“I think it’s a hatch cover,” Cushing said, running his hands along the long rectangular object before them. It was thick and sturdy and seemed about large enough for six men.
“It won’t sink?” Soltz said.
“No, not this. Hang on.”
Cushing pulled himself up on it. It received his weight easily. He crawled over its wet, smooth surface. It was an overturned hatch cover, all right. Maybe the one that was blown off the starboard cargo hold, he figured.
“Help me up,” Soltz said. “Please hurry.”
Cushing grabbed him by his lifejacket and heaved him forward. After some frantic clawing, Soltz was onboard.
“We are the only survivors,” Soltz said. “I know it now.”
Cushing sighed. “No, we’re not. We can’t be.”
“We might as well accept the inevitable, my friend,” Soltz said, filled with sadness like a little boy who’d lost his puppy. “We are dead men. It’s only a matter of how and when.”
“Stop talking like that. Somebody’ll pick us up after first light.”
Soltz chuckled grimly. “Yes, yes, of course.”
Cushing stared out into the nebulous mist, saying nothing. If Soltz was going to die, he only hoped it would be soon.
Soltz cradled his head in his hands “My sinuses are aching. This damp chill… I can’t take it for long. I’ll be dead of pneumonia long before any boat arrives” He started hacking, then sneezing. “It’s this awful air… I can barely breathe it.”
“We’ll drift clear of it sooner or later,” Cushing told him.
But Soltz didn’t seem to believe that. “Why… why does it smell like this? Like something dead and gassy? That’s not normal, is it? Well, is it? C’mon, Cushing, you know things like this… should air be smelling like that, even at sea?”
Cushing rubbed his eyes. Soltz. Jesus. The guy was a wreck under the best of circumstances, but this… well, it was even worse now. Of all the people to be shipwrecked with. But he did have a point there. That smell was not normal. It was stagnant, cloying like a malarial swamp in the armpit of the Amazon.
No, it wasn’t right.
No more than any of this was right.
“Yeah, it smells funny, but don’t worry about it. It’s just the fog. When morning comes… well, it’ll burn the fog off.”
“Then what?”
Cushing just studied his shape in the dimness. “What do you mean?”
Soltz kept swallowing, like he was trying to keep his stomach down. “When the fog lifts… what will we see out there?”