Chapter Six
Then
I’m still wondering if I’m not dreaming this.
This impossible and damned bittersweet miracle.
As we sit in the small tender taking us to the fishing vessel that’s rescued us, I do my best to cradle and cushion Susa’s emaciated body with my own. I have a feeling I’m going to make it now, but I’m not so sure about her. She might be too far gone. She feels incrediblyfrail, the baby bird analogy spot-on, in this case. She’s way worse than the rest of us, hardly able to keep down what little water we could share.
For the sake of her men I hope she survives at least until they can make it to her.
I’ll try not to let her out of my sight until she’s reunited with them. I’ll try to take care of her as much as I can.
It’s the least I can do.
I couldn’t protector save my girl, but maybe I can protect and save theirs, those two lucky men I’ve never met and who I greatly envy right now.
She’s so damn weak she can barely hold her head up. I’m not much better, but at least I can walk. I shift myself in the seat to make sure her head stays tucked in the crook of my arm, my other arm around her to keep her on the seat with me so she doesn’t fall off.
“Yousure I’m not dead?” she asks me. “Because, to me, hell is being back on a boat.”
I lightly tap her forehead with my finger. “If you’re dead, so are the rest of us, so at least we won’t be alone. We’ll have each other.”
She sighs. “I used to love crabs.”
I can’t help chuckling. “There’s a SpongeBob joke in there somewhere.”
“Or a dirty one.”
I chuckle again. She’s got spirit.
If only thatwas enough to keep her alive then I’d have no worries about her chances.
When we reach the ship, fortunately the captain speaks a little English. The ship is huge, at least one hundred and fifty feet long, a massive commercial fishing vessel. I demand Susa be taken up first, but there’s a sketchy looking set of stairs snaking along the ship’s hull that I know she can’t manage. If I wasn’t halfdead myself, I’d be able to carry her up them.
They bring a rescue basket down to the tender. I help position her on it, they strap her into it, and rig a rope to it that crewmen on the deck hold as a backup, in case something happens.
I follow close behind, talking to her, telling her to hang on as they get her on board. I don’t relax until she’s safely on the deck and secure.
I feel a littleguilty but I ignore our other castaways as the crew carries Susa down the deck and inside, through corridors, to a tiny medical area. There are a couple of beds, but they scrounge up extra bunks that will make it a tight fit.
Their crew’s medic is apparently way out of his element with our condition. As I talk to the captain and finally make it clear to him who we are, his eyes widen.
“The planecrash? Americans?”
I nod. “Plane crash. Americans, y’all.”
Susa barks a laugh from somewhere behind me.
There’s a flurry of conversation in a language I don’t understand, between him and several crew members. The captain starts to exit the room, then turns back to me. “I will call the authorities. The military. I will tell them we found you.”
I wave him toward the door. “Have them send a chopperfor her.” I point at Susa. “She’s the worst of all of us. She’s in bad shape.”
“I’m not dead yet!” Susa pipes up in her best Monty Python imitation, and the laugh barks free from me, this time.
“Shut up, you’re not foolin’ anyone,” I quip back, also in an accent. “You’ll be stone cold in a moment.”
“Stone crab,” she says, and we both wearily laugh, as do our fellow castaways.
