Survival at sea

In the summer of 1943, when World War II was inextricably fought, Pang Lin, who was orphaned in the bombing of London, England, although he was not yet 16 years old, in order to avenge his parents and collect blood debts from fascist gangsters, he resolutely signed up to join the army and was sent to work as a sailor on an oil tanker. The oil tanker he was on carried important strategic materials - oil. Despite the bombing and strafing of German planes in the sky and the cruise tracking of German submarines underwater, the oil tanker still crossed the English Channel once a week and ventured back to oil.

One night, it was Pang Lin's turn to be on duty. He carried a long flashlight and looked around on the deck. Suddenly, with a "boom" sound, the tanker spasmed and immediately tilted. Then there was another "boom", and the middle of the tanker broke like a fragile tree trunk. It turned out that the underwater German submarine fired two large torpedoes in a row, which dealt a fatal blow to the tanker. The tanker happened to be empty and did not catch fire and explode, but due to the sudden rupture in the middle, a large amount of seawater poured in, the bow and stern of the ship cocked upwards, and soon sank into the dark ocean.

The speed was too fast to even be angry. Because Pang Lin was standing on the deck, he had time to prepare for diving before the tanker sank, so he was not dragged into the depths of the ocean by this "steel coffin". But more than 100 crew members were buried in the belly of the fish.

The huge whirlpool formed by the sinking ship made Pang Lin dizzy, and the long torch fell and made him sink. He paddled his limbs desperately, and finally counteracted the suction of the big whirlpool. When he made up his mind to throw away the long torch, the sea basically returned to calm, and something was drifting towards him not far away. He pedaled on the water, turned on the torch, and found that it was a simple raft for rescue on the tanker. Row to the raft. Lifeboats on tankers are generally better-equipped sampans, but because there was no time to manufacture them during the war, many tankers are equipped with such rafts. There was no pulp on the raft, no axe, only a square canvas, a small cable, and a small rubber pocket were found. But Pang Lin was already very happy, because he still had a sharp knife on his key ring, and a long flashlight that was almost thrown away, he already had five or six tools. As long as he doesn't encounter strong winds and waves, he still has hope of being rescued.

He lay on the raft, extremely tired, and finally fell asleep. When he woke up, he sat up from the raft, feeling sore, dry throat, and hungry. However, there was only bitter and salty sea water all around, and there was nothing to eat. Looking around, there were only jumping waves on the sea, and there was no shadow of half a boat.

He knew that it was unrealistic to wait for others to save him, and now he could only save himself. His father once took him fishing and told him that Robinson had been fishing for a while on a desert island. He was surrounded by water, and it seemed that he could only make a living by fishing. But how can you fish without fishing? Pang Lin remembered again that when his father took him fishing, he used a needle. There was a fishing line tied in the middle of the needle. The needle was wearing a pork liver strip. The turtle swallowed the pork liver strip vertically. As soon as he pulled the fishing line, the needle was in the turtle. The body came across, and the stupid turtle was caught. He took out a knife, cut a piece of wood from the raft, and cut it into a small pencil-like stick, and a pair of fishing gear was made. Of course, his fishing line was rough, and it was connected piece by piece with broken cables. But it was strong enough to handle a large fish of about 10 kilograms.

The fishing gear was made, but there was no bait. In the vast sea, not even a fly could be found. Pang Lin was so frustrated that he had to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night, he suddenly heard the sound of slapping, and when he opened his eyes, it turned out that there were groups of flying fish swimming around, the ocean under the moon was shining, and the flying fish flew into the air from time to time, always swaying towards the water. The moon shadow fell. Inspired, Pang Lin immediately took out a long flashlight, flashing it on and off.

After a while, a few flying fish bumped into his raft without thinking. He was in a hurry and almost threw the flashlight into the sea. The first batch of flying fish was not caught, so he decided to improve the method and tied the flashlight to the raft, so that he could free up his hands to catch fish at any time. This method is really clever. When the second batch of flying fish fell on the raft one after another, he swooped on it and caught a flying fish that weighed almost a catty.

He was happy and nervous, afraid that the fish he had obtained would run away again, so he held his hands tightly and stopped caring about other fish. In an instant, he felt a hunger of cobalt heart, aimed at the back of the flying fish, and took a hard bite. The fish was struggling between his teeth, and a umami smell enhanced his appetite even more. He pulled hard, tore off a large piece of raw fish, and swallowed it almost without chewing. Then, he ate it one bite after another. When he was about to finish a fish, he realized that the east had turned white.

The surrounding schools of flying fish have disappeared without a trace. He hurriedly put the remaining small section of flying fish into a rubber bag, trying not to look at it, lest he couldn't help but eat it all. He started to cut the flying fish into slender sections, put a section on the wooden hook first, put it on the trend to let the sea breeze dry it, and fell asleep again.

Soon he woke up and started fishing with this piece of "wood". The sun rose high again, making him hot and thirsty. He wanted to eat the remaining pieces of flying fish.

But in order to survive, he held back. An hour passed. Suddenly, he felt the cable in his hand pull for a while, and a fish was hooked! He pulled hard, the stick came across and stuck the fish's mouth, and a five-catty fish jumped up and down in an attempt to escape. Pang Lin was not in a hurry to pull it up. When it struggled to the point where it had no strength, he slowly pulled it closer to the raft, followed his father's example, put his thumb into the fish's mouth, his index finger on the fish's gills, and took advantage of the trend. The big fish was caught on the raft. He was so thirsty that he didn't care about catching the second fish, so he cut open the spine of the big fish with a knife, bit one end, and sucked in the milk-like liquid. In an instant, he felt as if he had found the source of life and was full of strength.

The second fish, the third fish... In the evening of that day, he actually caught 11 big fish with wood! He sucked all the liquid in the hollow spine, then cut the fish open, cut it into thin slices, and ate it. Some, most of them are air-dried for later use.

That night, although he fell asleep with a fishy smell, he had enough to eat and drink, and had the confidence to live. Before going to bed, he vowed that as long as he could go back alive, he would return to the fighting ranks to avenge his dead parents, crew and all innocent people.

Fishing is not smooth every day. Sometimes he can't catch a single fish for several days. Fortunately, he has those dried fish in reserve, so he doesn't go hungry. So he paid more attention to the accumulation of fish he caught. He also made a long rope out of the skin of the big fish, which was long, strong and elastic, and then he made the largest wooden hook, which was as thick as three fingers. It was not easy to sharpen both ends. It took him a whole day.

In the evening, it rained for the first time on the sea. He opened his mouth wide to the sky and filled a mouthful of fresh water, but he immediately realized that this method was not clever. Why not use his own "equipment"? He immediately took out the rubber bag, and spread the canvas out on his knees; let it be concave in the middle to form a basin, so that the canvas quickly filled with rainwater. He poured the precious rainwater into the rubber bag and screwed in all the water on his clothes. When the rubber bag was full of rainwater, he lay down in confidence, opening his mouth wide to pick up the slightly sweet rainwater.

With sufficient fresh water, he believes that his sea drifting has great hope of being rescued. Now, his only regret is that he does not have books, otherwise, he still has a lot of time to study.

The new gear, made of skin ropes and thick wooden sticks, allowed him to catch bigger fish, but it also nearly killed him, one morning. He first caught a few fish about two catties with small fishing gear, cut a hole in the belly of one fish with a knife, and stuffed a large wooden hook into it. Not long after throwing the big bait into the sea, he felt a tyrannical force pulling him hard and almost dragging him into the sea. This fish is big enough! He sat down firmly, wrapped one end of the leather rope tightly around a rung of the raft, and thought to himself: Drag it if you have the strength, and when you are exhausted, I will drag you again! But, after a while, he panicked: the dorsal fins of sharks suddenly appeared on the surrounding sea, rowing around in the water like steel knives. Could the hooked one be a shark too? Nervous, he drew his knife, ready to cut the rope as soon as necessary.

At this time, the speed of the fish dragging the raft was getting faster and faster, and soon it was as fast as a full-powered motorboat. Pang Lin looked ahead nervously, and suddenly, he found a pair of gloomy eyes staring at him. It was a shark nearly three meters long. It couldn't bite off the tough and hard leather rope, or the leather rope was just embedded between its teeth, making it very angry, but it didn't want to spit out the fish in its mouth. Seeing that he couldn't pull off the leather rope, he began to snorkel into the deep sea.

This trick is terrifying! The raft quickly tilted into the sea and sank. If the leather rope is not cut in time, he will be torn to the bone by the sharks around him!

The water soon reached his knees and waist, but the leather rope kept cutting! Fortunately, the dried fish he had accumulated and the fish he had just caught were scattered in the sea, diverting the attention of the sharks around him, otherwise, the consequences would be unimaginable.

The sea was about to drown his neck. He kept cutting back and forth with the blade, and finally, like a tug-of-war, the other party suddenly loosened the rope, and both he and the raft floated up from under the sea. The leash broke, and he saw the shark jump up triumphantly from the sea. Swallowed the leash in the blink of an eye.

He was very worried that the sharks would come and overturn the raft. He heard that this happened often at sea. Fortunately, the sharks were probably not very hungry, and finally frolicked and swam far away.

With this experience, Pang Lin no longer dared to catch particularly large fish. Whenever he fell asleep, it was necessary to tie himself to the raft. One day, when he fell asleep, there was a storm at sea and the raft was overturned, but he immediately swam onto the raft to avoid being swallowed by the sea. The rubber bag, canvas, and fishing gear he made were all tied to the raft, so they were never lost. The flashlight soon died because the battery ran out, but Pang Lin kept it carefully as a good hammer, and later played a big role in repairing the raft.

As Panglin drifted off the coast of Brazil, he encountered a small fishing boat. A fisherman rescued him. When I asked, I realized that 133 days had passed since the day the tanker was sunk.