Dead in the Water

bosun’s chair, which is a canvas sling, and Paul winched me to the top of the mast on the main halyard, then cleated the line while I hauled the genoa halyard down to deck level. There wasn’t much wind, but there was a sea running from the last squall, and it was pretty uncomfortable at the top of the mast. I called to Paul to lower me to the deck, and that was when I saw him, sitting on a cockpit seat, holding his arm, near the shoulder.” For the first time, her voice quavered. “His left arm.”
    “What happened then?”
    She seemed to struggle to keep control of herself. “I called to him again, and he looked up at me. Then he seemed to be in terrible pain, and he sort of just lay down on his side on the cockpit seat.” Tears appeared on her cheeks now. “I was very frightened. The wind began to get up again, and with no sail up, the boat was rolling very badly. I continued to call out to him in panic—panic that I was stuck at the top of the mast, and panic that he seemed to be having a heart attack, and I couldn’t help him.” Now she began to cry in earnest. Sutherland stood without speaking while she produced a tissue and dabbed at her eyes. Finally in control again, she continued. “A few minutes passed—I don’t know how long—then Paul slid off the seat onto the cockpit sole. He just lay there, facedown. It was obvious that he was unconscious; he just sort of flopped about when the boat rolled.”
    “And then what did you do?”
    “I just clung to the mast and cried.”
    “For how long?”
    “A long time. Two hours, maybe three. I wasn’t wearing a watch. Finally the sun got low in the sky; I realized that Paul wasn’t going to help me, and that I had to do something to help myself.”
    “And what did you do?”
    She took a deep breath and let it out. “I hugged the mast as tightly as I could, then I slipped out of the bosun’s chair and began sliding down the mast, except I slid a lot faster than I meant to. I went down very quickly until I came to rest on the crosstrees, in a sitting position. That hurt, and I was sort of stunned for a minute, so I just stopped and collected myself for a few minutes. The rolling wasn’t quite as bad, since I was farther down the mast. Finally I got up enough nerve to go the rest of the way down. I still don’t know why I didn’t fall and hurt myself.”
    “Then you went to help your husband?”
    “No, not immediately. I was so terrified and so exhausted from clinging to the mast that I just lay there in a heap. I think I may have even fainted for a while; I don’t know how long. When I could get up again, I made my way back to the cockpit. Paul was dead.”
    Stone found that he had been holding his breath. He let it out in a rush, and everyone in the room—the coroner, the jury, and Sir Winston—turned and looked at him. “Excuse me,” he said sheepishly. He looked up and found Allison Manning staring at him. It seemed to be the first time she had been aware of his presence.
    “Please go on,” Sir Winston said. “What did you do next?”
    “I tried to give him cardiopulmonary resuscitation,” she said.
    “Had you been trained in this technique?”
    “I took a class once, at the yacht club at home.”
    “Did this have any effect?”
    “No. I couldn’t get a pulse at all, and Paul…I couldn’t get him to breathe, and his body was growing quite cold by this time.”
    Stone marveled at how calmly she related all this.
    “And then what did you do?”
    “I sat and cried for a while and let the yacht take care of herself. When I finally got a grip, I started thinking about what to do next. It was dark by then, and it seemed so strange that Paul was dead. I kept expecting him to come up from below and adjust the sails or something.”
    “Did you move the body at all?”
    “Not at first. Paul is…was a big man, and I’m quite small. I thought about moving him down below, to a berth, but then it occurred to me that if I did, I’d just have to get him up again, sooner or later. So I left him in the cockpit that night. I was exhausted, so I got some sleep. I couldn’t eat anything, though. The boat took care of me; the wind dropped, and she lay fairly quietly.”
    “What did you finally do with the body?”
    “When I woke up it was still dark, but there was about three-quarters of a moon, so the night was bright. It was clear to me that in that climate, I was going to have to bury Paul at sea. I went up into the cockpit and