Charles Williams - Gulf Coast Girl

Even as I was going down I tried to keep myself oriented. I had to find her back there in the darkness with nothing to guide me except the spot I’d gone in and the direction I was facing. In a moment the Ballerina would come up into the wind, the continuity of its course shattered and all the angles gone. My head came out. I looked at her lights. She was swinging now.

I started swimming back. I was hampered by my shoes and clothing, but there wasn’t time to shed them until I’d found her. A sea lifted me and broke over my head. I angled up against the next one, afraid of drifting below her.

The sloop was 50 or 75 yards away now, broadside, as she came about. I could see only the port running light, glowing like a ruby in the darkness, swinging up and back as she rolled. I swung my head and looked about me. I should see the white of the life belt or the blond gleam of her head, but the whitecaps all around were too confusing.

I lifted my head and called out, not too loudly, “Shannon. Shannon!” There was no answer. I wondered if I had gone beyond her. I began to be afraid, and called out again.

This time I heard her. “Here,” she said. “Over this—” The voice cut off as if she had strangled, and I knew she had gone under. She was off to the left, downwind. I turned.

Another sea broke over me. Then I was floundering in the trough. The blond head broke surface right beside me. “Thank God,” I said silently, and grabbed her dress. She clasped her arms tightly about my neck and tried to pull herself up. We went under. I felt suddenly cold in water that was warm as tea. She had both arms about me.

Our heads came out. I shook water from my face. “Shannon! Where’s the life belt?”

She sputtered and fought for breath. “It—I—” she said, and gasped again. “I lost it.”

Twelve

Another sea broke over us. She clung to me, choking. “When I went under—” she said, “the water pulled it out of my hands. When I came up—I saw it once—a wave knocked it away.”

I fought the sudden whisperings of panic and tried to think. It had to be near, probably within twenty feet. Downwind. Go downwind. It floated high and would drift faster than she had. We were pushed upward by a sea. I shook water from my face and looked wildly about. I saw nothing but whitecaps and foam, gleaming faintly in the darkness. She pulled us under again. I kicked upward.

She was fighting the water, trying to climb out of it, the inevitable way to drown. I broke her grip around my neck and snapped, “Relax! Take hold of my belt and lie down in the water.”

It worked. She got hold of herself and did as I told her. As soon as she was stretched out low in the water and buoyant I no longer had to support her. I turned on my side and kicked ahead, lifting my face every few seconds to peer desperately around in the darkness for the life belt.

Minutes dragged by. We must have passed it. We had to go back. But back where? Direction had no meaning because we had no idea where we had been or which way the current was setting us. There was no point of reference. Even the sloop’s position meant nothing; it was drifting in the same trackless void. In another five minutes I knew it was all over, as far as the life belt was concerned. It could be a hundred yards in any direction. We’d never find it now.

I heard the growl of the starter on the sloop, and the engine took hold. They had the sail off her now and were coming back under power to look for us. The running lights swung, and then I could see them both, lined up. They were bearing down directly on us. A flashlight was probing the darkness on each side. I swam away, towing her.

They went slowly past. Light swept the water ten feet away. The engine stopped in a minute and she slowed, rolling heavily in the trough.

“Manning!” It was Barclay’s voice. “Can you hear me? You’ll never make it ashore. You’re ten miles off the beach. Call out and we’ll pick you up.”

We were treading water with just our faces out. My arms were around her and I could feel her shaking.

“Can we make it—without the life belt?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” I said. I couldn’t lie to her here.

“Could you, alone? If I went back?”

“No,” I said.

A sea lifted us and broke over our heads. When we came clear she gasped, “Maybe you could, without me. I owe you that.”

She didn’t know what I meant. I told her. “If they have you, they can make me come back.”

She understood then.

“Let’s try it, Bill,” she said.

“We’ll probably drown,” I said. “I’ve got to tell you that.”

She was frightened by water and she could panic like anybody else, but when the bets were down she was calm. There was a wonderful quiet courage about her now. She knew what would happen if we went back, and she knew we’d probably be dead by sunrise if we didn’t. She made the decision coolly.

“Let’s go,” she said. “Help me take these clothes off.”

I helped her. I fumbled a little, unsnapping the back of the dress, but we got it free and I held her with an arm about her waist while she stripped it and the slip off over her head. We sank through the water, tight in each other’s arms, and I could feel the wonderful smoothness of her against me. When we came up the Ballerina was drifting away to leeward and to the north of us, and I could hear Barclay still calling out, making promises. I cursed them, monotonously and helplessly, and with an infinite bitterness.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I know the same words. I’d use them but I haven’t got the breath.”

She wore no girdle. She unfastened the garter belt and I helped her strip off the nylons. “Will that do?” she asked, gasping a little with water in her throat.

“Yes,” I said. I stripped to my shorts and told her to hook the fingers of her left hand in the waistband. “Kick with your feet,” I said. “Very slowly. Don’t struggle. And when you’re tired, just float and rest.”

I couldn’t see the glow over the city at all, but I swung my face and oriented us with Polaris, heading a little north of west. I swam slowly. The seas rolled up behind us, raising us, and then broke in white water about our heads and passed on downwind in the darkness. There was no sound except the roll and swish of water. I could scarcely feel the drag of her weight, and knew she was kicking with her feet.

“Don’t work too hard,” I said. “Slowly. Very slowly. And don’t think about it.”

And shut up and don’t waste breath talking, I added silently for my own benefit.

I tried to remember which way the current set along here, but I couldn’t. The tide should be flooding now, which would help, but it would reach high water and start to ebb long before we were anywhere near shore. That was when it would get us. We might go on for hours, but inevitably our arms and legs would grow heavier and heavier until it took everything we had merely to stay afloat. After that it would come fast.

I wondered if we could make it, by some miracle. I had swum that far once or twice, I was sure. You lost body heat very slowly in this Gulf water. The sea and wind were behind us. No, I was just kidding myself. I’d done it before, but never after having been nearly 48 hours without sleep, and never towing somebody else. She would become exhausted, even if I didn’t, and begin to struggle in panic, and when she dragged us under we were finished. I tried not to think about it.

I saw the lights of the Ballerina . She was coming back now, and passed several hundred yards to seaward. When she returned the next time she was half a mile downwind. They thought we had the life belt, and would keep right on searching.