Suddenly he felt himself being immersed in deep water. He had fallen into the sea—he realized that—and the sudden shock cleared his partially numbed brain. Instinctively Jerry held his breath as his head went under, and then he began frantically striking out. He was a strong swimmer, and, even fully dressed as he was, he knew how to take care of himself in the water.
Giving his head a shake to clear his eyes, he looked about him. He wanted to see, if possible, in what direction to swim to save himself. If he had been tossed any distance from the transport he might be some time before he could swim back to her. And it might be better to try to reach the vessel that had crashed into the Sherman.
Then another thought occurred to Jerry. Was it another vessel that had crashed into the troopship in the fog? Might it not have been some immense iceberg, which, even now, was bearing down on the swimming lad?
And then Jerry, in a measure, pulled himself together. He knew that to dwell on such gloomy thoughts was hampering his powers of resistance—taking from him his own self-control that he very much needed at this time. So, vigorously putting them aside, he increased the power of his strokes, though he was beginning to feel the weight of his soaked garments. Again he shook his head to clear his eyes and looked about him for something toward which to swim. All about him was the dense, white fog. He looked for something black looming up through it—the black side of the troopship, or perhaps the side of the vessel which had crashed into the Sherman.
And then, like a flash, it came to Jerry.
“No, it won’t be black!”
For a moment that simple thought, which came in the form of a sentence he might have seen written down, puzzled the lad.
“Why wouldn’t it be black?” he asked himself, even as he swam about. And then came the subconscious answer.
“Camouflage paint!”
That was it! Why hadn’t he thought of it before?