Waiting

　　The family prayed too. Ben apologized to his dad for any obnoxious behavior he'd indulged in during the trip. “I'm sorry I've complained so much,” he said.

　　“Forget it,” John responded. But he had a request： “If the boat starts to go under, I'm going to be stuck unless you cut off the rest of my leg. It'll be like when we cut up chickens for the barbecue. Do you think you can do it？”

　　Ben recoiled at the thought, but kept his cool. “Let's cross that bridge when we come to it,” he said.

　　They didn't have to. An hour later, the boat was struck by a particularly massive wave, and the mast shifted enough to let John pull free. Ben and Amelia fastened new tourniquets on his leg （one above the knee and one below, since they weren't sure which was the proper position）, and then carried him aft to join the others. Now that they were together, crowded onto a corner of the stern, a kind of peace descended. “I was really scared before, but now I feel like it's Christmas,” Ben said. Despite the chaos all around them, the others knew what he meant.

　　Around 1：30 in the morning, there was a glimmering on the horizon. “A ship！” Jean shouted, and Ben shot off a flare. The group's spirits sank when the light turned out to be the rising moon. But Ben had been tracking another natural phenomenon for several hours： About 150 feet away was a section of reef that never went underwater, even at high tide. The strip was about five feet wide； it rose three feet above the sea and stretched for perhaps a quarter mile. Compared to their unstable perch, it seemed like a haven. “It's time,” Ben declared, “to get off the boat.”

　　He went first. The water on the way to the ridge was only waist-deep, and cushions from the boat were scattered across the coral. Ben gathered them into a comfortable nest, and Amelia helped him carry out Jack and Camille. The life raft was stuck between the hulls and tangled in cables, but after Jean freed it —— using a saw that Ben ferreted out of the wreckage —— they lifted John in and towed him to the refuge. Jean and Camille joined him in the raft, and Amelia held it in place, sitting neck-deep in the water to stay out of the chilly breeze. Ben and Jack curled up together on the cushions.

　　And then they waited.

　　The Emerald Jane's distress calls never reached Papeete. But an orbiting satellite picked up the EPIRB signal and relayed it to a U.S. Coast Guard station near San Francisco that coordinates rescue operations throughout the Pacific. The transmission contained the EPIRB's serial number, which was registered —— along with the Silverwoods' emergency contact information —— with the federal government. The Coast Guard tried contacting the boat by sat-phone and e-mail, but there was no answer.

　　Although the EPIRB also provided GPS data, it took three passes for the satellite to get a clear reading of its latitude and longitude. In the meantime, Coast Guard officers tried to glean what they could from the people on the contact list. At 11 p.m. California time —— 8 p.m. in French Polynesia, about an hour after the accident —— they called Jean's father, Albert Boera, in New York's Westchester County. He told the officer that the boat was somewhere near Bora Bora, en route to Australia. The Coast Guard notified the Rescue Coordination Center in New Zealand, which alerted the French military's counterpart in Papeete.

　　Soon afterward, the EPIRB's precise location came through. But the French couldn't mount a search until sunrise, which was still far away. As the night wore on, John weakened steadily. The mast had severed his tibial arteries, and despite the tourniquets, he had lost nearly four pints of blood. Un-beknownst to his family, he was also suffering from gangrene —— the death of tissue around his wound —— and an infection was spreading toward his vital organs. He'd begun to vomit, and his trembling had grown violent. Jean knew his chances of survival were slimmer if he lost consciousness, so she tried to keep him talking. “Daddy's going to be okay,” John told the kids, whenever he could manage it. His silences, however, were growing longer.