Douglas Robertson

It came alongside us and stopped.

They looked at us sitting in that raft like a bundle of fragile humanity clinging to life, like barely alive really.

I mean, we thought we were doing all right.

We didn't realize how much weight we'd lost or how decrepit we looked.

You know, we had no idea that we were covered in blood and turtle blood and fat.

And we were naked and, you know, they looked upon us and one of them threw a heaving line across to us.

A dirty, oily heaving line.

And I grabbed it with my hands and hung on to it.

And I knew that this rope, dirty, oily, smelly, though it was, was not from our world.

It was from another world.

And that this was our link back to humanity.

This rope was going to save our lives.

And I hung on.

And another rope came across and Dougal caught that in the aft end of the boat.

Before we knew it, we were alongside, all out of the dinghy.

And Dougal asked them to save the dinghy.

Don't sink the dinghy, he said.

And they said, why not?

You're finished with it, you know.

And Dougal's response was just typified the way that we thought.