The water was now pouring in through the open boarding hatch. On the ferry deck above, Gideon could hear serious panic taking hold: muffled screaming, a thunder of running feet, the ululations of women.
“We can’t go back up,” Gideon said. “We’ve got to jump into the sea from here and swim for shore.”
He turned to Garza. The man’s face was pale. “No,” he said.
“No what?” Gideon yelled. “We’ve got no choice!”
“No.” The engineer backed away.
Gideon stared at him. “In a minute, maybe less, we’re going to be trapped down here!”
Garza continued to back down the passageway, a look of something like horror on his face. Gideon stared. He had never seen Garza so unmanned. Even in the most frightening moments they had spent together, the man had kept a cool head. Now he seemed to have lost it completely.
“You can’t swim,” said Gideon, simply.
Garza finally managed to nod.
Gideon’s mind raced. The man can’t swim? This messed up everything. “Okay. Okay. We go back on deck. Find something that floats. And launch ourselves on it.”
Garza managed to croak his agreement. The water was now swirling down the passageway at ankle level and rising quickly. With a great shuddering boom the second engine blew, and immediately afterward the lights went out.
“Just stay with me.” Gideon turned and they retreated down the passageway, feeling their way along the walls, up the companionway, and back out the deck hatch.
The scene that greeted them was one of heartbreaking pandemonium. The deck was now tilting at a steeper angle, and various carts, some with struggling donkeys still in harness, were rolling down the sloping surface, dragging the bellowing animals with them. One cart hit the railing and flipped over, throwing both donkey and cart into the sea. The poor animal screamed as it drowned. People had pressed themselves against the higher gunwales of the ferry, clutching at the railing, crying and wailing and reaching beseechingly toward the now empty bridge. Gideon could just see, headed westward, the running lights of the Zodiac vanishing into the murk.
The boat was dead in the water and sinking fast. Water rose over the port gunwales and began creeping up the deck. The tilt grew worse. And now a car began to move, and then another, sliding down the wooden deck and coming to rest against the rail. A large truck suddenly broke free, skidding sideways; it hit the railing with such force that it tore right through with a screech of steel. More trucks and lorries began rumbling down, bashing through the railing into the sea and sinking with a frenzy of bubbles. Screams rose as people caught in their paths were crushed or swept overboard. Flashlights and lanterns bobbed as panicky cries mounted upward from the darkened deck, the shrill screams of mothers punctuated by the wailing of babies—it was a scene out of hell itself. All these people, thought Gideon—they’re going to drown.
He shook his head, trying to clear his mind. The canting ferry felt like it might slide under at any moment; they had to quickly get well clear of the suction and imminent maelstrom of thrashing, drowning people, who would drag any nearby swimmer down with them. It felt heartless, but there was nothing left for them to do now but save themselves.
What could they use as a float? Lumber. He remembered a cart piled with boards that he’d seen loaded on board earlier. He cast about and spied it, jammed up against the port rail with other broken carts. The donkey pulling it, still harnessed, was lying, drowned, in the deepening water.
The lumber was stacked in tied bundles on the overloaded cart. The water was up to its hubs.
“Come on!” He pulled Garza down the deck toward the wagon.
“No—not into the water!”
“Get your ass moving!” He yanked at Garza, hauling him down the sloping deck. Everyone else had gone to the high side, leaving the flooding end free.
Gideon waded through the swelling water, grabbed the wagon wheel, and hauled himself into the cart. Garza followed gingerly, clearly struggling to master his anxiety. The hemp ropes holding the entire load had ruptured, but the individual bundles of wood were still tied and, he hoped, would be able to float like a sort of paddleboard. Gideon braced himself and grabbed a bundle, heaving it overboard, and then another and another. After a moment, Garza followed his lead. The bundles splashed into the sea, but since the boat had ceased moving they didn’t drift away.
“Let’s throw them all overboard!” yelled Gideon. He grabbed another and heaved it. “Manuel, get the women and children! They can float on these!”
Garza stared.
“We’re going to save some lives here! Get going!”
Comprehension dawned on the engineer’s face. He hustled off and a moment later returned leading a stream of women and their children, more following behind and soon generating a stampede. Gideon continued to flip bundles of wood overboard until the entire cartload was bobbing in the calm water next to the sinking boat.
Gideon leapt down from the remains of the cart. “Manuel, listen to me: get in the water and climb onto one of those. Do it now. Paddle away from the boat. Head west. We’ll meet up on shore.”
“And you?”
“I’m going to help these others. And then I’ll swim.”
“I’m going to help, too.”
“You can’t fucking swim!”
“I can do something!”
Mothers were screaming, clutching their babies and little ones. To Gideon’s amazement, the men did not press forward in panic—they were letting the women and children go first. It was a death sentence for all who couldn’t swim: a heartbreaking display of self-sacrifice.
Gideon seized a small child. “Go,” he said to the mother. “Into the water.” He jabbed his finger. “I hand you child.”
Someone who understood English yelled at her in Arabic and she slipped into the water, her arm wrapped around a floating bundle of boards. He passed the child to her. “Next!”
Garza and Gideon worked together, helping the mothers onto the bundles of lumber and then handing over the children. Soon all twenty or so bundles had women and children clinging to or riding atop them.
“Manuel, climb onto that last bundle!” Gideon yelled.
“No—women and children first.”
“Son of a bitch, the whole point of this was to get you on a raft!”
“You see any other men getting on?”
This sudden and unexpected display of heroism confounded Gideon. He wondered how the man—clearly terrified of the ocean—had managed to stay sane during the long and dangerous voyages of the Rolvaag and the Batavia…or, for that matter, how he’d kept his secret from Glinn.
Garza helped several girls onto the last bundle of wood and shoved it away from the railing with his foot. Every bundle was now full of people: perhaps fifty or sixty women and children were clinging to the lumber, drifting in a slow pack away from the boat.