  “Man overboard!” From fore and aft, from port to starboard, from every quarter of the James Kennedy’s great length, that ancient rallying cry of the sea arose. “Man overboard!” “Where?” they shouted. “Where?” “Man overboard off the starboard stern!” There was a mad scuffling of feet on the steel decks as the crewmen rushed for the rail, some to reach for a line and a life preserver, others merely to stare. Hardly had Cookie’s body entered the water with a resounding splash, than there was a clanging of bells in the engine room beneath Sandy and Jerry. The ship’s motors roared in a rising crescendo of power. The James Kennedy shivered and shuddered like a live thing, and out from beneath its stern there issued a wild, white boiling of angry water. “Full speed astern!” someone cried. Then, with another great quiver, the James Kennedy seemed to come to a halt. All of this happened quickly, perhaps within only a few seconds. But rapid as had been the reactions of these trained seamen, they were still far behind the swift decisiveness of Sandy Steele. The moment he had seen Cookie lose his balance, Sandy had braced his steel-muscled legs, ready to go to his aid. When their little friend’s body had vanished, Sandy had raced over to the railing. Jerry was not far behind. Sandy did not hesitate. He recalled, with dread, what Cookie had been telling them only moments before about the killing cold of the lake water. As he ran, he stripped off his own shirt and threw it to the winds. As he reached the railing, he knelt, swiftly untied his shoes, and pulled them off. Down below him, Cookie’s bald head had appeared above the surface. “Help!” he called weakly. “Help!” Then, before the horrified gaze of all aboard the Kennedy, the little man choked on a mouthful of water, threw up his hands and sank out of sight. Splash! Straight as an arrow, Sandy Steele’s body had swept out from the ship’s side—hitting the water only a few feet to the side of the spot where Cookie had gone under. Even as Sandy went beneath the surface, he felt a shiver run through his body from the tips of his toes to the top of his head. It was not only from the impact of having dropped twenty feet. It was from the terrible, numbing drop in temperature. For a moment he felt as though his body were a thing of stone. But Sandy quickly got his legs and arms working. He surfaced and looked around him. Nothing. Sandy dove down once more. It was as black as night under the surface. Still, he forced himself farther and farther down, swinging his arms in front of him in long, slow, underwater breast strokes. He hoped to touch Cookie in this way, if he could not see him. Sandy’s lungs were bursting. In another moment or two, he would have to come back up. He dared not go down a second time, either, for the cold was creeping into even his tough young body. Suddenly, his finger tips brushed against some object.... Sandy felt a thrill of joy. He stretched out his hands and felt something hard and unbending. His heart sang. He had grasped Cookie’s shoe! It was only just in time. The little man had swallowed so much water and been in the lake so long that he had lost consciousness. When Sandy discovered him, he was headed down in what might have been his death dive. Quickly, Sandy slid his hands along from Cookie’s shoes to seize him firmly by the ankles. With a savage, scissor kick of his long legs, Sandy drove upward to the surface. How happy he was when his head at last burst into the open air and he could breathe again! Even though his ears had begun to ring, he could hear the great cheer that went up when he came into view, with Cookie safely in his arms. “He’s got him!” the crewmen cried. “He’s got Cookie! Here, throw him a line!” There was a splash beside his head and Sandy saw a length of rope floating in the water. Weakly, he put out his hand to grasp it. With the other, he struggled to hold the unconscious Cookie’s head above the water. Sandy felt himself getting weaker and weaker. Would he make it? He felt a tug at the other end of the line. In despair, he felt the rope sliding through his powerless fingers. There came another, far heavier, splash beside him. Jerry James had come to his chum’s rescue. He had jumped in! Blowing noisily through his nose, Jerry stroked over to Sandy’s side. There were two more thuds in the water. Life preservers. “Here,” Jerry gasped, getting his hands under Cookie’s limp shoulders. “Let’s get one of these doughnuts over his head.” Together, the two chums slipped the preserver over Cookie’s head. They yanked up his arms and draped them over the ring, to make sure that he would not slip through it. Then, they pushed him over to the side of the gently rolling freighter, winding the rope about his waist. “Okay,” Sandy called, lifting a hand weakly from the water. “Haul away!” The men at the rails pulled and Cookie slowly left the water. As they lifted him, the pressure of the rope around his waist acted like a kind of artificial respiration. Water streamed from his open mouth as he made his ascent. At last, he was safely on deck, and then the two friends were pulled from the lake. Instantly, they were wrapped in warm blankets. They were both glad that it was June, and not November, as they realized how cold they were, even though swathed in wool and bathed in sunlight. Somebody forced Sandy to swallow a little glass of burning liquid, and he guessed that it was rum from the heat of it in his stomach and the way his eyes began to water. “Ugh,” Sandy said, “I’d sooner drink a gallon of lake water.” “You nearly did,” a harsh voice said; and, opening his eyes, Sandy saw Captain West forcing his way through the knot of sailors who had surrounded him. For once the skipper had shaved, though his eyes were bloodshot. “That was a foolhardy stunt, boy,” Captain West went on, growling and not noticing the rush of color into Sandy Steele’s face. “You could have drowned.” “But what about Cookie, then? Did you want me to let him drown—sir?” “Mind your tongue, boy. We’ve got lifeboats for that sort of thing. We’d have had him out of there in no time.” “But what about the lake cold?” Jerry James put in hotly. “It might have killed him before you could get to him.” Captain West sneered. “I can see you’ve been listening to Cookie’s sea stories. The Lakes aren’t that cold in June.” “Oh, n-no?” Jerry James asked wryly, pulling his blankets closer about him. “Th-then why are m-my t-t-teeth ch-chattering?” A ripple of laughter ran through the onlooking men and Captain West swung on Jerry with his eyes sparking fiercely, furious at getting an argument from any of his crew. “You young whippersnapper!” he roared. “If I had a brig aboard this ship, I’d put you in it—just to teach you some respect for your betters. Here,” he snarled, whirling on the men, “get back to work, you lazy louts.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ll hear about it if we’re late for the locks. All this grandstanding over a ship’s cook!” He glared at Sandy and Jerry. “You two! Down below to the galley! And remember—jumping in after your bald-headed friend may have made extra work for yourselves. While Cookie’s in bed for the next day or two, I’m going to be expecting you to do his work!” Then Captain West spun around and rolled forward to his bridge. As Sandy Steele and his friend went down the ladder, hardly able to believe that any man could be so unfair, they felt the ship’s engines begin to throb again. The James Kennedy was once more making for the Soo. |
|
