On the fantail, Seaman Ralph “Florida” Sarasota looked into the foaming wake – searching through his binoculars for a glimpse of a hand in the churning waters. Maybe the head of the seafarer would pop up and his arm, wearing the khakis of an officer, would grab one of the three life rings Sarasota had thrown out.
“Man overboard! Man overboard! Man overboard … off the fantail!” the boatswain’s mate called through the ship’s 1MC, a speaker system wired throughout the USS Nimitz.
The aircraft carrier, which had been pushing through the vast northern Pacific Ocean at 35 knots an hour, picked up a bit of speed as it began a long oval in one of several steps designed to help find a sailor who’d fallen into the sea.
Another man in khakis looked out, petrified. He held onto a long, heavy-test, fishing line that was draped down the aft skin of the haze gray ship. Slowly, he was pulling it up the fantail – right in the area that other officer had flown over, flipping over the stanchion wires just 40 seconds ago.
From his vantage point, Sarasota saw the entire incident. And he saw how the man who went overboard thunked his head against the ship’s steel hull as he flipped at the beginning of his long fall into the cold waters. At best, he was semi-conscious when he hit the water head first. At best.
Sarasota made a quick, accurate assessment.
These guys are fucked.
The direct phone line to the fantail rang and Sarasota picked it up. It could be any number of people needing any number of things at this point. The rescue chopper pilot asking about smoke grenades; his division calling him for the man overboard muster; the rescue boat crew seeking the GPS location of the life rings. It could be anyone with a legitimate question.
“Florida. This is the Captain. What the fuck just happened back there?”
Sarasota didn’t have a clue. But it probably had something to do with that sheet of paper that went overboard as well.
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