by Emily Asad
Chapter 3: Alone
Sebastian rowed all night. At first, when it was new, it was almost fun to be on an adventure. He could be caught at any moment. Perhaps sharks would try to tip the boat. Perhaps it would spring a leak and he would have to swim ashore. After an hour or so of “perhapsing,” however, he grew tired of imagining various horrors. It was quiet in the water, but by no means silent. He could hear waves rolling and breaking, some of them splashing against his dinghy and spraying him with salt water. For a few hours the waves amused him with their shiny twinkles of moonlight reflected on their surfaces, but when he noticed that his hands were blistered and bleeding, the waves lost all their fun. His back and arms began to ache with the agony of rowing. He took breaks to relieve the pain, first every hour or so, then every forty minutes or so, and then every twenty minutes. Still he could not see land.
He had not realized how weak he was, and suddenly he envied the muscular old sailors who could row for hours and never complained.
Eventually the moon disappeared and the sun began to rise. Its light dispelled some of the night horrors he had been imagining, like the sea monsters and fog spirits and star ogres that could swallow entire ships in one gulp. Of course, his father had made it very clear that such monsters did not exist, but Sebastian had read so many stories about them that his fear was still real. Now the sunlight shone on the water and Sebastian, finally, could see strips of land around him. It was true; he was surrounded on three sides. All he had to do was row to one of the shores.
He was so relieved that he started to cry, and then stopped as he realized that he was wasting his body’s water. With the shore being within sight, he treated himself to a few swallows of the stale water and a bite of dried meat and biscuit. He had been rationing them for a long journey, and now it seemed that the journey would not be so long.
Everything seemed so simple now. All he had to do was land on the northern shore and walk a hundred and sixty kilometers north to Sancti Spiritu, the first fort his father helped establish. From there, the soldiers would take him and his precious documents to Asunción. If he managed to walk twenty kilometers a day, he would be there within a week or so - he heard one of the sailors talking about the route just the other day, wishing for a sight of land.
Hope filled Sebastian, and for the first time that night, he smiled. He put all his energy into reaching the north shore.
It took much longer than he expected. He was not a strong rower and had to take frequent breaks. Not only that, but the sun was growing hotter with each passing hour. He drank one entire flask of emergency water, which left four flasks. When he realized how much he had been drinking, he restrained himself – a difficult task when his mouth was parched dry with all the effort. He didn’t even have the energy to imagine new horrors.
When at last he reached the shore after battling large waves, he was almost too exhausted to haul himself out of the boat, drag her to shore, and tie her where she would not drift away. Once he was sure that both he and the boat were safe, he fell asleep, cheek down on the muddy shores of the Río de la Plata.