THE LONG SWIM

The idea used by Herbert Clyde Lewis in Gentleman Overboard (1937) is here put to serious and not satiric use, as this story records a man's efforts to survive, his first and possibly his last thoughts. A soldier in Italy takes off with confidence for a seven mile swim to an island (for no apparently good reason) and alternates between assurance and apprehension. He thinks spasmodically of incidents in his childhood, more recently of the war, and as the day passes, he realizes that time is running out. Here is the conception of heroism- modified by petty irritations, panic, offset by reason. Fatigue becomes an anesthesia, all through a long night, and the next day, when he reaches an island and rescue....Within its limits, well-done, but the market is conjectural.