Kurt recognized the problem. The line was coated with a thin layer of ice. Thirty-degree water and spray had been covering it as the waves hit and rushed past, but the air around the ship was only nine degrees. The spray had frozen in place, hardening into a slick surface as it dripped down the line.
Joe was encountering the same thing. “We have a problem here,” he called out.
“Big mistake on my part,” Kurt said.
“You can’t think of everything,” Joe said. “Especially when you only have two minutes to come up with a plan.”
Kurt appreciated the sentiment, but was irritated with himself for not recognizing the danger beforehand. He grabbed the line and banged it repeatedly against the hull, whipping it back and forth. Small bits of ice flaked off and vanished in the sea, but it was not enough. Another attempt to pull free of the water ended just like the first two.
With all the gear he was just too heavy. Treading water, he reached a hand to his chest, found the release latch for the propulsion pack, and pulled it. It unbuckled and the heavy motor and battery pack slid free from his harness.
Forty pounds lighter, he tried again. This time he got halfway up before slipping back down. Using his anger to create renewed strength, he mounted another effort right away. This time he wrapped the nylon line around his forearm, locking it in place. The rubber of the drysuit helped and he climbed inch by inch up onto the bale.
Reaching the top, he pulled his arm free. “I’m up,” Kurt said. “But it wasn’t fun.”
“How’d you do it?”
Kurt explained, but then recommended against it. “One of us needs thruster power. Head my way and grab the lines. I’ll go climb up on the second bale and get the straps.”
“So, I’m the shuttle service.”
“Division of labor,” Kurt said. “You go back and forth under the ship. I climb the ropes.”
Joe swam over, took the lines as Kurt tossed them down, and went under the waves with a stream of bubbles trailing from his thruster.
With Joe on his way, Kurt focused on the next bag. He jumped in and swam over to it, repeating the procedures he’d just invented; grab the line, knock the ice off, wrap his arm, and pull himself up.
Climbing the last bale was going smoothly until a larger than normal swell came in. It shoved the bale upward and away from the ship. As it passed, the bale fell back toward the hull, slamming Kurt against the ship and unhorsing him as a wrenching sensation ripped through his forearm where the rope was tightly wrapped.
Crashing into the water, Kurt found himself in instant danger. The wrenching sensation had been the rope pulling tight and then being torn free. In the process it had injured Kurt’s forearm and ripped through the rubbery fabric of the suit like a knife.
Ice water rushed in, numbing his arm and shoulder. It flooded downward in the suit, chilling his abdomen and pooling around his legs and feet.
Kurt pushed upward, raising his arm like the Statue of Liberty in an attempt to keep the ripped section of the suit above the water. It was no use. With each passing wave, more water entered the suit. As more water entered, he sank lower and lower.
In rapid succession, his legs, stomach, and chest were chilled beyond belief. Contractions in his midriff made it difficult to expand and suck in air.
Whatever worries he had about his core temperature should have tripled or more, panic at not being able to breathe should have set in, but in that moment of highest danger, Kurt’s mind went stunningly clear.
He focused on his chest, forcing himself to breathe slowly. One deep breath. Then a second. He turned his attention to the final bale and kicked back toward it. It was only ten yards away, but at this point he was moving more like a jellyfish than a shark. The waves pushed him around. They slammed him into the ship once more. He kept his eyes on the fluorescent tags at the end of the granny line. That was salvation—for himself and the ship.
When he finally reached it, he discovered what should have been his first bit of good luck. Seeing the troubles he and Joe were in, the crewmen had lowered the bale to make it easier to climb up on. But what seemed like a way to help only made things worse. Being partially submerged in the water caused all the problems Kurt had been concerned with in the first place. The bale was sliding back and forth with each swell, rubbing against the ship, and proving nearly impossible to mount.
Almost as soon as Kurt grabbed the rope, the bale swung forward, knocking him off the line. As Kurt regained his equilibrium, the bale fell away from him, into the trough.
Kurt slipped down behind it, but saw it reversing direction toward him. He put both arms out to catch it as it surged his way. This time the impact was a solid body blow that knocked him backward. He found himself floating freely, slowly freezing, and no closer to climbing up on the bale than he had been before.
“Raise it up,” Kurt called out over the radio. He hoped the crewmen manning the lines were listening. “Pull it up six feet. Hurry.”
A spotlight shone down over the rail. A daring crewman leaning his way.
“Raise it up,” Kurt shouted.
Ducking beneath the waves, he avoided another haymaker as the bale swung by. He surfaced and looked up to see the men pulling on the lines. Arm over arm, like the winning side in a tug-of-war, they heaved it backward.
Kurt found the granny line and latched onto it once again. The pain in his arm was gone, banished by adrenaline and the chill of the water. He pulled himself halfway up, his arms burning with the strain, as he was carrying at least sixty, maybe seventy pounds of water in the legs of the drysuit.
He grunted as the weight became fully apparent, but he refused to let go. With all the weight on his good arm, he used the injured arm to access a knife in his chest pack. With two quick slashes, he cut the legs of the suit open. The water exploded outward like the flow from a ruptured dam. The weight vanished in seconds, and Kurt dropped the knife, put his arm back up on the line, and heaved with everything he had left.
