For Dewey, it all seemed dreadfully unfair. He had been trying to help, doing the right thing, reaching out for the line from the lifeboat.

Then came the shudder and the jerk of the ship. The leverage of the rail against his leg was just right so that, without much of a push really, he toppled right over into the water.

The injustice of it all was lost in a second or two, for almost immediately he could feel the steel of the deckhouse construction pushing him down. He was young. He swam energetically. But the harder he swam, it seemed, the deeper he was pushed. He was moving up. His life preserver assured that. But he was moving up against the capsizing ship and deckhouse. They were pushing him down. They were moving much faster down, as the ship rolled, than he could swim up.

Against all intuition, he knew what he had to do. He swam down. Down, against the buoyancy of his life vest. Down, away from the sinking ship. He reached a railing on the deck of the Marine Electric. He vaulted his body around it. Now, the life preserver shot him upward. He broke the surface of the ocean and gasped for air.

He swam away from the ship and in the dark saw a shape. It was a life raft canister. He grabbed its lanyard, placed both feet against the canister. It promptly inflated. But in so doing, pushed Dewey far away from the raft. He mustered his energy and stroked back to the raft. It floated high in the water. Other men clustered about it. Grabbed at its high rubber walls and held on.

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