The first time he slipped off the raft and went under on his back. Kicking and gasping, he managed to get upright and swing the raft so it was in front of him again.
This time he tried to force the raft under him. And almost made it before it squirted out and his head went under again.
The swells weren’t helping. Just when he had the raft figured out, a swell broke over him and he swallowed saltwater.
Finally, after three or four tries, he got into the raft. He gingerly rolled so that he was on his back and lay there exhausted and gasping.
A minute or two passed before he realized he was still wearing his helmet. He removed it and looked for a lanyard to tie it to. He might need it again and everything not tied to him was going to be lost overboard sooner or later. He used a piece of parachute shroud line that he had tucked into his survival vest months ago.
Only then did he remember Flap and start sweeping the horizon for him.
The radio! He got out his survival radio, checked it, then turned it on. “Flap, this is Jake.”
No answer.
Jake lay in his bobbing, corkscrewing raft looking at clouds and thinking about pirates and cursing himself. In a rather extraordinary display of sheer stupidity he had managed to get himself and Flap Le Beau shot out of the sky by a bunch of pirates. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. After the war was over! Not just any Tom, Dick or Harry can put an almost-new, squawk-free A-6E into the goddamn drink! Is that talent or what? The guys at the O Clubs were going to be shaking their heads over this one for a long long time.
Colonel Haldane was going to shit nails when he heard the happy news.
He looked at his watch. The damn thing was full of water. It had stopped. Perfect!
And his ass was six inches deep in water. Occasionally more water slopped in, but since the doughnut hole in which he sat was already full, the overflow merely drained out. Useless to try to bail it.
Luckily the water wasn’t too cold. Sort of lukewarm. The tropics. And to think real people pay real money to swim in water like this.
He tried the radio again. This time he got an answer. “Yo, Jake. You in your raft?”
“Yep. And you?”
“Nope. It’s like trying to fuck a greased pig.”
“You hurt?”
“No. You?”
“No.”
“Well, nice talking to you. Now I gotta get into this sonuva-bitching raft.”
“Pull the damn thing under you. Don’t try to climb into it. Pull it under you.”
“Call you back after a while.”
A cigarette. He could sure use a cigarette. He made sure the radio was firmly tied to his survival vest, then laid it in his lap. The cigarettes and lighter were in his left sleeve pocket. He got them out. The cigarettes were sodden. The lighter still worked though, after he blew repeatedly on the flint wheel and dried it off somewhat. It was one of those butane jobs. He extracted a wet cigarette, put it to his lips and lit the lighter. The cigarette refused to burn.
He put the cigarette back into the pack and stowed the pack away. If he ever managed to get ashore he could dry these things out and smoke them.
Wait! He had an unopened pack in his survival vest. Still wrapped in cellophane, an unopened pack would be watertight.
He wanted a cigarette now more than anything else he could think of. He got the left chest pocket of the vest open and felt around inside, trying not to let the rest of the contents spill.
He found it. Thirty seconds later he had a cigarette lit and was exhaling smoke. Aaah!
Bobbing up and down, puffing away, he decided he was thirsty. He had two plastic baby bottles full of water in his survival vest. He got one out and opened it, intending to drink only a little. He drained it in two long gulps.
He almost tossed the empty away, but thought better of it and slipped it back into the vest pocket.
Something on top of a swell to his left caught his eye, then it was gone. He waited. Flap, sitting in his raft, visible for a second or two before the out-of-sync swells lowered Jake or Flap.
He checked the radio. He had turned it off. He turned it on again and immediately it squawked to life. “Jake, Flap.”
“Hey, I saw you.”
“I’ve seen you twice. How far apart do you think we are?”
“A hundred yards?”
“At least. We’ve got to do some thinking, Jake. We’re going to be out here all night. The ship won’t be close enough to launch a chopper until dawn.”
Jake looked longingly at the island, the one he and Flap had been trying to reach when they ejected. He saw flashes of green occasionally, but it was miles away. And the wind was blowing at a ninety-degree angle to it.
“Let’s try to paddle toward each other. If we could get together, tie our rafts together, we’d have a better chance.”
A better chance. The words sprang to his lips without conscious thought, and now that he had said them he considered their import. A night at sea in one of these pissy little rafts was risky at best. The sea could get a lot rougher, a raft could spring a leak, the pirates might come looking, sharks…
Sharks!
A wave of pure terror washed over him.
“Okay,” Flap said. “You paddle my way and I’ll paddle toward you. I don’t think we can make it before dark but we can try. I’m going to turn my radio off now to save the battery.”
Jake inspected himself to see if he was injured, if he was bleeding. Adrenaline was like a local anesthetic; he had been far too pumped to feel small cuts and abrasions. If he were bleeding…well, sharks can smell blood in the water for miles and miles.
He felt his face and neck. Tender place on his neck. He held out his gloved right hand and stared at it: red stain. Blood!
For the love of God!
Must be a shroud burn or Plexiglas cut.
He got up on his knees in the raft. This was an inherently unstable position and he took great pains to ensure he didn’t capsize. Crouching as low as he could, he began paddling with his hands, making great sweeping motions. Then he realized he didn’t know where Flap was, so he forced himself to stop and look. There, just a glimpse, but enough. He turned the raft about sixty degrees and resumed paddling.
It was hard work. Every thread Jake wore was of course soaked, so even though the air was warm and humid, he stayed cool. Stroke for a while, pause to look for Flap, stroke some more, the cycle went on and on.
Finally he became aware that the sun was down and the light was fading. He got out his survival light, triggered the flash, and stuck it onto the Velcro that was glued to a spot on the right rear of his helmet. Then he put the helmet on. Three minutes later he saw that Flap had done the same thing. They were, at this point, maybe fifty yards apart.
Jake paused for a moment to rest.
What a mess! And if he had had a lick of sense, used an ounce of caution, they wouldn’t be floating around out here in the middle of the ocean, at the ends of the earth.
He cussed a while, then went back to work.
It was completely dark when they got the rafts together. Lengths of parachute shroud from their survival vests were quickly tied so the two rafts lay side by side. They arranged themselves so that Jake’s feet were adjacent to Flap’s head, and vice versa.
The two men lay inert in the rafts for minutes, resting. Then Flap said, “This is a fine mess you got us into, Grafton. A very fine how-do-you-do.” I m sorry.
Flap was silent for several seconds. “You really think this is your fault? I’m sorry I said that. It ain’t. It’s the fault of that asshole son of a bitch over there that smacked us with that twenty mike-mike. Talk about a cheap shot! I’d like to cut his nuts off and make him eat ’em.”
“Think Black Eagle heard any of our transmissions?’
“I don’t know.”
“Boy, I hope so. I’d hate to think that that chicken-shit pirate cocksucker might get a free shot at somebody else tomorrow.”