An excerpt from “At Last a Morning Calm”
Warning shouts came from all sides, the young chief, standing on top of a bollard, turned to see a Quad-50 which was, moments before, being slowly lifted by the barge-crane from its place on the deck ten yards away. The Quad-50, a tank-like vehicle, was now coming at him like a massive bullet and was now little more than an arm’s length away. He didn’t want to be crushed between the bulwark and the flying Quad-50. With no time to examine options, he threw himself backward over the side of the ship. Lying on his back in midair, the young chief was looking at the underside of the Quad-50 as it, now under control, paused in midair on its way to be offloaded onto a barge that was lying outboard of the crane-barge. He hoped he wouldn’t land on the steel deck of the crane-barge which was 40 feet beneath him; there was little chance of surviving that landing.
How could it be that his life would end here today? He felt a deep disappointment that he wouldn’t be around to see the rest of his life unfold. He hoped his God would manage to find a place for him at the inn.
As he fell, the advice given his survival class by the old chief bosun’s mate at Sheepshead Bay came to his mind. “Make jumpin’ off your ship the last thing you do, ‘cause ‘twil likely be just that.” He chased the image of the old bosun from his mind; he wanted to make room for someone else.
The new image was that of a tall girl with curly brown hair. Her blue-gray eyes laughed a lot. The picture in his mind was as he had seen her last, surrounded by beauty on a mountainside above the city of Honolulu. They were standing on the front lanai at Sherman House; she was in blue pedal pushers and a sleeveless white blouse. As he kissed her, he wished the scent of plumeria in her hair could somehow come away with him. His allotted time in heaven had expired so he turned and got into a waiting taxi. The taxi would take him to his ship.
Suddenly, his body, from head to toe, was struck a violent blow. His view of the high, gray side of the great ship blurred. …He was in water! He had missed the deck of the crane-barge, he was still alive!
He held his nose with one hand and kept his mouth tightly closed as he plummeted deep into the sea. Survival training had taught him that the air trapped in his clothes would bring him back to the surface. First he must find his way out of the oppressive blackness he was in. The blackness seemed to be smothering him and holding him captive. The momentary captivity in a world of feathery darkness seemed an eternity. Eventually he came to realize that the silent cloud of darkness lurking over him was the marine-growth-covered, flat underside of the crane-barge. Beyond the darkness he could now see the gray wall of the great ship. With that problem cleared from his mind, another was coming to the fore. When he hit the water, he had bit the inside of his left cheek; it was apparently bleeding heavily. His mouth was full of blood. Survival training hadn’t covered what to do with a mouthful of blood when you’re busy holding your breath. It was scary but with one hand pressing each cheek he managed to force the blood out into the sea without allowing any seawater in.
For reasons that he didn’t understand, his legs wouldn’t work. With one arm he began pulling himself toward the light. When he came into the light he popped to the surface. With the air and the light came the cold. The cold was an all-encompassing thing that caused him to start shaking uncontrollably, making it very difficult to keep his head above water. The return of the air made him aware of heavy pain in his lungs and lower back.
The crew of the crane-barge had gathered on the deck of the crane six or seven feet above him. They were lowering a meat basket to lift him aboard. One sailor, wearing a lifejacket, jumped into the water, another threw a lifejacket onto the water near him. Struggling to get to the jacket, the young chief went under again. The air trapped in his heavy clothes had apparently escaped. The clothes and his boots were now dead weights pulling him under. He used both arms to fight his way upward toward the lifejacket. Despite a desperate effort, the lifejacket kept moving farther away. After a while he was still… He’d made no decision to stop struggling, his arms simply quit working. Just as a terrifying darkness began to surround him, a light steel cable with an eye spliced in its end came down right in front of him. He grabbed and yanked it with a strength that he didn’t know he still had. He wanted the life-saving sailor/fisherman on the upper end to know that he had a bite.
Still managing to hold his breath, he felt himself, like an old boot on a catfish hook, being drawn upward away from the darkness.
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