"I want to die," Cox suddenly announced.

"You talk like a crazy man," said Hillard. "Do you have a wife and family'?"

Cox nodded drunkenly. "A fine wife and six children."

"They will suffer miserably without their father. You cannot give up hope. Think of them waiting for you at home."

Cox did not answer. He seemed to have lost all desire to live.

Hillard did not realize it at the time, but his efforts at keeping Cox alive no doubt prolonged his own life as well. "Damn you, Cox," he snapped. "Do not let yourself die. Hang on for God and your family."

Cox appeared not to hear. He was beyond caring. The cotton bale slewed broadside in a trough before being struck by the next wave.

Millard somehow clutched the bale with hands numb of all feeling, fighting to hang on as the bale was pitched and tossed crazily.

His body limp with apathy and insensibility, Cox slipped off the bale and Hillard saw him no more.

Hillard's ordeal was very nearly an exact replay of the drama acted out on Captain Manchester's cotton bale.

Manchester's partner, McKenna, complained constantly about the bitter cold. Then as the icy water soaked his skin and the frigid air sucked the life from his body, he babbled about his wife and children, how he had kissed them the morning he left home.

"You'll be with them this time tomorrow," Manchester gamely assured him.

"No, I fully expect I'll die from the cold."

"Move about, man," Manchester implored, trying to encourage McKenna. "Get your blood flowing. Wave your arms, kick your legs, anything to keep warm."

"What good will it do?" mumbled McKenna. "We're both going to perish."

"Speak for yourself!" Manchester suddenly snapped. "I'll be damned if I'll give up."

Like Benjamin Cox on another cotton bale less than a mile away, McKenna appeared not to hear and went silent.

Manchester had heard many tales from ocean mariners about shipwrecked sailors who lost the will to survive. Discipline, they swore, was the key to survival. Too many mariners who were forced to abandon their ships expired out of lethargy and hopelessness. He could see it happening before his eyes. McKenna did not appear to care whether he lived or died. Staying alive to keep his wife and children from having to survive without a husband and father seemed the farthest thing from his mind.

Manchester could do nothing but watch helplessly as McKenna gave in to fate. He died shortly after the Lexington sank. His body fell backward, his head hanging partially in the water. The first heavy wave that struck the bale washed him off. For almost half an hour, he floated alongside Manchester, the moonlight reflecting on his white face and hands, before he finally drifted out of sight.