ening whirl, as the lifeboat tore into the churning water in a suicidal effort to follow the parent ship to the bottom. Spray flew; waves loomed, broke, fell away; the lifeboat shipped water. Craig cursed aloud, making rage a substitute for terror. Facing him, Hofmanstahal grinned sourly.
The small boat righted itself. It was still in violent motion, lurching aimlessly across a sea jagged with whitecaps; but Craig knew that the crisis was past. He lifted his face into the cold wind, pulling himself up from the water-slopping bottom of the boat until his chin rested on the gunwale.
A wide patch of brownish foam and oil-scum spread slowly from the vortex of exploding bubbles that rose from the vanished ship.
The sea quieted. A gull swooped down and lit on an orange-crate that had bobbed to the surface.
“Well,” said Craig. “Well. That’s that.”
HOFMANSTAHAL peeled off his shirt, wrung it out over the side. The hair that matted his thick chest and peeped from his armpits had a golden sheen that was highlighted by the sun. A small cut was under his left eye, a streak of oil across his forehead.
“You were of the crew?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“But not an A. B. You are too spindly for that.”
“I was navigator.”
Hofmanstahal chuckled, a deep sound that told of large lungs. “Do you think you can navigate us out of this, my friend?”
“I won’t have to. We’re in a well-traveled shipping lane. We’ll be picked up soon enough.”
“How soon might that be?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even knew if we got an SOS out; it all happened so fast.” Craig sighed, rolled over so that he sat with his back curved against the side of the boat. “I doubt if we did, though. The tanks right under the radio shack were the first to go. I wonder who got careless with a cigarette . . ."
“M’m. So we’ll eventually be picked up. And in the meantime, do we starve?”
Craig got up tiredly. “You underestimate the Merchant Marine.” He sloshed to the stern of the lifeboat, threw open the food locker. They saw kegs of water, tins of biscuits and salt meat, canned juices, a first-aid kit.
“More than enough,” Craig said. He turned, searched the surrounding swells. “I wonder if any other survived . . .”
Hofmanstahal shook his head. “I have been looking too. No others. All were sucked down with the ship.”
Craig kept looking. Smoke, heaving stained water, débris, a
