Varitek’s and Modahl’s corpses lay in the walkway in the center compartment. I had to walk gingerly to get around. Just seeing them hit me hard. The way it looked, this plane was going to be their coffin. Somehow that seemed appropriate. I had hopes the rest of us could do better, though I was pretty worried.
When I got back to the cockpit I stood behind Amme and Pottinger, who were doing as good a job of wrestling this flying pig southward as I had. Still, they wanted me to take over, so I climbed back in the right seat. Amme suggested the left, but I was used to using the prop and throttle controls with my left hand and the stick with my right, so figured I would be most comfortable with that arrangement.
Someone opened a box or two of C rations, and we ate ravenously. With two guys dead, you think we’d have lost our appetites, but no.
AMME:
We were in a heap of hurt. We were in a shot-up, crippled, hunk-of-junk airplane in the middle of the South Pacific, the most miserable real estate on the planet, and our pilot had never landed a seaplane in his life. Jesus! The other guys pretended that things were going to work out, but I had done the fuel figures, and I knew. We weren’t going to make it, even if this ensign was God’s other son.
I tried to tell the ensign and Pottinger; those two didn’t seem too worried. Officers! They must get a lobotomy with their commission.
Lieutenant Modahl was the very worst. God-damned idiot. The fucking guy thought he was bulletproof and lived it that way … until the Japs got him. Crazy or brave, dead is dead.
The truth is we were all going to end up dead, even me, and I wasn’t brave or crazy.
POTTINGER:
The crackers in the C rations nauseated me. The only gleam of hope in this whole mess was the right engine, which ran like a champ. Not enough gas, this little redheaded fool ensign for a pilot, a damaged hull …
Funny how a man’s life can lead to a mess like this. Just two years ago I was studying Italian art at Yale …
Searchlights! The Japs rigged up searchlights to kill Black Cats. They probably nailed Snyder with them, and miracle of miracles, here came another victim. Those Americans!
Modahl. A braver man never wore shoe leather. I tried not to look at his face as we laid him out in back and covered him with his flight jacket.
In a few hours or days we’d all be as dead as Modahl and Varitek. I knew that, and yet, my mind refused to accept the reality. Wasn’t that odd?
Or was it merely human?
“We’re going to have to ditch somewhere,” I told everyone on the intercom. “Everyone put on a life vest now. Break out the emergency supplies and the raft, get everything ready so when we go in the water we can get it out of the plane ASAP.”
They knew what to do, they just needed someone to tell them to do it. I could handle that. After Amme got his vest on, I put on mine and hooked up the straps.
I had Pottinger bring the chart. I wanted a sheltered stretch of water to put the plane in beside an island we could survive on. And the farther from the Japs the better.
One of the Trobriand Islands. Which one would depend upon our fuel.
We were flying at about a thousand feet. Without the altimeter all I could do was look at the swells and guess. The higher we climbed, the more we could see, but if a Japanese fighter found us, our best defense was to fly just above the water to prevent him from completing firing passes.
I looked at the sun. Another two hours, I decided, then we would climb so we could see the Trobriand Islands from as far away as possible.
As we flew along I found myself thinking about Oklahoma when I was a kid, when my dad and sister and I were still living together. I couldn’t remember what my mother looked like; she died when I was very young. I remembered my sister’s face, though. Maybe she resembled Mama.
* * *
The island first appeared as a shadow on the horizon, just a darkening of that junction of sea and sky. I turned the plane ten degrees right to hit it dead on.
The minutes ticked away as I stared at it, wondering. Finally I checked my watch. Five hours. We had attacked the harbor five hours earlier.
Ten minutes later I could definitely see that it was an island, a low green thing, little rise on the spine, which meant it wasn’t coral.
Pottinger was in the left seat at that time, so I pointed it out to him. He merely stared, didn’t say anything. About that time Dutch Amme came down from the flight engineer’s station and announced that the temps were rising on the starboard engine.
“And we’re running out of gas. An hour more, at the most.”
I pointed out the island to him, and he had to grab the back of the seat to keep from falling.
In less than a minute we had everyone trooping up to the cockpit to take a look. Finally, I ran them all back to their stations.
That island looked like the promised land.
POTTINGER:
A miracle, that was what it was. We were delivered. We were going to make it, going to live. Going to have some tomorrows.
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. The island was there, yet it was so far away. We would reach it, land in the lee, swim ashore …
Please God, let us live. Let me and these others live to marry and have children and contribute something to the world.
Hear me. Let us do this.
HOFFMAN:
I was so happy I couldn’t stand still. I wanted to pound everyone on the back. Sure, I had been fighting despair, telling myself we weren’t going to die when I really figured we might. The hull was a sieve — when the ensign set the Witch in the water we were going to have to get out as it sank. I knew that, everyone did. And still, now we had a chance.
“Fighter!”
One of the guys in the blisters saw it first and called it.
“A float fighter.”
I rolled the trim over a bit, got us drifting downward toward the water. The elevator control cables had been damaged in the bomb blast. The trim wheel was the only reason we were still alive.
“He hasn’t seen us yet. Still high, crossing from starboard to port behind us, heading nearly east it looks like.”
After a bit, “Okay, he’s three miles or so out to the east, going away. Never saw us.”
The Japanese put some of their Zeros on floats, which made a lot of sense since the Zero had such great range. The float fighters could be operated out of bays and lagoons where airfields didn’t exist and do a nice job of patrolling vast expanses of ocean. The performance penalty they paid to carry the floats was too great to allow them to go toe-to-toe with land or carrier-based fighters. They could slice and dice a Catalina, though.
“Shit, it’s coming back.”
I kept the Cat descending. We were a couple hundred feet above the water, far too high. I wanted us right on the wavetops.
“He’s coming in from the port stern quarter, curving, coming down, about a half mile …”
I could hear someone sobbing on the intercom.
“I don’t know who’s making that goddamn noise,” I said, “but it had better stop.”
We were about a hundred feet high, I thought, when the float fighter opened fire. I saw his shells hit the water in front of us and heard the fifty in the port blister open up with a short burst. And another, then a long rolling blast as the plane shuddered from the impact of cannon shells.
The fighter pulled out straight ahead, so he went over us and out to my right. He flew straight until he was well out of range of our gun in the starboard blister, then initiated a gentle turn to come around behind.
“Anybody hurt?” I asked.
“He ripped the port wing, which is empty,” Dutch Amme said.
“Good shooting, since he had to break off early.”
I was down on the water by then, very carefully working the trim. I didn’t have much altitude control remaining — if we hit the water at speed our problems would be permanently over.
I thought about turning into this guy when he committed hims
elf to one side or the other. The island dead ahead had me paralyzed though. There it was, a strip of green between sea and sky. Instinctively, I knew that it was our only hope, and I didn’t want to waste a drop of gas in my haste to get there.
Perhaps I could skid the plane a little to try to throw off the Zero pilot’s aim. I fed in some rudder, twisted the yoke to hold it level.
And the lousy crate began sinking. We bounced once on a swell and that damn near did it for us right there. We lost some speed and hung right on the ragged edge of a stall. Long seconds crept by before we accelerated enough for me to exhale. By then I had the rudder where it belonged, but it was a close thing. At least the plane didn’t come apart when it kissed the swell.
Pottinger was hanging on for dear life. “Don’t kill us,” he pleaded.
On the next pass the Zero tried to score on the starboard engine, the only one keeping us aloft. I could feel the shells slamming into us, tearing at the area just behind the cockpit. Instinctively I ducked my head, trying to make myself as small as possible.
I could hear one of the waist fifties pounding.
“Are you gunners going to shoot this guy or let him fuck us?”
With us against the water, the Zero couldn’t press home his attacks, but he was hammering us good before he had to break off.
“He holed the right tank,” Amme shouted. “We’re losing fuel.”
Oh, baby!
“He’s streaming fuel or something,” Hoffman screamed. “You guys hit him that last pass.”
They all started talking at once. I couldn’t shut them up.
“If he’s crippled, the next pass will be right on the water, from dead astern,” I told Pottinger. “He’ll pour it to us.”
“Naw. He’ll head for home.”
“Like hell. He’ll kill us or die trying. That’s what I’d do if I were him.”
Sure enough, the enemy fighter came in low so he could press the attack and break off without hitting the ocean. He was directly behind, dead astern, so both the blister gunners cut loose with their fifties. Short bursts, then longer as he closed the distance.
Someone was screaming on the intercom, shouting curses at the Jap, when the intercom went dead.
I could feel the cannon shells punching home — the cannons in Zeros had low cyclic rates; I swear every round this guy fired hit us. One fifty abruptly stopped firing. The other finished with a long buzz saw burst, then the Zero swept overhead so close I could hear the roar of his engine. At that point it was running better than ours, which was missing badly.
I glanced up in time to see that the enemy fighter was trailing fire. He went into a slight left turn and gently descended until he hit the ocean about a mile from us. Just a little splash, then he was gone.
Our right engine still ran, though fuel was pouring out of the wing. As if we had any to spare.
The island lay dead ahead, but oh, too far, too far.
Now the engine began missing.
We’d never make it. Never.
Coughing, sputtering, the engine wasn’t developing enough power to hold us up.
I shouted at Pottinger to hang on, but he had already let go of the controls and braced himself against the instrument panel. As I rolled the trim nose up, I gently retarded the throttle.
Just before we kissed the first swell the engine quit dead. We skipped once, I rolled the trim all the way back, pulled the yoke back even though the damn cables were severed, and the Sea Witch pancaked. She must have stopped dead in about ten feet. I kept traveling forward until my head hit the instrument panel, then I went out.
POTTINGER:
The ensign wasn’t strapped in. In all the excitement he must have forgotten. The panel made a hell of a gash in his forehead, so he was out cold and bleeding profusely.
The airplane was settling fast. I opened the cockpit hatch and pulled him out of his seat. I couldn’t have gotten him up through the hatch if Hoffman hadn’t come up to the cockpit. The ensign weighed about 120, which was plenty, let me tell you. It was all Hoffman and I could do to get him through the hatch, then we hoisted ourselves through.
The top of the fuselage was just above water. It was a miracle that the Jap float fighter didn’t set us on fire, and he probably would have if we had been carrying more fuel.
“What about the others?” I asked Hoffman.
“Huntington is dead. The Zero got him. So is Amme. I don’t know about Tucker or Svenson.”
We were about to step off the bow to stay away from the props when a wave swept us into the sea. I popped the cartridges to inflate my vest, then struggled with the ensign’s. I also had to tighten the straps of his vest, then attend to mine — no one ever put those things on tightly enough. I was struggling to do all this and keep our heads above water when I felt something hit my foot.
The ensign was still bleeding, and these waters were full of sharks. A wave of panic swept over me, then my foot hit it again. Something solid. I put my foot down.
The bottom. I was standing on the bottom with just my nose out of the water.
“Hoffman! Stand up!”
We were inside the reef. A miracle. Delivered by a miracle. The ensign had gotten us just close enough.
The Sea Witch refused to go under, of course, because she was resting on the bottom. Her black starboard wingtip and vertical stabilizer both protruded prominently from the water.
When we realized the situation, Hoffman worked his way aft and checked on the others. He found three bodies.
We had to get ashore, so we set out across the lagoon toward the beach, walking on the bottom and pulling the ensign, who floated in his inflated life vest.
“He took a hell of a lick,” I told Hoffman.
“Maybe he’ll wake up,” Hoffman said, leaving unspoken the other half of it, that maybe he wouldn’t.
HOFFMAN:
The only thing that kept me sane was taking care of the ensign as we struggled over the reef.
Maybe he was already dead, or dying. I didn’t know. I tried not to think about it. Just keep his head up.
Oh, man. I couldn’t believe they were all dead — Lieutenant Modahl, Chief Amme, Swede Svenson, Tucker, Huntington, Varitek. I tried not to think about it and could think of nothing else. All those guys dead!
We were next. The three of us. There we were, castaways on a jungle island in the middle of the ocean and not another soul on earth knew. How long could a guy stay alive? We’d be ant food before anyone ever found us. If they did.
Of course, if the Japs found us before the Americans, we wouldn’t have to worry about survival.
POTTINGER:
Fighting the currents and swells washing over that uneven reef and through the lagoon while dragging the ensign was the toughest thing I ever had to do. The floor of the lagoon was uneven, with holes in it, and sometimes Hoffman and I went under and fought like hell to keep from drowning.
We must have struggled for an hour before we got to knee-deep water, and another half hour before we finally dragged the ensign and ourselves up on the beach. We lay there gasping, desperately thirsty, so exhausted we could scarcely move.
Hoffman got to his knees, finally, and looked around. The beach was a narrow strip of sand, no more than ten yards wide; the jungle began right at the high-water mark.
At his urging we crawled into the undergrowth out of sight. The ensign we dragged. He was still breathing, had a pulse, and thank God the bleeding had stopped, but he didn’t look good.
The Witch was about a mile out on the reef. The tail stuck up prominently like an aluminum sail.
“I hope the Japs don’t see that,” Hoffman remarked.
“If we can’t find water, it won’t matter,” I told him. “We’ll be praying for the Japs to come along and put us out of our misery.”
After some discussion, he went one way down the beach and I went the other. We were looking for freshwater, a stream running into the sea … something.
At some point I became awa
re that I was lying in sand … in shade … in wet clothes … with bugs and gnats and all manner of insects eating on me.
My head was splitting, so I didn’t pay much attention to the bugs, though I knew they were there.
I managed to pry my eyes open … and could barely make out light and darkness. I thrashed around awhile and dug at my eyes and rubbed at the bugs and passed out again.
The second time I woke up it was dark. My eyes were better, I thought, yet there was nothing to see. I could hear waves lapping nervously.
The thought that we had made it to the island hit me then. I lay there trying to remember. After a while most of the flight came back, the flak in the darkness, the Zero on floats, settling toward the water with one engine dead and the other dying …
I became aware that Pottinger was there beside me. He had a baby bottle in his survival vest, which he had filled with freshwater. He let me drink it. I have never tasted anything sweeter.
Then he went away, back for more I guess.
After a while I realized someone else was there. It took me several minutes to decide it was Hoffman.
“Are we the only ones alive?” I asked, finally.
“Yes,” Hoffman said.
SIX
The next day, our first full day on the island, I was feeling human again, so Pottinger, Hoffman, and I went exploring. Fortunately, my head wasn’t bleeding, and the headache was just that, a headache. We had solid land — okay, sand — under our feet, and we had a chance. Not much of one, but a chance. I was still wearing a pistol, and all of us had knives.
We were also hungry enough to eat a shoe.
We worked our way east along the beach, taking our time. As we walked we discussed the situation. Hoffman was for going out to the plane and trying to salvage a survival kit; Pottinger was against it. There was a line of thunderstorms off to the east and south that seemed to be coming our way. Still hours away, the storms were agitating the swells. Long, tall rollers crashed on the reef, and smaller swells swept through the lagoon.
The Sea Witch Page 6
