We were all swimming, and the tide was carrying us along towards the boat, that seemed to be getting farther away instead of nearer to my dimming eyes.
Then in my rapid splashing I struck up the water, and grew confused; and feeling all at once that I was regularly exhausted, I turned over on my back to float.
It was an unlucky movement, for I did it hastily and with the consequence that my head went under.

I inhaled a quantity of the stinging briny salt water, and raising my head as I choked and sputtered, I turned back again, struck out two or three times, and then began to beat the surface frantically like a dog which has been thrown into the water for the first time.
I can remember no more of what occurred during the next few minutes, only that I was staring up at the sky through dazzling water-drops; then that all was dark, and then light again, and not light as it was before.
Then it was once more dark, and then I was sitting in a boat half blind, shivering, and helpless, with the boat rocking about tremendously, and Bob Chowne over the side holding on to the gunwale with one hand, to my wrist with the other.
It all seemed very wild and strange; but my senses were coming back fast, and in an indistinct manner I saw someone swimming and plashing the water about twenty yards from the boat.

It was a man in a blue woollen shirt, and his head was bald and shining in the sun, as I saw it for a moment, and then, whoever it was, reared himself high as he could in the water, and then struck off and swam away from us out to sea.
He did not go far, but stopped suddenly and shouted to us; and as he did so, I saw a gleam of something white, and then that he was holding someone's face above water.
Devon Boys--by George Manville Fenn.