The book by Terry Laughlin (Total Immersion), is highly worth getting if you want to learn how to swim better. It mostly covers freestyle, and is all about improving your technique.
The best advice when swimming is to relax and "DON'T PANIC!". I see a lot of people gasping for air, like they're going to drown, when they swim. It's very funny.
You don't really need to swim to stay afloat, you can do that without moving any part of your body. It's a good idea to just play around a little bit in the water, and get comfortable. Dive down and do dolphin kicks. Let your body float up by itself and so on. Then get the book, and do the exercises in it. It breaks the stroke down quite effectively, so you can focus on different parts of it (such as balance or breathing), without having to worry about all of it at once. Freestyle swimming is a pretty complex movement, as you're using your whole body (arms, legs, stomach/back, head) at the same time, so it helps to break it up.
As for Mr. Ferris, it sounds like he was a lousy swimmer before, and a lousy swimmer can easily improve dramatically in 10 days with the right instructions, especially if he or she is fit to begin with.
Swimming is mostly technique. I've seen guys at the pool that look several times over more fit than I, but lack technique, so I can fly past them without effort. Which is fun.