Read Aground for Free Online Page A

name lettered on her stern it was shorter than Dragoon . She lay roughly on a northerly heading about three hundred yards southwest of the dry sand bar, which was itself approximately that long, very narrow, and not over two or three feet above water at its highest point. The water was very shoal on all sides of the bar except for one twisting channel of slightly darker blue extending along its western side, past the Dragoon’s stern, and then on westward toward the outer edge of the Bank. The tide was flooding onto the Bank, flowing around her hull, but she lay broadside to it and unmoving. The deck was empty of any sign of life. Then they were past her, and Avery was climbing to gain altitude for another turn.
    Mrs. Osborne had put down the binoculars and had her face pressed against the window, trying to see aft. “Are you sure it’s the Dragoon?” she asked.
    “Yes,” he said. “There’s no doubt of it.”
    “There’s something funny about the way she’s lying. What is it?”
    “She’s aground.”
    “I didn’t see anybody. Did you?”
    “No. I think she’s been abandoned.”
    “There must be somebody. . . . What could have happened?”
    “I don’t know,” he said.
    Avery completed the turn and they came back, still lower and off the schooner’s starboard side this time. She was in no immediate danger, Ingram thought, as long as the wind held out of the southeast. There was a short, choppy sea running across the Bank, but she was completely protected in the lee of the shoal surrounding the sand spit. A norther would break her up, but there was little chance of one in June. As they went past he swept the deserted deck with a cool professional eye. There appeared to be no damage. The sticks and rigging were all right as far as he could tell. The sails were sloppily furled, as though they had been stowed in the dark by farmers, but the booms were inboard, the main resting on its gallows. There was only one thing that appeared to be amiss, and that was hard to judge with the list she had. She could be a little low in the water. Maybe she had been holed on a reef somewhere and they’d deliberately beached her. But there was no anchor out, which would seem to indicate she’d been abandoned before she went aground. It was baffling.
    Then they were past, and climbing. Ingram made an estimate of the position and marked it on the chart. Avery checked the time, and cautioned, “Can’t cut it too fine. We’d best start for home.”
    “Could we go by just once more?” Mrs. Osborne asked.
    Avery nodded. They made the turn and came back, higher this time. She stared down at the empty deck. Then the schooner was falling away behind them, looking helpless and forsaken in the lonely distances of the sea. When she disappeared at last, Mrs. Osborne turned away from the window. “How do we get aboard?”
    “Charter a boat,” Ingram replied.
    “How long will it take?”
    “Two days, at least. Maybe three.”
    “That’s too long. Why don’t we land out there with the plane?”
    He glanced at Avery. The latter nodded. “Could be done, if there’s not too much sea running. Early in the morning would be the best time. But you’d have to take it up with McAllister.”
    He started to point out that merely getting aboard wouldn’t solve anything; the chances were they were going to need the help of another boat, and one with plenty of power, to pull her off. Then he reconsidered; there were several things in favor of it. He could size up the situation at first hand, see just what it was going to take to get her afloat again, and find out if there was any damage below the water line. Also, she might not be fast aground at all; she might merely have lodged there on a change of tide and float off herself on the next flood. With no anchor out, there was no telling where she would wind up. An abandoned boat was always in danger.
    “What about getting over to her?” he asked.
    “We have some rubber life rafts,”