Strange Creatures of Dr. Korbo (3 page)

Happily, a whale did not come up, and after a long battle with the waves, Jake looked overhead and said, “Look. There's a patch of sky!”

“And the wind's not blowing so hard, either!” Dave exclaimed. “I believe we've made it.”

“Be careful about sayin' things like that,” Gus called back to him. “Life isn't all sassafras and succotash, you know. Might be another typhoon coming just over there.”

But Gus's dire warnings proved unfounded. Within an hour, the clouds had begun to break away, and feeble rays of sun began to enlighten the sea. The raging whitecaps died down into long, slow rollers, and Gus steered the longboat over them expertly.

“Do you know which way we should be going, Reb?” Sarah asked.

“Now that I can see the sun I do. We head that way, Gus. Due east.”

“How far is it?” Abbey asked faintly.

“Got no idea,” Gus said. “Bound to be a long way, though.”

Sarah was sitting next to Josh. “We've got a chance, Josh,” she told him. “We're going to be all right. Goél has seen us through again.” She hesitated, then asked, “Are you feeling better now?”

“I'm not as seasick. But, Sarah, I'll tell you exactly what I told Reb earlier. I can't lead the Seven Sleepers anymore. Ever.”

Sarah opened her mouth to argue, but she saw a look of determination on Josh's face and said no more.

R
eb licked his dry, cracked lips. He kept thinking about how good it would be to have one swallow of cool water—especially the nice cool water from the spring close to the house where he had grown up. He was aware that he was half delirious. The Sleepers had drunk nearly all their water, and all of them were suffering the torture of thirst.

Pushing his Stetson back from his eyes, Reb sat up straighter and looked around them once again, hoping to see anything other than the ocean. He scanned the horizon completely and saw not one thing but blue green water in every direction. He looked upward to where the sail hung limp. Not a breath of air was stirring. After the storm died, they had encountered what Gus called the doldrums. This simply meant no wind, and the small boat seemed glued to the surface of the water.

Carefully standing, Reb hopefully tested their fishing lines. They had no good bait, and he saw with disappointment that they still had caught absolutely nothing. Fishing was not going to work.

Reb looked over at Gus then, sitting by the tiller. His eyes were closed, and he had obviously gone to sleep. Like all the others, Gus was badly sunburned. Reb was sympathetic. His own skin was so fair that he had blistered worse than most.

“See anything out there, Reb?”

Reb turned to Jake. The redhead had opened his eyes and was looking at him questioningly.

“Not a blamed thing!” Reb's lips were so dry that it was hard for him to talk, and his tongue felt swollen. He thought of the small supply of water that they had left and knew that he could drink it all himself. It had taken discipline for them to keep from drinking it all, and Reb knew that it was mostly gloomy Gus who had advised them on that. “Better to make it last,” he'd said and had rationed them all to a pint a day.

“A pint a day.” Reb saw that Dave was thinking of water, too. “I sweat more than that!” He was sitting across from Jake, sunburned and obviously miserable.

Reb glanced at Sarah and Abbey. The girls were seated under a shelter that the boys had rigged for them out of an extra sail. They had fared somewhat better than the rest, being out of the direct rays of the sun. But as Reb studied them, he saw misery in Abbey's eyes and a lack of hope in Sarah's.

“It's pretty bad, Jake,” he murmured. “I didn't want to say anything in front of everybody, but if we don't get some help pretty soon, I don't know what'll happen to us.”

Jake was too miserable even to answer that. It seemed to be impossible for him to keep his eyes open. The burning sun reflected off the water, and he kept squinting them shut. “Wish I had a pair of good sun-glasses,” he muttered.

“I wish a lot of things,” Dave said. “Mostly I wish we'd never got on that ship in the first place.”

Wash said, “So do I. I think Goél's forgotten us this time for sure.”

 

The day passed more slowly than any day Josh had ever known. Everyone just lay about the boat. From time to time one of them checked one of the
fishing lines, but the bits of dried meat that they were using as bait had not attracted anything at all.

Josh was as miserable as the rest physically and worse off emotionally, for he still was suffering from their recent failure. “Sarah,” he said one time, “if I'd just led us better, we wouldn't even be here.”

“You can't know that, Josh!”

“I don't think we would. We wouldn't have been chased off in the first place. And we could have gotten home easier if we hadn't tried to go by ship. It's all my fault.”

Sarah and Josh were sitting at Gus's feet, and Gus told him, “Try to look at the bright side.”

Both looked up in astonishment at such a comment from their gloomy friend.

“If we don't die of sunburn,” Gus went on, “we've got a good chance of living through this—unless another storm comes, of course.”

“Well, I'm about ready for another storm. At least we'd get some water to drink out of it,” Sarah said. She licked her cracked lips. “I know we've been in bad spots before, but this is about as bad as any.”

 

That day passed and the night and the next day. The sun still was a pale wafer that sent its searing beams down upon them. The boat still seemed to be glued to the surface, not moving an inch.

When it came time to portion out food and water again, Gus said, “Well, time for lunch.” He did not even bother to tie down the tiller. No breeze was stirring, anyway.

He took out the box that contained their food and handed each of them a piece of dried meat and a chunk of bread, hard as the boat itself.

No one was greatly interested in the food. It was tasteless and dry. But when Gus ladled out a small portion of water into each one's cup, they all watched avidly.

Abbey drank hers at once in spite of Dave's saying, “You'd better sip it, Abbey. It'll do you more good that way.”

“I can't help it. I'm so thirsty.” Tears came to her eyes. “And that little bit didn't even help.”

“Here, you can have some of mine, Abbey,” Sarah offered.

“No, I'm just selfish. Always have been.”

“No more than any of the rest of us,” Wash said. Then he glanced up at the sail. “What wouldn't I give to see that sail begin to flap around.”

Sarah drank her water a sip at a time. She held each sip in her mouth as long as possible. At least it moistened her lips. She wanted to save some for later, but the temptation to drink it all now was too great. She finally took the last sip and savored it as if it were the best thing she had ever tasted.

“Well now, things are looking up,” Gus said. “It'll be dark pretty soon and not so hot. Though likely tomorrow will be hotter than today.”

Abbey moaned. “We're all going to die.”

“Well, that's probably true,” Gus agreed. He tried to smile. “But at least they won't have to fool around with expensive funerals for any of us.”

 

Next morning as the sky began to turn rosy in the east, Sarah said, “Josh, you need to speak up. You need to encourage everybody.”

“What could I say?”

“Remind us of what Goél has done for us in the
past. At a time like this,” Sarah said, “it's important that a leader take a stand.”

“I'm too dry to talk, Sarah. And I'm not a leader anymore. Now leave me alone!”

Sarah took a deep breath. Deciding to be an encourager herself, she turned to the others. “I know all of you are worried and disappointed, but we've been in bad places before.”

“But Goél was with us then,” Dave whispered. “Where is he now?”

“He's not unaware of us. I think he knows exactly what we're going through.”

“Then why doesn't he get us out of it?” Dave argued.

“I think he will,” Sarah said stoutly. “We just have to be patient and wait till it's his time to do something. He's never early, and he's never late.”

“That's the way,” Reb said. “You've got spunk, Sarah. We've just got to hang in there and wait for Goél. We'll make it.”

Sarah had no strength to say anything else.

The torture of the new day began. As usual, the sun beat down mercilessly. They were almost too far gone to groan, and Gus went to sleep with his long body draped over the tiller.

No one talked. There was not even the splashing of the water, because there were no whitecaps. There was no breeze, either, to make the welcome hissing sound that wind sometimes makes at sea.

Sarah was lying on her back looking up at the canvas that served to shade the girls from the sun. She wanted to cry, but she knew that would do no good. She tried to think of other days when things had been better. And then she dropped off to sleep.

Some sound awakened her. Her eyes flew open at once, and she whispered, “What's that?”

“What's what?” Abbey muttered.

“That sound.”

“I don't hear anything.”

“I do.” Sarah sat up and crawled from under their shelter. She looked at the sea. Then she looked upward, and her heart seemed to stop beating. “The sail! Look! Look at the sail!”

Her cry awakened everyone else, but it was Wash who let out the first yell. “Look at it! There's a wind stirring!”

Indeed the sail was beginning to move. Not very much, but at least it
was
moving.

“Come on, wind!” Reb cheered it on. “Let's have a big blow!”

The wind did not pick up all at once in response to Reb's cry, but it did begin to pick up. Finally there was a popping sound, and the full sail bellied out.

A cheer went up from the Sleepers, but Gus muttered, “Don't expect it will last. But it's nice to have a little breeze now.”

However, the wind did last. It picked up even more, and soon the longboat was being driven across the waves at a rapid rate. And that was not all. Suddenly Wash cried, “Over there! See? There's a cloud! It looks like a rain cloud to me!”

They all watched the cloud grow larger and darker. Gradually the sky overhead darkened, and Sarah said, “Come on, rain! Pour down!”

“We'll take all you can give!” Reb yelled. He took off his hat and waved it.

Five minutes later Sarah felt something touch her
face near her eye. Reaching up, she felt the spot. It was wet. “Rain!” she whispered. “A drop of rain!”

“You're mighty right it's rain!” Reb shouted.

Now the drops were falling more steadily.

“Quick! Get everything out that will hold water,” Gus said. “Don't expect it will last long, so we'll catch all we can while we can.”

While everyone scrambled for cups, bowls, anything that would hold water, Jake punched a hole in the middle of the extra sail. Then he rigged it from its four corners so that, as the rain fell, it gathered on the canvas and began running in a steady stream through the hole. “Give me your cups and canteens!” he yelled. “Quick!”

Most of them were standing with their mouths open, drinking in the raindrops, but they knew that catching the rainwater was important. Within thirty minutes every vessel on the boat was filled, and so were the voyagers.

“I knew Goél wouldn't let us down,” Sarah whispered. “I knew he wouldn't. He just likes to do things his own way.”

They ate as the longboat was driven along swiftly by the wind. The dry food tasted much better with water to wash it down.

Darkness came on quickly, almost as if a curtain had fallen over the sky.

“Are we going to travel in the dark, Gus?” Dave asked.

“I think we'd better. No sense sittin' still. We got a star to steer by now. Though it's sure to cloud up again.”

Gus kept to the tiller while the others went to sleep. He promised to wake up Dave when he got tired.

Some time later, Sarah and Dave and everybody else heard Gus when he called out, “Everybody better get up!”

“What is it, Gus, another storm?”

“No storm. Listen.” Gus waited, and everyone was absolutely still.

“What
is
that?” Dave whispered.

“That's breakers, son, and big ones, it sounds like.”

“What does it mean?” Josh asked.

“It means we're gonna have a shipwreck.”

“Is that true, Gus, or are you just being gloomy as usual?” Sarah asked.

“Me, gloomy! Why, I don't know why you'd say that, Sarah. They often criticized me back home for being too optimistic.” She could see his smile by the pale light of the moon. “We'll see some white water pretty soon, and there's no way to turn this boat around. We're running before the wind, and we're headed for land. We'll have a shipwreck for sure.”

“What will happen?” Dave asked.

“Best thing is we miss the breakers and get beached.”

“What's the worst thing?” Jake demanded.

“We hit the rocks, the ship tears up, and we all drown.”

His words sent a chill through Sarah, but she said stoutly, “It's all right. We'll be just fine.”

Wash said, “My grandmother read me a story about a shipwreck once. The ship went down, but everybody on it was saved. It was a true story.”

“That's the spirit, Wash,” Gus said. “Put a good face on it.” He straightened up and looked ahead. “Better find something to hang onto. We'll be there in a few minutes.”

The Sleepers all grabbed the sides of the longboat.

Sarah stared into the darkness beyond them. Soon she saw flashes of white water illuminated by the moon. “There it is!” she cried. “There's the beach!”