A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea(57)
TEN
Rescue at the Dying Hour
The chemical tanker CPO Japan was sailing across the Mediterranean toward Gibraltar when a distress call came in from the Maltese coast guard: a boat carrying refugees had sunk and all available ships were requested to provide assistance. International law requires that all ships must “render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost.” The captain of the Japan heard the call and changed course. He assigned extra lookouts to take up positions all around the cargo deck. Ship crews throughout the region regularly kept watch for refugees and migrants that had risked crossing the Mediterranean, knowing how often such attempts ended in death. The crew of the Japan would do whatever they could to save any survivors. But when they reached the coordinates given in the distress call, all they saw were scores of bloated corpses floating in the sea.
The ship slowed to avoid hitting the bodies. They heard from a container ship that was already at the scene that their crew had saved five people but were about to end their rescue operation since it was getting dark. Trying to search for more bodies in the dark would be futile.
Since the start of the European refugee crisis in 2014, merchant ships had been playing an indispensable role in saving lives as unprecedented numbers of refugees and migrants attempted the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean Sea. In the year of Doaa’s shipwreck, commercial vessels rescued an estimated forty thousand people. However, they are ill-equipped to operate as search-and-rescue ships, and every attempted rescue costs the shipping company time and resources.
The captain of the CPO Japan thought that he had done his part. He had answered the distress call, and no one would blame him for turning his ship around and continuing on course. But as he looked at the dead bodies floating around him, he decided to order the crew to release their lifeboat into the sea. If the other boat found five people alive, perhaps there might be others, he thought. He couldn’t bear to give up when all he could see in the fading light was corpses.
A silent, determined consensus prevailed among the crew as they set about launching their search. They were just merchant seamen, men from Eastern Europe and the Philippines who had come together to man the vessel. While they weren’t professional rescuers, they couldn’t abandon the scene without at least trying.
The wind was picking up, the water was choppy, and visibility was poor. Three crew members boarded a closed lifeboat, and other crew cranked the pulleys to slowly release it down into the sea. This high-tech model was designed to move through rough weather on high seas and remain watertight. They passed dozens of bobbing corpses as they set off. “Don’t pick up the dead,” the captain told them over the radio, “just look for survivors.”
The crewmen circled the area, but found only more corpses. It seemed that their search was in vain, but suddenly the captain’s voice crackled over the radio. Back on the ship, a watchman on the bow had heard what he thought was a woman’s voice calling for help. Somewhere out there, someone was still alive. The men in the lifeboat headed toward the bow, hoping to locate the source of the pleas for help.
The wind grew stronger as they continued searching, making it difficult for them to pick up anything other than roaring noise. Periodically, they would stop the boat’s motor so they could hear better. Every now and again they could just make out the faint echoes of a woman’s voice, but it seemed to come from a different direction every time. “Keep yelling,” they shouted over and over, knowing that if she didn’t, they’d never be able to find her.
After four days and nights in the water with nothing to eat or drink, Doaa’s strength was failing. Her arms ached and she was so dizzy that she was afraid she would pass out. She could no longer feel her lower legs, and her throat was raw from calling out over and over. She wanted to give up, but the weight of Masa and Malak resting on her chest filled her with the determination to live. She kept paddling to stay afloat, and with each push of her hand through the water, she would call out, “Ya Rabb!”—oh, God! But her voice seemed to disappear into the wind.
She had spotted the CPO Japan when it first approached, and it had seemed so close, but now she couldn’t see it at all. Where could it have gone? she wondered as doubt began to creep up on her and she became more and more certain that she and the girls would die before anyone found them.
Then, as if Allah had at last answered her prayers, Doaa heard voices calling. She could just make out a few English words: “Where are you? Keep talking so we can follow your voice and find you!” Suddenly a wave rocked her, and the voices grew muffled, as if they were drifting farther away. Then they stopped altogether.
Doaa frantically searched her mind trying to remember the English word for help. When it didn’t come to her, she instead used any words she knew and all her remaining strength to project them forth. Can’t they see me? she wondered as she bobbed in the water, worried that perhaps she wasn’t making any sound at all, or that she was hallucinating. But she could see that a searchlight was scanning back and forth over the waves, and each time she cried out, the light would sweep closer to her. She willed the bright beam to illuminate her float as she paddled frantically toward it. Her determination to save Malak and Masa gave her strength that she didn’t know she still had.
The girls were barely moving now, beginning to lose consciousness. Doaa splashed water on their faces to keep them awake and, as quickly as she could, steered her way around the corpses and toward the sound of her only hope. She couldn’t let Masa and Malak die now that rescue was so close.