What I valued most of all was a picture she had taken with the kid. That nearly finished me. I was after winkin' and blinkin' over it like an old fool parted from his senses. But she looked so sweet smilin' at me there and the kid looked so clean it almost broke me up.
I set sail on a warm June day. There was no chance to go home and say good-bye. In a way I was glad of that. She was, too. It's rough weather we had all the way and plenty of work, but I liked the life. I was hard as nails. I was strong from bein' outdoors twenty-nine years of me thirty. Weather didn't worry me—rain or shine was all the same.
We came to the Zone. "Aha!" says I to meself, "so this is the patch Fritz has picked to try his luck with us as a target!" I kept wishin' for a sight of him. Sure, I stayed awake nights worryin' for fear the convoy sent out to meet us would be so good it would scare all the subs away. It was nearin' the point where we expected the sub chasers to meet us that I got me wish.
It was about five in the afternoon with the sun goin' down like a red balloon, when we sighted a raft with a barrel propped up at one end. There were two fellows aboard her, in a bad way from the looks of them, stripped to their waists, wavin' their shirts to us for help.
We had been after hearin' how dangerous it was to stop your engine in the Zone and rescue survivors, but good God! who'd have the heart to pass those poor fellows by! Perhaps they had wives and kids at home same as us. We drew up about five hundred yards from them and started to lower the boat when the raft rose out of the water and turned over and the men dived off. Under it we saw the deck of a submarine, the barrel still on her periscope.
It's trapped we were by her dirty trick! She struck us amidships and then submerged. There wasn't time to fire. We were sinkin' stern first. The boats were swung down and I started to get into me own when I remembered the wife's picture! Sure, I had to have it! There wasn't no two ways about it. I just wouldn't get off the ship without it. Someone called to me to come on. Someone pulled me arm. But I tore it loose.
"It's goin' back I am," I told him.
"You're crazy! She'll be down in four minutes."
"I tell you, it's goin' back I am. . . ."
And he let me go. I guess he thought he'd done his best to save a poor loon. All hands were on deck. I made for the hatchway and found it fillin' with water. The furniture was floatin' around like the little toys the kid puts in the bath tub.