We found if we sucked on buttons it helped a little to keep our dry throats moist, but our tongues were swollen and our lips were parched.
There was a Norwegian aboard. He had been torpedoed before. He had great ideas as to what we ought to do, but the trouble was he couldn't speak English, and none of us knew Norwegian, so we couldn't get him at all.
Nine days—ten days—eleven days . . . the water in the barrels was down so low that I tried reducin' me drink to a quarter of a cup a day. It was then I got on to the fact that Terry was actin' queer. The Norwegian put me wise. He pointed to the ocean and patted his mouth, then he jerked his thumb at Terry. I called the boy up sharp.
"Drinkin' salt water, eh?" I snapped.
He looked up. "What's that to you?" His eyes looked hot and feverish, his cheeks were flushed.
"You cut it out," I ordered. I almost choked as I said it. What if it had been me own kid?
"All right," he growled.
But he didn't stop. At night he scooped up cupfuls of it—he and the other youngsters, and one mornin' we had four ravin', crazy boys on our hands. They were stronger than we were and when they tried to jump overboard we couldn't stop them. We did our best to save them, but they fought us with the strength of fiends. We couldn't get them back into the boat—we lost all four of them. After that I don't remember much.