One for the Gods (The Peter & Charlie Trilogy) (20 page)

“God! More whisky. What time is it?”

“About ten after two.”

“You’re kidding. Is that all? I feel as if it had been a week.”

“I know. Normally, we’d just be thinking about going to bed. It’s unbelievable. Still, you’ve been on since a little after seven. That’s seven hours. I don’t see how you did it.”

“There were moments when I didn’t think I could.” The whisky was untangling Charlie’s nerves. He felt a surge of pride in his achievement. Damn few men could have managed it, beginning with the male passenger below.

“I wish I could take over for you now. You must be really bushed.”

“No, I feel wonderful. This is the way I love it. Feel the way we’re roaring along. Look at that sky. It’s beautiful.”

Peter laughed. “You’re a regular old sea dog. I’ve never seen you like this.”

“I love it and I’m good at it, damn it. An hour ago, I swore I’d never get on a boat again if we got through the night. Listen, I think there’s a flashlight hanging over the chart table. Get it and check the dinghy, will you? We might as well see if we can do anything about it, since it’s still with us. But be careful. We’re still bouncing around.”

“I don’t mind this. This is fine.” He went off and Charlie saw a beam of light playing along the side of the cabin before he returned. “I think it’s all right,” he reported. “It’s wedged in against the rail and one line seems to be more or less holding it.”

“God, Jack doesn’t even know how to lash a dinghy. I’m going to have to go over everything carefully tomorrow and see what else needs attention.” He took the light and flashed it at the mileage log behind him. Thirteen miles. It figured. Maybe eight or nine miles the first hour-and-a-half and straight up-and-down ever since. Corsica was still a long way off. Jack might not like to go into strange ports at night, but Charlie had no qualms about it. This wind would have to hold if they hoped to get in before sundown tomorrow. Today, he corrected himself.

He urged Peter to stretch out on the bench beside him, since he didn’t want to go back below, and he was soon asleep. The whisky lulled Charlie so that whole blocks of time seemed to spin off into shapeless reveries. It seemed quite soon when he noticed a lightening of the sky. Dawn coming already? It must be after four. He considered asking Peter to go down and wake Jack and decided against it. He didn’t want him up here. Let him make a thorough louse-up right at the beginning. Him and his schedule of watches. If they had been depending on him to get them through, they’d all be at the bottom of the sea. Faggots to the rescue. He and Peter could handle the boat without anybody’s help. He reached out and stroked the golden head, white now in the growing light. The hair was almost dry and curled softly over his ears. Peter laughed in his sleep. My lover, Charlie thought, my mate. The only person he had cared for deeply and passionately in all his life. Devoted, loyal, true—and capable of treachery. He could think it now without a pang. He felt more complete in himself than he ever had before, assured and self-sufficient. If he could conquer the elements, he could surely conquer himself. Was this the way it happened—the slow loosening of bonds without pain? He looked up at the sail and wondered if he could ease up more on the sheet.

The sky was growing brighter in the east. At last, a rim of gold appeared on the horizon and then the sun rose rapidly as if it were on runners. Within minutes, he was in a sparkling world of blue sea and tumbling whitecaps. No land was visible. Charlie’s chest felt as if it would burst with gratitude and joy. He had longed so for this day; its coming was a vast release from terror and fatigue. He felt wonderful. He leaned forward and touched Peter’s head again, tugging gently at his hair. Peter opened his eyes and saw him and smiled. Then his eyes rolled around, and he sat up quickly.

“Hey. Look at us.” He sprang to his feet, revealing an erection. He looked down at himself and laughed and adjusted it in his tight jeans. “Dreaming of you. God, what a day. There’s nothing anywhere.”

“Nope. We’re at sea.”

“Can’t I take it now? You must be dead. Don’t you want to pee?”

“I’m about to burst.” He moved over and Peter sat behind the wheel. “There’s nothing to it now. Just hold her on course.” Charlie rose stiffly and stretched himself all over. He got up onto the stern and released what seemed to be several gallons of water. The shorts he had been caught in the evening before were still wet, but he could feel the sun burning into him. They’d be dry soon enough. He returned to Peter’s side. “Do you think you can get the jib up alone?” he asked.

“Sure. There’s nothing to it. Getting it down is the problem.”

Charlie laughed. “I hope it won’t be like that again. You might as well take that sweater off. You’ll get a bit wet.”

Peter handed over the wheel and threw off his sweater. Charlie’s eyes followed the graceful body as he ran up along the deck. “Bring the sheet back first,” he called after him in reminder. He realized that the leeward deck would have to be cleared of the dinghy before they could get the jib up. He hoped Peter could manage that alone. He wanted to get the boat really operating before anybody came up from below. The night had given him a proprietary right. He didn’t want to relinquish the wheel to anybody but Peter, under his supervision, although he supposed he would have to sleep sooner or later. Peter moved about in the bow for some time. Eventually he led the sheet back along the leeward deck and climbed over the dinghy. His T-shirt was wet and clinging to him.

“Things are sort of a mess up there,” he reported. “I’ll have to get that thing out of the way, won’t I?”

“Yes, if you can.”

“Well, my bowknots might not be very nautical but I can certainly tie it up for the time being.” He returned to the dinghy and grappled with it. He managed to ease it back up onto the roof and tie it on.

“Great,” Charlie called. “Let’s have the jib. We’ve got to make it snappy.” He got hold of the end of the sheet and as soon as Peter was at the mast and had gripped the halyard, he turned the wheel and they went pitching up close to the wind. “Get it up fast,” he shouted. As soon as the canvas was at the top of the stay, whipping in the wind, he fell off again and hauled in on the sheet, steadying the wheel with his knee. The rope was pulling hard; it made him realize how close to total exhaustion he was. “Get back here,” he shouted angrily.

Peter looked back and then dropped what he was doing and came running to him. “I was just coiling the line,” he explained.

“I’m sorry, baby. Take this damn thing. It’s pulling my arms out.” As Peter grabbed it, Charlie let the wheel take its normal course and they pitched up into the wind again. “There. Get it in. OK. Tie it off with the slipknot Jack showed you.” When Peter was done, he eased the bow off, the added canvas took the wind, the bow fell and lifted and they leaped forward with a great surge. Charlie laughed exultantly, his exhaustion forgotten. “Now we’re going somewhere, by God!”

Peter fixed them coffee, which they both laced liberally with whisky. Charlie let Peter take the wheel again, sitting beside him and giving him pointers. As the sun’s heat intensified, they both stripped to the waist. Charlie slipped his arm around Peter’s back and under his armpit and put his hand on his chest, stroking the puckered nipples and feeling the muscles working. Peter giggled.

“Sailing is sexy,” he said.

The sun was quite high in the sky when the first of the pair Charlie had begun to think of disdainfully as “the passengers” appeared in the hatch. Martha looked haggard and disheveled in the bright morning light. Charlie’s hand was still on Peter’s breast. He let it drop, but deliberately, without haste, and left his arm where it was. Martha climbed on up onto the deck and lurched aft and slumped beside them on the windward bench. She looked around with stricken eyes. “Aren’t we getting to Corsica?” she asked.

“We’re getting there. We weren’t exactly speeding last night.”

She shuddered and straightened and hugged herself. She looked at him with something like awe in her eyes. “You got us through it,” she said.

“Peter helped.”

“Ha!” Peter exclaimed. “Some help. I slept up here for a few hours.”

“You were here to help if I needed you.”

Peter noted the steel in his voice and remained uneasily silent. Was he going to give the Kingsleys a rough time? Martha had apparently caught his point. “Jack was terribly sick,” she said defensively.

“It could happen to any of us, I guess. Still, if your boat’s sinking, I should think you’d want to try to do something about it.”

“What could I do?” she pleaded. The awe was still in her eyes. “You saved our lives.”

“I’m not talking about you. But never mind. I had a lovely time. Thank God for Peter.” He lifted his arm and ran his hand over Peter’s shoulders and gripped his neck with a little squeeze and left it there.

Peter concentrated on the compass. His cheeks were burning and his heart had begun to beat trippingly. Charlie was in a dangerous mood. He trembled for Jack, but Charlie had the right to throw his weight around after what he had been through.

“It’s so rough still,” Martha said piteously. “Are we running into another storm?”

Charlie laughed. “Good lord, look around you. It’s a beautiful day. Where would a storm come from?”

“Is it normal for there to be this much wind?”

“I don’t know. All I know is, we’re really moving.”

“It’s terrifying. After last night, I know I can’t go on. I’d just be a burden. I’ll leave you in Corsica and you three can go on without me.”

“Oh, no.” Charlie smiled and shook his head firmly. She was part of his command; he wasn’t going to tolerate desertions. The next they knew, Jack would want to go back. He hadn’t saved their boat for them for that. “Last night was a freak. You’re not going to be a burden. You’re going to do your share with the rest of us.”

“But I hate it. I always have. I can’t reason with Jack about it.” Her eyes filled with tears. “That’s why I wanted so much to have people I like with us this time.”

Charlie looked her in the eye and let his expression soften. “Well, here we all are. Pull yourself together. Be the nice, sensible girl you’ve always been. After all, you sold
us
on this trip.

“I don’t know. I’ll try. After last night, I know you can do anything. That makes it a little less terrifying.” She looked across at him adoringly. Now I’m a father figure, Charlie thought.

“Well, how about—” he began.

“Don’t tell Jack what I said,” she interrupted in a low aside. She had apparently caught movement out of the corner of her eye, for now Jack emerged from the hatch. He braced himself against the opening and looked around him. Charlie removed his hand from Peter’s neck.

“Who put the jib up?” he demanded testily.

“Peter did,” Charlie replied. He found Jack looking unexpectedly well and remembered that he’d had a nice long rest.

“We’re carrying an awful lot of sail for so much wind.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re sailing beautifully.”

“That’s easy for you to say, but Peter and I have to get it down if we run into trouble.”

“I can, Jack,” Charlie said evenly. “I want Peter on the wheel as much as possible today. I think we’ll all agree after last night that the more of us who can handle the thing alone the better. That OK with you, Pete?”

“Sure. I’m beginning to really enjoy it.” He held his breath, waiting to see if Charlie would let Jack off so easily. He was taking over; if he didn’t push it too far, there wasn’t much Jack could do about it.

“There’s one thing I think we all feel,” Jack said, settling on one of the cockpit benches and speaking in a man-to-man fashion. “Judging from what was going on below, you must’ve done an absolutely superhuman job last night. You get all the medals. I’m sorry I was so knocked out. I don’t know what hit me.”

“A man can’t help it if he’s sick. The worst of it happened during my watch, or Peter’s anyway,” Charlie said magnanimously. “Would you mind checking the lashing of the dinghy? It broke loose last night. We almost lost it. Let me know if you need any help.” Charlie’s command was established. He ran his thumb unnoticed back and forth along Peter’s side at a ticklish spot as Jack went off to do his bidding. Peter leaned over the compass, suppressing laughter. Charlie turned to Martha. “I was going to ask you, can you rustle us up some food? I don’t care whether it’s breakfast, lunch or dinner. I could eat all three.”

She smiled at him adoringly and left. Charlie and Peter remained together at the wheel. After securing the dinghy, Jack checked the mileage and questioned Charlie about the timing of the events of the night and went off to do his notations and calculations. Charlie slipped his arm around Peter again and caressed his chest and abdomen and held him close against himself. He had come through the night, tempered by terror, feeling reckless and impatient of weakness or incompetence of any sort. If either he or Peter had behaved like Jack, he could imagine the Kingsleys saying, What can you expect of queers? He hoped he had shown them what they could expect: a sense of duty, some courage, and tenacity. In the Kingsleys’ eyes, he had nothing to be ashamed of. He had earned the right to hold Peter if he wanted to. They had endured the night together; Peter had stuck by his side. He could feel all of Peter’s body responding to his hand now. Why shouldn’t he express the sense of deep, indivisible comradeship that he felt for him? He dropped his head behind Peter and kissed his back and put his other hand on him and pulled him back against his naked chest. Peter made little murmuring sounds of pleasure.