THE DERELICT
“Air!” thought Tom gaspingly, as he went down and down into the depths.
“I must get air! My lungs! They’re bursting!”
He felt himself being buffeted by the waters. It seemed as though he
was in a whirlpool of foam. He was being sucked down.
Even then he found himself thinking of many things besides the very
evident necessity of saving himself. He was wondering what had struck
the _Silver Star_. He wondered if the ship had gone down, or had gone
to pieces. What had become of her passengers and crew?
And, with all that, and with the vital necessity of getting a breath of
air soon, Tom found himself regretting that his mission to rescue his
parents must now fail.
“But it shan’t!” he found himself exclaiming mentally. “I’ll get up and
save myself, and them too!”
Tom had grit. It was the kind of grit that enabled him to win the
football game, and to lead his class to revolt against unfair
treatment.
Striking out with all his might our hero swam upward. He felt that he
would never reach the top so that he might fill his lungs with air,
and he blessed his lucky stars that he had put on light clothing, soft
shoes and was not encumbered with anything.
For he felt that he was mounting upward. Upward through the blackness
and dark waters to what?
That was something that even he dared not think about. Would he find
himself on a waste of waters, or would there be some boat near to save
him? Had the whole ship’s company perished? It seemed likely.
Then, as suddenly as he had gone into the water, he felt himself
shooting up out of it. He shook his head, as a dog shakes his body on
emerging from the waves, to free his eyes of water. Then he glanced
about.
There was a glare on the storm-swept surface of the heaving sea, a
glare that Tom knew came from the flaring rockets and signal lights.
He whirled about in the water until he could face the source of the
illumination, and he saw that which saddened and startled him.
About a hundred yards away, for that distance she had been swept by the
storm, was all that was left of the _Silver Star_. She was low in the
water--a wreck--and the light flared from one of her signal masts,
where a sailor had fastened it.
And in the glare Tom saw something else. It was a lifeboat, filled
with people, and it was headed away from him. He knew this was his one
chance. Treading water, so as to bring his head as much above the waves
as possible, he shouted:
“Help! Help! I’m Tom Fairfield! I’m right astern of you. Help! Help!
I’m--”
His voice was drowned out in a smother of foam that broke over him
from a huge wave, and he had to swim to keep himself up. The boat
disappeared behind the crest of a comber, only to reappear again, the
dying flare from the light showing the men rowing hard.
“Help! Help!” sang out Tom again, but at the same moment he realized
that in the roar of the wind and the swish of the waves his cry could
scarcely be heard. Still he called again:
“Help! Help!”
Once more he was covered by a smother of foam, and again he had to swim
with all his strength. When he could see the lifeboat again it was
farther off, and then Tom did what he should have tried at first--he
endeavored to swim after it.
“For they’re rowing to get beyond the suction of the ship when it goes
down,” he reflected, “and when they’re far enough away they’ll wait to
pick up survivors.”
He struck out valiantly, his courage coming back to him now. It was not
cold, and save for the violence of the wind and waves, Tom would not
have been in bad straits, for he was a good swimmer. But he realized
the peril of his situation--adrift on the open ocean.
He had swum perhaps fifty feet, getting occasional glimpses of the
lifeboat as it rose on the crest of a wave, when the flare on the
vessel seemed to be dying down.
Tom swung around and saw a weird and terrifying sight. As he looked
the _Silver Star_ seemed to stand up on end, like some stricken animal
making a last stand. Then with a suddenness that was startling, the
craft sank from sight, a loud boom proclaiming when the decks blew up
from the compressed air under them.
Instantly the sea was in blackness again, and Tom felt his heart
sinking, as he realized that he could no longer see the lifeboat, upon
which his sole hope could be placed.
“But I’m not going to give up. I’ll yell some more,” he thought, and he
called with all the power of his lungs.
“Help! Help! I’m Tom Fairfield! Right astern of you!”
He listened, but all he could hear was the roar of the wind and the
swish of the waves. And then he knew it was hopeless to look for aid
from that direction.
“I’ll keep afloat as long as possible,” he thought “and then--well--”
He did not like to think further. “In the morning though,” he
reflected, “Ah, in the morning I may be able to pick up enough floating
wreckage to make a raft, or the boat may see me. There must be more
than one boat. They had time to launch more than one when I started to
make my roll into the ocean.”
This thought gave him courage, and he struck out with a better heart,
determining not to give up as long as he could keep afloat.
“I wonder if there are sharks here,” thought the shipwrecked lad.
“Sharks! Ugh! And other big fish!”
He felt a shiver run through him in spite of the warmth of those
southern waters, and the very warmth, and the thought of how far south
he had come, made him think all the more about some fierce man-eating
tiger of the sea.
“Oh, pshaw! What’s the use of being a chump!” said Tom aloud, when he
got a chance to free his mouth of salt water. “I just won’t think of
anything like that. Of course there aren’t any sharks here. I’ll just
think that I’m trying to win the swimming race at Elmwood Hall for my
Freshman class.”
The very idea, thus simply expressed, made him feel better, and he
struck out with better heart. Once more he went over in his mind the
events that had preceded the sinking of the _Silver Star_ and the
necessity for her passengers and crew to put to sea in small boats. He
found himself wondering what she could have hit, or been rammed by, to
tear a hole in her.
“And my pictures of the waterspout!” reflected Tom grimly. “They’re
at the bottom of the ocean by this time I suppose. And poor dad and
mother--But there, I’m not going to worry. I’ve got to swim, and I
guess I’ll get all I want of it, even though I am fond of water.”
All around him was blackness, save a slight phosphorescence of the
ocean, and when he came up on the crest of a wave he looked about for a
possible sight of a boat. But he saw nothing. He shouted occasionally,
but he realized that he was only wasting his breath. On he swam, grimly
and determinedly.
The storm seemed to be no worse, and Tom even found himself thinking
that it was abating, after it had done all the damage possible.
There came a big wave over him, almost depriving him of breath, and
sending him rolling and tumbling down into the depths again. When he
came up, and had filled his lungs with air, he was almost exhausted.
When he struck out his right hand hit something in the water.
Instinctively he shrank away with a start of fear that he had come in
contact with some monstrous fish. Then a flash of lightning--the first
since the beginning of the storm--revealed to him a large cork ring, or
life preserver.
He could barely repress a shout of joy--only the thought that his mouth
might become filled with salt water deterred him, for he knew what that
ring meant to him.
“I can get that over my head and float,” he reasoned. He reached for
it. The swell carried it away from him for a moment, and then he got
hold of it. In a moment he had it under his armpits and he was riding
easily on the surface of the sea, for the ring was a specially large
one, and raised him well up.
He was floating on the surface of the sea, I have said, and yet it was
not like the comparatively smooth surface of a river or lake. For, so
large were the waves still, in spite of the fact that the storm was a
little less severe, that Tom was down in a deep valley one moment, and
on a wave-crest the next.
“Perhaps I can see the boat, now that there’s lightning,” he reasoned,
and, each time he came up he looked about. But he could see no sign of
the life-craft, nor were his shouts answered.
He swam on again, rather hampered as to speed because of the ring, but
he did not mind this. His chief aim was to keep alive and afloat until
morning so that he might look for help, or be located by those in the
boats, if they were still on top of the sea. So Tom floated idly on,
occasionally swimming when he felt a bit numbed by the cold, which he
was conscious of, now that he had been in the water so long.
The lightning increased in frequency and intensity, and there were
mutterings of thunder.
“In for another storm, and a different kind,” mused Tom. “I hope it
clears up after that, so I have some chance.”
The flashes became more brilliant, as the storm came nearer. Tom took
advantage of every one of them to look for a boat, or for a piece of
wreckage to which he might cling. But he saw nothing. Then the rain,
which had ceased for a time, burst with greater fury. It fairly seemed
to beat down the crests of the waves, and Tom was glad of that.
“And I can get a drink, too,” he reflected, for he had swallowed some
salt water, and his throat was parched. He held open his mouth and the
grateful drops dashed in. The amount he was able to catch was rather
disappointing, but it was better than nothing.
And then, as the fury of the storm grew, and the lightning became even
more intense, Tom saw something that made his heart beat high with
hope.
It was a shape of something lying low in the water, and moving
sluggishly on the swell. Our hero had only a glimpse of it at almost
the tail-end of the lightning flash, and he waited for another
illumination before deciding what the object was.
Then the whole heavens seemed lighted up by a great flash and our hero
saw the object again.
“A boat!” he cried. “And some one in it.”
He whirled about in the water, headed for the object, and struck out.
“Help! Help!” he cried again. “Wait for me.”
Back came the answer over the waste of waters.
“We can’t do anything but wait. Swim over here. Go by the lightning.”
Once more Tom saw what he thought was the boat, by the glare of a
flash. Then its peculiar shape impressed him.
“It’s an upset boat!” he gasped. “They’ve been thrown out and are
clinging to the bottom. But it’s a big one, though. Much bigger than
any of the lifeboats. I wonder what it can be?”
On he swam toward the craft.
“Are you there?” came a hail.
“Yes, I’m coming,” Tom answered.
A huge wave seemed to sweep him onward. He saw that he was close to
the wrecked boat. A few more strokes, and a hand was reached out to
him. He grasped it desperately.
“Come aboard, mate!” a hearty voice sang out. “We haven’t much, but
you’re welcome to it. Come aboard!”
Tom found himself scrambling up the side of some craft. In the next
flash he saw the forms and indistinct faces of two men. One of them
held something in his arms.
“What are you on?” gasped Tom.
“A partly submerged derelict,” was the answer. “It’s the one the
_Silver Star_ struck, I reckon, and the thing that ripped a hole in her
and sunk her. It’s a big derelict, my lad,” the sailor went on, “and
when we were tossed overboard we landed close to it, same as this other
little chap did.”
“What other little chap?” asked Tom, as he sank down exhausted on the
deck of the derelict.
He had his answer a moment later.
“Oh, Tom. Tom Fairfield!” a childish voice cried. “I want you and I
want my daddy!”