Lost!

by Thomas Thompson

  But now he must be practical. Now he must decide what to do with her. Several things occurred to him. He could wrap Linda in the bedclothes and carry her to the outrigger and place her there, to wait for a rescue ship that would take her back to Washington for proper burial—on the wooded land where their house was to stand. But the day was August 6 and the broiling sun of summer would quickly cause decay. Nor could he bear the thought of Linda resting in death but a few feet away from him.

  He remembered once, after attending a funeral, Linda had mentioned that she wanted the simplest of cremations, the kind where an airplane scatters ashes over the sea, and Bob had to promise to arrange that when she was old and gone. But how could he keep his promise now? How could he start a fire? And what would he do with her bones?

  No, the only way was the most obvious way. He must drop her into the sea. But there was a problem, one that tore against his fragmented spirit. What if the body floated near the Triton, Linda’s face turning toward him from her grave, haunting him forever? He shuddered. He must devise a way to weight her body before delivering her to the depths.

  And then he remembered the anchor.

  Linda’s shroud was her parka, its hood closed to cover her face, and the sheet—secured by fishing cord—on which she had lain for twenty-six days. Around her, Bob tenderly wound the piece of rope that had bound them together on the morning the Triton capsized. He lifted her, marking the lightness of her body, and carried her up to the light. Then he took the anchor, fifteen inches wide, eighteen inches long, with a shaft extending down four feet, and placed it across her chest, like a crucifix.

  He wrapped the anchor chains about her, turn after turn, long past the requirement of mere weight, until it had become a way to delay for a few moments what must be done.

  Finally Bob dragged the bulky package that contained his dead wife to the edge of the Triton. Hovering behind, Jim stood helpless, not knowing if or how he should participate.

  “No prayer,” said Bob. “You understand?”

  Jim nodded.

  “Just think what you want to think.”

  Falling silent himself, Bob meditated. Then he began to hum, in a tone so private that only he could hear, the song “People.” It had been Linda’s favorite melody, and she had requested it played at their wedding.

  When he was done, he knelt and placed his hands on the body. Jim said to him in solace, “You’ll see her again, Bob. When Jesus comes and lifts us to paradise.”

  Breaking, howling in anger, Bob whirled. “No!” he cried. “This is all there is! There’s nothing more!”

  Hurriedly, Bob shut his eyes and pushed Linda into the sea. He had not intended to look, but against his will he opened his eyes and watched the suddenly choppy waters receive her, the fading light of dusk catching the metal of the anchor and the chains, plunging past the layers of blue and green and gray and, finally, black. Bending over, his face almost touching the sea, Bob watched until there was nothingness. Linda was a thousand feet beneath him.

  He heard Jim begin to sing the “Doxology,” and, for a reason he did not understand, he joined. The two men sang the familiar hymn of praise with vigor, their voices ringing out. Why did I sing that? Bob questioned himself when it was silent again. And why did I say “Amen”?

  He could not rise. He seemed frozen, with no control of his limbs, as he faced the water. A thought came to him. He could join Linda. It would be easy, a relief, an act of love and sacrifice to just lean forward and tumble into her tomb. The water even felt warm to his touch, for the first time. It caressed him.

  The advantages: He would not have to explain her agony and her death when he returned to shore. He would not have to answer the question, “But why are you alive when your wife is dead?” The wounds would never reopen. Nor would he have to continue to suffer the deterioration and bodily decay that was due him. His wrists were fast becoming as thin as hers. Why drag it out, why continue the belief that rescue would come? I am nothing, he reasoned, nothing but a passenger on a ship of death.

  The disadvantages: He had lived before he met Linda, he would live after her. He could keep the memories of their years together. She would not want him to throw himself after her. She would have been outraged at the idea.

  As the competing forces pulled at Bob, demanding attention on the stage of his consciousness, Jim suddenly cried out, a muffled, incomprehensible moan.

  Bob raised his head.

  Jim was pointing.

  Bob’s eyes followed Jim’s arm, moving his gaze to the direction of Jim’s finger.

  Two cargo ships, smoke billowing from their stacks, bore down on them. Less than a mile away, unless their course changed they would run the Triton over.

  (14)

  Watching the ships creep toward them, silhouetted against the ebbing sparks of the August sun, Bob’s first reaction was bitterness, a curse for the timing. Why couldn’t the rescue ships have reached them yesterday, to save Linda before she died? Failing that, the least they could have done would have been to appear on the horizon but two minutes earlier, before he dropped his wife’s body irrevocably into the sea.

  But Jim considered none of this. Transfixed, murmuring gratitude to the Lord, he stood with arms outstretched, convinced that his prayers had been answered. God for His reasons had taken Linda, but His immediately sending the ships was divine revelation that He was not abandoning the two men.

  The ships bore down so purposefully that there seemed to be a planned rendezvous. Perhaps, thought Jim, a plane flew over earlier and fixed our position and radioed our whereabouts to the searching ships. Perhaps, he dared to imagine, Wilma and the boys are on one of those ships at this very moment, leaning over the rail, beckoning. In moments he would see their faces. “Praise God!” he cried. “Thank you, Jesus!”

  But the ships suddenly turned. It was as if two friends were walking a straight path together, only to say goodbye and strike out in opposite directions. And the Triton bobbed unseen between them.

  A scream rose in Bob’s throat and it burst. “They’re not coming!” he cried. “Oh, please! See us! We’re here!” Ripping one of the orange life preservers from the place where he had nailed it, Bob waved hysterically. He dashed below and found Linda’s purse on the bed where she had so recently died and took it back up where he could flash the mirror at the departing ships. At the same time he blew energetically on a police whistle which he’d found in the purse.

  Jim was bound to the place he stood, unable to move. He seemed incapable of anything but standing mutely as the ships steamed past them, one far to each side.

  When there was nothing more to see, when the frail wisps of smoke had vanished in the west, Jim spoke confidently. “They’ll be back,” he said, “because the Lord sent them.”

  “They’ll be back on their return from Tokyo,” said Bob angrily. “By then who knows where we’ll be.”

  “Then the Lord will send another one,” said Jim. “There must be a reason why they didn’t stop for us.”

  “They didn’t stop because they didn’t see us. We only stick up a few inches above the water,” snapped Bob. “Tomorrow we’re going to spend putting everything we can lay our hands on, on top of this boat.”

  “It won’t be necessary,” said Jim.

  “Then while you pray for us, I’ll nail for us.”

  The two ships, even with their terrible disappointment, gave the two men something to think about during the night. And it would have been an unbearable night without their appearance. For the first time since July 12—twenty-six nights ago—Bob was alone on the narrow place, the scent of Linda tormenting him, his body curling automatically into a position to accommodate hers.

  Most of his thoughts were of Linda—her last hours, her death, her burial—remembering her as he waited for a sleep that he felt would not come this night. But the vision of the two ships kept intruding, pushing Linda briefly away. Bob abused the intrusion to his mourning. But the ships sailed again and again acros
s his eyes. One thing was certain, he figured. Because of them, he would not entertain suicide again. He would live until there was no more life within him.

  Survival, he reasoned as he grew sleepy—much faster than he had imagined—survival is the most powerful of human instincts. In fact, it is the only one that really matters. Survival or death.

  Early the next morning, August 7, Bob festooned the Triton with everything he could find to make her more vivid to potential rescue. The tripod of Jim’s camera he fastened to the exposed bottom of the Triton. Then he changed his mind and turned the tripod upside down so that the three legs would jut into the air; perhaps the sun would bounce against one of the metal shafts. He nailed more orange curtains around the edges of the boat as gaudy trim. A piece of metal rod from the bow pulpit became a six-foot flagpole, flying a banner of plastic liner from the ship’s head. Not satisfied, Bob seized the steering wheel where it rested under water and tore it away and fastened it to the top of the flagpole, secured with sixty feet of cable wound about like a barber pole. Finally, with Jim’s help, the galley sink and stainless steel cooking plates were removed and fastened to the two outriggers as one more hope that exposed metal would send forth flashes in the sun.

  As an afterthought, Bob picked up a duffel bag and some soggy towels and nailed them about the flagpole. Well, thought Bob, we now look like Dust Bowl exiles sailing to California.

  By mid-morning all of the work was done, and Bob stopped, almost disappointed that there was nothing left to nail. The outburst of labor had exhilarated him. Now there was nothing to do but fall back in his bunk, where Linda had been beside him only yesterday. He had not waited for breakfast before his frenzy of activity, and he was hungry.

  “How much food is left exactly?” asked Bob. “Let’s take inventory.”

  Jim nodded, moving to the end of his bed where he kept the supplies. He called them out: “Almost three cans of sardines, about one half a jar of peanut butter, one pack freeze-dried peas, couple packs of Kool-Aid, one can of root beer, and some caramel chips.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “And the water?” Bob knew well, almost to the drop, the extent of their supply, but he wanted to have the amount spoken.

  “Two full jugs. And this one, minus one cup.” Jim held up the container currently in use, not elaborating on the missing cup because both men realized that it had been Linda’s final nourishment.

  Bob thought silently for a few minutes. Then, urgently, he spoke. “I feel that it is even more important for us to keep up our schedule,” he said. “There’s just the two of us, and we’ve got to keep our minds occupied. More important now than … before.”

  Jim disagreed. “There isn’t any need to stretch out the food,” he insisted. “It’s almost over for us. Rescue will be here, very soon.”

  “I hope you’re right. But in the event you’re not, we’ve got to conserve what’s left. We’ve been taking half a cup of food a day. Let’s cut that down to one quarter of a cup. And let’s try to get by on one half of a cup of water.”

  Jim did not quarrel with the notion. In fact, he did not respond at all. He seemed occupied with something else.

  “Do you remember the ABC’s of prayer?” asked Jim suddenly, waking Bob from the late morning drowsiness brought on by his work. Pushed instantly into the past, moving effortlessly back to a time he had wanted to forget, Bob could hear the voices of the preachers and teachers drumming his ears. “Ask! Believe! Challenge! These are the ABC’s of prayer. God will answer!” Did he remember them? It would be easier for a man to deny a tattoo on his brow.

  “Don’t you remember,” persisted Jim, oddly exuberant, “what they taught us? That wonders, that miracles could be worked through the power of Christ?” Like a defiant fist, Jim’s words shot out to grab Bob, the words holding him, refusing to let him go.

  Dumbly, Bob nodded. But he quickly shook his head to clear the thought. He would not give in so easily. “Your power of Christ didn’t help Linda much, did it?” he accused mockingly.

  At this, Jim’s face lit. “Linda is saved! She asked me if she was sanctified, and I told her she was. She died believing. She died in the arms of Christ.”

  “She died in the arms of her husband. She died because she dwindled down to nothing and she just gave up.”

  “Listen to me!” Jim commanded. He grabbed the water jug and held it high between them. “I make you this promise. There’s enough water in this container to last us five days—according to your rationing. Five days! But if we believe, if we give our hearts to Christ, if we commit these five days to nothing but Him, then Jesus will send rescue. At the end of the fifth day, when the last drop of this water is gone, then we will be delivered.”

  Scoffing, Bob shook his head in denial.

  But Jim would not lower the jug. In triumph he held it, an icon, a relic as awesome as a sliver of the true cross. Against his will, Bob was drawn to it, the water sparkling within, the moment more seductive than when he was briefly tempted to join Linda in the sea.

  “I knew a woman,” said Jim, “whose son got hooked on drugs. He overdosed and almost died. His mother asked Jesus to save her son. She believed in His power, she challenged Jesus to heal the boy and open his eyes to the church. It happened. Just that way! Jesus healed him. Then the boy repented, accepted Christ, renounced drugs. Today he is a fine member of the congregation. I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I could tell you stories from now till midnight.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asked Bob. He could feel the balance of power between them shifting. His will was draining from him.

  “Join with me!” Jim cried. “Dedicate the next five days to believing in the power of Christ. Worship with me! Sing with me! Praise the Lord with me! And at the end of the fifth day, be ready for rescue with me!”

  Bob held up his hands. Wait a minute. All right, he reasoned to himself, unexplained events can happen. Intellectually, they have no defense, but what of those cancers that shrink and vanish, and those shriveled legs that suddenly become whole? There are miracles in this world. What harm can Jim’s faith do to me for one week? I am not surrendering what I believe, rather what I do not believe, for what I am today took a torturous period to realize. But for five days, only five days, there is no peril in singing Jim’s prayers and waiting for Jim’s God.

  “Touch it!” urged Jim. A command! Slowly Bob raised his hand and, almost fearfully, pressed his fingertips to the water jug. They trembled, both men.

  Wreathed in ecstasy, Jim began to pray. But it was a different kind of prayer. No longer was he humbling himself, staring up at an invisible, faraway God. Now he was man-to-man, on almost earthy terms with his Lord. It could have been a business deal he was explaining. “We ask for rescue, Lord, because we believe in Your power. And we challenge You to deliver us from this long ordeal. We are testing the power of prayer, Lord. We will drink this water for five days, and when it is gone, we challenge You to deliver us, to lift us with Your grace. Ask! Believe! Challenge! Thank you, Jesus. Amen.”

  Jim threw his hand across Bob’s, and together they held the jar.

  “Say ‘Amen!’” cried Jim.

  “Amen,” said Bob.

  “Again!”

  “Amen!” This time, from Bob, a full-blooded shout.

  The five days spun by in an orgy of evangelism, a camp meeting somewhere in the Pacific. As if setting the stage for the promised miracle, the sea became smooth, a soft breeze appearing like an invited guest to make their chamber pleasant. The men prayed together from the moment they awoke, throughout the day, and even at night in the darkness when they were too excited to sleep. Over and over, until the words became a chant, they repeated two verses from the book of John, “Whatsoever you ask in my name, I will do,” and “Ask and you shall receive.” One would begin the words, and the other would seize them, crying out their promise to the vastness that surrounded the Triton.

  Never did they
play the Bible game with such enthusiasm. For hours, they tried to stump one another with characters and verses. There was laughter and good feelings. Never in their relationship had the brothers-in-law been so close.

  On the second day, another great tuna swam into their room and stayed for a time, insolently splashing near the surface and flipping spray onto the beds with his tail. In their fervor, it was easy to believe that the Lord had dispatched the fish. Quickly Jim fashioned a new harpoon from the last strip of bow pulpit railing. With the hack saw, Bob cut notches to create barbs about an inch long. During the hour or more it took to prepare the new spear, the fish stayed near their bunks, apparently a visitor with deistic instructions. Finally Jim rose to a crouch and, praying, hurled the harpoon. As it struck the tuna squarely, Bob yelled in glee.

  But the fish began to thrash and fight the barbs, so violently that Jim lost his grip and dropped the harpoon into the water. Seconds later, both fish and spear were lost.

  But that was not worth mourning, for there were but three more days left until rescue. “Three more days,” they began to chant, “three more days!” Setting the declaration to music, Jim found a tune on his harmonica that became, in their passion, the organ of a cathedral. And as the water in the jug dwindled, their spirits rose.

  On the third day, near sundown, Bob went topside to stretch his legs, and what he saw on the horizon made him summon Jim hurriedly.

  Toward the east, settled across a large portion of the lower part of the sky, was a bank of mustard yellow. “What is it?” asked Jim, not understanding Bob’s excitement.

  “Smog!” fairly shouted Bob. “It’s smog! We must be near Los Angeles.”

  On the fourth day, convinced now that the winds were sending them so close to the coast of southern California that the Triton would surely come within sight of a fishing boat, Bob set about to surprise Jim. He would, in fact, hasten their rescue. Jim could not complain if they were found on the fourth day rather than the fifth. It had been on Bob’s mind for some time that perhaps he could start a fire with a mixture of the paint, diesel fuel, and oil—all having been found two days after they capsized.