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applied. It s a function of the trochoidal wave system set up by the
boat and is 1.34 times the square root of the waterline length. I
could see Baxter working this out now.
On paper, I said, she should do a little better than seven and a
half knots.
He nodded. I d say she was logging close to six.
As I went below to start supper I saw him turn once and look
astern at the fading coastline of Panama. When he swung back to
face the binnacle, there was an expression of relief or satisfaction
in the normally grave brown eyes.
The breeze went down a little with the sun, but she still sang her
way along. Keefer took the eight-to-twelve watch and I slept for a
few hours. When I came on deck at midnight there was only a light
breeze and the sea was going down. . . .
What the hell is this? Bonner demanded. He came over in front
of us. Are we going to sail that lousy boat up from Panama mile
by mile?
Foot by foot, if we have to, Slidell said crisply, till we find out
what happened.
You ll never do it this way. The machine s no good. He fooled it
the first time.
Flowers stared at him with frigid dislike. Nobody beats this
machine. When he starts to lie, it ll tell us.
Yeah. Sure. Like it did when he said Baxter died of a heart
attack.
Shut up! Slidell snapped. Get back out of the way. Take the
girl to the kitchen and tell her to make some coffee. And keep your
hands off her.
Why?
It would be obvious to anybody but an idiot. I don t want her
screaming and upsetting Rogers emotional response.
We re all crazy, I thought. Maybe everybody who had any
contact with Baxter eventually went mad. No, not Baxter. His
name was Reagan. I was sitting here hooked up to a shiny
electronic gadget like a cow to a milking machine while an
acidulous gnome with popeyes extracted the truth from me truth
that I apparently no longer even knew myself. I hadn t killed
Reagan. Even if I were mad now, I hadn t been then. Every detail
of the trip was clear in my mind. But how could it be? The machine
said I was trying to hide something. What? And when had it
The Sailcloth Shroud 100
happened? I put my hands up to my face, and it hurt everywhere I
touched it. My eyes were swollen almost shut. I was dead tired. I
looked at my watch, and saw it was nearly two p.m. Then it
occurred to me that if they had arrived five minutes later I would
already have called the FBI. That was nice to think about now.
Bonner jerked his head, and Patricia Reagan arose from the
couch and followed him into the kitchen like a sleepwalker, or
some long-legged mechanical toy.
You still have plenty of paper? Slidell asked Flowers. The latter
nodded.
All right, Rogers, Slidell said. He sat down again, facing me.
Reagan was still alive the morning of the second day
He was alive until after three-thirty p.m., of the fourth day.
He cut me off. Stop interrupting. He was alive the morning of
the second day, and he still hadn t said anything about putting him
ashore?
Not a word, I said.
He nodded to Flowers to start the paper again. Go on.
We went on. The room was silent except for the sound of my
voice and the faint humming of the air-conditioner. Graph paper
crawled slowly across the face of the instrument from one roll to
another while the styli kept up their jagged but unvarying scrawls.
Dawn came with light airs and a gently heaving sea, and we were
alone with no land visible anywhere. As soon as I could see the
horizon, Baxter relieved me so I could take a series of star sights. I
worked them out under the hooded light of the chart table while
Keefer snored gently in the bunk just forward of me. Two of them
appeared to be good. We were eighty-four miles from Cristobal,
and had averaged a little better than four and a half knots. We d
made slightly more leeway than I d expected, however, and I
corrected the course.
At seven I called Keefer and began frying eggs and bacon. When
I was getting them out of the refrigerator, I noticed it was scarcely
more than cool inside and apparently hadn t been running the way
it should. After breakfast I checked the batteries of the lighting
system, added some distilled water, and ran the generator for a
while. We were shaking down to the routine of sea watches now,
and Baxter and I were able to get a couple of hours sleep while
Keefer took the morning watch from eight to twelve. He called me
at eleven-thirty.
The Sailcloth Shroud 101
I got a good fix at noon that put us a little over a hundred miles
out from Cristobal. Baxter took the wheel while I worked it out,
and Keefer made a platter of thick sandwiches with canned corned
beef and slices of onion. I ate mine at the wheel after I took over
for the twelve-to-four trick. I threw the empty milk carton
overboard, watched it fall astern as I tried to estimate our speed,
and lighted a cigarette. I was content; this was the way to live.
It was a magnificent day. The wind had freshened a little since
early morning and was a moderate easterly breeze now, directly
abeam as she ran lightfooted across the miles on the long reach to
the northward, heeled down with water creaming along the rail.
The sun shone hotly, drying the spray on my face and arms, and
sparkling on the face of the sea as the long rollers advanced, lifted
us, and went on. I started the main sheet a little, decided it had
been right before, and trimmed it again. Baxter came on deck just
as I finished. He smiled. No good sailor is ever satisfied, I
suppose.
I grinned. I expect not. But I thought you d turned in. Couldn t
you sleep?
A day like this is too beautiful to waste, he replied. And I
thought I d get a little sun.
He was wearing a white bathrobe with his cigarettes and lighter
in one of the pockets. He lighted a cigarette, slipped off the robe,
rolled it into a pillow, and stretched out in the sun along the
cushions in the starboard side of the cockpit, wearing only a pair
of boxer shorts. He lay feet forward, with his head about even with
the wheel. He closed his eyes.
I was just looking at the chart, he said. If we keep on logging
four to five knots we should be up in the Yucatan Channel by
Sunday.
There s a chance, I said idly. Sunday or Monday, it didn t really
matter. I was in no hurry. You trimmed and started the sheets and
steered and kept one eye forever on the wind as if that last
fraction of a knot were a matter of life or death, but it had nothing
to do with saving time. It was simply a matter of craftsmanship, of
sailing a boat rather than merely riding on it.
He was silent for a few minutes. Then he asked, What kind of
boat is the Orion?
Fifty-foot schooner. Gaff-rigged on the fore and jib-headed on
the main, and carries a fore-tops l, stays l, and working jib. She
accommodates a party of six besides the two of us in the crew.
Is she very old?
The Sailcloth Shroud 102
Yes. Over twenty years now. But sound.
Upkeep gets to be a problem, though, he said thoughtfully. I
mean, as they get progressively older. What is your basic charter
price?
Five hundred a week, plus expenses.
I see, he said. It seems to me, though, you could do better
with something a little larger. Say a good shallow-draft ketch or
yawl, about sixty feet. With the right interior layout, it would
probably handle more people, so you could raise your charter
price. Wouldn t take any larger crew, and if it were still fairly new
your maintenance costs might be less.
Yes, I know, I said. I ve been on the lookout for something like
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