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Show Were Shipwrecked sidered trying to build a smaller boat from her wreckage. Then Rum Cay Smith started to make his debut into life. eee With Jim trying to get help in the village, Ken boiled his penknife in our last water and stood by with sail thread. Ytta lay on the beach as the Caribbean dawn began to highlight the still angry surf. I wondered why I had brought Ytta to this, but her optimism never faltered, and she reassured me throughout. her labor. Then, with relatively little trouble, Ytta gave us our son. Ken held a flashlight while I cut the umbilical cord with-the-penknife andtied it with sail thread. I washed our boy and gave him to Ytta. As I knelt beside them, there seemed nothing we needed to say. I wonder if any couple have ever been as close as we were those moments, “I think we oughtto celebrate,” said Ken, maybe little shaken. We'd rationed cigarettes, but now we lighted up without regard for tomorrow and toasted Ytta and our bellowing new arrival. But fear kept nagging me. Ytta had not passed the afterbirth. And there was a good chance the baby would need blood transfusions because of the RH factor. I watched anxiously for Jim, but 24 hours = But how could we get Ytta and the baby to the village? It would ing back and waiting for better weather. Then I saw a stretch of relatively calm water. It would be gone in a moment, though. take tortuous days overland. “We'll use the skiff,” I finally decided. We “Here we go!” I shouted, and drove the skiff through the calm, as all looked at the jagged reefs, foamy Jim clambered aboard. In the brief white under the leaping surf. “Tomorrow at dawn, God willing.” instant the water was tranquil, we sailed into the safety of open sea. plane will pick them up. They won’t land in waters around here.” There was a good chance we passed and he hadn’t returned. I sensed that even Ytta was becom- would overturn or be swamped, so we placed the baby in an overnight ing concerned, but still she joked: bag which we could grab handily. “Rum Cay’ Smith. If we had to be shipwrecked, why couldn’t it have been on anisland with a musical name like Eleuthera?” That evening we heard shouts and from the dusk emerged Jim and @ village-native, Hugh Strong. Wepounded each other on the back in happiness over Ytta’s delivery, but I saw that Jim was worried. Ytta began passing the afterbirth, but welaid out a bed in the skiff for her, and that night the sea showed usits first mercy, abating somewhat. At dawn, we shoved off. “Wetried everything to get help,” he explained, “but there’s only one chance, Take Ytta and the baby to the village, where a sea rescue By STEPHEN B. SMITH A moment afterward, we heard the sea thundering against the jagged rocks. In two hours we were ap- proaching thevillage. The natives passed Rum Cay from hand to hand, chuckling joyously over him as if he were their own, and indeed he was. The village midwife admired his strong As weheaded forthereefs, I saw lungs and approved our work. Soon a giant breaker bearing down onus. We braced-and rode it out—but it the rescue plane landed and flew ¥tta and our son to Nassau. It took me three weeks to rejoin them. Ytta was fine, and’so was Rum Cay, although he had needed a total blood transfusion. Ytta became serious. “It’s time we found a proper name for him,” she. said, so we got out a dictionary and read out the names. When we heard “Stewart,” we looked at each other and intuitively knew that that swamped our large motor, and we had to substitute a less powerful one. Once again, soaked and apprehensive, we launched the skiff, counting the waves and hoping to make our eseaje between their crests. Ken swam behind us, pushing the skiff. I steered, and Jim watched for menacing reefs. The seas bounced our boat like flotsam, and I thought about turn- would be our baby’s proper name. Still, he will always be Rum Cay. to us. We will never forget that lonely island that took a life's work from us—but returned a far more precious treasure, our son. @ After washing our newborn son, I brought him back to my wife Ytta. Family Weekly, July 9, 1967 5 |