For the freedom of the seas

by Ralph Henry Barbour

His mind was unnaturally active. Thoughts flew through his brain at lightning speed. He recalled a thousand incidents, visioned them swiftly and distinctly and passed them on. He wondered about his father, and sobbed once and felt terribly alone and weak. He remembered what he had set out to do a few short months before, and the war which had taken so much of his thought vanished to a mere pin-point of unimportance. Even a world war seemed a puny, silly thing here in this universe of blackness and storm. It would go on to its end, whatever that end might be, and after an interval everything would be the same as before. Flowers would spring up over a million graves and a new generation would run the plowshares across them, and the world would go on and on endlessly. It was strange and puzzling. He would not be there and no one would know or care. His life was just one tiny drop in a great ocean, and of no more importance. He wondered why....

“Troy, Nelson A., seaman, lost overboard from U. S. S. Gyandotte; uncle, Peter Troy, Wonson, Me.” That’s the way the papers would have it. There was something woefully uninteresting about it. He had sometimes imagined his name with “killed in action” after it, but here was no implication of heroism. Perhaps he might say that he had “died in performance of his duty.” He didn’t know. Anyway, what did it matter, for there wouldn’t be anyone to tell! Unless, he reflected the next moment, he could tell his mother. Nelson believed implicitly in Heaven, but whether he would get there was another question, he thought. And even if he did, what would it be like, and—Oh, it was a terrible jumble! All a fellow could do was wait and see. And meanwhile there was a task at hand, which was to get his head out of water occasionally and make a fight for it. That was it! He’d go down fighting, as became an American Navy man! There was comfort in that thought. It heartened him, and he struck out more vigorously and shook the brine from his eyes with new determination. He had found a reason for keeping up the struggle.

How long he had been in the water he neither knew nor considered, but it is likely that no more than a quarter of an hour at most had passed since he had been hurtled past the broken rail of the Gyandotte. Sliding over and over, fighting for breath, down the slope of a sea, his outflung hand touched something. He drew it back instinctively, conscious of a sudden pain in the numb fingers. Then startled reason sent him swiftly groping, and in that instant he sensed rather than saw something beside him, something huge that flung the waves back in his stinging eyes. His eager fingers touched again, slid along a hard, wet surface that offered no hold, and he threw his head back and shouted with all his strength. And at the same moment his fingers found a hold, a tiny recess in the smooth object that was sliding past him, and they clutched convulsively and he felt himself being dragged forward through the welter of wind and water, his arm straining at its socket and his body pounded against an object as hard and resisting as a block of stone.

CHAPTER XI
TWENTY FATHOMS DOWN

He knew then that Providence had guided him to the side of one of the other ships, that, could he but make himself heard above the roar of the elements, he might yet be saved. The realization brought a renewal of courage. The mere physical contact with something more solid, more stable than the hungry waves endowed his aching body with strength. If he could only hold on! The strain on his cramped fingers was terrific, and at every roll of the hull his body was thrown against it with a violence that must soon bring endurance to an end. He dashed the salt water from his face and shouted at the top of his tired lungs. And then, coming up choking and sputtering from a wave, again sent his appeal toward the deck. Surely, he thought, someone must hear him!

He could no longer stand the pain in the hand and arm that held him to the ship, and with difficulty he reached his right hand up and set the fingers into the narrow crevice and dropped the other away, numb and aching. This brought his face to the hull and turned his body so that it lay closer to the steel plates and was less buffeted. And the position raised his head further so that his breathing periods were more frequent. When his head was above water he shouted, but he began to lose hope now, for in that confused roar of wind and water his cries were scarcely audible to him. His hold was precarious and more than once he felt his fingers slipping away. Then, by every effort of weary muscles, pushing against the smooth surface with his left hand, he regained his hold. During one such struggle, with head thrown back and for the instant above the waves, he blinked the water from his eyes and tried to pierce the darkness and glimpse the rail far above him. It must have been some sense other than sight that told him the truth, for no gloom was ever more impenetrable and even the hand that protected his face from the hull was beyond his vision. But, looking up, he suddenly realized that there were no towering sides above him, that it was not a cruiser or destroyer he was clinging to, but a submarine!

And then something that had puzzled him dimly was explained. In groping along the hull he had gained the impression that, instead of bulging outward as it arose it did the opposite. Now, at the risk of losing his hold, he sent his left hand exploring at arm’s length and found instant corroboration. The hull receded sharply. He realized then that perhaps no more than another twelve inches beyond his utmost reach was the deck. If he could only pull himself up there! But nothing to grip to, neither protuberance nor recess, met his searching fingers. Somewhere not very far distant must be the conning tower and bridge, and when the next deluge had washed over him and passed he shouted with a desperation born of the knowledge of help at hand and of failing strength. But even as he shouted the thought came to him that in such weather they would be navigating the boat from the tightly-closed conning tower and not from the exposed bridge, and that no cries he was capable of would penetrate its steel sides.

He knew that he could not last much longer. His arm felt as though it was dead, or, to be more exact, it didn’t feel at all; sensation had quite passed from it, and it was only by painfully working a finger that he could be certain that his hand still clutched the edge of the little crevice. He was far less reconciled to drowning than he had been before. The injustice of being thrown into the path of rescue and then mercilessly denied it produced a sense of rebellion and even anger. A few feet away from him, beyond that thin steel well, men were talking, perhaps laughing, in warmth and light and comfort, while he was doomed to perish miserably within arm’s length of them! A sudden surge of mingled wrath and terror overcame him, and he rained weak blows on the hull until his knuckles were torn and bleeding and the salt set them to stinging, and strove, as the waves would let him, to knock his knees, too, against the plates. Then a calmer mood came, and the hopelessness of further struggle settled over him. If he abandoned the submarine he would be no worse off than before save that he had depleted his strength for swimming. In one way he would better himself, for drowning was far less imminent when riding the seas than while being smothered with the waves that broke over and against the boat. And, after all, he had no choice, for he could no longer hold on. His fingers were slipping fast now and he had no strength to work them back into place. But, somehow, having decided, he found it hard to act. As unfeeling as it had proved, that submarine was tangible and friendly, and letting go would be like releasing one’s hold of a rope to drop into unknown depths. He compromised with his decision. He would stay where he was as long as he could. Time enough to cast adrift when his fingers no longer performed their task. He shouted no more now. He only waited and endured.

Moments passed, and then light beat on his closed lids and he opened his eyes. A wave hissed over him, but through it a white glare penetrated. The water passed, the boat rolled, and, choking and gasping, his aching body tossed sprawling against the hull, he heard a voice issue from the fierce radiance that still engulfed him. The words were whisked away by the wind. Something dragged at his free arm and he felt himself being pulled like a sack of grain up the wet, sloping side. He experienced neither joy nor relief, but only a dim wonder. And about that time he ceased to take further interest in things.