CHAPTER ELEVENEscape to Danger

Bull looked puzzled. “I don’t getcha,” he mumbled.

Jones rose with a swift movement, his smile turned at once to ice. “If you weren’t such a stupid lout, perhaps you’d get me the first time I speak to you! If you weren’t such a stupid lout, we wouldn’t have had these boys here with us in the first place.”

He moved forward as if to strike the cowering Bull, but stopped and regained control over himself. Once more, he put on his bland smile.

“Pardon my temper and my little jokes, Bull,” he said. “What I meant by ‘unnecessary luggage’ was concealed weapons. In other words, frisk them.”

Bull shook his head and said, “Why’ntcha say so inna first place?” and started toward Jerry and Sandy.

Once again Sandy tensed. If only his luck would hold and he could get through without having Bull find the flare gun! Otherwise....

He watched as Bull patted Jerry, none too gently. He realized that, if Jerry had been wearing a jacket under which to hide the flare gun, it would surely have been discovered. Soon Bull was finished with Jerry, and it was Sandy’s turn. Bull frisked him quickly and clumsily, patting his chest and under his arms, even though it was obvious that he couldn’t possibly have hidden anything there. Bull’s big hands continued down to Sandy’s pockets, hesitated for a moment, and stopped right there. He turned to face Jones.

“They’re clean,” he said.

Jones nodded, not paying too much attention to Bull or to the search. “I didn’t think that they would have had the foresight to bring any weapons. Still—there’s no sense taking any chances. In this business, one can’t be too careful.”

Noticing that Jones was not looking directly at either Bull or themselves as he said all this, Sandy followed his gaze to the upper decks of the freighter, wondering what hewaslooking for. A door swung open and a man stepped out into the late afternoon sunshine. Jones rose, waved to the man and called, “Captain! Come down! We have a little surprise for you!”

Sandy had not known what to expect of the captain of such a ship as this, but surely, the man who came down the ladder did not look in the least like anything he might have imagined! He would not have been really surprised by a bearded giant, or another tough, such as one of the crew, or even, perhaps, by a turbaned oriental—but this captain was surely a complete surprise!

He was a thin, wispy-looking old man—how old, Sandy could not begin to guess—with a face like a wise preacher’s or perhaps a college professor’s. He was dressed entirely in white, down to his old-fashioned white high-buttoned shoes, and he carried a bamboo cane with a gold head. To finish off this spotless outfit, so out of keeping with his ship, the Captain wore a pith helmet, such as British officers wear in the tropics!

The old man moved briskly down the steep ladder from the upper decks and, with scarcely a glance at the boys, addressed himself to Jones.

“Who are these children?” he asked, his voice thin and reedy, but carrying authority and as sharp as the crack of a whip.

As Jones explained the presence of the boys on board the freighter, the Captain looked from them to Jones and back again. When Jones told him how Bull and Turk had mistaken Sandy’s sloop for his own, the Captain shifted his gaze to the two sailors, who almost winced under his cutting stare of scorn. Then, when the tale was done, he devoted his attention exclusively to Jones once more.

“What do you want to do about it?” he asked.

“I leave that entirely up to you,” Jones said. “I want no part of any violence—if it can be avoided. Besides, you will have them on your hands, and I’ll be ashore, so that it’s hardly my place to dictate the conditions of their—er—disposal.”

Jones rose, leaning casually on his rifle as if it were a walking stick. “Whatever you want to do is all right with me. Just get rid of them, that’s all. And do it in a way that won’t attract any suspicions ashore. I don’t want anyone poking around the island asking questions about them.”

The Captain thought for a minute, then answered, “I don’t think we’ll have anyone poking around the island. Not if we handle this thing right. They must not, you see, simply disappear. If they just drop out of sight without a trace, it will surely bring on a search, and someone may have seen them near your place. No, that won’t do. On the contrary, they must be found. But they must be found in such a condition that they can answer no questions—ever. And it must look natural.”

“Perfect logic,” Jones said. “I agree completely. But how are you going to manage it?”

“We will keep them aboard,” the Captain answered, “locked up below. I will tow their sloop after us. When we are a satisfactory distance from shore—say a thousand miles—we will put them into their boat and cut them loose.”

“But,” Jones protested, “isn’t there a chance that they could make it in to shore somewhere? Men have managed rougher trips than that in the past.”

“Don’t worry about details,” the Captain said in his quiet, scholarly voice. “I’ll take care of everything. First, we will drop them far out of any regular shipping lanes. In addition, we will first wreck their sails, their mast and their rigging as if it had been done by a storm. When they are finally found, it will be too late to do anything about them. It will just look as if a storm had wrecked them and blown them out to sea. It’s a tidy way to operate—no messy violence—and there will be no clues to lead to your precious island.”

Jones considered for a minute before answering. “It sounds all right to me, if you say so. After all, you know your end of the business better than I do.”

“Indeed I do,” the Captain answered calmly.

“Now,” Jones said briskly, dismissing the matter of the boys from his mind, “we have my other cargo to discuss before our dealings are finished for this trip.”

The Captain held up a thin, white hand to stop Jones. “Not now,” he said. “Our business can wait until we have refreshed ourselves and had a bit of dinner. Then when it is dark, you can turn over your cargo—if the terms are satisfactory—and sail home unobserved.”

He waved his stick at the boys and motioned to two of his crew members. “Take them below and lock them in an empty cabin. And set a close watch on them.”

As Sandy and Jerry were led off by the two crewmen, they saw the Captain precede Jones to the foot of the deckhouse ladder. He paused and bowed, indicating that Jones should go first. Somehow, the courtly, old-fashioned gesture seemed to Sandy more sinister than anything else he had seen since the start of this day.

Stepping over the high sill of the door that led from the deck to the passageway, Sandy and Jerry were plunged at once into gloom and near-darkness. The throb of the freighter’s engines, barely noticeable on deck, became a roar, and the passage was thick with the smells and heat from the engine room below.

They were pushed and shoved along the passage, past a number of doors which Sandy presumed were the crew’s quarters. On the other side of the passage, an occasional door opened onto the engine room, a great cavern of heat and noise, brightly illuminated by lights on all sides, and crisscrossed by catwalks and ladders.

Without a word, their guides stopped before a door opposite the main opening to the engine room. One of them produced a large key ring and, after a moment’s searching for the right key, unlocked the door.

Motioning them to enter, the guard stood aside as Sandy and Jerry stepped into the gloom of a small cabin. Then the door slammed behind them, the key clicked in the lock, and they were alone. Through the ventilating slits cut in the top and bottom of the door, they heard one of their captors.

“You take the first watch while I go for chow. I’ll bring the kids something to eat when I come back, then you can get yours.” The other said something in agreement, and the speaker’s footsteps in the passageway were soon drowned out in the roar of the engines.

Sinking to a seat on the bare springs of a bunk with no mattress, Jerry looked up at Sandy and asked, “What now?”

“I don’t know,” Sandy admitted. “But at least we got away with the flare gun, and we may figure out a way to use it.” He lowered himself to the bare bunk opposite the one Jerry occupied, and surveyed their floating prison.

The cabin offered very little promise of help. There were the two double bunks, both bare of mattresses, four lockers, a sink in one corner and a single porthole. Going to the porthole, Sandy tried to open it, but with no success. The “dogs” that secured it, heavy steel latches, were welded in place, and the glass of the porthole looked too heavy to break. Obviously, the place had been used as a prison before. Outside of the porthole, there was nothing but the sea. Even if the glass could be broken, Sandy didn’t like the idea of dropping down into the black waters below. That seemed as unpromising a position as the one they were in now!

The lockers were the next subject of their exploration but, as they expected, these proved as empty and bare as the cabin itself. The sink, the only remaining thing in the room, was the source of no inspiration.

Settling himself on the bunk once more, Sandy began to roll up his pants leg. “I guess this flare gun is our only hope at that,” he said. “We might as well have it ready.”

He quickly undid the adhesive tape, then stuck the gun in his belt. As he did so, an idea came to him.

“Jerry, I think I have it!” he whispered.

The plan was a simple one—almost too simple to work. But it seemed the only chance they had. Sandy proposed to wait until the guard came with their food, then, threatening him with the flare pistol, they would try to overcome him, tie him up, and make their way to the deck. Once there, they would have to find a way out. It seemed a slim hope, but what else could they do?

Jerry agreed, and whispering quietly, they worked out the best positions to take to make their attack good. Meanwhile, one more stroke of good fortune came to them. Jerry found that he still had the roll of adhesive tape in his pocket, undiscovered in Bull’s quick inspection. It would come in handy for binding and gagging the guards, if they could once overcome them.

Now there was nothing to do but wait. Through the porthole, they could see the sky growing dark, and the gathering gloom in the cabin raised their spirits. It was one more bit of aid that might fool their jailer into thinking the flare gun was a real weapon. The last glow of day was dying on the horizon when they once more heard voices in the passageway.

Jerry took his position by the door while Sandy readied the flare gun, then sat on one of the bunks. The door swung open and their guards entered, the lead man carrying a tray and his companion behind him.

As they stepped over the sill, Sandy stood up suddenly, upsetting the tray. Hot coffee spilled over the lead man, who stepped backward with a cry. As he did so, Jerry, from his position behind the door, reached out and knocked the second man to the deck. At the same moment, Sandy raised his flare gun and aimed.

“All right,” he said. “I have you covered!”

“Do what he says,” one of the sailors said. “Do you see that gun? It’s a flare!”

Sandy was startled. If they knew it was not a real pistol, why didn’t they charge him? Why were they cowering away? Then he realized for the first time that the flare pistol, used as a weapon, must be an awful thing. Anything that could send a stream of flame hundreds of feet into the air could surely inflict a terrible wound when used against a man. He shuddered, knowing he could never use it in this way. But as long as the sailors didn’t know it....

It was short work to silence the men with adhesive-tape gags, and to tape their hands firmly behind their backs. When this was done, the boys pushed the sailors into the lockers, taped their ankles together, and shut them in. The locker doors secured firmly with a latch. Leaving the cabin silently, Sandy and Jerry locked its door behind them. That certainly took care of two of their captors. Now, if the rest would just prove this easy!

As they stepped away from the door, Sandy whispered, “Let’s get out of this passage fast. There are too many doors here, and one might pop open at any minute!”

They swiftly moved down the length of the passage until they reached the bulkhead door. Outside, the deck was dark, with the complete blackness of a night at sea, pierced only by the shaft of light that came from the passage. Moving now as quickly as they could, they slipped out onto the deck, and stepped back out of the light. Their shadows had been outlined boldly against the passage light for only a second. They crouched in the darkness and waited to be sure they had not been observed. So far, so good.

Now that they had gotten this far, Sandy realized, their problems were just beginning. How were they to get off the ship? And how could they prevent being followed?

“Jerry,” he whispered, “we’ve got to see to it that we get away from here in the fastest boat they have! I wonder if there’s a power boat around?”

“There has to be,” Jerry answered. “Every ship carries lifeboats, and one of them always has power so it can be used as a captain’s launch when necessary.”

“Well, let’s find it!” Sandy whispered.

Gazing over the side, they could see no boat tied up at all. They had to work their way to the other side of the freighter, without once more crossing the telltale path of light from the passageway. To do this, they had to work their way forward to the bow, and then around to the other side of the ship. Slowly, with as much care as they could muster, they dropped to their knees and began to crawl.

They reached the forepeak with no trouble, except the minor difficulties of crawling over the mess of rope and ship’s gear scattered around the disordered deck. As they started back, though, two dark forms appeared in the light of the passage!

“Down!” Sandy whispered, and he and Jerry dropped flat on the deck behind the protection of the windlass. Peering around the corner of the huge machine, with its coil of giant anchor chain, they watched the figures come nearer. Halfway between them and the deckhouse, the shadows stopped, leaning against the bulwark, and lit cigarettes.

In the brief flare of the match, the boys recognized the grim face of Turk. The other man with him was a sailor they had seen on deck with the rest of the crew when they had been taken aboard the freighter. He spoke in a thin, flat, whining voice, with a trace of a foreign accent that might have had its origin in any country in the world, but which by now was simply international. The first words the boys could make out came from Turk.

“This waiting is getting on my nerves,” he rumbled. “What’s keeping us from shoving off?”

“It’s the big businessmen up there,” the sailor whined, jerking his thumb toward the Captain’s quarters. “Jones wants more for the phony dough than he got last time, and the Skipper wants to give him less. The Skipper says he rates a break in the price for getting rid of those kids for Jones. Jones says he’s taking as much risk as the Skipper.”

“And how about us?” Turk asked. “Ain’t we in this as much as them? Where’s the payoff for us?”

“I don’t know about you,” the sailor answered. “But the Skipper never letusdown yet. He says he’s gotta have better terms so’s to pay us a bonus. And we’ll get it,” he continued, his voice taking on a mean, determined tone. “We’ll get it, or else!”

Sandy and Jerry, scarcely daring to breathe, lay still in the shadow of the windlass, listening to this exchange. At each word, the black freighter seemed less and less like a place where they wanted to stay. Something had to be done, and fast! As each moment wore on, Jones and the Captain were coming closer to an agreement, and when that agreement was reached, the ship would sail. And if it sailed with them still aboard, Sandy thought, their chance of escape would slim down almost to the vanishing point!

For a few minutes, Turk and his friend stood silently at the rail and smoked their cigarettes. The stillness of the scene was marked only by the glow of coals against the black sea and sky. Then one of the cigarettes made an arch through the night as it was flipped over the side. The figures straightened.

“I’m going back up there,” Turk announced, “and see if I can get any better idea what’s going on. I’ll listen at the porthole, and you stay back on the boat deck and cover for me. If anyone comes along, start to whistle.”

The two dark figures walked back to the deckhouse and disappeared for a moment in the shadows. A few minutes later, Sandy saw their forms outlined briefly against the light from a porthole on the boat deck; then they passed once more from sight.

Turning to Jerry, Sandy whispered, “We’d better get going! If they wind up that business talk before we’re out of here, I don’t give us much of a chance!”

Once more, they crept in the shadows, moving with painful care over the tangled equipment that seemed to cover the decks everywhere. At last, reaching the ladder from the main deck to the boat deck, they paused and took stock. Above them, showing only as a dark shape against the dark sky, loomed the bow of the nearest of the freighter’s four lifeboats. Slowly, and with the greatest of care, they slipped up the ladder until Sandy’s head was at a level with the deck above. He waited and watched to be sure the deck was uninhabited. When he was reasonably certain, he moved ahead, slower now than before, and slid his body up onto the deck. Jerry followed suit, and soon the two, pulling themselves forward on the deck by the flats of their hands and the toes of their sneakers, were sheltered by a life-jacket box below the lifeboat.

Turning over, Sandy scanned the bottom of the lifeboat, until, with a sigh of relief, he saw what he was hoping to see—the screw of a power boat protruding from the stern. This was the object of their search!

As he pointed excitedly to the screw, Jerry whispered with puzzlement, “Now that we’ve found their power gig, what are we going to do with it? It takes four men to launch these things, and even if we could launch it, it would make such a noise that we’d have the whole crew on our necks before it ever hit the water!”

“I didn’t figure on launching it,” Sandy said. “What I want to do is fix it so they won’t be able to follow us in it when we make our getaway on the sloop!”

“Smart thinking!” Jerry whispered. “There’s very little danger that they can chase us with the freighter itself. In the first place, by the time they could turn it around, we’d be out of sight. And if they don’t catch up with us out here, they won’t dare come too near the harbor. The water there isn’t deep enough for a ship this size and it would be too risky for them. ButIdon’t know too much about engines. How are you going to disable this one?”

“I know a few ways,” Sandy answered, “and I’m going to use them all! If I just put one thing out of order, they might fix it right away. But, with the mess I’m going to make of that engine, it’ll take them a half hour or better to get it going. And by then, I hope, we’ll have sailed out of sight!”

Working with the greatest of care, the boys unlaced the canvas cover on the outboard side of the lifeboat. Standing on the rail of the ship, Sandy swung up and slid in beneath the cover, into a pitch-blackness that made the night outside seem bright in comparison.

As Jerry joined Sandy, his added weight made the lifeboat lurch to one side, and brought a creak from the davits in which the boat was hung. To the boys under the canvas, it sounded as loud as a scream! Motionless in the dark, they waited for the thud of running feet, the tearing back of the boat cover, the glare of flashlights—but none came. The only answer to the noise was a thin, tuneless whistle from the deck above them. It was Turk’s fellow sailor, keeping watch for his spying friend, and he was as afraid of passing noises as the boys were!

Not daring to move, Sandy and Jerry waited for what seemed hours until the slight swaying of the lifeboat stopped. As cautiously as they could, so as not to start it moving again, they changed their positions in such a way as to balance the boat better. At last they were stationed one on each side of what Sandy could only hope was the engine compartment.

“How can you work in the dark?” Jerry whispered. “How will you know what’s what in there?”

“It shouldn’t be too hard,” Sandy replied. “Almost all engines have a lot in common. If I can just get my hands on the engine, I think I’ll know what to do.”

Working only by touch, it was not easy to find out how the lid to the engine compartment was removed. Slowly moving his hands around the surfaces of the box, Sandy found two hook-eyes, which he carefully unfastened. On the opposite side of the box, he found two more, which he also undid.

“We’re in luck,” he whispered to Jerry. “If this had been a hinged top, I don’t think we could have opened it. There isn’t enough headroom below this canvas to raise a boxtop this size.”

With the greatest of care, making only the smallest of scraping noises, they removed the heavy lid and placed it across two of the lifeboat’s seats.

“I’m ready,” Sandy said. “I’m going to be handing you some parts, Jerry. I want you to put them in your shirt. We can’t leave them in here, and if we threw them overboard, the splash would surely be heard. Just be sure they don’t clank around!”

Working noiselessly, Sandy ran his hands over the engine, starting from the top of the block. He touched and counted the spark plugs—four of them. His own experience with assorted jalopies would come in handy here, he thought. Carefully, he slipped the wires off the tops of the spark plugs. Following the wires to their source, he came to the distributor cap. Two clips held it in place. These were easily removed. Following the wire that came from the center of the distributor cap, he came to its end at the spark coil. A small pull removed it. Then he handed the whole thing, which felt like a mechanical octopus, to Jerry, who slipped it into his shirt.

A little more probing brought out two more parts from the distributor, both quite small. One was the rotor, the other the condenser. “With any one of these things gone,” Sandy whispered, “they won’t be able to run this boat!”

“Great!” Jerry breathed. “Now let’s get going!”

“Not yet,” Sandy said. “We still have some more to do. I don’t want to make it too easy for them!”

The next thing to go was the fuel pump, as Sandy unscrewed from it the glass bowl through which the gasoline had to pass. This was followed by a small collection of springs from the choke, the accelerator and the carburetor.

“I think that ought to do it,” Sandy said. “Now let’s put this engine lid back on, so they can’t tell right away that somebody’s been in here!”

It took even more care to replace the lid than it had to take it off. It was a tight fit, and really needed a blow on the top to make it fit properly on the casing, but this could not be done without making far too much noise. Finally, they decided to leave it unhooked, rather than run the risk of giving away their presence in the lifeboat.

Getting out and dropping soundlessly to the deck was not easy either, especially for Jerry, with the hardware stored in his bulging shirt front. Sandy, who had gone first, helped him down, and Jerry landed beside him with a muted clinking of metal and hard plastic. The slight noise brought no warning whistle from Turk’s lookout.

A glance at the deck below showed them why. Their eyes, grown accustomed to complete darkness, were now able to see quite clearly about the freighter’s deck. Up forward, near where they had hidden below the windlass, stood Jones and the white-uniformed little Captain, together with Turk, Bull, and several other sailors.

Apparently the business talk was concluded and, much more to the boys’ concern, the freighter was making ready to hoist anchor and set off for ports unknown!

Even as they watched, a working light mounted on the foremast suddenly flooded the foredeck with brilliance, bringing the shadowy figures into sharp focus, like actors on a brightly lighted stage.

Instinctively, Sandy and Jerry shrank back into the shadow of the life-jacket box, until Sandy realized that the bright light on the foredeck would make the rest of the ship almost invisible to people in its rays.

For a few seconds or more, the boys watched the tableau below them until several of the sailors ambled over to the windlass. Then Jerry said, “They’re getting ready to hoist the anchor now. We have to move fast if we’re going to get to our boat before Jones gets to his!”

Still exercising the greatest care, they re-laced the canvas where they had entered the lifeboat, then quietly crept alongside the rails under the lifeboats until they came to the ladder connecting the boat deck to the afterdeck.

This, fortunately, was both deserted and unlighted, the deck crew having all gone forward to work on the windlass. The boys made their way down to the point where they had come on board via the rope ladder, which was still slung over the side, waiting for Jones’s departure.

Looking over the bulwark, they saw the two sloops below them, bobbing gently in the swell that washed against the sheer side of the tall freighter. They looked almost unbelievably peaceful, and Sandy thought once again about Jones’s comments about the unsuspicious looks of sailing craft. Next to their trim, small shapes, the freighter looked every bit as sinister as it had actually proved to be!

“This is it,” Sandy whispered. “Let’s make it fast!”

He stepped over the bulwark and disappeared down the rope ladder. Jerry was as close behind him as he could get without running the risk of stepping on Sandy’s hands. A moment more brought them to the deck of the sloop.

“Now comes the hard part,” Jerry whispered. “We’ve got to get our sails up and shove off without anyone seeing or hearing us—and it’s not exactly a quiet job. In fact, if I remember right, our slides squeak pretty badly in their track. I noticed it when we first took it out, and made a mental note to oil the track as soon as we got some time.”

“Maybe we’d better not risk it,” Sandy said. “Is there some way we can get away from here without having to hoist the sails right away?”

“Well ...” Jerry said, “if there were enough current, we could drift off, but I don’t think there is. Besides, it would take a long time, and I don’t think we’ve got too much time to waste right now.”

“Suppose we tow it off behind the dinghy?” Sandy asked. “You know, the way we brought it out of the harbor for the first day’s sail.”

“Good!” Jerry exclaimed. But it only took a moment’s search to assure them that the dinghy was not with them. “Jones must have left it tied to his mooring,” Jerry said. “That puts us back where we started.”

“I guess there’s nothing to do but try it with our sails,” Sandy said. As he started to move forward, Jerry stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Wait a minute! I think I know a way to do this! I remember I was once taught about sculling with the rudder. You use it like an oar. I’ve never had to try it, but this is probably the best time. C’mon! Let’s cast off those lines!”

Working swiftly, Sandy cast off the bow line while Jerry did the same with the line at the stern. Then both of them pushed off from the side of the freighter, and the little sloop drifted noiselessly away from the scarred steel cliff of the huge hull.

The bright light from the foredeck spilled on the waters around the bow of the ship, and seemed even to light up the sloop. Sandy only hoped that whoever was standing lookout on the freighter was within that circle of light. If he was in the darkness of the upper decks, even the few dim beams that reflected from the white hull of the little sailboat would shine out like a warning beacon against the dark waters!

Sandy worked his way aft over the cabin roof, and dropped into the cockpit to join Jerry at the tiller. Jerry was carefully working the tiller backward and forward, making small gurgling sounds as the rudder swept through the water.

“Here’s the way it works,” he said. “I’m using the rudder like a single stern paddle. Lots of boats in the old days used to be run like that. If the paddle’s properly shaped, it will do a good job of propelling a boat. They call a long stern oar a sweep, and it’s good enough so that it’s still used on heavy barges in lots of places around the world.”

“Won’t it just push the stern around from one side to the other?” Sandy asked.

“Not if you do it carefully,” Jerry replied. “What I’m doing is this: I ease the rudder to one side, slowly, so as not to row with it. Then I give it a strong pull toward me—like this—and then I shove it halfway back.”

As he spoke, he hauled on the rudder, and the stern of the sloop swung around a bit, but the return motion of the rudder stopped the swinging action and steadied the sloop on her course. Sandy saw small ripples form a wake behind the boat as some forward motion was gained. As Jerry repeated the gentling, pulling and returning of the rudder, the sloop gained a little more forward speed. Slowly, the rusted sides of the black freighter slid by them.

“So far, so good,” Sandy said. “If we keep this up, we’ll be able to get away before we’re spotted.”

“I hope so,” Jerry agreed fervently, pulling strongly on his improvised sweep. By now the sloop was some thirty feet or more away from the freighter, and heading past the overhanging stern of the big ship. Suddenly, the stillness of the night was shattered by a roar and clank of machinery.

“It’s the windlass!” Jerry cried. “They’re getting ready to haul up the anchor! Jones must be ready to go over to his boat!”

Even as he spoke, a flare of work lights came up over the freighter’s afterdeck, clearly showing Jones and the Captain standing by the head of the rope ladder, flanked by Turk and Bull. The Captain and Jones were shaking hands, apparently having concluded a deal on the counterfeit cargo that pleased them both. Neither of them had as yet looked over the side to see that one of the sloops was missing.

“We can’t chance this any more,” Jerry said. “We’re bound to be discovered in another minute, when Jones starts over the ladder! Let’s get those sails up now, and do the best we can!”

“You’re right,” Sandy agreed, swiftly leaping atop the cabin roof to reach the main halyards. Taking a deep breath, he hauled. With a screech, the slides moved stiffly up the track, and the mainsail fluttered overhead.

Moving quickly, Sandy grasped the jib halyard and hoisted it aloft while Jerry was fastening the main halyard to its cleat. The sloop began to make headway in the light breeze. Then, as Sandy joined his friend in the cockpit, the sloop sailed clear of the shadows that lay below the stern of the freighter, and into the circle of light that surrounded the afterdeck. At almost the same instant, a shout rang out from above them.

“Look! It’s the kids!” It was Turk, who, seeing the sail like a luminous flag in the water, had sounded the alarm.

“Get down!” Sandy said, pulling Jerry to the deck of the cockpit. His action came not a minute too soon for a pistol shot rang out. It was followed by a volley of shots, as more of the freighter’s crew got into the action, but the boys were unharmed, although two bullets had hit the cabin roof and one had plowed a furrow in the deck.

The shooting stopped after a few more stray shots were fired, the sloop having by now moved out of effective pistol range. Making the best headway they could in the light breeze, Sandy and Jerry looked back with satisfaction to see the freighter’s crew working feverishly at the davits to get the ship’s power gig into the water.

“If we can just get enough lead time,” Jerry said fervently, “we’ll make it to shore well ahead of them!”

“What if Jones follows in his boat?” Sandy asked.

“We’ll worry about that if he does,” Jerry answered. “He’s a good sailor, but we have a lead on him. It’ll be our first race, if it happens, and I sure hope we win!”

By now the power gig was hanging over the side, its davits having been swung into launching position. The canvas cover had been removed, and several sailors clambered in, waiting for the boat to be lowered. With a creak of blocks and tackle, the lifeboat was swiftly dropped to the water. The boys could see someone bending over the engine compartment, trying to get the boat started.

“Jones’ll have a long wait, if he wants to go after us in that!” Sandy chuckled. “That ship is so sloppy, I’ll bet it will take them an hour just to find the parts they need, once they discover what’s wrong!”

But apparently Jones wasn’t going to wait. He had sized up the situation quickly—too quickly—and was going over the side and down the rope ladder to the other sloop!

“Oh-oh!” Jerry said. “He’s going to try to catch us in the other sloop! And we haven’t got more than a few hundred yards on him yet. This is going to be some race!”

Some race! Sandy realized once again how different the meaning of speed is to a sailor and to a landsman. Here they were, in a gentle breeze on a calm sea, preparing to race for their very lives—and they would probably not sail faster than he could walk!

Consulting the stars, Jerry set a downwind course, and the boat headed slowly but steadily toward the mainland.

“We’d do better on some other point of sail,” Jerry said, “but there’s one consolation.”

“What’s that?” Sandy asked.

“He’s got to sail on the same course we take, so he can’t take advantage of any more favorable wind than the one we get. That, and the fact that the boats are the same, at least puts us on an even footing.”

By now, Jones and a crew member were in the sloop, and were getting the sails up. Sandy watched as the mainsail caught the light from the freighter, followed almost immediately by the jib. The sloop swung about into the trail of light that danced on the water between them and the big ship, and set her sails for a downwind tack.

Small waves whispered softly at the bow, and bubbles gurgled quietly in the wake. The mainsheet hardly pulled at all in Sandy’s hand as the sail caught all the wind there was to catch. Hardly seeming to move at all, the sloop glided slowly ahead in the soft night breeze.

And the toughest race they would ever sail was under way!

“Trim your main!” Jerry said. “Haul back a little ... more ... no, let it out a shade ... that’s it! Cleat it down there!”

Sandy followed Jerry’s directions carefully, hauling at the sheet to get the sail set to its best position. Like the airplane wing it resembles, the sail must be perfectly shaped to get the maximum advantage of the wind. Sandy had learned that this was true even on a downwind run, where a sail let out too far will spill wind, and a sail sheeted in too close will miss too much wind.

Rejoining Jerry on the cockpit seat, Sandy looked aft to catch sight of their pursuer. He was surprised to see the amount of water that now separated them from the freighter, which seemed a spot of bright light far behind them. Against the light he could see the silhouetted shape of Jones’s sloop. It seemed to him that they were closer than before, and he motioned Jerry to turn and look.

“You’re right,” Jerry said, guessing at the question that had formed in Sandy’s mind. “They’re closing in on us, all right. That Jones is sure some sailor! We’ll have to do better than this if we’re going to get ashore before they sail within pistol range!”

“What can we do?” Sandy asked, his brow wrinkling under the blond forelock that hung over his eyes.

“The only thing we can do is put on more sail,” Jerry answered. “That won’t be an easy job with just the two of us. And you’ve never handled a spinnaker.”

“You’d better give me some fast instruction,” Sandy breathed. “First, what’s the spinnaker?”

“It’s a big oversized jib, cut like a parachute,” Jerry replied. “You saw a few out in the bay yesterday, remember? It’s that big sail that flies out ahead of the boat. You can only use it on downwind sailing, unless you’re a lot better sailor than I am, and it’s the best pulling power you can have when the wind’s at your back.”

“What do I have to do to help you?” Sandy asked.

“I’ll have to put it up myself,” Jerry told him. “Your job will be to hold a steady course and to keep the sails trimmed the way they are now.” Sandy grinned. “I won’t look around to see how other boats look this time,” he promised. Then he sobered. “I’ll do my best to keep her sailing right. What’ll you be doing?”

“I’ll have to drop the jib, which will lose us some speed for a minute. Then I’ll hoist the spinnaker, with a pole to the tack—that’s the corner—to swing it outboard to where it will catch the wind. Then—but we can’t waste time talking about it! I’ll show you now and explain some other time!”

Both boys took another look back, but by now the night had swallowed up Jones’s sloop, and all they could see was the glow of the freighter, growing rapidly smaller and fainter behind them.

“I wonder if Jones has seen that?” Sandy said. “The freighter must be under way. They haven’t even waited for him, to see how things turn out!”

“I’m not surprised,” Jerry said. “If Jones catches us, they don’t have anything to worry about. And if he doesn’t ... they want to be a long way away from here!”

Turning their attention back to their own problem, Jerry asked Sandy to go below to the cabin’s sail locker and pull out the sail bags, but not to light even a match. The odds were that Jones still could not see them, and it was better to keep it that way.

“How will I know which is the spinnaker?” Sandy asked.

“We only have two sails below,” Jerry answered. “We’re flying the main and genoa jib now. That means that the only bags will have the working jib and the spinnaker. The working jib is the small bag, and the spinnaker will be as heavy as the mainsail.”

In the cabin of the sloop it was as dark as it had been under the cover of the lifeboat. Sandy groped about, searching for the sail locker, which was forward of the mast, in the peak of the boat. Finally, after tripping a few times, and once bumping his head badly, he felt his hands come in contact with the brass catch that secured the locker.

Inside were several sail bags, most of them empty. He came on one that contained a sail, but it was obviously the small working jib. Worried now, Sandy burrowed deeper into the locker, and at last found a bag that seemed heavier than the first. Relieved, he carried it out to the cockpit, where Jerry was anxiously looking aft.

“Look! If you look just about four points off our stern, you can see her!”

Sandy squinted to where Jerry had pointed, and made out a dim white shape through the darkness, surely no more than a few hundred yards behind them!

“They’re closing in!” Jerry said. “I’d better rig this thing as fast as I can!”

He took the sail bag from Sandy, and crawled forward over the cabin. Sandy anxiously handled the tiller, hoping that he was keeping the course. Overhead, a few dim stars made points of light, and he leaned back to line up the masthead with one of them. In his right hand, the mainsheet felt light—too light—and he worried that he had so little control over it. What if they were to jibe now, as they had on the first day’s sail? What if the sails were not properly trimmed? And how could he be sure they were? How long would it take Jones to catch up with them? Taking his eyes for a minute from the star and the masthead, he saw Jerry kneeling on deck, doing something with the sail. Then he looked back to the masthead, and fixed all his attention on keeping the boat on a steady course.

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