Darwinia

Postscriptum. The fish are abundant will make a palatable evening meal, though Diggs proclaims his martyrdom as he cleans them. Offal goes into the river — billyflies chase it downstream. (The billyflies will bite if provoked; we sleep under mosquito netting tonight. Other insects not especially common or venomous, although a crablike creature made off with one of Keck’s fish — nabbed it from a wetrock scuttled into the water with it! “Claws like a lobster,” Keck says cheerfully. “Count your toes, gentlemen!”)

The next day they were forced to portage a rocky rapids, a grim task without pack animals. The boats were muscled ashore and the route surveyed; fortunately the pebbled river margin remained fairly broad and there was a ready supply of driftwood — dry, hollow flute logs that had been tumbled against the gorge wall by spring floods — to serve as makeshift rollers. But the portage exhausted everyone and wasted a day; by sundown Guilford was only just able to drag his aching bones under the mosquito netting and sleep.

In the morning he loaded and helped launch the Perspicacity, alongside Sullivan, Gillvany, and Tom Compton. Perspicacity was last in the water; by the time they reached mid-river the lead boat, Finch’s Ararat, was already out of sight beyond the next bend. The river ran fast and shallow here and Guilford sat foremost watching for rocks, ready with an oar to steer the keel away from obstacles.

They were making steady progress against the current when the motor coughed and died.

The sudden silence startled Guilford. He was able to hear the drone of the Camille, a hundred yards ahead, and the lapping of water, and Sullivan swearing quietly as he pulled back the canvas shield and opened the motor compartment.

Without an engine the Perspicacity slowed at once, balanced between momentum and river current. The Rhine gorge was suddenly static. Only water moved. No one spoke.

Then Tom Compton said, “Loose the other oars, Mr. Gillvany. We need to turn and make for shore.”

“Only a little water in the compartment,” Sullivan said. “I can restart the motor. I think.”

But Tom Gillvany, who did not much care for river travel, nodded uneasily and unhooked the oars.

Guilford used his own oar to bring the boat around. He took a moment to wave at Camille, signaling the problem, and Keck waved back acknowledgment and began to turn. But the Camille was already alarmingly far away. And now the shore had begun to reverse, to slip away. The Rhine had taken control of Perspicacity.

The pebbled beach from which they had launched swept past. “Oh, Jesus,” Gillvany moaned, paddling hectically. Sullivan, white-faced, abandoned the engine and took up an oar. “Make a steady pace,” Tom Compton said, his low voice not unlike the rumble of the water. “When we’re close enough I’ll snub the boat. Here, give me the bow line.”

Guilford thought of the rapids. He supposed everyone in the boat had begun to think of the rapids. He could see them now, a line of white into which the river vanished. The shore seemed no closer.

“Steady!” the frontiersman barked. “Dammit, Gillvany, you’re flapping like a fuckin’ bird! Dig the water!”

Gillvany was a small man and chastened by the outburst. He bit his lip and pushed his oar into the river. Guilford worked in silence, arms straining. Sweat drenched his face, a tang of salt when he licked his lips. The day was no longer cool. Darwinian shore birds, like coal-black sparrows, swooped blithely overhead.

The river bottom was jagged now, shark-fin rocks trailing white wakes as Perspicacity neared shore. There was a quick hollow crack from the aft of the boat: “Lost a skag,” Sullivan said breathlessly. “Pull!”

The next snap was the screw, Guilford guessed; it sent a grinding shudder through the boat. Gillvany gasped, but no one spoke. The roar of the water was loud.