by Jim Craig
I was over the rail and into space before my rattled brain could conjure a rational thought. It was as if time stood still. It never occurred to me to think, “Ya know, this might not be such a great idea.”
A rational man would have seen that the ferry was surging back under the fog bank. He would also have considered that a human being could only survive about fifteen minutes in the fifty six degree water off the southern coast of Alaska in September.
A reasonable man might also have considered looking around for a life jacket. But no, not me. Not Johnny Wainwright, local bush pilot hero. Self appointed savior of strange women and children.
I was a man on a mission. I was a superhero in flight. I was an idiot.
You hear about fight or flight. This was both. It was a reflex. A knee jerk to the rubber hammer. Born from a deeper realm of Cro-Magnon instinctual responses from my brain stem's central core. The primitive beast part of me. My inner hairy man had taken over.
Animal urges looking for trouble would not be restrained. Not by fear, not by common sense, not even by sanity. Nothing could have stopped that human cannonball launch.
In short, it was one of the dumbest things I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I think I started to realize that just before I hit the water. Then it was too late. The forty foot leap plunged me under the surface and knocked all the air from my lungs.
The dark ocean swallowed me and the cold attacked like a punch in the gut from a fist full of frozen knuckles. I thought I might never stop the downward dive, and I began to fight with everything I had. Thrashing my arms and legs, panic seized me by the throat as I felt the first signs of suffocation. I was about to drown even before I could kick my way back to the surface.
I was only vaguely aware of the huge hull of the ferry surging past me in the dark sea. And the eight foot propeller blades churning through the foam just yards away. On the verge of blacking out I felt a wave of current pushing me and carrying me upward. When my head broke the surface my bursting lungs sucked for air with a frantic roar. Salt spray burned my eyes.
Coughing and choking, I only vaguely heard the hammering alarm bell and the three blasts of an air horn signaling man overboard. My eyes opened just in time to see the white shape of the stern above me. Moving away into the dark.
Blinded, gasping and hacking there was no way I could have seen the emergency raft system release its load or Rainey and other crew members throwing life jackets and life rings over the railing. The only thing I could see was heavy white foam surging into my face and over my head as I bobbed in the wake.
Finally with a little air back in my lungs and my face above water, I had a thought.
What the hell have I done?
I twisted back and forth blinking and trying to see around me. I was treading water and staying afloat, but I could feel my eyes bulging wider than a road kill bullfrog. Panic was taking over.
The shock and the cold held me in a cruel grip and my muscles threatened to cramp up at any second. Horrible images flashed in front of me as I pictured my body sinking below the surface with my arms and legs paralyzed and useless. Adrift in the sea I knew I only had minutes to live.
Then something bumped into the back of my head. I spun around and grabbed hold. It was a white life ring with black letters that said M/V Tustamena. I hugged it to my chest and pulled my legs up to make myself into a ball.
I took in deep breaths and blinked rapidly trying to clear my eyes. My hearing was starting to come back along with the rest of my senses, but the news wasn't good. The ferry had disappeared into the fog and visibility was less than a hundred yards. I could faintly hear the bell, but it was a long way away.
I’ve been in lonely situations over the years, but floating by myself in the middle of a dark fog bank in the Gulf of Alaska was the worst. They say despair can kill a man as sure as a gunshot. I could relate.
Bobbing in the frigid water I waited. What else could I do? Surely the ferry would turn around and come back for me. Wouldn’t it? Then I remembered why I was there. I looked around me but there was no sign of Greta or the kid.
I knew the big ship took time to maneuver, but I was in no mood to be patient. My lips were shivering and my teeth were chattering in a rapid fire staccato rhythm. I could feel the blood leaving my arms and legs as they gradually turned to stone. Even my brain was going numb. Dark fog flowed over me inside and out. I swallowed hard against the raw salty fire in my throat and tried to keep air moving into my lungs.
The cold was killing me, sucking away all of my heat. It was just a matter of time until my body temperature matched the icy ocean. The chilled water encased me and assaulted every part of me except my head and shoulders as I clutched the life preserver underneath me.
I lost track of time, but I knew it was running out. I couldn’t feel my legs anymore and my arms hugged the life ring with the only strength I had left. It was all I could do to keep my head up. Even so my eyelids were getting heavy and I wanted to sleep. Every minute that went by my grip weakened. When I couldn’t hold on any more it would be all over.
Then I noticed a dark shape. Something large was floating nearby. With my face just above the surface, I couldn’t make out any details. It was two or three feet high and had a dull glimmer. My thoughts had become as lethargic and frozen as my muscles. Hypothermia can make a person loopy. I was thinking whale.
Terrific. Johnny Wainwright’s brilliant career is cut short when he’s eaten by one of Alaska’s top tourist attractions.
But it wasn’t a whale. It was a rubber raft. Jettisoned by the ferry’s emergency system from the side of the main deck, it moved toward me in the dark. Propelled by the white foam of the wake it collided with my head and threatened to push me under.
With the last strength I had I threw one arm up to grab a rope along its top edge. Hanging there like a frozen minnow stuck to the side of a bait bucket, a glimmer of hope sparked inside. If I could get out of the water I might extend my life a few precious minutes.
Hope is a funny thing. I clung to the idea of crew members on the ferry resuscitating my waterlogged corpse. But only if they found me in time. I couldn’t hear the ferry’s bell anymore.
Like a laptop on low battery, my less important functions were shutting down one by one. Memory and hearing must have been low on the list, not to mention common sense. I didn’t know what I was doing out there anymore. I only knew I needed to get out of the water. I needed to, but I couldn’t. I had no strength left.
I hung there by one arm like a drunken subway rider. My legs were dead weight and my jeans sagged in the water like bags of lead shot. I thought about kicking off the heavy pants and shoes but my muscles wouldn't move.
I was powerless to pull myself up. I could feel all my strength and even my will to survive draining away. Like rats jumping ship, my energy was gone.
Then something grabbed my hand. That made no sense to me. I hadn’t heard a rescue boat approach. Hadn’t seen anybody nearby either. Had I passed out and missed the search team’s arrival? Then something pulled at me. Weakly at first, then with more force. It felt like hands pulling at me. Small hands.
I blinked to clear my eyes and looked around. Pressed into the side of the raft I stared out at the fog and darkness that stretched into the silent gloom. Still no rescue boat anywhere in sight and it was too foggy for the helicopter. I was lucid enough to know that. I knew I was losing my mind along with the rest of my senses, but this was too bizarre. The tugging at my numb arm continued.
Spurred by desperation and my last scrap of hope, I threw my other arm up and grabbed the rope. Pulling myself up about a foot I came face to face with Tambourine. He was on his knees inside the raft. His eyes were wide with fear and his whole face was vibrating. Cold sea water dripped from the red strands of hair on his forehead, and his lips were purple. His little hands were pulling frantically at my sleeve.
I tried to kick my feet but they wouldn’t move. I wa
s like a beached whale laying across a sea wall, half in and half out. Sea water tugged at my legs. It felt like quicksand threatening to pull me back in.
I couldn't let that happen. If I slipped back in the water I was a goner. I took a deep breath and struggled to speak.
“Hey, kid. I’m here to rescue you. Pull!”
I don’t know how we did it, but he braced his little legs against the inside wall of the raft and grabbed the neck of my jacket. Hauling backward he pulled, and I grunted and heaved and clawed and finally got my chest above the side of raft. Tambourine fell back in exhaustion as I rolled stiffly into the bottom of the raft retching salt water.
We lay there in silence for a long time, the raft rocking gently in the calm water. Small waves lapped against the rubber walls reminding me of early morning fishing trips from my youth. It would have been a relaxing fun outing if I hadn’t known we were mere minutes from death. Cold and wet and hypothermia spared no one.
I lifted my head and looked around. The raft was at least ten feet across and round. It smelled like old tires and glue. I don’t know what the kid was thinking, but I felt a strange mixture of relief, joy and panic. We were out of the water but not out of the woods. Our bodies were both starting to shake.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I wanted to ask him what the hell he was doing out here. It was no place for a kid. Then I remembered my first sight of him on Taroka Island and his tortured stares. And the dog. And the way Charlie had pushed him around and Greta’s cold indifference and her hypnotic blue eyes. I wasn’t concerned about her anymore. She’d made her bed. He was why I was here.
I managed to push myself up on one elbow to look at him. He had his knees pulled up to his chest and he was starting to shiver violently. He looked back at me for a moment, then his eyes drooped and he looked down.
“Where’s your mom?”
“She’s n-n-not my m-m-mom.”
“Okay, okay, we’re freezing to death here, and you want to get technical? Where’s Greta?”
He shook his head, shrugged and closed his eyes.
“Hey kid,” somehow I pushed the words out. “If we’re gonna be stuck out here together, you gotta have a different name. I can’t call you … Tambourine.”
His eyes opened sluggishly and stared at me, but his teeth were chattering too hard to answer.
My body was shaking too. I thought my guts were coming loose. I wrapped my arms around my knees and held on tight trying to keep my parts from separating.
The kid’s eyes started to roll back into his head.
“Hey!” I sat up, grabbed the front of his coat and shook him.
His lids barely opened and he looked at me through glazed eyes. His lips were shaking so hard I could hear his teeth rattling. I shook him again, harder this time.
“You gotta stay awake.”
“W-what?”
“You gotta stay…”
“M-m-m-Mad Dog,” he blurted through trembling lips.
“M-m-m-Mad Dog?” I repeated in confusion.
“Yeah, call me Mad Dog, you got a problem with that?”
My eyes widened in surprise. That was the most I’d ever heard him say. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him tight against my chest. We shook and vibrated together for several seconds before I looked around and saw the pile of rubber laying behind him.
I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed it before. It was a thick rubberized survival suit lying in the bottom of the raft with us. It was reddish orange and it was buckled to the side of the raft next to some kind of a pouch. It looked like a pair of pajamas with the feet sewed in for a kid. A large kid. A huge Baby Huey kid. There were gloves and a hood attached as well.
I crawled over to it dragging my useless legs. Peering over the side of the raft I still couldn’t see any lights anywhere. Only endless fog and flat ocean. I managed to unfasten the suit and looked it over. The tag inside said XXL. I tried to look through the other things attached nearby but my hands were shaking too hard. Every movement of my fingers sent waves of pain down my arms. I pressed my hands to my lips and tried to warm them with my breath, but they looked and felt like a pair of useless meat hooks.
“Hey, Mad Dog. C’mere.”
He didn't move so I reached over, grabbed his coat and dragged him to me. He weighed next to nothing. His little hands looked as cramped and frozen as mine. I pulled him in close and we blew on our hands together over and over until he could move his fingers. Then he was able to open a pouch that held plastic bags of emergency food, but I knew we needed to get warm before anything else.
“Can you get this zipper open?” I pushed the survival suit toward him and he went to work on it. Tears streamed down his face from the pain, but he kept at it forcing his fingers to function while I held onto the wobbly rubber suit trying to keep it still.
As he worked I looked out over the walls of the raft again. Way in the distance I spotted a beam of light. It was moving back and forth close to the surface of the water. It had to be a rescue boat like a Zodiac or maybe one of the lifeboats that had been hanging on the side of the ferry. It was so far away and moving so slowly I didn’t know if we would still be alive if it ever found us.
The kid finally got the suit open, and I started fumbling with it trying to get my wooden legs inside. He watched me with his hands to his face trying to breathe them warm. Then he rolled onto his back and turned away.
“Hey, where you going, man? Help me here, Mad Dog. When I’m in, you’re getting in with me.” My lips were thick and shivering but he heard me.
“Both of us? In there?” he looked at me with a dubious stare.
“Hell, yeah, both of us. Fourteen clowns and a fat man could live in this thing.”
I saw a faint twinkle in his eyes that on a normal day might have been a smile. He crawled to me then and helped me sit up and pull the suit up over my back. Getting my arms inside was easier than the legs since they still had a little movement in them.
“Okay, now the hood,” I nodded at him and he flopped the top part of the suit over my face. “Now you, Mad Dog,” I grunted at him. “You thought I was going to leave you out in the cold? Get in here.”
He was hesitant at first, but I pulled at him with my Gumby arms and before long his skinny frame lay on top of me inside the suit.
“Now help me pull the zipper up. Maybe we can trap some heat in here.”
Between the two of us we got the zipper up to the middle of my chest. He was shaking so hard I thought his boney little elbows and knees might perforate the rubber suit. Every part of me was vibrating too. My insides ached from the strain.
I struggled to lift my head to look for the rescue boat, but I couldn't see it any more, and my strength gave out. I collapsed back to the floor of the raft. I held the kid in position with my arms and tried to seal the neck of the hood to trap in all the heat possible.
His head was nestled in my left armpit and he started to fight my efforts to cover him up. “I c-can’t b-breathe,” he stuttered in protest.
“We need to get warm, Mad Dog. You can breathe later.”
He twisted his neck around and looked up at me. “Are w-we gonna d-die?”
I met his stare and wondered if he cared. “No, but why did you do that, man? Why did you go over the side?”
I felt him shrug, but he didn’t answer. I didn’t push it.
A couple of minutes went by. Then he shrugged again. “Gotta go somewhere.”
I thought about that for a while. The silence around us deepened and the fog seemed to close in like a coffin lid.
I spoke up just to break the gloom. “We need to get warm, Mad Dog, so shut up now, will ya? You're talking me to death. Think warm thoughts.”
I grappled with the collar and pulled it closed over his face and held it as tight as I could around my own head. We were quiet for a while. My brain was a blur, trying to will up some heat from deep inside.
“Johnny,” his muffled vo
ice came up from the depths of the heavy rubber suit.
“What, Mad Dog? What’s on your mind?”
“Don’t fart,” he said.
Then it was my turn to twinkle an eye. I couldn’t do anything else. Absolutely every shred of energy I had was gone. I could feel the darkness coming down. My eyes wouldn’t stay open.
Laying there holding the kid against me, I thought I was feeling warmth in my legs, but it didn’t feel good. Little by little it built in intensity until I wanted to kick off the suit. My skin was on fire.
I’d heard about hypothermic victims being found dead in the snow. And naked. I fought the sensation and tried to send my mind somewhere else. All we could do now was wait.
I knew I was going to pass out. So, this is what it's like, I thought. Off to sleep. Forever. I didn't care anymore. Maybe the kid had a chance, but not me. I had nothing left.
With my last thoughts I tried to beam a message to the rescuers.
Hurry.