He reemerged in another spot altogether, and he no longer thought of finding the ship but only of keeping air inside his body instead of brine. He battled the ocean like this for another hour, as the sea kept crashing down on his small ebbing form in the midst of its own immense providence, until he was worn out and could fight no longer.
After a wave the size of a hillock had fallen over him, Caleum sank under the waters and did not give thought to rising again. His wooden leg had grown heavy and water-logged, but he could not remove it, for it was so well fastened, and his other limbs were stiff and lethargic.
His death seemed certain when he went below, then bobbed up this last time, and he was spared that fate only because he rose next to one of the buoys the Enki had thrown out earlier. He threw himself around it and clung to the contraption as best he could with his raw hands. There were no thoughts in his head by then, nor desires in him beyond this. He was in a contest for his life, and it took all his strength and courage to wage the battle.
He had been swept from the side of the ship around seven in the morning, and at midday he was still out in the water. The storm was past by then, and the water still as the desert floor, as the sun beat high overhead, casting a reflection on the water that made everything to the horizon stark white. He was blinded by it and longed for the thing to pass on overhead, as it gave but little warmth and no solace but only robbed him of sight.
Unable to withstand the assault on his eyes, he was forced to close them as he floated in that cold firmament. He was disoriented entirely but managed to think then of all that had happened to him with clarity for the first time. He envisioned his home as well, and the faces of all he loved, and after that where each field at Stonehouses was and each barn. He counted in his mind the panes in every window, and the animals in their stalls. He thought of the coming planting season and longed to be in his fields again, as he longed for his old bed.
Of all the things on land he wished for, little could compete with how he missed children, for they made him feel connected to the world in a way nothing else did. As for Libbie, he had made her a promise long ago, and he still had not fulfilled it. When he could no longer bear to think of what was good and comfortable, he tried to still his mind again, until it was completely blank and without desire but to endure his present ordeal.
When he chanced to open his eyes the sun was still unrelenting, but it had passed on a few degrees, so he could see what was at the horizon. He saw there a ship, moving parallel to him in the distance, and began to yell to it. The boat did not seem to hear or notice him, as it did not alter its course. But when it was nearly on top of him, he could see a man standing at the prow whom he would swear was Magnus Merian.
The man did nod to him but was otherwise mute, as though they were on a leisurely walk and what they had to say had already been settled. Caleum kept calling out desperately for help, until eventually several men came to the starboard side of the ship. “We can come no closer,” one of them called. “Godspeed thee.”
He looked at their faces as they moved past him, and in the center of all them was the captain of the vessel, who looked to be the image of Rennton. He recalled then the ship he had been on before, and thought he remembered that boat as well from when he was a child upon these waters. His mind was panicked and chaotic, and he closed his eyes trying to calm it. When he next looked, turning to follow the progress of the ship, it had disappeared in the hard glare of the ocean.
He wailed to be left alone there and despaired of ever reaching safety. He had faced suffering before without protesting, but dying alone in that watery nothingness, divorced from everything he held dear and all he called his own in the world, took away his remaining strength and courage. He bawled like a child.
There was no further sign of the ship, nor any other form of life, as he clung there, only an immense silence, as if he had left the world and was cast into some colossal antechamber of death. He hung fast to the little buoy as his hands bled without feeling, hoping only that the sea would not churn up again.
The ocean did remain calm, as the sun began its long descent, but the temperature was still well below what he could bear, and he felt himself falling into a druggish stupor as he floated out there in the silent void.
Nay there was something. It was his angst and fear, though none would call him coward for it, but he struggled against them until he was spent. He had been out on the water almost six hours, and the only thing he had to look forward to was night, when the sea would be cast into complete darkness again — unrelieved by anything save the distant stars, if the clouds did not blanket over them. Thinking of his prospects, he started not only to lose but to give up on the fight and began to fall from consciousness.
When a lantern appeared in the distance through the clouded horizon he could not even muster the strength of voice to call it, having no speech left in him, nor energy even to save himself with. The lantern came from a ship, which had nearly run past him before the pilot spotted his small shape on the water.
“Ahoy!” the pilot cried out, but his call was echoed by silence. “Ahoy, if thee be alive,” the man yelled again.
Beneath the hulking ship Caleum called out very weakly. “Aye,” he said, before being seized by a coughing fit, as the salt water washed over his face and into his lungs.
The bottom was too rocky and dangerous for the ship to come to him, but they did drop a boat, manned by two sailors, who piloted it to where he was and lifted him out of the cold. When they pulled him up he was completely gray and shriveled, and could feel nothing at all as they tucked their arms beneath him and hoisted him into the boat. When the boat reached the ship, they had to lower a sling to lift him up by, as he was unable to grasp hold of the rope they put over the side for the men to climb.
They pulled the harness onto the deck of the Meredith, as the ship was called, and unfastened him — then covered him quickly with a blanket, before offering him hot rum to get warm by.
“It is miraculous you survived out there,” the ship’s mate said, as they led him across the planks of the vessel. “Not one man in a thousand who goes down on this coast lives, and I bet not one in a million in this storm. You are lucky too that we weren’t another kind of ship.” Caleum could only nod at everything the man said, for he was exhausted beyond all knowing.
They moved him to a bunk belowdecks, covering him with another blanket, then added another very carefully every hour after that, as they were superstitious and it was a good omen for them to save a man from the ocean.
No matter how many blankets he was given, though, Caleum Merian could not get warm and began shivering there in his bed. The sailors, who came from Nova Scotia and had seen men suffer exposure before, took it as a good sign that he responded at all, and kept adding more blankets, ministering warmth by degrees so that he was not shocked by the difference. When he could feel his hands again, late that night, his body finally carried him off to sleep.
He awoke the next morning to find he had been moved to the ship’s galley during the night, although he could not remember it. He startled when he looked around, not understanding how he came to be in that place, or indeed where he was at all. The cook, when he saw him stir, shoved a bowl of hot soup at him, without comment, which he took up and began to eat.