A Hero for Leanda

Kastella at Malindi. Then, with a surprisingly emotional little speech about the importance of the enterprise, Ionides wished them a safe passage, and left them. In the evening, several Yacht Club members dropped in to say good-by, and stayed for drinks. But by eleven peace had descended on the creek. Conway spent a little time with his charts and the Indian Ocean Pilot, while Leanda cleared up. Then they turned in.
    At dawn, they sailed.

2

    As soon as they were clear of the harbor, Conway streamed the patent log and set Thalia on her course. Heureuse lay due east, in almost the same latitude as Mombasa, but with the wind heading the ship from the southeast and likely to go on doing so, the best he could steer without starving her was eighty-five degrees. Leeway on the long beat would carry her still further to the north, but one tack toward the end of the trip would put that right. At present the southeaster was a gentle sailing breeze, about force three, just sufficient to keep Thalia’s sails asleep and pulling steadily at around four knots. The surface of the indigo sea was ruffled, but there were no white horses. The motion of the ship in the long swell was regular and easy.
    Conway was fully occupied for a while, satisfying himself that all was well, trimming the sails to suit the wind and the ship, noting the angle of the wake to estimate the leeway. Then, around eight, he gave the tiller to Leanda. She was still very much of a tyro, but the breeze was steady and all she had to do was keep an eye on the compass and steer the right course. Conway watched her for a moment, then gave her an encouraging nod and went below to prepare breakfast of cereal, eggs and coffee. His appetite was always good at sea and he liked his meals substantial. When the food was ready he called Leanda to eat and took the tiller himself. Then he breakfasted while she steered. The tests in Mombasa harbor had shown, as he’d expected, that Thalia wouldn’t sail herself satisfactorily to windward, so while present conditions lasted they would always have to eat separately.
    Afterward, Conway washed up and made all shipshape in the saloon and then went to sit beside Leanda in the cockpit. He had stripped to his shorts, for the morning was hot and on this tack the mainsail gave no shade. His back and shoulders were already tanned a deep walnut. Leanda, in loose white shirt and briefs, and with a bright yellow head scarf for protection, looked cool and faintly piratical. Conway glanced up at the sail as he came on deck, an instinctive action, and then around the horizon. The low-lying Kenya coast was no longer visible; there was nothing to be seen in any direction but water and sky. Probably there wouldn’t be anything now until they neared Heureuse, for this was one of the loneliest oceans in the world, right off the shipping lanes. Their only companions were a few gulls, hovering above the stern, and the flying fish that shot from the sea like silver arrows, their delicate wings outstretched. Singly and in clouds they rose and dipped around the ship. Leanda watched entranced, till Conway pointed to the wandering compass needle and asked her where she thought she was going.
    At noon he took his first sight, more to familiarize Leanda with the drill than because he needed to know their position so early. He had done it a thousand times on his own, but it would be less awkward with two. To Leanda, the operation looked most complicated. While she concentrated on steering a steady course, Conway braced himself against the main hatch, focusing the sextant telescope on the horizon. Then he moved the index bar to bring the reflected image of the sun close to the water, turned the screw for fine adjustment—and called, “Now!” At the signal, Leanda started the stop watch she was holding. They went through the drill three times, and then Conway went below to make his simple calculations. The third reading gave them a position only a few miles different from dead reckoning. In six hours they had covered nearly twenty-five nautical miles.
    “Is that good?” Leanda asked.
    “It could be a lot worse,” Conway told her. “I’ve sometimes sailed all day and finished up further back than when I started!” He made the first penciled cross on the track chart, and the first entry in the log.
    Leanda prepared the lunch and Conway cleared away, and at two in the afternoon they started their regular watchkeeping—four hours on and four off