Gasping, the two lay on the deck. They could see the angry, running seas beneath them, and then, as the James Kennedy heeled away, the rim of the lake and then only the clouds.
They were saved.
But they were too weak to congratulate each other, and all that Jerry James could do to show his gratitude was to flop his hand weakly on his friend’s back. Now, as they blew lake water from their mouths, they were aware of the cold, of their drenched clothing clinging to their goose-pimpled flesh, and of the chill breath of the wind.
“Let’s go!” Sandy finally shouted. “If we stand here, we may get socked with another one.”
Jerry nodded and quickly secured himself to the rail, glancing up every now and then as though he expected to see another great black wave racing toward him. Then they made their way forward to the Number Four hatch where the little band of lake sailors struggled bravely to keep the lake out of the James Kennedy’s hold.
There were nine deck hands and one deck officer, a tall, serious-looking man named Davis. Through his water-filled eyes, Sandy could see that Mr. Davis had taped his spectacles securely to his temples, for fear they would be washed away. He remembered Sam saying that Mr. Davis was “as blind as a bat” without his glasses. Sam was with the group, too—ordered down from the pilothouse by Captain West. That was probably because the skipper wanted to make good use of the great strength that lay in Sam’s deep chest and thick shoulders. Sam swung a heavy sledge hammer, as he and two other men—one of them a blond, Swedish giant named Gunnar—attempted to batter the sprung steel hatch cover back into place. Sandy could hear the metallic clanging of their blows above the wind and sea as he and Jerry approached, both of them side-stepping along the rail while they clung to their ropes.
Then Mr. Davis yelled, “All hands to the rails!”
To his horror, Sandy saw that the James Kennedy’s prow had plunged into a wall of water that reared before it. The bow sliced into it as the V of a plow might pierce a snowbank—and though the boat itself remained steady, that parted wave was now flowing around either side of the forward cabins and sweeping down the decks!
Swiftly, the men whirled and scurried for the rails. They dove for them, in fact! They curled around them and bent and turned their heads away from the onrushing water, and Sandy noticed that the hammer-swingers had fastened their tools to their wrists by thick lengths of rope.
Then the water hit.