Down below him, Cookie’s bald head had appeared above the surface.
“Help!” he called weakly. “Help!”
Then, before the horrified gaze of all aboard the Kennedy, the little man choked on a mouthful of water, threw up his hands and sank out of sight.
Splash!
Straight as an arrow, Sandy Steele’s body had swept out from the ship’s side—hitting the water only a few feet to the side of the spot where Cookie had gone under.
Even as Sandy went beneath the surface, he felt a shiver run through his body from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. It was not only from the impact of having dropped twenty feet. It was from the terrible, numbing drop in temperature. For a moment he felt as though his body were a thing of stone.
But Sandy quickly got his legs and arms working. He surfaced and looked around him. Nothing.
Sandy dove down once more.
It was as black as night under the surface. Still, he forced himself farther and farther down, swinging his arms in front of him in long, slow, underwater breast strokes. He hoped to touch Cookie in this way, if he could not see him.
Sandy’s lungs were bursting.