before feeling returned and she was certain that she had avoided
frost-bite.
Then the tow began, and if the movement of the light raft had been wild
before, it now became a nightmare of uncoordinated movement. Each whim
of sea and wind was transmitted directly to the huddling circle of
survivors, and each time the raft pulled away or sheered off, the
tow-rope brought it up with a violent lurch and jerk.
The wave crests whipped up by the wind and feeling the press of the land
were up to twenty feet high, and the raft swooped over them and dropped
heavily into the troughs.
She did not have the lateral stability of a keel, so she spun on her
axis until the tow-rope jerked her up and she spun the other way. The
first of them to start vomiting was Mrs. Goldberg and it spurted in a
warm jet down the side of Samantha's anorak.
The canopy was almost airtight, except for the small ventilation holes
near the apex of the roof, and immediately the sweetish acrid stench of
vomit permeated the raft. Within minutes, half a dozen of the other
survivors were vomiting also.
It was the cold, however, that frightened Samantha. The cold was the
killer. It came up even through the flexible insulated double skin of
the deck, and was transferred into their buttocks and legs. It came in
through the plastic canopy and froze the condensation of their breaths,
it even froze the vomit on their clothing and on the deck.
Sing! Samantha told them. Come on, sing! Let's do 'Yankee Doodle
Dandy', first. You start, Mr. Stewart, come on. Clap your hands, clap
hands with your neighbour. She hectored them relentlessly, not allowing
any of them to fall into that paralytic state which is not true sleep
but the trance caused by rapidly dropping body temperature.
She crawled among them, prodding them awake, popping barley sugar from
the emergency rations into their mouths.
Suck and sing! she commanded them, the sugar would combat the cold and
the sea-sickness. Clap your hands.
Keep moving we'll be there soon. When they could sing no more, she told
them stories and whenever she mentioned the word dog they must all bark
and clap their hands, or crow like the rooster, or bray like the donkey.
Samantha's throat was scratchy with singing and talking and she was
dizzy with fatigue and sick with cold, recognizing in herself the first
symptoms of disinterest and lethargy, the prelude to giving up.
She roused herself, struggling up into the sitting position from where
she had slumped.
I'm going to try and light the stove and get us a hot drink/ she sang
out brightly. Around her there was only a mild stir and somebody
retched painfully.
Who's for a mug of beef tea - she stopped abruptly.
Something had changed. It took her a long moment to realize what it
was. The sound of the wind had muted and the raft was riding more
easily now, it was moving into a more regular rhythm of sweep and fall,
without the dreadful jerk of the tow-rope snapping it back.
Frantically she crawled to the entrance of the raft, and with cold
