could tell by the ever-increasing angle of his climb that Benevolence would soon go under. Most of her already had.
Shouts emerged from far below him, and Jake saw that people were struggling to climb up the passageway. He looked for a rope to throw to them but, seeing nothing, screamed at them to climb as he was. They pleaded with him to help, but the rising sea quickly silenced them. Jake cursed, redoubling his efforts to reach the bow. Finally arriving at a door that led to the deck, he pulled himself through the opening. Objects of every sort slid down the deck toward where he clung. “Ratu!” he shouted. “Ratu, where you at?”
A stranger’s voice answered, and Jake yelled at the man to leave the ship. He then tried to climb higher, but Benevolence was almost vertical in the water. “If you hear me, Ratu, slide down to me!” he yelled, his voice smooth and deep and possessing a slight drawl. “There ain’t time for nothing else!”
A wooden crate tumbled down the deck and struck a steel girder not far from Jake, splintering into scores of jagged pieces. He grabbed a long plank as it slid past. Screaming with effort, he threw the plank into the nearby water. “Come, Ratu! Come!” he shouted frantically.
Jake wanted to remain on board longer, but such inaction would swiftly bring his death. Dragging himself to the railing, he managed to leap a few feet into the swirling water. He was immediately sucked under, twisting and spinning in the blackness. The fires above painted the surface orange, and Jake kicked and clawed toward this glow. His shirt snagged on a railing, and for a terrifying moment he was yanked deeper as Benevolence sank. Mercifully, his shirt ripped and once again he swam upward, desperate to exhale.
When Jake finally met the surface he burst through it as if he were leaping for the stars. He breathed in the night with vast shudders, trying to swim from Benevolence. “Ratu!” he shouted. “I’m here!”
Just as Jake began to lose hope, two men and a boy leapt off the side of Benevolence. They were sucked under as well. Jake filled his lungs and dove toward where Ratu had disappeared. He saw him tumbling in the darkness, and he wrapped his arm around Ratu’s slender waist and kicked upward with all his might. The pressure to breathe soon became unbearable, and Jake sucked in seawater just before they reached the surface. He choked on the water, fighting to draw in air. He coughed and retched until his aching lungs finally emptied of the sea.
“Can you . . . can you breathe?” Ratu asked, his faint British accent obscured by nearby explosions. He shuddered as sobs wracked his small frame. “Please breathe, Big Jake! Please!”
Before Jake could nod, a man broke the water’s surface. His uniform bore stripes, and Jake reached for him. “Cap-Captain?” he sputtered, somewhat incredulously.
Joshua didn’t reply. “Isabelle!” he screamed, spinning in the water, peering into the flames and darkness. “Where are you? Please tell me where you are!”
When Joshua started to swim toward what remained of Benevolence, Jake was forced to grab his leg. “We gotta swim away, Captain!”
“No!” Joshua shouted, kicking fiercely.
“We—”
“Isabelle!”
“There ain’t time!”
“Let go of me, damn you! Let go—”
“I spied two nurses! Swimming!”
Joshua stopped trying to free his leg and turned to Jake. “My wife?”
“I don’t rightly know, Captain. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Captain, we gotta leave here. If we don’t, we’ll be sucked under like apples in a river. And then you ain’t ever gonna know if she lived.”
Joshua turned toward Benevolence, which burned like a funeral pyre and swiftly dropped under the surface. “God help anyone aboard her,” he said miserably, making the sign of the cross. “God help us all.”
Jake put his face into the water, looking for the other man who’d leapt alongside Ratu. Peering into the gloom and twisting all the way around, he saw no one. After wiping the sea from his eyes, he spied the plank that he’d thrown overboard and swam toward it. Ratu and Joshua followed his lead.
Soon the three survivors held the plank against their chests and swam backward, toward an island, their eyes still searching Benevolence for signs of life. Each survivor mourned the night in his own way. Jake often looked above to spare himself from the hideous sight before him. Ratu wept and shuddered, moving as close to his big friend as possible. And Joshua continued to scream Isabelle’s name. He was besieged with