“Can you take both of them together?”
“We’ll take this one first,” he said. “Keep going in the same direction as the ship, and we’ll meet you again.”
She nodded and watched as they raced away. When she heard Ryland call out, she raced belowdeck to see him sitting up again, looking for a drink of water. She got the water, as he looked at the other bed.
“What happened to Garret?” he asked, his voice harsh. He tried to swing his leg over and cried out.
“Wait,” she said. “The US Navy just came and took him to their ship. They could only take one of you at a time on the shuttle. You’re next.”
He looked at her, his gaze questioning. Then, after he finished drinking, he sank back and said, “Is Garret okay?”
“No, he’s not okay,” she said, “but he’s alive.”
“Good enough,” he said, settling and wincing. “Damn leg.”
“Yes, damn leg. It’s broken.”
“Dislocated for sure,” he said, staring at it. “Maybe ankle and knee.”
“You’ll have to wait for the doctor on board to see,” she said. She felt her boat starting to heave.
“What’s the weather like out there?” he asked.
“Rough,” she said, “but not too bad yet. A storm’s been threatening for the last hour. I was hoping we’d make it to the ship, and I could get away before it got any worse.” With that, she said, “I need to go back topside.”
She headed up to the deck. They’d veered off course, and the wind had picked up. She shifted the mast, trimmed the sails, and corrected her course. The naval ship was off to the side but still a good distance away, and she saw no sign of the Zodiac. She could only hope that they would come back quickly. This was not the weather she wanted to be in out here, and she needed to head back to shore just as soon as she could.
The waves continued to pick up, and they tossed her small sailboat higher and higher. She knew she couldn’t be out here much longer before she should turn around and cut for the coast. It didn’t matter what the navy guy had said because, if they didn’t get back here soon, she couldn’t stay afloat and transfer the second patient.
Just when she thought it was time to cut for the coast, she looked out and saw the Zodiac. Suddenly a heavy gale came up, hitting her hard. Her little boat was tossed in the wind. When she heard a snap, she knew her mast was going. She cried out as it came crashing down. The Zodiac reached her within minutes. Four men hopped out, leaving the driver inside, and two of them went down to her visitor.
Two of the men came over to her; one assessed the damage to her boat and shook his head. “You can’t stay on board,” he said. “You can’t get back to shore like this.”
She glared at him. “I was trying to get back to shore with the second man, but you guys ordered me out here.”
“And the weather changed,” he said. “Go grab whatever you’ve got. She’ll start taking on water soon.”
“No,” she said. “She’s seaworthy.”
“She was,” he said. “But now she’s taking a battering out here.” He pointed out where the water sloshed over the sides, the lower cabin already filling up. “How is the bilge?”
“Not keeping up with that,” she said.
She swore and looked at the mast, as another heavy wave came over and basically filled up the cabin beneath them. Shouts came from the men down below. They came up slowly, hanging onto the sides, carrying Ryland on a stretcher. As soon as they got him on the deck, they were hit with yet another wave. The Zodiac snapped free of her sailboat.
She realized that this rescue was no longer for one person but for two. She ran down below and grabbed her purse and a few things, including a few pieces of clothing, before one of the men grabbed her and pulled her up through the waist-high water onto the deck. She realized that her boat, valiant as it always was, had given up the ghost and was sinking.
The seaman grabbed her bag. “What kind of swimmer are you?”
“In a swimming pool, great,” she said. “In this shit, not so much.”
Nodding, he handed her a life jacket and hung it on her, then cinched her tightly into it. They were thrown a buoy from the Zodiac. They both jumped into the ocean, grabbed on to the buoy, and slowly the two of them were pulled toward the Zodiac. The injured man was already on board. She had gulped more water than air. Soaked and her teeth chattering, she was dragged in over the side of the Zodiac, and, as soon as she was in, the motor roared, and the vessel spun around and took off toward the naval ship.
She stared at her little boat, as it slowly went under. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I can’t believe that just happened.”
“I’m sorry,” said someone beside her.
She looked up; it was the injured man. She smiled at Ryland and said, “Two lives for a boat? Not exactly a contest.”
“No, but if you hadn’t been trying to save us,” he said, “you wouldn’t have been caught in this storm.”
“Well, I couldn’t get to the coast because of the debris field, not without getting too far out anyway,” she said. “I had to check the movement I thought I saw among the debris because you were out in a more open current. So I managed to rescue both of you, but …” She lost her words, as she stared at her boat.
“Maybe we can get you another one,” he said.
She tossed him a half smile. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” she said. “But I gave up dreaming a long time ago.”
His gaze was steady as he studied her. “That doesn’t mean that everything has to be a nightmare though,” he said quietly. “Sometimes good things happen. And I do thank you, for my life and Garret’s. I’m not sure how much longer we could have hung on out there.”
“You were pretty well supported on that raft you managed to make,” she said. “The problem would have been lack of water.”
“Yeah, water, the heat, and the injuries,” he said. “We might have survived a day, but I’m not sure Garret would have.”
Thinking of the injuries she suspected both men had, she nodded, smiled at him, and said, “No, that’s quite true.”
They took another pounding as the Zodiac bounced from wave to wave, fighting the storm as it headed back toward the naval ship. It had been tough going even for this experienced crew. Now that seven were on board, the vessel was weighed down, and it would be a fight to get to where it needed to be.
She hung on tight, as one of the seamen signaled to her to check that her life jacket was on correctly. Gratefully she tightened the straps, noting that the injured man had been put into one as well. That wasn’t a good sign, considering how difficult and painful that must have been. After losing her sailboat and now stuck in the middle of the ocean in a storm, hoping they could reach the naval ship in time, all helped to put the situation in perspective.
The seaman beside her smiled and said, “It’s okay. We’ll make it.”
She gave him a disbelieving look. “We’re taking on water too,” she said, as the waves broke overhead.
“Yep,” he said, “but we’re used to it, and the ship is expecting us. So, if we have any problems, they’ll come and get us too.”