Gangway! (22 page)

    Crung nodded thoughtfully. It wasn't that he was giving in. It was just that he was thinking, and with Crung that was obviously a slow process.

    His one eye blinked. His one hand toyed with the marlin spike. He turned slowly and surveyed the deck of
San Andreas
. His eye flicked from Francis to Vangie to Captain Flagway. "Well now," he said slowly, "if it don't look like I've got me some hostages, too. How about that now?"

    Vangie whipped out the knuckle-duster. "Forget it, buster."

    Captain Flagway staggered out from the tiller, braced his feet and addressed himself to Crung. "Now, look here. I'm a peash-peace-loving man. I have never disemboweled anyone in my life. I'm a bit long in the tooth to start gouching-gouging men's eyes out and chopping their heads off, and crashing-cracking their skulls with clubs. I just don't think I could stand to do things like that."

    "Yeah?"

    "So I wish you would just pay attention to what Mr. Beauchampsh tells you, and do what he says, and not make any fuss."

    Crung blinked at Captain Flagway. He blinked at the knuckle-duster wavering in Vangie's hand. He turned his head and blinked at Ittzy and the sword. He blinked at Gabe, and saw him holding the flask. In a tone of exasperated despair, he cried, "And what's that supposed to be?"

    "It's supposed to be a flask," Gabe said, and fired a shot in the air. "But it's a gun."

    Crung turned his head back and forth, looking from one of them to another. "You're all crazy people," he said. "All of you. All except that fruity-looking one there."

    Francis stiffened. "Anyone who dresses himself in that overmasculine way," he said coolly, "and chooses to spend utterly months at a time at sea without women, nothing but men for companionship, is hardly in any position to cast aspersions. I've met a goodly number of you sailor types, believe you me, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that…"

    "Alright! Alright!" Crung turned very quickly toward
Sea Wolf
and bellowed: "All hands!"

    "Fruity indeed," Francis said.

    Vangie said, "Never mind, Francis, just consider the source."

    "Oh, I do."

    "Get over here onto this miserable hulk," Crung yelled at his crew, and at once they slunk and slouched across onto the
San Andreas
, never meeting anyone's eyes.

    After the
Sea Wolf
had been emptied of all its original personnel except for Captain Percival Arafoot, Gabe cried, "Vangie, come on over! Francis, Captain Flagway!"

    Vangie had been propping the knuckle-duster on the tiller. "Francis," she said, "would you mind terribly holding this for me?"

    "Oh, my dear, of course not. How remiss of me. Here, I'll carry it."

    The knuckle-duster looked, if anything, less appropriate in Francis' hand than in Vangie's; still, he wore it with a certain dash.

    The three of them skirted the muttering crew and crossed the planks to
Sea Wolf
. Midway, Vangie looked down at the water heaving between the two ships and for the first time truly understood Gabe's reaction to the sea. But she forced herself to keep moving, following the weaving, perilous Captain Flagway, and once aboard the solid
Sea Wolf
, she felt better again.

    "Okay, Percival," Gabe said. "Time for you to walk the plank."

    "ROAR."

    "Move, now," Gabe insisted. "You can take your teeth with you, or you can leave them behind. Which is it?"

    "Roar."

    Ittzy pricked the tarp with the point of his sword, and the tarp-wrapped figure felt its way out onto the planks, guiding on the sound of Crung's voice: "Keep that son of a bitch off here, damn it! He'll kill all of us. Can't you have a little goddamn decency and shove him overboard?"

    Ittzy and Francis were fumbling with knots in the ropes that held the two ships together. Captain Flagway was making his way to the controls on the bridge.

    The ships began to draw apart. Gabe said, "Hey Crung."

    "Yeah?"

    "Keep him tied up, he won't do any damage."

    "You don't know him."

    "Well, he's your problem now, I guess. But you've got some help. You'll find Roscoe and his gang down below in the hold. And listen-one more thing. The Olivers are looking for that ship you're on. You better move on out of here fast. I'd head north along the coast if I were you."

    Vangie saw the look of satisfaction on Gabe's face as he turned away. She felt proud and sad, both at once: all that brilliance in a doomed enterprise.

    He said, "Well, what do you think now? Are we going to get away with it?"

    "Not in a million years." She smiled sadly, fondly. "But nobody else could have come as close."

    

    

    Out in another part of the ocean the two police launches closed in on Daniel Webster. It took several minutes-and one shot across the steamer's bow-to convince the captain to slow down and listen, and then he did nothing for a while but bellow unintelligibly through a megaphone. Eventually he became calm enough to hear the questions they were asking; then he gestured violently northward, losing his megaphone over the side in the process.

    The two launches veered around and went charging away to the north. The captain of Daniel Webster flung his hat after his megaphone, screamed at heaven, and went raging back to the bridge to kick his helmsman.

    Farther north, the
Sea Wolf
was traveling south. Below, in the heat and noise and semidarkness of the bowels of the ship, Gabe was working as coal handler. Stripped to the waist, he was shoveling coal from the bin into the wheelbarrow, pushing it laboriously through the narrow corridor to the engine room-risking his knuckles along the metal walls every time-and dumping it on the small sooty pile behind Ittzy.

    Ittzy was the stoker, shoveling coal into the furnace. Sweaty, dirty, also stripped to the waist, gasping for breath, Itzzy turned a broadly smiling face toward Gabe and yelled over the roar of the engine, "This is fun!"

    Gabe looked at him. He panted, but had nothing to say.

    "Well," Ittzy yelled, a bit less exuberantly, "it's anyway better than being locked in that back room."

    Gabe turned and plodded away with his wheelbarrow.

    Up on the bridge Captain Flagway was steering. The coast was to his left, San Francisco was just beyond the horizon to the south, and Baltimore was not very far beyond that. Baltimore; Daddy; the apothecary shop. After all these years.

    
Sea Wolf
was a lean, fast, hungry ship-a pleasure to operate. Captain Flagway, for the first time he could remember, smiled.

    On deck, Vangie frowned, and paused in her labors. She and Francis were packing gold ingots into small wooden boxes marked TEAK. Once all the gold was packed away, the wagon would be broken up and dumped over the side.

    Still frowning, pensively gazing toward the horizon, Vangie said, "Francis?"

    "Mm?"

    "I want you to know," she said, "that I like you very much."

    "Well, thank you," he said, surprised.

    She looked at him, a sad smile touching her lips. "Very soon now," she said, "we're all going to be arrested and put away forever in separate prisons, but I do want you to know I've grown very fond of you."

    Touched, Francis said, "You've been a sister to me, Vangie."

    "And you to me."

    "But maybe we won't be caught," he said. "We've gotten away with it so far."

    Vangie sighed. "Maybe you're right," she said, without conviction.

    Farther north, aboard the
San Andreas
, First Mate Crung was untying Roscoe in the knee-deep water in the hold, while other crewmen were doing the same for Roscoe's companions. From above, a steady malevolent ROAR could be heard.

    Roscoe, free of his gag, looked up and said, "Percy's all right, eh?"

    "He's a little annoyed. I figured I'd better keep him tied up a while."

    "Not a bad idea," Roscoe said. Rubbing his wrists where the rope had chafed them, he looked around at the water lapping everywhere. "This damn tub's sinking," he said. "We better get to the lifeboats."

    Gabe was taking a breather on deck, his place below being temporarily taken by Francis, who had insisted on finding out how, real sailors live.

    Gabe and Vangie leaned against the rail, their arms around one another. Neither had much to say; Gabe out of weariness, Vangie out of pessimism.

    Captain Flagway called from the bridge, "Ships ahead. Coming this way."

    Gabe watched them, idly interested. "In a hurry," he said.

    Vangie suddenly clutched his arm. "Police."

    "Take it easy," he told her. "They're not looking for this ship. It's the
San Andreas
they want. That was the whole idea of the switch."

    Nevertheless, he could feel how tense she was as the two police launches arrived and shot past to starboard, thundering northward. Standing up in the bow of the lead launch was a red-haired figure, straining forward. McCorkle.

    Gabe frowned, watching that shock of red hair go by. "Is that bluebottle everywhere?"

    "That's what I've been trying to tell you," Vangie said. "Some bluebottle is everywhere. You just can't get away, Gabe."

    He looked at her, trying to keep his confidence. Rational problems he could work out, but superstitions were harder to deal with. Could she be right after all?

    Then, from the bridge, Captain Flagway sang out, "There it is! San Francisco, dead ahead!"

    Gabe laughed, in sudden relief. "They're not everywhere," he said, and looked out toward the distant hills of the city.

    

    

    The police launches very nearly missed the
San Andreas
entirely. All that was left of her when they arrived was the gently descending top six feet of her foremast, with the Paraguayan flag fluttering in the breeze, as though somewhere beneath the surface of the water someone was holding a garden party.

    Officer McCorkle, in the prow of the lead launch, removed his hat and held it over his heart. His red hair flew and flickered in the breeze, like an answer to the Paraguayan flag.

    The two launches circled the sinking ship. The mast settled slowly, as bubbles popped to the surface here and there. The flag dipped, wetted itself, wrapped itself dankly around the mast, and disappeared at last into the sea.

    Officer McCorkle replaced his hat. Then he took out his notebook, flipped through it, studied an entry here and there, shook his head, and tossed the notebook into the ocean.

    

    

    Up the dusty slope toward Francis's gold mine came a large wagon full of small boxes marked TEAK. Ittzy was driving, and Gabe was sitting on the high seat beside him, smiling around at the countryside. Captain Flagway was perched atop the cargo with his braided cap at a jaunty angle and half-full flask of whisky dangling from his hand. Francis and Vangie rode a brace of matched white horses beside the wagon.

    The sun shone. Birds sang. An occasional rabbit hoppity-hopped across the green and sunny landscape.

    They arrived at the entrance to the mine, and all dismounted. Francis said, "I can't help it, you know, I just have trouble absorbing this. We're bringing gold to a gold mine."

    "That's right," Gabe said. "And we're going to start selling it right back to the Mint again, one bar at a time." He turned to give Vangie a big grin and say, "Unless you still think we're gonna get caught."

    She looked all around in the sunlight, frowning and squinting as though baffled by the non-appearance of the United States cavalry. "I just can't understand it," she said. "How can the Government let a thing like this happen?"

    "I guess they must be thinking about something else today," Gabe said.

    Captain Flagway leaned against the wagon and toasted the world at large with his flask. A crumpled smile was on his lips and a sputtering gleam in his eye. "Oh, happy day," he announced. "At last I'll be going back to Balsi… Balder… Baltimore!"

    Gabe grinned at him. "That's right, Captain," he said. "You're on your way."

    "Well on my way."

    Vangie, trying not to show her emotions on the surface, said, "Well, Gabe, I guess you'll be on your way, too. Back to New York."

    "New York." Gabe smiled faintly in reminiscence, then frowned a bit, gazing out over the hills toward San Francisco. Wisps of fog were beginning to drift through the valleys with the approach of sunset. "Old Twill," Gabe said, thoughtfully. "You know what the trouble with Twill is?"

    Vangie didn't care what the trouble with Twill was. She wanted to know what the trouble was with Gabe Beauchamps. "No, I don't," she said.

    "He doesn't understand where the future is. Life is moving West, Vangie. This is where the future is… right out here."

    She couldn't believe her ears. "Do you mean that, Gabe?"

    "I'm kind of getting used to things out here," he said.

    "You are?"

    "The slower pace, the small-town life." He shrugged. "San Francisco isn't too bad, for a yokelville."

    Francis said delightedly, "Gabe, you mean you'll stay?"

    "The burg has possibilities," Gabe said. "I might invest here."

    "The cancan shows," Francis said. "They're going to open again, I got inside word. You could…"

    "No," Gabe said thoughtfully, "I don't think so."

    "Oh, yes, Gabe!" Vangie cried. "Show business!"

    "The cancan shows," Francis said, "are the wave of the future. A man could get in right now on the ground floor. That's what I'm doing with my share, becoming an entrepreneur."