by Robert Lyon
Athena was yelling for help as chief Casius was treading water, and repeating over and over again, “son of a bitch…son of a bitch…”
I swam to Athena and pulled her from under her arms into a back stroke, Athena said, “Oh shit…oh shit” I replied, “Don’t panic, you have to float…” Casius interjected, “she doesn’t know how to tread water she’s dead and so are they!” as she pointed at a crowd doing the same as us. I repeated loudly,
“Don’t panic…you have to floated on your back with your arms interlaced.” Athena uttered, “Ya, fucking right” and she saw others that seemed to be struggling to swim and said, “Take us over there, please…take us over there, don’t let go, don’t let go.” I swam us toward them and yelled for Casius to join us. I said, “Chief! Get over here and stop treading water you’re going to exhaust yourself!” A female voice yelled out, “That’s what we’re supposed to do asshole!” I replied, “Congratulations you’re now on the Coast Guard standard…the navy standard just sunk its own god damn ship!” It was Mulner’s voice I heard earlier and she then said, “What’s the coast guard standard?” I replied, “We’ll interlace our arms and float on our backs taking turns sleeping! But please god someone tell me you see a life
raft!!” Mulner replied, “I don’t know if I can float, what about the waves?” I said, “It’s just a waterbed.”
It was Hudlow nearby I heard say, “It’s …just a water… bed” with chattering teeth and he flipped over on to his back. I called out, “Is anyone else rescue swimming right now?” A voice I couldn’t recognize called back, “No, these guys are drowning.”
I drifted in and out of consciousness and that was all I could recall and it was so surreal I had hoped it was a nightmare, so much more likely that Captain ‘Douchebag’ threw me in the water himself. But I recall waking to a starry night sky to quivering voices playing ‘Marco-polo’ but that was the positive.
The negative was hearing an echoing voice as I rouse to consciousness, “This guy just died.” echoing over and over and I blurted out, “I’m not dead I’m asleep.” As I awoke it was morning I saw us chained together through our arms, mine were numb; as the waves rolled under us I saw how many of us were daisy chained together, it was as if the whole crew had survived…people I only knew from where they sat on the mess decks and people I knew from personal interaction, a crew of two hundred and eighty-six. I called out, “Anyone seen a life raft?” The reply was another unfamiliar voice but then my ears had been underwater for quite some time, he said, “No dude, it’s been days.” I glanced around and made sure the people I was with, Williams and Casius were still alive. There was a rumor of dolphins with us, but the portal sound they heard was what I saw come from some of the crew as the wave rolled under them; at the crest of the swell is when you slightly submerge and while in the troth it may as well be a swimming pool.
I was in and out of consciousness repeatedly for what I was told were days, it’s as if once I woke my circulation increased
and chilled me right back into a hypothermic sleep. The winds seemed relatively calm but the clouds seemed to be moving by at a hundred miles an hour, at least the winds weren’t lashing the surface. Chatter started that we must be close to land, someone had seen a bird about three hours latter a voice cried out, “Land ho!” A roar rose from all the bodies interlaced upon the sea followed by the utterance, “you better not be fucking with us.”
A voice called out, “Don’t let go of each other yet…it’s too far away; but kick that way!” The current must have been helping us, it was less than an hour later we could all hear the surf on the beach and we noticed bugs flying in the air.
As I stumbled onto the beach I realized never before had my land legs left me quite that bad, I crawled up the beach still dizzy from the ocean. I glanced back and sat down watching the remaining survivors make land fall. They rolled in with an explosion of crashing waves behind them as if they were being swallowed up and vomited out upon the shore. I collapsed falling back onto the sand and looked at the sky and noticed it seemed to be early afternoon probably about ten in the morning.
Some of the survivors were so close to death as we landed they had swallowed enough sea water during intermittent black outs in the crashing surf that they vomited up the ocean as it had vomited up them.
My nostrils burned from the sea water and I could smell the island fragrance, some sort of floral scent. The sand felt rough on my feet as I lay there with my knees up and on my back and I realized the sand must be hot. As I crawled up toward the rocks and brush I noticed some were headed back to the cool wet sand.
When I hung my coveralls out to dry I noticed my cigarettes were soaked, but the bag of sun flower seeds was unopened; those I would save. I had a tendency to wear pajama
bottoms in place of underwear when I was in my coveralls this was true now as well. As my coveralls hung drying I lay on some rocks with some soft leaves and grasses spread a crossed it. The other survivors noticed and called out to me, “Is the sand hot up there?” I replied, “The sand is, but this rock is okay; I laid down some grass and leaves over it.” We were from Everett
Washington, sea lions sunbathing on rocks was a common enough sight, and that’s what we became…sun bathing sea lions.
I was cold, wet, and exhausted as was everyone else, I knew we would have to find fresh parasite free drinking water very soon but as for now I needed sleep. I slept there with them huddled up until dusk and that’s when I was wide awake. I noticed I had taken my boots back off in my sleep, I put them on and started fumbling through the deepening darkness looking for any signs of light and any path through the brush to the highest vantage point I could reach.
I remembered my survival training and discovered I must be delirious or just dehydrated, because I didn’t get any survival training; I could however feel the cool air rising from some source of moisture. The moon light lit my path; the brush was heavy with only the occasional palm tree. I was hoping for coconut but found none. I decided I should sleep until morning but remembered I was searching for a light source, any indication of anyone else there or even a satellite phone or radio repeating station and I searched on.
I moved toward the moisture and noticed a clearing shaded from the moon light by trees and tall brush. As I moved into the clearing I stepped into what I had hoped was a fresh water pool,
I put some on my lips… I narrated my thought saying to myself,
“Bad news…salt water; Good news…no mosquitos; don’t need
to discover malaria.” I had moved inland far enough to notice through the brush beyond the clearing there was a mountain ridge; that was the best vantage point.
I headed toward the hilly slopes always aware of certain island hazards, staph infection, malaria, snakes, I had even considered the possibility of poisons tree frogs. I made my way up the hillside digging into soft mud and clay, occasionally a rock would slip away and I realized given the size of the rocks one could slip while I am one it and I would likely break my neck surfing on a rock down a slope on a wave of mud. Once I reached the top I looked up, I had seen that night sky clear enough to see the milkyway far from any lights before under much more pleasant circumstances and I dwelled on those memories for a while until I started craving a hamburger, chili dog, and Ice cream float from my favorite burger joint.
I took a deep breath and sighed, navigating that hill I like was already aware of what I could yet admit to myself, and I looked down. From the vantage point of the hill I could see the entire island from shore to shore, some of the detail was lost in the darkness but that in itself was an unwelcome discovery, no lights at all. We were alone on some south pacific island and that was not where we had hoped to be. Heartbroken with a deep pain in my chest I laid down and went back to sleep, I’m sure I cried a little but I wouldn’t admit that.
The following day I woke well after the sun rise and it was just starting to warm up, I stood up and looked at the island in the light; I couldn’t see th
e survivors of the ship wreck crew, the ridge in that direction had enough tall brush that only the ocean was visible and none of the crashing waves on the beach. It made me dizzy to see the whole world in a tea cup like that, and seemed odd to me that have sailed even in the heaviest of stormy
seas I was dizzy being able to see the ocean in all directions. I headed back down the slippery muddy slope I had ascended the night before to make my way back to everyone else. The path I had taken was through mud and brush, the mud was easy enough to retrace my steps the brush wasn’t impossible to figure out.
When I reached the clearing I had stepped into the night before I discovered it was a marshy tidal pool and I saw the rest of my path back to the beach front we landed on. I pushed through the brush and made me way to the ridge top, I could see them there wandering around in circles, starring out at the ocean, and ranting and raving both at each other and to themselves, though some looked as though they were speaking to imaginary people. I glanced down at my boots and noticed the mud, it was red and had streaks of white, it made me think of red bricks and in turn, a kiln…we would have to boil water to drink it, in fact we would have to evaporate the sea water and collect the steam and contain it until it condensed, typically washed ashore we should expect to be on a three day clock for fresh water production or we die of dehydration. But, it seemed we were on the other clock, three days of waiting for the rescuers to show up, followed by the remainder of a two week period hoping they find us, and finally the last week of a three week period praying the ships hoping to win the hero lottery hadn’t given up yet. But in this case we’d been on the water without so much as a life raft for days, we were sent into those waters on a ‘special mission’ from a great distance away because no one normally operates in those waters.
I continued down the slope of the ridge and chief Pete saw me come out of the brush and noticed the mud on my boots, he came to me in a hastily and asked with his head down, standing to the side of me, and in a hush, “Who’s here?” I replied, “I
woke up in the middle of the night and found the highest point, there’s no one here…no air strip, no radio tower or repeater, no helipad, and no lights. There were no ships on the horizon this morning and no air traffic. No fresh water pond and I didn’t see anything I recognize as edible.” Chief Pete’s eyes went wide and he teared up a little. He asked, “Are you sure?” I replied, “The island isn’t that big, maybe a mile…mile and half long, quarter mile wide.” He was choked up when he uttered, “We heard a bunch of people in the bushes last night…don’t tell anyone.” then he walked over and spoke with chief Brosuer. Chief
Brosuer covered his eyes then slid has down over his mouth to his chin and I read his lips as he said, “I want to see this highest point” Chief Pete looked over at me and said, “Which way?” I pointed and said, “My path is noticeable; be careful on the mountain slope.” and they headed off in that direction. As they left chief Brosuer looked over at me and said get someone to start collecting firewood, and I nodded saying, “Alright”. Some of the others saw him call that out and about twenty people headed out searching for fire wood. I headed along the brush line collecting wood and looking for a good place for the fire.
Captain Artimus called out, “We have to stay here; this is where the currents put us and where they will be looking.” One of the female called out back to him, “We’re collecting firewood sir.”
As I collected the firewood, dry grasses, and bark chips I came up a rock face completely vertical with dirt rather than sand at the bottom, the best spot for a warming and cooking fire
I had found, the signal fire would have to be more conspicuous.
When I returned Captain Artimus was having a group of sailors build him a lean-to, one of them STG3 Trooks was arguing with him, “Why the hell am I doing this for you!?”
Artimus responded angrily, “Because I’m an officer and your
captain” Trooks responded, “Your ship captain is at the bottom of the ocean, as is your command, and you are probably the only captain to have lost his ship in the navy in a hundred years!”
En3 Justina Mier was helping Trooks build the lean-to and interjected, “Pearl Harbor wasn’t a hundred years ago…let’s just get this done.” Ebony Allick added, “Still lost his ship…” To which the Captain snapped, “Thank you, I almost forgot!”
Allick replied, “No you didn’t…but those guys over there starring at the water are in denial. They askin’‘who you think stole the ship?’” Artimus looked over just in time to see GSM1
James Hudlow say, “I think it was the Chinese…Iraq couldn’t do it.”
Artimus glanced down at her and said with a tone of concern and remorse, “They may have a fever…” Ebony retorted, “All I know is they is first classes and they never do anything.” Artimus attempted to console her by saying, “Well, they did.” Justina interjected, “Then why are we here…if they’re so god damn good, then why are we here?” Artimus replied,
“Just stay busy…okay?” Justina replied, “Yep.”
I saw bad things coming in that, so I walked over in my pajama pants and white tee shirt to see if my coveralls had dried.
The bottoms of the legs were still wet but I wrung them out and put them on. Then I headed back into the brush and over the ridge, looking for another site should things go bad, or for when thing go bad. I glance through the trees at the end of the clearing and saw Brosuer and Pete at the top of the hill. Chief Pete looked like he was smelling something in the air and Brosuer was standing with his arms folded. I decided to avoid them seeing me and realized I needed to cover my trail. I headed over to the other beach to follow the coast line, maybe something of use had washed ashore. We needed a high volume of fresh water
right away. Our ship, in its day, had reverse osmosis desalination plants…just a high pressure filter, the older ships however had evaporative condensers and those we had schooling on as well. I walked to the coast of the island far and away from our landing site and found it was much rockier where
I emerged, but no signs of any debris…not so much as an empty plastic bottle to hold any water I might find or find a way to purify.
Further along the shoreline the rocks stopped and back to soft, but hot sand. I looked up to the hill top and noticed the chief’s had left their vantage point. There on that hillside was the red clay I had on my boots, I don’t know if the white streak was peat moss or just volcanic clay but in any case it was all I had as a building material and I would have to test it. I walked up to the hillside glancing around for anything worth noticing…still no ships or aircraft, the palm trees were surprisingly tall and there were tall reeds near the shore at the western tip, at least western was my best guess given the position of the sun and I needed a sense of direction to find the spots again. With that observation I realized I would need a sun dial, I decided I would find a relatively straight stick as long as possible and plant it up right in the dirt and mark the ground for the hour, if I could remember the celestial navigation I learned on my first ship I would have a better sense of where we were.
Once I had reached the clay I dropped to my knees, it was time to get dirty. I clawed at the soft clay with my hands, sticks, and rocks forming clay bricks and got them ready to be carried down to a more suitable location to try and burn those bricks solid, on point of humility I didn’t want anyone to observe my attempt, so I moved them down near the reeds I noticed earlier. I was there all day moving those bricks and bringing scoops of
clay in the hopes of making a chamber to boil water in, it would need to have a spout and the main opening would have to be sealable either with wood or a clay lid.
I dug out a trench to put the fire in with rocks and a large chunk of wood that must have once been a trunk of a bush and rocks. I took a palm and pulled white feathery material out of it, it was much like thread and wound it together. That gave me a small piece of string I was planning on binding wood together building a lattice over the trench to burn the bri
cks, but the string would take forever to make and only had a chance of surviving the heat if it were coated in the clay; so that I set aside.
Back at the landing site they had built five lean-tos and circled them like pioneering wagons, some were calling it ‘The
Pentagon’. Near the surf they had removed their tee-shirts and were attempting to reduce the amount of salt in the water by sucking it out of their shirts. Linda, our corpsman was explaining they might be better off drinking each other’s urine.
The command master chief actually survived the ordeal, a shock to everyone, they kept asking him if he was a ghost and telling him he could go into the light, he was forty eight years old, but there amongst the twenty something’s and early thirties in the case of the other chiefs he was taken as a sixty year old. The swim left him pale and he had lost his glasses so he stumbled through the sand with his arms extended cursing everyone and everything that had the misfortune to cross his path.
In the center of the circle of lean-tos was a pile of wood and about sixteen people trying to start a fire by smashing rocks together and rubbing sticks together. BM3 Tim Brock was rubbing sticks together and said, “It just won’t start.” Artimus said, “It’s all we have all the cigarette lighters are water logged.”
GSE3 Gabriel Noson said, “If I had a battery and some steel
wool I could start it.” They were desperate for fire they attempted every method and old wives tale to start a fire. The
‘ghost’ found his glasses in his pocket were he placed them while floating in the chain of ship wreck survivors, they were a little bent but serviceable so he tried to focus the sun light on dry grasses. One of the former crew members now a castaway egged him on, “You can do it, just put those things back on and stare at it real mean like!” The master chief just kept asking, “Has it started yet?” occasionally adding, “I can’t see a damn thing.”