Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor

  I don't know why I did this absurd thing: knowing I couldn't move forward, I put the oar in the water as though trying to prevent the raft from moving, trying to anchor it in place. Luis Rengifo, exhausted, paused a moment, then raised his arm as he had when he held his headphones aloft, and shouted again: "Row over here, Fatso!"

  The wind was blowing from his direction. I yelled that I couldn't row against the wind, that he should make another try, but I felt he hadn't heard me. The crates of cargo had disappeared and the life raft danced from side to side, battered by the waves. In an instant I was five meters away from Luis Rengifo and had lost sight of him. But he appeared in another spot, still not panicking, ducking underwater to prevent the waves from sweeping him away. I stood up, holding out the oar, hoping Luis Rengifo could get close enough to reach it. But then I could see he was tiring, losing heart. He called to me again, sinking: "Fatso! Fatso!"

  I tried to row, but ... it was as hopeless as the first time. I made a last try so that Luis Rengifo could reach the oar, but the raised hand, which a few minutes earlier had been trying to keep the headphones from sinking, sank forever, less than two meters from the oar.

  I don't know how long I stayed like that, balancing in the life raft, holding out the oar. I kept searching the water, hoping that someone would surface soon. But the sea was clear and the wind, getting stronger, blew against my shirt like the howl of a dog. The cargo had disappeared. The mast, growing more distinct, proved that the destroyer hadn't sunk, as I had first thought. I felt calm. I thought that in a minute they would come looking for me. I thought that one of my mates had managed to reach the other life raft.

  There was no reason they shouldn't have reached it. The rafts weren't provisioned--in fact, none of the destroyer's life rafts was outfitted. But there were six of them, apart from the rowboats and the whalers. It was reasonable to believe that some of my mates had reached the other life rafts, as I had reached mine, and perhaps the destroyer was searching for us.

  Very soon I was aware of the sun. A midday sun, hot and metallic. Stupefied, not fully recovered, I looked at my watch. It was noon on the dot.

  Alone

  The last time Luis Rengifo had asked me the time, on the destroyer, it was 11:30. I had checked the time again, at 11:50, and the disaster had not yet occurred. When I looked at my watch on the life raft, it was exactly noon. It had taken only ten minutes for everything to happen--for me to reach the life raft, and try to rescue my shipmates, and stand motionless in the raft, searching the empty sea, listening to the sharp howl of the wind. I thought it would take them at least two or three hours to rescue me.

  Two or three hours, I calculated. It seemed an extraordinarily long time to be alone at sea. But I tried to resign myself to it. I had no food or water, and by three in the afternoon I would surely have a searing thirst. The sun burned my head and my skin, which was dry and hardened by salt. Since I had lost my cap, I splashed water on my head, and I just sat on the side of the raft, waiting to be rescued.

  It was only then that I felt the pain in my right knee. The thick, blue drill fabric of my trouser leg was wet, so I had a hard time rolling it up. But when I did, I was startled: I saw a deep, half-moon-shaped wound on the lower part of my knee. I didn't know if I had gashed it on the side of the ship, or if it had happened when I hit the water, for I didn't notice it until I was seated in the life raft. Though the wound burned a little, it had stopped bleeding and was completely dry, because of the salt water, I imagine.

  Uncertain as to what to do, I decided to make an inventory of my belongings. I wanted to figure out what I could count on in my solitude at sea. First of all, I could rely on my watch, which kept perfect time, and which I couldn't stop glancing at every two or three minutes. In addition, I had my gold ring, which I'd bought in Cartagena the year before, and a chain with a medal of the Virgin of Carmen on it, also purchased in Cartagena, from another sailor for thirty-five pesos. In my pockets I had nothing but the keys to my locker on the destroyer and three business cards I had been given at a store in Mobile one day in January when I had gone out shopping with Mary Address. Since I had nothing to do, I read the cards over and over to distract myself until I was rescued. I don't know why the cards seemed like the messages in bottles that shipwrecked sailors pitch into the sea. I think if I had had a bottle at that moment I would have put one of the cards into it, playing shipwrecked sailor, just to do something amusing to tell my friends about in Cartagena.

  4

  My First Night Alone in the Caribbean

  The wind died down by four in the afternoon. Since I could see nothing but water and sky, since I had no points of reference, more than two hours had passed before I realized that the raft was moving. But, in fact, from the moment I had found myself in it, the raft had been moving ahead in a straight line, pushed by the breeze faster than I could have pushed it with the oars. Nevertheless, I hadn't the faintest idea of my direction or position. I didn't know if the raft was moving in toward the shore or out toward the middle of the Caribbean. The latter seemed more likely, because I had always thought it was impossible for the sea to wash ashore anything that was fifty miles out, and even less likely if the object was as heavy as a man in a life raft.

  During the next two hours I plotted the destroyer's voyage in my mind, minute by minute. I reasoned that if the radio operator had contacted Cartagena, he would have relayed the exact position of the accident and at that moment planes and helicopters would have been sent out to rescue us. I calculated that the planes would be there within an hour, circling over my head.

  At one in the afternoon I sat down in the raft to scan the horizon. I stowed the three oars inside, ready to row toward wherever the planes appeared. The minutes were long and intense. The sun seared my face and shoulders, and my lips burned, split by the salt. But I felt neither thirst nor hunger. My only need was for the planes to turn up. I already had a plan: when I saw them I would try to row toward them; then, when they were overhead, I would stand up in the raft and signal to them with my shirt. To be prepared and not waste even a moment, I unbuttoned my shirt. Then I just sat on the edge of the raft, searching the horizon on all sides, because I hadn't the slightest idea from which direction the planes would appear.

  It was two o'clock. The wind went on roaring, and above the noise I could still hear the voice of Luis Rengifo: "Fatso! Row over this way." I heard it with perfect clarity, as if he were there, only two meters away, trying to reach the oar. But I know that when the wind howls at sea, that when the waves break against the cliffs, one hears voices from memory. And you go on hearing them, with maddening persistence: "Row over here, Fatso!"

  At three I began to get desperate. I knew that by then the destroyer would be docked at Cartagena. My mates, happy to be back, would be spreading out all over the city. I felt they were all thinking about me, and the thought gave me the energy and patience to hold on until four. Even if they hadn't radioed, even if they hadn't noticed that we'd gone overboard, they would have realized it the moment they docked, when the entire crew should have been on deck. That would have been at three o'clock, at the latest; they would have given the alert immediately.

  However long the planes might have been delayed taking off, they should have been flying near the site of the accident within half an hour. So at four o'clock--four-fifteen at the latest--they would be circling over my head. I went on searching the horizon, until the breeze stopped and I felt enveloped in a great silence.

  Only then did I stop hearing Luis Rengifo's cry.

  The great night

  At first it seemed impossible that I had been alone at sea for three hours. But at five o'clock, after five hours had passed, it seemed I might have to wait yet another hour. The sun was setting. It got very big and red in the west, and I began to orient myself. Now I knew where the planes would appear: with the sun to my left, I stared straight ahead, not moving, not daring to blink, not diverting my sight for an instant from the direction in which, by my
bearings, Cartagena lay. By six o'clock my eyes hurt. But I kept watching. Even after it began to get dark, I watched with stubborn patience. I knew I wouldn't be able to see the planes, but I would spot their red and green lights heading toward me before I heard the noise of the engines. I wanted to see the lights, forgetting that, in the darkness, no one in the planes would see me. Soon the sky turned red, and I continued to search the horizon. Then it turned a deep violet as I kept watching. To one side of the life raft, like a yellow diamond in a wine-colored sky, the first star appeared, immobile and perfect. It was like a signal: immediately afterward, night fell.

  The first thing I felt, plunged into darkness so thick I could no longer see the palm of my hand, was that I wouldn't be able to overcome the terror. From the slapping of the waves against the sides, I knew the raft was moving, slowly but inexorably. Sunk in darkness, I realized I hadn't felt so alone in the daytime. I was more alone in the dark, in a raft that I could no longer see but could feel beneath me, gliding silently over a dense sea filled with strange creatures. To make myself less lonely, I looked at the dial of my watch. It was ten minutes to seven. Much later--it seemed as if two or three hours had passed--it was five minutes to seven. When the minute hand reached twelve, it was exactly seven o'clock and the sky was packed with stars. But to me it seemed that so much time had passed, it should now be nearly dawn. Desperately I went on thinking about the planes.

  I started to feel cold. In a life raft it's impossible to stay dry even for a minute. Even if you are seated on the gunwale, half your body is underwater because the bottom of the raft is shaped like a basket, extending more than half a meter below the surface. By eight o'clock the water was not as cold as the air. I knew that at the bottom of the raft I was safe from sea creatures because the rope mesh that protected the bottom prevented them from coming too close. But that's what you learn in school, and that's what you believe in school, when the instructor puts on a demonstration with a scale model of the life raft and you're seated on a bench among forty classmates at two o'clock in the afternoon. When you're alone at sea at eight o'clock at night, and without hope, the instructor's words make no sense at all. I knew that half of my body was in a realm that didn't belong to men but to the creatures of the sea, and that despite the icy wind whipping my shirt, I didn't dare move from the gunwale. According to the instructor, that was the least safe part of the raft. But all things considered, it was only there that I felt far enough away from the creatures: those immense unknown beasts I could hear passing the raft.

  That night I had trouble finding Ursa Minor, lost in an endless maze of stars. I had never seen so many. It was hard to locate an empty space in the entire span of the sky. Once I spotted Ursa Minor, I didn't dare look anywhere else. I don't know why I felt less alone looking at Ursa Minor.

  On shore leave in Cartagena, we often gathered at the Manga bridge in the small hours to listen to Ramon Herrera sing, imitating Daniel Santos while someone accompanied him on the guitar. Sitting on the wall of the stone bridge, I always found Ursa Minor on one side of the Cerro de la Popa. That night, sitting on the gunwale of the raft, I felt for a moment as if I were back at the Manga bridge, with Ramon Herrera next to me singing to a guitar, and as if Ursa Minor weren't two hundred miles from Earth but, instead, up on top of the Cerro de la Popa itself. I imagined someone in Cartagena looking at Ursa Minor while I watched it from the sea, and that made me feel less lonely.

  My first night at sea seemed very long because absolutely nothing happened. It is impossible to describe a night on a life raft, when nothing happens and you're scared of unseen creatures and you've got a watch with a glowing dial that you can't stop checking even for a minute. The night of February 28--my first night at sea--I looked at my watch every minute. It was torture. In desperation, I swore I would stop doing it and I'd stow the watch in my pocket, so as not to be so dependent on the time. I was able to resist until twenty to nine. I still wasn't hungry or thirsty, and I was sure I could hold out until the following day, when the planes would arrive. But I thought the watch would drive me crazy. A prisoner of anxiety, I took it off my wrist to stuff it in my pocket, but as I held it in my hand it occurred to me that it would be better to fling it into the sea. I hesitated a moment. Then I was terrified: I thought I would feel even more alone without the watch. I put it back on my wrist and began to look at it again, minute by minute, as I had in the afternoon when I searched the horizon for airplanes until my eyes began to hurt.

  After midnight I wanted to cry. I hadn't slept for a moment, but I hadn't even wanted to. With the same hope I had felt in the afternoon as I waited for airplanes, that night I looked for the lights of ships. For hours I scrutinized the sea, a tranquil sea, immense and silent, but I didn't see a single light other than the stars.

  The cold was more intense in the early hours of morning, and it seemed as if my body were glowing, with all the sun of the afternoon embedded under my skin. With the cold, it burned more intensely. From midnight on, my right knee began to hurt and I felt as though the water had penetrated to my bones. But these feelings were remote: I thought about my body less than about the lights of the ships. It seemed to me, in the midst of that infinite solitude, in the midst of the sea's dark murmur, that if I spotted the light of only a single ship, I would let out a yell that could be heard at any distance.

  The light of each day

  Dawn did not break slowly, as it does on land. The sky turned pale, the first stars disappeared, and I went on looking, first at my watch and then at the horizon. The contours of the sea began to appear. Twelve hours had passed, but it didn't seem possible. Night couldn't be as long as day. You have to have spent the night at sea, sitting in a life raft and looking at your watch, to know that the night is immeasurably longer than the day. But soon dawn begins to break, and then it's wearying to know it's another day.

  That occurred to me on my first night in the raft. When dawn came, nothing else mattered. I thought neither of water nor of food. I didn't think of anything at all, until the wind turned warmer and the sea's surface grew smooth and golden. I hadn't slept a second all night, but at that moment it seemed as if I'd just awakened. When I stretched out in the raft my bones ached and my skin burned. But the day was brilliant and warm, and the murmur of the wind picking up gave me a new strength to continue waiting. And I felt profoundly composed in the life raft. For the first time in my twenty years of life, I was perfectly happy.

  The raft continued to drift forward--how far it had gone during the night I couldn't calculate--but the horizon still looked exactly the same, as if I hadn't moved a centimeter. At seven o'clock I thought of the destroyer. It was breakfast time. I imagined my shipmates seated around the table eating apples. Then we would have eggs. Then meat. Then bread and coffee. My mouth filled with saliva and I could feel a slight twisting in my stomach. To take my mind off the idea of food, I submerged myself up to my neck in the bottom of the raft. The cool water on my sun burned back was soothing and made me feel stronger. I stayed submerged like that for a long time, asking myself why I had gone with Ramon Herrera to the stern deck instead of returning to my bunk to lie down. I reconstructed the tragedy minute by minute and decided I had been stupid. There was really no reason I should have been one of the victims: I wasn't on watch, I wasn't required on deck. When I concluded that everything that had happened was due to bad luck, I felt anxious again. But looking at my watch calmed me down. The day was moving along quickly: it was eleven-thirty.

  A black speck on the horizon

  The approach of midday made me think about Cartagena again. I thought it was impossible they hadn't noticed I was missing. I began regretting that I had made it to the life raft; I imagined that my shipmates had been rescued and that I was the only one still adrift because my raft had been blown away by the wind. I even attributed reaching the life raft to bad luck.

  That idea had hardly ripened when I thought I saw a speck on the horizon. I fixed my sights on the black point coming tow
ard me. It was eleven-fifty. I watched so intently that the sky was soon filled with glittering points. But the black speck kept moving closer, heading directly toward the raft. Two minutes after I spotted it, I could make out its form perfectly. As it approached from the sky, luminous and blue, it threw off blinding, metallic flashes. Little by little I could distinguish it from the other bright specks. My neck started to hurt and my eyes could no longer tolerate the sky's brilliance. But I kept on looking: it was fast and gleaming, and it was coming directly toward the raft. At that moment I wasn't feeling happy. I felt no overwhelming emotion. I had a sense of great clarity and I felt extraordinarily calm as I stood in the raft while the plane approached. I took off my shirt slowly. I felt that I knew the exact moment when I should begin signaling with it. I stood there a minute, two minutes, with the shirt in my hand, waiting for the plane to come closer. It headed directly toward the raft. When I raised my arm and began to wave the shirt, I could hear, over the noise of the waves, the vibration of the plane's engines grow louder.

  5

  A Companion Aboard the Life Raft

  For at least five minutes I waved my shirt furiously, but I quickly saw I had been mistaken: the plane wasn't coming toward the raft at all. As I watched the black speck growing larger, it seemed as if the plane would fly overhead. But it passed far away, too high to see me. Then it made a wide turn, started to head back, and disappeared into the sky from where it had appeared. Standing in the raft, exposed to the scorching sun, I looked at the black speck, not thinking about anything, as it erased itself completely from the horizon. Then I sat down again. I was disheartened, and though I hadn't given up hope, I decided to take precautions to protect myself from the sun. In the first place, I shouldn't let my lungs be exposed to the sun's rays.