Keeping His Course

by Ralph Henry Barbour

If any one answered him he didn’t hear. Only the swish-swash of the dancing waves and the slap of his wearied arms reached him. He sent an agonized glance ahead. The launch was gone! No, there it was, but he was swimming off his course. Carefully, trailing that useless, pain-racked leg behind him, he changed his direction. His goal looked leagues away and discouragement fell on him. He would never make it, he groaned. Despair drove out determination. He wondered what it was like to drown. Perhaps it wasn’t so dreadful. He prayed incoherently, unconsciously slackening his efforts. The water closed over his head and there was a queer rushing sound in his ears. The next moment, with wide-open eyes looking into a yellow-green void, he was struggling frantically, up and up——

The sunlight burst on him again. Choking, gasping, he drew a long breath of air into his bursting lungs and sent a second wild appeal to the cloudless blue sky above. Fighting against fear, he swam doggedly, urging his tired arms forward and back, using as best he could his right leg, even though every movement of it brought a gasp of pain. He had the horrid, haunting impression that clutching arms were dragging at him from the green depths below him. He tried to tell himself that it was only imagination, but he was beyond conviction. The pain grew. It reached to his left foot now, to the uttermost tips of his toes, dragging and pulling, pinching and twisting excruciatingly. He had lost all sense of direction. His sole effort was to keep afloat, and that was by now half unconscious. Time and again he found himself going under and, opening closed eyes, fought in terror to the surface. At such times he cried out, or thought he did, for the sounds he made were scarcely to be heard above the lap of the waves. He no longer realized either where he was or what he was doing. He struggled instinctively. A dozen yards distant the launch swayed lazily and tugged at her anchor rope, but he didn’t see it. Or, if he saw it, it meant nothing to him. To keep his head above water was all.

And when his futile struggles were interrupted and fingers closed tightly about his wrist he was too far gone to realize it. A few minutes before Toby might have found him, in his fright, a difficult bargain, but now, when the rescuer had drawn one arm over his shoulder, Arnold dragged supinely behind, an easy burden. Allowing himself the luxury of a dozen long-drawn breaths, Toby swam slowly toward the launch, using right arm and legs, his left hand firmly grasping Arnold’s wrist. He had so far outdistanced Frank that the latter was still a good dozen yards away, and it wasn’t until Toby and his unconscious burden were under the shadow of the Urnove that Frank reached them.

“Is he—all right?” he gasped.

“Guess so. About half drowned, though. Climb in and give me a hand with him.”

A minute later Arnold was stretched, face downward, on the seat of the launch and Toby was using all the knowledge he possessed of resuscitation. Fortunately, Arnold’s trouble was exhaustion rather than suffocation, and he was breathing naturally if painfully. Pressure relieved him of a good deal of salt water, and after that his eyelids flickered and he sighed heavily and groaned. And Toby, who, since he had first sighted Arnold’s predicament, had been in a condition of anxiety that was just short of panic, echoed the sigh. His troubled frown cleared away and, hastily covering Arnold with all the clothing he could lay hands on, much of it his own and Frank’s, he turned quickly to the fly-wheel.

“Yank up that anchor, Frank,” he said. “We’ll beat it for the Head. I guess he’s all right now, but he won’t feel much like running races for awhile.” He turned the switch on, fixed his throttle and swung the fly-wheel over, and the Urnove responded with a gasp and a choke and, finally, a nice, steady chug, chug-a-chug. With the dripping anchor inboard, Toby swung the wheel and pointed the bow for the Deerings’ landing; a good two miles away across the sparkling water. That done, he requisitioned his clothing, piece by piece, from Arnold and pulled it on his still damp body, and Frank, whose teeth were chattering like castanets, followed his example. A square of sail-cloth that Toby used to cover the engine at night took the place of their garments. By the time they were presentable again Arnold’s cheeks held a faint flush of color and he showed symptoms of reawakened interest in existence. Finally he raised his head from the improvised pillow and gazed across at Toby in faint surprise.

“Hello,” he said.

“How do you do?” responded the other.

Arnold considered that for a long moment. Then a perplexed frown gathered on his forehead and he asked, weakly and irritated: “But—but what am I doing here?”