_RESCUE_
A fresh gust of wind sent the waves leaping higher, and for a moment
only the furious lake could be seen. Ramsay rose, and Pieter rose beside
him; and both went to the barn door. They stood alert, still not
speaking and not even certain of what they had seen. Then they saw it
again.
Beyond any possible doubt it was the _Spray_, and she was working
valiantly to get into shore. Ramsay swallowed a lump in his throat. He
had first seen the _Spray_ as a dancing bit of gaiety on a lake as
stormy as this one, and then she had seemed so sure of herself and so
capable. Now she was like a shot-wounded duck which, no longer able to
rise in graceful flight, must lie on the water and flutter desperate
wings. For another tense moment Ramsay and Pieter stood side by side.
By inches the _Spray_ was fighting her way toward shore, but a glance
was sufficient to reveal the tremendous odds against her ever making
safety. Still, even in this terrible dilemma, there was a spirit about
her which the _Holter_ never had and never could have. The two men on
the _Spray_--and did not the crazy Dutch fisherman usually carry a crew
of four?--seemed to be working calmly and easily. There was, from this
distance, no trace of the near-panic that had reigned when the _Holter_
went down.
Ramsay knew a moment's intense gratification. This was part of the
dream, part of the picture he had engraved in his heart when he first
saw the _Spray_ and her skipper. When they challenged the lake, they
accepted it in all its aspects. Now they were behaving as all fishermen
should behave. Before they could even begin to follow their trade they
must make an unbreakable pact with their fortune on the water, be it
good or bad.
Then the trance was broken. Out on the lake, within sight of Pieter and
Ramsay, men were about to die. They must not die if there was any way to
help them. As though their eyes were guided by one common impulse, both
men looked toward Pieter's small boat.
It was a clumsy craft, strongly-built of heavy timbers which Pieter
himself had hand-sawed in his spare time. Usually, when Pieter wasn't
using the boat, it was pulled high enough on the beach so storm-driven
battering rams of waves could not touch it, and so it was now. Side by
side, with no need to speak, Pieter and Ramsay left the barn and raced
toward the boat.
Wind-driven rain soaked their clothing before they had gone ten feet,
but they paid no attention to it. Kneeling, one on either side of the
fourteen-foot boat, they strove to push it back into the lake. Pieter
shouted to make himself heard above the roar of the wind and the
smashing waves. "Wait!"
Ramsay stopped pushing while Pieter took the long oars out of their
locks and laid them lengthwise in the boat. The boy nodded approvingly.
As things were, it seemed all but impossible to launch the boat. If they
launched it and lost an oar in the high seas, they were doomed to
disaster, anyhow.
"Now!" Pieter shouted.
The boat scraped a deep furrow in the wet sand as, with a concerted
effort, they pushed it backwards. Not looking at the savage combers,
Ramsay gave all his attention to the boat. They would have to work with
all possible speed to get it into the lake and the oars in place,
because the waves were rising to enormous heights now. He felt the
boat's square stern touch water.
Then an irresistible giant, a force that would bear no interference,
took hold and shoved the little craft almost as far up on the beach as
it had been when they tried to launch it. Leaving the boat half-filled
with water, the smashing wave washed away from the wet sand.
Ramsay stood erect to catch his breath. They had given all their
strength to backing the boat into the lake, and as they were about to
succeed it had been plucked from their hands as easily as a strong man
might snatch a flower from the hands of a baby. He glanced out across
the water to assure himself that the _Spray_ was still floating, then
looked desperately at Pieter.
"Nose first!" Pieter said. "Turn it around!"
He shouted to make himself heard, but there was about him an almost
maddening calmness as he worked. Ramsay restrained his impatience. They
must not lose a second's time; but if they were going to do this at all,
it must be done exactly right. Both on one side of the boat, they
raised it to let the water spill out.
In spite of his drenched clothing and the cold air that blew in from the
lake, Ramsay was sweating. Pieter's boat had been built by a farmer, not
a fisherman. It was all right on a calm day when Pieter wanted to go
fishing, but certainly it had never been built to weather storms. So
heavy was the craft that the combined strength of two men was needed to
tip the water from it.
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.
The lake was an insane thing, bent on destruction. They went into the
trough of a wave and rose on the next one. Ramsay risked a fleeting
backward glance to see the _Spray_, much nearer the shore and still
afloat.
Suddenly they were in an almost-calm stretch of water. Ramsay felt cold
fear run up and down his spine. He had met this on the sinking _Holter_,
and now here it was again. Almost fearfully he glanced sidewise at
Pieter, but he could not speak because the screaming wind would have
drowned his words as soon as he uttered them. His eyes grew big.
Just behind, and again on the right side, an apparition drifted out of
the depths. It was a ghost figure, a thing born of nightmares. Ramsay
gasped. The White Sturgeon nosed to the surface, drifted lazily for a
moment and disappeared back into the watery depths out of which it had
come.
Ramsay risked a sidewise glance at Pieter, whose face remained
undisturbed, and he swallowed the lump in his own throat. Sailors might
fear the White Sturgeon, but if Pieter did, he was not showing his fear.
The boy told himself again that the sturgeon was a fish, nothing more or
less than a great fish which, through some freak of nature, was colored
white. But it did seem to appear only when death and destruction stalked
the lake. He forced such thoughts from his mind.
They were again in storm-lashed water, striving to keep their boat
straight and headed toward the _Spray_. Vast waves bore down upon them,
plunging the little craft into their cold troughs and then shooting it
up as though it were a plaything. From the crest of the waves Ramsay
could still see the _Spray_. He worried. Now there seemed to be only one
man aboard her.
There was a sharp, sickening crack and the sound of splintering wood,
that rose above the roar of the wind and the surge of the waves. The
boat slewed sideways, and for the first time Pieter Van Hooven's face
betrayed emotion. He brought in the stump of oar remaining in his hand
and, at the risk of upsetting the little boat, leaned across the seat to
snatch Ramsay's oar from its lock. With that in his hand, he made a
precarious way to the stern. He thrust the oar over the rear seat,
trying to use it as a rudder, and the boy strove to overcome the fear he
felt.
The White Sturgeon, the sailors' superstition said, always brought
disaster. If you see it, the little deck hand had told Ramsay, you can
start praying right afterwards. For one terror-filled moment their
predictions seemed correct. Twice Ramsay had seen the White Sturgeon;
each time he had been in immediate danger of death. Then superstition
subsided and reason came back to his aid.
Crouching in the back seat, with only one oar, Pieter Van Hooven was
doing his best to fight the angry lake. Though he was a farmer,
obviously he knew something of seamanship.
For a brief moment, just long enough to keep from capsizing, he kept the
little boat headed into the onrushing waves. When he turned it, he did
so skilfully. Working the oar only with the strength in his hard-muscled
arms, he headed back towards shore. A mighty wave smashed the stern,
throwing cold water over them and across the tiny craft. Ramsay moved
from side to side, doing all he could to help Pieter by shifting his
weight to where it was needed most. The boat was three-quarters filled
with water. Never made for a heavy sea, now it was an almost dead thing.
But so strong were the waves and so powerful the wind, that they were
driven at almost motor speed back into the beach. Ramsay had one glimpse
of Marta.
Pieter lost the little control he had. Turning sidewise, the boat lifted
like a matchstick on the crest of a giant wave and spun dizzily down
into the trough. It was lifted again, and just before it turned over
Ramsay flung himself clear. As he did, he saw Pieter go over with him.
He dived as deeply as he could, knowing that the boat would come
crashing down and knowing also that it would kill him if it struck him
on the head. Far into the lake he went, swimming under water and groping
his way. He surfaced to see the craft to one side and a bobbing object,
which he thought was the head of Pieter Van Hooven. A second later a
tremendous wave deposited him on the sandy beach.
He lay gasping, all the breath knocked out of him, and he wished
desperately to get out of the path of the waves that were breaking over
him. But it seemed impossible to move. His mind urged him to go, but he
lacked the physical strength to obey. Then he felt a pair of hands in
his armpits, and his body was dragged over the scraping sand. Ramsay
looked up to see the frightened face of Marta Van Hooven.
"Can you move?" she pleaded.
"Gi--give me a minute!"
For what seemed an interminable time, but could not have been more than
twenty seconds, Ramsay lay still. He turned over so that he lay face
down, and lifted himself with his arms. His legs and feet were made of
jelly. Vaguely he was aware of Marta and Pieter Van Hooven, one on each
side, lifting him to his feet. A second later his strength returned.
Keening in from the lake, the wind made him stagger backwards. Reaching
mountainous heights, the breaking waves shattered themselves far up on
the beach. Ramsay looked across them. About two hundred yards out, the
_Spray_ was completely crippled. Trailing from her broken mast, the
sail bled water into the angry lake. Down at the bows, the fisherman's
boat seemed hung up on a rock or reef. Every second wave that washed in
broke completely over her and hid her from view. But the single man
remaining on board still worked calmly with the broken half of an oar,
to free the _Spray_ from her prison.
Ramsay allowed himself another split second. The entire dream was coming
true. There were some men who, to the last, could meet the challenge of
the lake with grace and spirit. The man on the _Spray_, identified even
at this distance as Hans Van Doorst, had not given up.
The boy whirled on Pieter Van Hooven. "A coil of rope!" he ejaculated.
Without waiting to see whether or not Pieter followed his instructions,
he raced for the barn. Snatching a bridle from its wooden peg, he went
more slowly toward the corral where the little black horse was confined.
This had happened once before and it might happen again. A man's
strength was as nothing in the raging lake, but a horse was many times
as strong as a man. The black horse had brought him safely in when all
the others had drowned.
The little horse arched his neck and flicked his ears when his young
friend approached and patted him.
"Easy," Ramsay said reassuringly. "Take it easy, Black."
The little horse rested his head over the boy's shoulder for a moment,
then the latter stepped back to slip the bit into Black's mouth, put the
bridle over his ears and buckle the throat latch. The horse followed
willingly behind him as he pushed the corral's gate aside.
He mounted, and Black reared and pranced, just to prove that he could.
Ramsay tried not to look at the lake, but he couldn't help looking. When
he did, very lonely in the gray waves, he saw the reef- or rock-bound
_Spray_. The lone fisherman still could be seen, working to free his
craft.
Ramsay leaned forward to pat the little horse on the neck. "We can do
it," he murmured. "Let's prove it."
He took the bridle reins in his hand and trotted Black toward the
foaming lake. Pieter, his eyes grave, tossed him a coil of half-inch
rope. Ramsay had one glimpse of Marta's anguished face. He slipped the
coil of rope over his shoulder and did not look back.
As they approached the lake, the horse hesitated, to paw the sand with a
front hoof. He looked around to eye the rider on his back, and again
Ramsay leaned forward. "All right," he said. "Go on."
The horse accepted his words but, more than that, his confidence. Guided
by the bridle's touch, he walked willingly into the pounding lake.
Another water bomb exploded about them. They submerged, but Black came
up swimming strongly. Ramsay kept soft fingers on the bridle reins, not
wanting to exert any pressure or do anything else that might divert the
horse from the job at hand.
Tossing his head, Black sneezed to empty his nose of water that had
washed into it. He was timing himself capably and almost perfectly to
meet the waves at their place of least resistance, and he rose and fell
with them. From the crests Ramsay could see the _Spray_. From the
troughs he could see nothing. A lump rose in his throat.
The _Spray_ was indeed sadly wounded. Only part of her stern showed
above water. Hans Van Doorst still worked with a broken oar to free his
boat, and as soon as he came near enough Ramsay knew that he had been
right.
The Dutch fisherman had been one with the lake when Ramsay first saw
him, and he was one with it now. Unafraid, he fought the lake as
gracefully as a swordsman. Perched on the broken stump of mast, the sea
gull fluttered his wings and clicked his mandibles.
Ramsay gauged the situation as precisely as he could. If he could throw
his rope over the stranded _Spray_, the little horse might be able to
pull it from its anchor and back to shore. Ramsay saw Hans Van Doorst
turn to watch him. The fisherman waved a friendly hand.
Still guiding Black lightly, imposing no undue strain on the reins or
bit, Ramsay steered him across the _Spray's_ sunken prow. He let the
reins hang slackly on the horse's neck and took the coil of rope from
his shoulder. As precisely as he could, he cast and watched the rope
snake through the air.
A sick feeling arose in the pit of his stomach and he moaned audibly. He
had calculated the distance correctly but he had not allowed for the
strength of the wind. The rope missed Hans Van Doorst's outstretched
hands by two feet and fell into the angry lake. Of his own volition,
Black turned back toward shore. Ramsay saw the squawking sea gull bounce
a couple of feet into the air and spread his long wings. Grasping the
reins, for the first time the boy used strength as he strove to turn the
horse back. He glanced over his shoulder to see what might be done next,
and gasped.
Hans Van Doorst had gone to the raised stern of his wrecked boat to give
himself a running start, and as Ramsay looked, he dived. Leaping as far
as possible from the _Spray_ to avoid striking the rock, he hurled
himself into the storm-lashed lake, straight at his would-be rescuers.
For a few seconds that seemed like hours, he disappeared into the
churning depths, but when he surfaced he was squarely behind Ramsay and
he used both hands to grasp the horse's tail.
Black turned back toward shore. He swam more strongly now because he was
going with the wind instead of against it, and his double burden did not
seem unduly heavy. Ramsay saw Pieter and Marta Van Hooven, Pieter's hand
protectingly over his wife's shoulder, as they waited to see what would
happen.
The last wave burst around them and they were back on shore. Instantly
Ramsay slid from the little horse's back and looked around. A nausea
seized him. Hans Van Doorst was no longer in sight. Ramsay had tried and
failed. He glanced toward the _Spray_, as though he expected to see the
crazy Dutch fisherman still there, and knew only that waves were
smashing the boat into kindling wood.
Then, as though he had literally risen from the lake, Hans Van Doorst
picked himself up from the wreckage of a breaking wave and walked
ashore. His tame sea gull fluttered out of the sky to alight on its
master's shoulder. The Dutchman reached up to stroke his pet as he
looked at Pieter and Ramsay. "None but me and Captain Klaus?" he asked.
"None, Hans," Pieter said.
For a moment an infinite sadness, a melancholy born thousands of years
ago in the first fisherman who had seen his mates lost, pervaded the
Dutchman. But it was only for a moment. Pieter and Ramsay walked to his
side and offered their assistance. He declined it.
"I'll walk," he said.
Ramsay felt a great warmth for and a vast sympathy with this man who,
while daring all and losing all, could remain so very human. Marta
hovered solicitously near as they all went up to the house and wore
their dripping clothes into her immaculate kitchen. Hans Van Doorst sat
down, tried to fold his arms across his chest, and winced.
"You're hurt!" Marta cried.
"It is nothing." The Dutch fisherman looked at the three. "It happened
out on the lake. We struck something, I do not know what. Perhaps the
half-submerged hull of a sunken ship. Then we were in trouble."
Marta was stooping beside him, gently unbuttoning his soaking-wet shirt.
Hans Van Doorst looked fondly down at her wet and bedraggled hair, and
he offered no protest as his upper body was bared. There was a vast,
ugly scar on the right side of his chest, and when Marta touched him
there his ribs moved. The Dutchman sat very straight in his chair.
Though he must have felt pain, he showed none.
Ramsay and Pieter stood aside while Marta worked expertly. Ripping one
of her snow-white sheets into strips, she wound a bandage tightly around
Hans Van Doorst's broken ribs. Ramsay and Pieter looked significantly at
each other. Such an injury _might_ have resulted when wind or a heavy
wave flung the fisherman against something. Probably it had happened
when Hans flung himself forward in an effort to rescue a shipmate.