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Mystery of the Iron Box

<h2 id='chap17' class='c011'>CHAPTER XVII</h2> <div class='nf-center-c0'> <div class='nf-center c013'> <div>ROBBED BY THE WAVES</div> </div></div> Sandy lay sprawled on one side. His forehead was damp with sweat, but he was already rubbing one ankle gently against the other in an effort to restore circulation. “Feels as if someone were poking hot needles in my feet,” he said. “But don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I’m not complaining.” “Are you burned much?” Ken asked. “Not enough to worry about,” Sandy assured him. “Well, here goes,” he said a moment later. He drew his right knee up beneath him and, using that knee and his right shoulder and elbow as points of leverage, he shoved himself up to his knees, keeping them wide apart so that he could balance against the roll of the barge. Then he dragged his left foot forward and put it flat on the floor, so that he was resting on one knee and one foot. He tried pushing against that foot, to bring himself erect, but the ankle gave way as soon as he put any weight on it. “Ouch!” he muttered, and rested a minute, wriggling his foot to bring the painful muscles back to life. He tried it twice more. And then suddenly he was on his feet. He had to lean against the table in order to stay upright, but the grime-streaked face beneath the red hair looked grimly jubilant. “Look at me,” he said. “I’m standing! Never thought it would feel like such an achievement.” Ken grinned. “No hands, too. Now let’s see if you can walk over to that cupboard and find a knife.” Unsteadily, and wincing at every step from the pains shooting up his legs, Sandy made it to the cupboard wall. He waited there a moment, until the barge was on a comparatively even keel, and then he clamped his teeth on the knob of the first door and jerked his head back. The door flew open, almost knocking him backward, and a shower of objects came tumbling out, bouncing from Sandy’s chest to the floor. Sandy looked down at them. “Nothing but food,” he muttered disgustedly. “Flour, peanut butter, noodles....” “When we’ve got more time,” Ken said, “I’ll remember to laugh at the sight of you complaining at the appearance of food. But right now I’m more interested in the next cupboard. Try again.” Sandy braced himself as the barge twisted in a corkscrew dive. Then he closed his teeth around the knob of the next cupboard and pulled that one open. A row of cups hanging on hooks swayed violently with the movement of the barge, and small piles of plates and saucers would have flown into the room except for the guard rails that held them in place. Sandy’s glance fell on a flat traylike box on the upper shelf, above the level of his eye. Ken saw it too. “That’s it!” he said excitedly. “It’s just like the box Mom keeps knives and forks in—in a drawer in the kitchen table. Can you get it down?” “I’m certainly not going to leave it there,” Sandy told him. There was one other chair in the cabin, besides the one that Ken was using. Sandy hooked a foot over one rung and dragged it along the floor, hopping painfully on the other foot. When the chair was beneath the cupboard he crawled up onto it, straightened up, and gave a shout of triumph. “Plenty of knives!” But the cupboard shelf was too shallow for him to poke his head in and pick one knife up with his teeth. After pondering for a moment Sandy finally clamped his teeth over the edge of the box, turned around, jumped down from the chair and made it to the table just as the box tilted forward. There was a rattle of cutlery on the floor, but there were still several pieces of battered kitchenware inside when the box thudded to the table. Sandy grinned, massaging his aching jaw muscles against one shoulder. “I feel like a retriever,” he said, bending over to study the contents of his prize. “Good doggie,” Ken applauded. “What luck?” “One knife coming up,” Sandy assured him. He turned his back to the box and felt among the contents with his bound hands until he located the object he had noted there. As soon as Ken could see what Sandy was holding he said, “Great! A paring knife. Now let’s hope it’s sharp. Stick the handle between my teeth and hold your hands in front of me.” The barge dipped sickeningly and Sandy braced himself against the table to avoid being thrown. Ken leaned back hard against his chair. There was a heavy thud as a wall of water swept over the stern and struck the rear wall of the cabin. The pool in the middle of the room was widening fast. “Come on,” Ken said. “Hurry up.” He dreaded thinking how long it was going to take him to free Sandy’s hands. The pump had already been out of operation for some time. How much water had the barge taken on already? How much more could it stand? He closed his mind to the questions as the barge settled, and twisted sideways on the chair so that Sandy could get close to him. Sandy got into position, back toward Ken, who reached forward and took the handle of the knife between his teeth, blade downward. “A little closer. Up a couple of inches,” Ken mumbled between clenched jaws. “Good. Hold it.” He moved his head rhythmically back and forth, drawing the blade of the knife across the tough cord. Sandy held himself rigid, his legs spread for balance against the roll of the deck. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged with the effort of holding his hands in place. Finally one strand parted. But Cal had done his job well. Each loop was independently tied. Ken kept on. His eyes ached under the strain of trying to focus on the rope a scant few inches from his nose. Another loop parted. And then a third. And then a fourth. The knife clattered to the floor. Ken sank back, exhausted. “There’s one more to go,” Ken gasped. “Wait a minute.” Sandy took a deep breath, bent his head, and hunched his shoulder muscles. He gave one powerful tug. The last rope snapped. His hands were free. He stood motionless for a moment, panting. Then he began to knead his fingers to get the numbness out of them. As soon as he could pick up the knife—and without bothering to massage the painful welts on his wrists—he went to work on Ken. A few quick strokes were enough to free Ken’s hands. And then his feet were free too. “I’ll be tying Cal up while you get enough life back into your feet to be able to stand on them,” Sandy said quickly. “Rub your hands too. We’ve got work to do.” Sandy turned Cal over on his face on the wet floor, ripped off the man’s belt and used it to tie his hands behind him, as the boys had been tied. “Here,” Ken said. He had to use both his hands—his fingers were still nerveless—to take a limp dish towel from a nail on the wall and bring it to Sandy. “This will do for his feet.” Sandy pulled off Cal’s heavy boots and bound his feet together, ripping the towel into strips first to give him the length he needed. “Your hands O.K.?” he asked when he had finished. “As good as yours, I guess. Do you know how to start a pump?” “First give me a hand with Cal,” Sandy said. “We’ll put him up on the bunk before he drowns down here.” “I doubt if he’d do the same for us,” Ken muttered. But he helped hoist Cal’s heavy body up to the lower bunk Sandy had recently occupied. “Put on his oilskins,” Ken said then. “There ought to be another suit around here too.” He found another rubber coat, sou’wester, and boots in one of the still-unopened cupboards while Sandy was getting into Cal’s storm clothes. Sandy listened intently for a moment before they opened the door. “Wind’s coming from our rear,” he said. “We’ll be in the thick of it out there on the aft deck. So watch out for a big wave—and hang on to something if you see one coming. Ready?” “Ready.” They stepped quickly out onto the heaving aft deck and slammed the door shut behind them. Outside, they found themselves in an angry world. All around them rose huge combers that seemed to be racing toward the barge or away from it with express-train speed. The foam-flecked water reflected the dirty gray of the sky. There was no land in sight, and no other craft. There was nothing but water—steep vicious mountains of it that seemed at every moment in danger of tumbling down upon the wallowing barge. “Hang on! Here comes one!” The wind ripped Sandy’s shout out of his mouth. He linked one arm through Ken’s as he spoke and threw the other arm around a massive iron bitt bolted to the deck. A ponderous wall of water was coming toward them from the port quarter. The barge fought to rise with it, her timbers groaning at every joint. But the creaking craft, laden with stone and water, was too heavy to climb to the top. The wave struck the stern, and the upper several feet of it sluiced straight over the bulwark. It poured over the boys, knocking their feet out from under them. For long seconds they were submerged. Ken clung to Sandy and the redhead clung to the bitt. Finally the bulk of the deluge poured through the scuppers. Their heads came above water, and then the rest of their bodies. They lay gasping for breath. Sandy struggled up first. “All right?” he asked, hauling Ken to his feet. “I think so.” Ken had lost his sou’wester. Water streamed down his face from his soaked hair. “Watch out for the next one,” Sandy warned, “while I take a look at this engine.” The pumping machinery was housed in a small flat-topped shed about the size of a large dog kennel. Sandy dropped to his knees in front of it and unhooked the side panel that opened downward on hinges. Ken stood alongside, his eyes scanning the heaving waters that surrounded them. “Looks dry!” Sandy yelled triumphantly. “I’ll try her.” He wrapped the starting rope around the pulley of the two-cylinder air-cooled engine and gave it a jerk. The engine turned over, but it didn’t start. Ken leaned down and put his mouth to Sandy’s ear. “How about gasoline? Got enough?” Sandy unscrewed the cap of the tank. He poked his hand down as far as he could and shook his head. He had felt nothing but emptiness. Then he looked around the inner wall of the engine house, spotted a measuring stick, and thrust that down into the tank until it touched the bottom. When he brought it up Ken could see that only the bottom quarter-inch of the stick had touched liquid. He lifted his eyes from the stick barely in time to shout “Here it comes!” Another massive wall of water was about to crash down upon them. It was an even bigger wave than the one before. A crushing weight of sea swept over the engine house, to shatter into stinging spray against the rear bulkhead of the cabin. For what seemed endless minutes there was three feet of water piled on the deck, and when it finally drained toward the sides it pulled the boys along with brutal force. They were barely able to prevent themselves from being sucked overboard. They pulled themselves wearily to their feet again when the worst was over. The water was cold and the air was colder still. Their lips were blue. Their teeth chattered. Sandy rubbed his hands and blew on the fingers to warm them up. Ken was looking at the engine house. The side panel had been down when the wave struck. “Soaked!” Ken shouted, pointing to the engine. Sandy nodded grim agreement. “Have to dry it. Get blanket—towel—anything.” He jerked his head toward the cabin. Ken nodded. He took a quick look at the sea around them and then made a dive for the cabin door. He was out again in a moment with a heavy bath towel he had found under the bunk. Sandy was no longer bent over the engine house. He was trying to open the hasp of a small lean-to built against the cabin wall. “Gasoline!” he shouted. “I hope.” Ken nodded and set to work. Within a few minutes he had dried the plugs and the wires of the engine. Sandy was still struggling with the rusted fastener. When he looked over and saw Ken point to the engine, with a gesture that said “It’s ready,” Sandy stepped back and drove his foot at the door of the lean-to. It cracked down the middle. Sandy struck it again and the hasp flew off. The door sagged open on twisted hinges. Sandy dropped to his knees and peered inside. When he straightened up again he held a five-gallon can in his hand. “Sandy!” Ken had time to shout only the single word, and to clamp his fingers around the engine-house doorway. He hadn’t noticed the huge wave approaching until it broke over the bulwark and poured across the deck in a smothering flood. Ken saw Sandy go down and his big body swept along in the grip of the water. Ken reached for him blindly, his eyes pinned shut by the piercing spray. He felt his fingers clutch a flailing oilskin-clothed arm, and he hung on with all his strength. The water poured over them for what seemed an endless length of time. Sandy’s weight dragged painfully, threatening to pull Ken’s arm from its socket. And then again the water receded and they were left on the sloshing deck. When Ken was able to move he found he had to force his fingers open to free his grip on Sandy’s arm. “That was close,” he gasped. Sandy choked and coughed. “Too close.” Then Ken noticed that Sandy’s hands were empty. The gasoline can he had been carrying was no longer in sight. “The gas—overboard!” Ken said. Sandy shook his head, struggling to get to his feet. “Don’t worry. Two more cans in there.” “In where?” Sandy’s eyes followed Ken’s and the color drained out of his wet cold-reddened face. The lean-to had disappeared. Only a few shattered boards marked the spot where it had stood before the wave struck. <div class='pbb'></div> <hr class='pb c000' /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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