Assignment - Lowlands by Edward S. Aarons Page B

I’d have gone overboard if you—”
    “Take care of Jan, will you? He’s been hurt.”
    He shoved Gunther into the safety of the cockpit before snatching the spinning wheel. He had noted their course before, and now he tried to steady the vessel. The engine still ran, and they righted slowly, plunging on into the fog. The sound of the other yacht was gone, swallowed up by the mist and by distance.
    Trinka looked up with Jan’s head in her lap. “His scalp is badly cut.” Her face was white. “Do you realize what just happened?”
    “Somebody tried to kill us,” Durell said grimly.
    “Yes. But why?”
    “Because we are what we are, and they know it and don’t want us around to ask any more questions.”
    “Was it Julian Wilde?”
    “I don’t think so. Am I headed on the right course?”
    She stood beside him. “A little more to port, just a few points. Are we over the shoal?”
    “I think so.”
    “It is all that saved us,” she whispered.
    She began to tremble violently. Her lips were pale. She stared at the fog and started to speak again and bit her lip.
    “It was a close one,” Durell said.
    “I am sorry. I should have been prepared for it.” She tried to smile. “I will be all right soon. Thank you.”
    He pulled her down beside him at the wheel. Her waist was slim and supple, her body firm under his grip. “Stop shaking, Trinka. It turned out all right.”
    “I—I didn’t know I was a coward. I’d have gone overboard if you hadn’t caught me. And poor Jan—” 
    “Take care of him. It’s only a scalp injury.”
    “You’re right.”
    But she didn’t move. He handed the wheel to her and when he saw she held the Suzanne on course, he suddenly kissed her, hard and without inhibition, on her trembling mouth. Her body stiffened with shock. Instinctively, her primness fought him, surprised. And she forgot her fear in the sudden anger she showed when she slapped him. “What do you think—”
    He grinned. “Can you steer a straight course now?”
    Her eyes blazed. “You—that was hateful!”
    “Was it?”
    “I was not so—not so helpless—I cannot think—” “Just steer the boat now, Trinka,” he said gently. “And keep your mind off what almost happened to us and concentrate on despising me. All right?”
    For a moment she stared in unmitigated outrage. Then she saw his smile and her lips twitched. She looked down at their course on the binnacle compass and adjusted the wheel; then she smiled in return and laughed and said softly, “It would not be difficult to—to hate you very much, Sam Durell.”
    “Work on it,-” he said. “And I’ll work on Jan.”
Eleven
    They were back in Amschellig Harbor by six o’clock. Jan Gunther revived quickly, and by the time they moored, he was at the wheel again, apologizing in his clumsy manner for having been so careless as to let his head get in the way of the swinging boom. Trinka, however, was strangely silent until they tied up.
    “Don’t you have any idea whose vessel that was?” Durell asked. “You’ve been here a week or more. Didn’t you recognize the yacht?”
    “No, there are several of that size,” she said. “And I couldn’t see the name on the transom. I’m afraid I’m not as good an operative as I thought. The slightest crisis, and I came apart.”
    “Not at all.”
    “You could not depend on me again.”
    “I may have to,” he said, smiling.
    “But I have lost confidence in myself.” Then she brightened. “Perhaps it is only hunger now. It is almost dinner time, and I am absolutely starved!”
    “Sorry, you’ll have to buy your own meal. I’m due back at the hotel for a date with Julian Wilde, remember?” 
    Then she returned to the problem, like a puppy worrying a bone. “But why should anyone want to drown us, when we are following Wilde’s instructions?”
    He had several ideas about that, but he said nothing. He helped Jan check the bilges and strakes of the Suzanne , where they had been