediately, holding his head. Gingerly, he ran his hand over his skull as if to make sure that it was still all in one piece. Then he lay still for a while, afraid to try moving anything else, and looked at the ceiling above him.
Slowly, the dizziness ebbed away and the pain lurking behind his eyes settled down to a more bearable level. When he felt it was safe to try, he moved more cautiously than the first time, sat up and swung his long legs over the edge of the bunk.
For a moment, he simply sat there with his elbows on his knees and his head propped in his hands, and looked at the decking. He had to think hard, as if he were remembering a dream that was fast fading away. Why was he in this bunk below? How was Jerry handling the boat alone? He frowned, pushed back his cowlick and raised his head.
As he did so, he caught sight of the brass flare gun clipped to its bracket on the opposite bulkhead, and suddenly he remembered everything that had happened. Of course! This was not his boat at all, and Jerry wasn’t sailing it alone—or in any other way, for that matter!
Jerry lay on the opposite bunk below the flare gun, propped up on one elbow and looking at him with a grin.
“I guess it isn’t funny,” he said, “but you sure took an awful long time to wake up and figure out what had happened to you! I’ve been lying here awake for five minutes now, just watching you come up from under!” Ruefully rubbing a hand across his black crew-cut, he added, “I guess I must have taken the same length of time doing it when I woke up, but there wasn’t anybody here to time me!”