Free Ten Degrees of Reckoning by Hester Rumberg Page A

Ben slept. She fought to keep her panic down, but she knew, she knew, that it would have been impossible for him to survive.
    Judy screamed, “Michael!” There was no reply.
    “Michael!” she screamed again. Nothing. Her head was still slightly above water, but she was aware that she had little time before she would be entirely submerged.
    The deck hatch, which had been closed and latched, was missing, and she managed to swim up through the opening to the deck, looking for her family. When she got topside, she found Mike and Annie, completely dazed and holding hands, shivering. The deck was awash, already up to Annie’s knees and rising fast. Wreckage was everywhere; Ben was nowhere.
    Mike and Judy looked at each other, terror in their eyes. Annie was frantic with worry over her brother. Mike decided to get her safely into the life raft and then attempt to find Ben. He went forward to the mast, where he expected to find the life raft. He was stunned; there was nothing to deploy. There was little left on the deck. The mast was sheared off to a jagged six inches; the rigging, the stanchions, the shrouds, the navigation antennae, the solar panels, all were gone. The life raft had been securely installed in a custom-made teak base bolted through into the cabin top with stainless steel backing plates, and somehow it, too, was gone.
    Forward on the deck, a partially deflated dinghy was the only thing remaining, its fifty-foot painter clipped to a U-bolt. Under normal conditions, the dinghy was used to transport the family a short distance from an anchorage to land. Fully inflated, it measured eleven feet by five feet, and it was comfortable and sturdy. However, whenever Mike secured it on deck for a passage, he took some of the air out of the tubes in order to fold it. It was made of a very durable rubber, and he hoped, even partly deflated, it would be buoyant enough to help them until they were rescued. At least it would provide some fortification against the icy waters. As Mike pushed the dinghy over the damaged rail, Judy thought she saw a large dark hull turning away from them, but she couldn’t be sure. Ships were always brightly lit with their multiple navigation lights, but she didn’t see any evidence of even reflected light on the seas near this hull, if that’s what it was.
    “Michael, look. Is that a ship?” she asked.
    Mike replied that he couldn’t see any lights, and he instructed Annie and Judy to get in the dinghy.
    Annie was screaming, “Don’t leave him. We can’t leave without Ben.”
    Mike told Judy to get in the dinghy; he intended to swim below and get Ben.
    Judy became hysterical. She begged, “Please, Michael, please. Don’t. You’ll never be able to find him. I can’t bear to lose both of you. There is no cabin. There’s nothing but seawater and diesel and rubbish below. Please! We’re sinking fast!”
    Most of the hull of their sailboat was now submerged, and the deck was level with the seas, which made it easy for the three of them to scramble into the dinghy. The painter was still attached to the yacht. Almost immediately the Melinda Lee sank, pulling them underwater as well. They were screaming for Ben and for themselves, and then the painter broke free, and Mike, Judy, and Annie surfaced in the dinghy.
    They could not believe how quickly the seaworthy Melinda Lee disappeared. But their own survival was far from triumphant with the horrible, incomprehensible, sickening awareness that the Littlest Captain had gone down with his ship.

Six  
    Abandoned by Grace
     
     
    FOR A FEW MINUTES THE THREE WERE UTTERLY SILENT, in a state of shock. They sat in the bottom of the dinghy, completely still, and the dinghy, too, was almost motionless, silently bobbing in a pool of diesel fuel.
    Judy completely understood Mike’s desire to make every desperate effort to search for Ben, but she had been the last to swim up from what was left of the cabin. It had been so full of water; she had to