By DAVID S HEEREN
Bible scholar David S Heeren assumes the mantle from Charles M. Sheldon (who first posited the question, “what would Jesus do?”) and adapts and advances the premise for modern generations in his book Year of Our Lord. In it, Heeren introduces readers to relatable, well-rounded characters who represent a cross-section of Christians entering troubled times — each of them pledging to do as Jesus would do for one year. This extract is published by permission.
Ellen checked her wristwatch every few minutes, but the final half-hour seemed endless. She knew the water was receding because now, instead of sitting in six inches of it, she could feel only the soggy mattress beneath her thighs. Jill was still wheezing, but neither girl was shivering. Both were wide awake. The air seemed less stuffy. The noise had abated. At four o’clock, Ellen used the flashlight to take another look at the water table. It was slightly below the top of the door.
Time for Plan B.
Ellen slid into the water. She took a deep breath and opened the door latch. Then she surfaced for another breath, descended again and pressed her shoulder blades against the refrigerator with her face beneath the surface of the water. It took much more effort this time, because she was tired and the camper was more deeply submerged. But she managed to force the door open a few inches. Another breath, another dive and she pushed her way through the door and rose to the surface outside. There would be plenty of air in the camper now, and the wind wasn’t much of a factor. It couldn’t blow away a door that was almost completely submerged.
Ellen shone her flashlight over the surface of the choppy water. The winds were coming from the south, from the rear toward the front of the camper. The current was still strong. She had to use her most powerful scissors kick to maintain her position. As Ellen turned toward the camper, she saw she was no longer opposite the door but was several feet closer to the rear. But how could that be, if she was holding her position in the water in relation to her surroundings? She shone the flashlight beam behind the camper. No tree. No inner tube. She swam to the door, dived, swam inside and struggled onto the bunk.
Ellen had no idea how long the camper had been drifting, but she knew they were moving in the opposite direction from before. The drift probably had begun when the wind had made a 180-degree turn, releasing the inner tube from its hold on the tree branch. Now it seemed fortunate they had drifted so far to the South, because they had that much farther to go northward before reaching the bay. Even so, she was sure of one thing: If the camper continued to drift, it would fall off the edge of the Tea Table.
And now there was another concern. The Tea Table was relatively flat, but it had shallows and depths. If the camper drifted into one of the deeper places, water would quickly fill the narrow sliver of air inside. If that happened, Ellen wasn’t sure she would have enough time to get the girls out. Maybe they would be safer clinging to the luggage rack until the moment when the camper plunged into the bay. Ellen didn’t know what to do. They might not have hours left, might have only minutes.
The situation seemed hopeless. They still faced two more hours of darkness, and Dawn was not the name of a rescue boat. As far as the Coast Guard and other authorities were concerned, everyone had been evacuated from the keys. She thought Harry might come looking for them, but if he did he would concentrate on the Marathon area, not Islamorada.
Ellen prayed more zealously than at any time since she had become a Christian.
Charles helped Vera into the rented speedboat at 4:45 and Harry, already at the wheel, started the motor. By this time most of the storm had cleared Key West and was on its way into the Gulf of Mexico, but heavy rainfall was being blown into their faces by southeasterly winds from the northeast quadrant of the storm. The effect was worse than driving a car into a pouring rain. Harry had to keep the speed down. He couldn’t see as far ahead as the end of the range of the boat’s headlights.
There weren’t many lights along the southwest shoreline of Florida simply because there wasn’t much civilization. Even so, Charles could see occasional flickers of light from the direction of the shore. He glanced from time to time at Vera, who had a wild aura of beauty about her, with wet clothes clinging to her body and long dark hair plastered to her head.
Harry kept the boat close to the shoreline. By six o’clock, they had passed the lighthouse on Cape Sable and were heading across open water toward the middle keys. If they stayed on course, in another hour they would be in the Marathon area. The pitch black sky had changed to a dark gray. Its color matched that of the slate surf. They were in the tail of the storm now, but could not see the rising sun through the dense clouds.
As the visibility increased and the rain slackened, Harry accelerated the boat. When they finally approached what they thought was the Marathon area, he slowed again and they puttered within a hundred feet of what, twelve hours earlier, had been the shoreline. Nothing. No lights. No other boats. Not even the usual pelicans and sandpipers. Human beings weren’t the only creatures that had left the keys before the storm.
At 7:15, they saw a sign of human activity. A helicopter, with the call letters of a television channel on its side, flew toward them from the north-east. Vera spotted it, pointed and shouted, “Looks like one of the Miami channels.” They investigated one indefinite object, but it turned out to be a utility shed, not a stranded camper. They saw no indication that anyone was stranded near Marathon. “Let’s head toward Key Largo,” Harry said. “Maybe that old camper broke down on the road.”
Despite the risk of sudden sinking, Ellen kept the girls inside the camper until objects began to appear out of the darkness. It was still raining, and the wind had not completely subsided. But at least now she could see more than a few inches in front of her nose. And if there was visibility inside the camper, there must be much more outside. She and the girls could be seen out there, if any rescuers happened by. She slid into the water, which was still up to her chin when she stood on tiptoes.