“For they’re rowing to get beyond the suction of the ship when it goes down,” he reflected, “and when they’re far enough away they’ll wait to pick up survivors.”
He struck out valiantly, his courage coming back to him now. It was not cold, and save for the violence of the wind and waves, Tom would not have been in bad straits, for he was a good swimmer. But he realized the peril of his situation—adrift on the open ocean.
He had swum perhaps fifty feet, getting occasional glimpses of the lifeboat as it rose on the crest of a wave, when the flare on the vessel seemed to be dying down.
Tom swung around and saw a weird and terrifying sight. As he looked the Silver Star seemed to stand up on end, like some stricken animal making a last stand. Then with a suddenness that was startling, the craft sank from sight, a loud boom proclaiming when the decks blew up from the compressed air under them.
Instantly the sea was in blackness again, and Tom felt his heart sinking, as he realized that he could no longer see the lifeboat, upon which his sole hope could be placed.
“But I’m not going to give up. I’ll yell some more,” he thought, and he called with all the power of his lungs.
“Help! Help! I’m Tom Fairfield! Right astern of you!”
He listened, but all he could hear was the roar of the wind and the swish of the waves. And then he knew it was hopeless to look for aid from that direction.
“I’ll keep afloat as long as possible,” he thought “and then—well—” He did not like to think further. “In the morning though,” he reflected, “Ah, in the morning I may be able to pick up enough floating wreckage to make a raft, or the boat may see me. There must be more than one boat. They had time to launch more than one when I started to make my roll into the ocean.”
This thought gave him courage, and he struck out with a better heart, determining not to give up as long as he could keep afloat.