Get out, get out, get out! a soundless voice was screaming in his ear.
He climbed over a pile of equipment boxes and headed forward through the center aisle, trying not to look at the wounded men, their bandages all red with new bleeding, some moaning, some crying, bandaged hands reaching for him as he went forward.
There were three bloodied nurses piled up in front of the cockpit door, which itself was riddled with bullet holes. Two of the nurses were either unconscious or dead, but one was trying to extricate herself. He reached her and pulled her to her feet, very much aware that the water here reached his knees. The main hatch was on the left side, back by where he had been sitting. He started pulling her toward the back of the aircraft, but she resisted.
“The wounded,” she mumbled. “We have to get them out.”
He looked down at her. Brunette. Plain, round face; terrified brown eyes. Bloody uniform, hands, and wrists.
“How?” he asked. “They can’t swim, they can’t even float.”
“You’ve got a life jacket—where are the rest of the life jackets?” she said. “I’ll start unstrapping.”
“We have to open the hatch before the plane sinks any deeper,” he said. “Otherwise the water pressure will seal it.”
“You open that hatch, we’ll flood,” she said, and then she realized that it was hopeless. She was looking past him, back into the cabin, at the tiers of litters, stacked like the remains in a catacomb. The lowest tier was already awash. They were the most seriously wounded, and many were already unconscious. Mercifully, Mick thought.
He could see that she understood. Moving the wounded was impossible. Open the hatch, the plane would flood and sink rapidly. Leave it closed and they’d go down with it. At the rate the water was already coming in, there was absolutely nothing that could be done for the wounded. They were aboard the plane because they were so badly hurt they couldn’t even move. Now they were all going to die.
“Are they alive?” he asked her, pointing at the two inert nurses.
“I don’t think so,” she said in a small voice, her fingers brushing all the holes in the cockpit door. “There were so many bullets.”
Behind them there was a crash and a yell of pain as one of the Marines, who had managed to unstrap himself and his litter, fell to the floor, where he floundered faceup in foot-deep water. Other wounded men were shouting now to let them out, while still others, the ones who knew what was going to happen, just sobbed or cried for their mothers. The air was getting unbreathable as the plane settled into the sea, its heavy engines beginning to drag the nose down.
Mick sighed and took her by the arm, and together they sloshed back along the aisle, stepping over the man on the floor, who was now quiet, no longer struggling, his wide-eyed face already under half a foot of water. When they got to the hatch, Mick pulled the operating handle to the open position. It didn’t move. He grabbed a stanchion on either side of the hatch, swung both legs up against it, and pushed hard. His swollen right hand came back to life with a lance of pain that nearly made him faint, but the hatch handle moved a few degrees, and then a few more. A small wall of seawater flooded in, and as it did, the angle of the floor deepened toward the nose. He shoved the hatch up.
“Get out, now!” he shouted at the nurse, who seemed unable to function. She was still looking back at all the wounded strapped to what was going to become their coffin, her hands at her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. He would have pushed her into the gap at the bottom of the hatch, but it was taking everything he had just to keep that gap open. The structure of the plane gave off a low groan as the fuselage was subjected to reverse stresses, and then the plane began an ominous roll to the right. Even so, the water was streaming in now, much of it flowing aft from the cockpit door. A porthole on the right side burst, and the plane began to really fill. The roll to the right exposed the bottom of the hatch for a moment, and Mick, who’d been pushing on it to hold it open, felt himself falling into the opening as the hatch popped up. The river of water coming in threatened to sweep him back into the cabin, so he let go, grabbing the nurse by one ankle and pulling her out of the airplane as they went into the sea.
When they surfaced, the left wing was rising into the air above them, its engine spewing steam and oil beneath the badly bent propeller blades. The nurse was floundering right in front of him and crying hysterically. He grabbed the front of her shirt with his good left hand and started a half-ass backstroke to get away from the plane and the growing slick of high-octane aviation gasoline on the water. For some reason they were drifting forward along the hull of the transport. Mick felt something, a rumble of some sort, and looked up. The left wing was dropping back into the sea. He kicked hard, still dragging her with him, as the huge sheet of aluminum slapped the sea ten feet away, stinging his eyes with a flat, hard sheet of spray.
Right wing broke off, he thought. Momentarily exhausted, he stopped swimming and took stock of his passenger. She had fainted and was now a dead weight on him and the sole kapok. He treaded water for a few minutes and looked around. The blue Pacific stretched to the horizon in every direction. He thought he could see the tops of the Kavo Range back to the northeast, but he couldn’t be sure. Had the pilots managed to get out a Mayday?
He focused back on the plane, which appeared to have reached some state of equilibrium in the sea, albeit with just the very top-line of the fuselage and the tail fin showing. The only sounds came from the portside engine, which was making clicking sounds as it cooled in the ocean. The top of the main hatch was barely visible. There was no more screaming inside the cabin.
We need a raft, he thought. He’d seen what looked like inflatables lashed to the bulkhead right by the main hatch. Would the damned thing float long enough for him to get back inside and snatch a raft?
He shook the nurse, then yelled at her. Her eyes fluttered open and then widened in shock. “Wha-a-a…?” she exclaimed.
“Tread water,” he ordered, letting go of her as he began to untie his kapok. She went under immediately but then popped back up, spluttering.
“Take this jacket,” he said. “I’m going back inside, see if I can get a raft.”
She just stared at him blankly until he got the last string off and then dropped the already sodden life jacket into her arms. She failed to grab it, and a small wave began to take it away. He swore, retrieved the kapok, spun her around in the water, and manhandled her arms through the holes. He tied a single chest string and then let her float. She was sobbing again, her small fists pressing against her eyes.
The plane was now more than fifty feet away, barely visible except for the vertical stabilizer. He wondered why it didn’t sink but prayed for another five minutes as he set out for that hatch.
By the time he got alongside, the top of the hatch was underwater and the top-line radio aerial was level with his face. He saw a large wrinkle developing in the skin just above the hatch as the left wing flexed in the underlying swells. He took one deep breath and then went under the partially opened hatch and into the cabin. There was some ambient light, but not much. Everything was illuminated in seawater green. There were hundreds of white shapes suspended in the interior, which he realized were probably bandages. Hanging onto the hatch coaming with his left hand, he grasped around in the darkness where he thought he’d seen the rubber bundles. He made sure not to look forward into the main cabin. He couldn’t find the rafts, and now he needed air.
If she’s floating, he thought, there has to be an air pocket. He took a big chance and went all the way into the cabin and let himself float up to the ceiling, where there was indeed an air pocket. It was foul and extremely wet air, but it beat breathing water. He took a couple of breaths and went back down into the murk around the open hatch, which was now just a greenish square of light against the gathering darkness. This time he found one of the rafts. He tugged on it, but it was lashed down and he couldn’t find the release snaps. He was again running out of air. He began to panic as he h
eard structural breakup noises crackling in the water around him. He went up, got more air, and went back down twice more but could not find a way to release one of the rafts from the bulkhead.
On the third try his left hand found a D-ring. From his training days at Pensacola, he knew that D-rings were actuators.
Screw it, he thought and pulled hard. The raft began inflating in a noisy rumble of CO2. He grabbed one end of the raft, now beginning to bulge like a loaf of rubber bread, and pulled himself over to the hatch coaming. If this works, the pressure of inflation ought to break the straps, he thought. If it takes too long, the raft will inflate and be stuck inside the plane.
He pulled some more, trying to position the writhing bundle of rubber in the hatchway, but then he was out of air. He let go, went out the hatch, and lifted to the surface, accompanied a moment later by two loud bangs and then the entire fifteen-man life raft. By the time he got himself alongside the raft and his left arm through one of the straps, the plane’s tail had disappeared. There was no dramatic underwater convulsion. One moment she was there, the next she was gone, gliding like a razor blade into the depths with her cargo of the very unlucky.
He hung alongside the raft for a few minutes, getting his breath, and then rolled over the side into the raft. Then he sat up and looked around for the nurse.
He couldn’t find her.
He got up on his knees, trying to get his sight line a little higher, and yelled out over the empty waves. Even if she’d passed out again she’d be floating, he thought. I know I got that one strap tied on her. He stretched to see better and kept shouting. He tried to stand up, but the raft was too unstable. After ten minutes, he quit. She was simply gone. The seas were maybe one to two feet, but he could see at least a few hundred yards in every direction.
Nothing.
He sat back down on the rubber bottom of the boat and examined his throbbing right hand. It was no bigger, but it looked darker, as if there were blood pooling under the skin. He heard something in the water and looked up. A large dark gray fin was cutting through the water nearby. He remembered her bleeding hands. That might explain where she went, he thought, suddenly very glad for the raft.
The seas remained relatively calm, and the morning was not yet half over. Take the rest of the day off, Lieutenant Jonah, he told himself. He tried not to think of all those wounded guys, strapped down tight in their litters as the plane filled with water. He felt really bad about not having saved any of them, but on the other hand, what could he have done? Pushed their broken and bleeding bodies into the water so they could drown sooner?
Still.
He heard what sounded like an airplane engine and rolled over. He scanned the bright sky but couldn’t find it.
Japs? Coming back to machine-gun survivors? He’d heard all the stories.
The sky appeared to be clear, but then he saw there was a light haze at about five thousand feet. The plane seemed to be executing a square search, but there was no point in waving or doing anything else. If he couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see him, either. After a few minutes the plane droned off to the northwest, back toward Guadalcanal.
Mick got back up on his knees and took another look around for the missing nurse but still saw nothing except a few more shark fins in the distance. He rousted out the raft’s supplies bag, in which he found C-rations, water, and cigarettes. He drank one can of water but, after the horrifying scene inside the plane left the food alone. He ignored the two short-handled paddles strapped into the gunwales; he was too tired to start paddling. First he’d see which way the raft seemed to be drifting. There were some inflatable life jackets in another bag. He put one on but left it deflated. The jacket had a battery-operated light, which might come in handy if they came out later in PT boats or perhaps even sent a destroyer. He knew that rescuers would be out if, and only if, the pilots had had time to get a Mayday out when the Zeros jumped them. If not, nothing would happen until the aeromedical flight failed to arrive in Espiritu Santo. By then he would have done some serious drifting. He set up one of the sun flaps, lay down against the rubbery side of the raft, and dozed.
He awoke at sunset. The evening sky was red and orange, with enormous cumulonimbus towers building across the western skies. He scanned the horizon to see if he could make out any aspects of land but now saw nothing, not even the high ridges on Guadalcanal. The seas were still pretty calm. His face felt sunburned from the reflected light, but otherwise, with the exception of his throbbing right hand, he was none the worse for wear. The raft was equipped to sustain fifteen survivors for a week, so as long it stayed afloat and he stayed in it, and no Jap planes saw him, he would probably survive. He found one of the keeper lanyards, snapped it to his life vest, and then restowed the supplies pouch. He also found the flare gun and six rounds of flare projectiles. He made sure he knew where the bailing bucket was. If the weather on Guadalcanal had been any example, sea conditions could change rapidly out here. He still wasn’t hungry but forced himself to eat part of a C-ration and drink one more can of water. He remembered he still had one more pill. He fished around in his trouser pockets and produced one badly crumbled tablet. He took it anyway and went back to dozing.
He was awakened by a rainsquall around midnight. There was no thunder and lightning, just a sudden cold downpour that seemed to flatten the seas. He lay back, opened his mouth, and used the rain to rinse away the taste of the pill. With his head flat on the rubber bottom of the boat, he thought he heard, or more likely felt, a deep vibration in the water.
He sat back up. It was a starless night with the tail end of that rainsquall drifting overhead, but now he could definitely hear the rumble of one or more big diesels. PT boats? The engines sounded too big for that. A Jap destroyer? He shivered in the dark at the thought. He couldn’t remember if destroyers were diesel or steam, but he thought they ran on steam turbines. He cupped an ear and then turned in the raft to locate the sound, but it seemed to surround him. Whatever it was, it was coming nearer by the minute. Finally he thought he could pinpoint the direction. He wasn’t too worried about a collision—the rubber raft would bounce off the hull of a ship unless it was a direct, cut-it-in-half hit.
Should I signal? That was the question. What if it’s a Jap? He was pretty sure that he was roughly south and east of Guadalcanal. The Japs were based north of the island, so there was no reason for one of their warships to be this far south. That’s what the guys at Pearl Harbor had thought, too, he remembered.
The rumble grew louder, but he still couldn’t see anything in the rain-washed darkness. Then he could. A black bow emerged out of the darkness, low down on the water, pushing a gray-white bow wave ahead of it. He could see a line of holes along the near side and then what looked like a deck gun topside.
A submarine, running dark on the surface—but whose? He had only seconds to decide.
He reached down to his life vest and switched on the one-battery white light. It almost blinded him in the darkness, so he felt rather than saw the bulk of the sub slide by. Just for the hell of it, he yelled out, “Hey, rube!”
A moment later the raft wobbled in the water as the sub’s wake pushed it away. He felt the spray from the engine exhausts blowing in his face and smelled diesel oil. Then the engines slowed down. Had they heard him?
He broke out a paddle and used it to turn the raft so that he faced the direction of the engine noise. The sub was running totally dark, so he could only listen, but he kept the light on. It had a single battery that wouldn’t last long, but in the almost absolute darkness it shone like a lighthouse.
The engine noises seemed to die away in the distance. He quit paddling and sat back on his haunches, not knowing what if anything would happen next. He thought about turning off the light to save the battery, but if they did turn around, that would be the only way they’d find him. Maybe he should fire a flare.
Ten minutes later he was startled when something big nudged the raft sideways from behind him, and when he loo
ked up, there was the submarine’s bow, right overhead. There were figures out on deck, shining red flashlights down on him.
“Douse that white light,” someone called. Mick switched it off.
A rope ladder came whistling out of the dark and thumped into the life raft. Mick didn’t hesitate. He pulled the ladder taut and scrambled up the slippery wet rungs until two strong hands pulled him on deck.
“Who are you?” a voice asked.
Mick identified himself.
“Pilot?”
“Yeah, Navy, but I was a passenger this time.” He told them what had happened. He heard a ripping noise alongside, and then the rope ladder was being pulled back aboard. He heard air escaping from the raft as it began to sink, and then arms were leading him to a hatch in the foredeck. He climbed one-handed down a really steep ladder, with one sailor below and another above. The hatchway and the entire interior of the submarine were also red-lighted. His ears popped when they shut the big round hatch at the top of the ladder.
An hour later he was sitting in the tiny wardroom with the executive officer. The submarine had submerged; the captain was concerned that another ship or sub might have seen Mick’s white light. Mick’s wet flight suit had been exchanged for someone’s spare khakis, and he was busy giving a debrief about his last twenty-four hours. The exec, a weary-looking lieutenant commander, just shook his head when he heard about the wounded on the evacuation flight. He looked at Mick’s guilty expression.
“You were not responsible for that,” he said. “Goddamned Japs did that. The plane was marked, right? Red crosses?”
“I think so,” Mick said. “It was still pretty dark when we took off. I never looked.”
“Bastards worship death,” the exec said. “We pulled a survivor out of the water, after we sank one of their tin cans? He was unconscious, bobbing around in a life jacket. When he came to, on deck? Found our doc working on him? He bit the doc’s hand and then rolled right back over the side. Now we don’t bother.”
Pacific Glory Page 10
