"Hold them close together, and steer with
them." A few minutes later I came charging in on a comber. As I
neared the beach, there, in the water, up to her waist, dead in
front of me, appeared a woman. How was I to stop that comber on
whose back I was? It looked like a dead woman. The board weighed
seventy-five pounds, I weighed a hundred and sixty-five. The added
weight had a velocity of fifteen miles per hour. The board and I
constituted a projectile. I leave it to the physicists to figure
out the force of the impact upon that poor, tender woman. And then
I remembered my guardian angel, Ford. "Steer with your legs!" rang
through my brain. I steered with my legs, I steered sharply,
abruptly, with all my legs and with all my might. The board sheered
around broadside on the crest. Many things happened simultaneously.
The wave gave me a passing buffet, a light tap as the taps of waves
go, but a tap sufficient to knock me off the board and smash me down
through the rushing water to bottom, with which I came in violent
collision and upon which I was rolled over and over. I got my head
out for a breath of air and then gained my feet. There stood the
woman before me. I felt like a hero. I had saved her life.
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