“If our vessel was camouflaged, as she was,” reasoned Jerry, “the other might be also. I’ve got to look for something like that and not the ordinary black-painted side of a ship. Glad I thought of that. But it’s going to be harder to watch for.”
One thing was in his favor—the sea was calm. The absence of wind for several days had made the ocean like some smooth lake, and there was only a long, gentle swell on the crests of which Jerry rose and fell as he swam onward.
But though he strained his eyes, which smarted somewhat from the salt water, he could see no fantastically camouflaged side of a vessel toward which he might make his way to safety.
“This is queer,” he found himself reasoning. “I couldn’t have fallen a great way from the Sherman or the other ship. I must have been swimming the wrong way in the fog. I’ll turn back.”
He turned squarely around—as nearly as he could judge the direction in the fog—and began striking out again. And just as he was beginning to wonder why it was he did not see something, his ears became aware of a confused shouting off to his left; at least he thought it was his left.
“There she is! There’s the Sherman!” Jerry told himself. “I’ve been headed wrong! Why didn’t I hear that noise before?”
Then his ears felt as though warm water had suddenly run out of them from inside his head, and he knew what had happened.
Both ears had filled with water when he took his plunge into the sea, and this had temporarily deafened him. He always had had trouble that way, even when a small lad, and he used to wear wads of cotton in his ears when he went for a swim. He remembered that on several occasions he had feared he was going deaf, only to feel, later, the sensation of warm water running from his ears, and then his hearing returned.
The explanation was simple. Jerry’s inner ears filled with water. It became warmed up to nearly 98 degrees by his blood, and then, expanding with the heat, was forced out naturally. Once his ears were clear of water, he could hear as well as before. And that accounted for the fact that he now suddenly heard the shouting which, probably, had been going on all the while he was in the water.