Watching the swells roll through the shallows, I thought the wreck of the Sea Witch too far away and the water too dangerous. Then we saw a group of shark fins cruising along, and the whole idea of going back to the plane sort of evaporated. We certainly needed the survival kits; we were just going to have to wait for a calmer day.
I had seen the island from the air, though at a low angle, and knew it wasn’t small. Trying to recall, I estimated it was eight or nine miles long and a mile wide at the widest part. Probably volcanic in origin, the center of the thing reached up a couple hundred feet or so in elevation, if my memory was correct. I remembered the little hump that I flew toward when we were down low against the sea.
The creeks running down from that rocky spine contained good water, so we wouldn’t die of thirst. There was food in the sea, if we could figure out a way to get it. There were things to eat — birds and snakes and such — in the jungle, if we could catch them. All in all, I figured we could make out.
If there weren’t any Japs on this island.
That was our immediate concern, so we hiked along, taking our time, looking and listening.
On the eastern end of the island the jungle petered out into an area of low scrub and sand dunes. It was getting along toward the middle of the day, so we sat to rest. After all I had been through, I could feel my own weakness, and I was sure the others could also. But sitting wasn’t getting us anyplace, so we dusted our fannies and walked on.
The squall line was almost upon us when we found the first skid mark on the top of a dune.
“Darn if that furrow doesn’t look like it was made by the keel of a seaplane,” Hoffman said.
I took a really good look, and I had to agree.
I took out my pistol and worked the action, jacked a shell into my hand. The gun was gritty, full of sand and sea salt.
“Going to rain soon,” Pottinger said, looking at the sky.
“Let’s see if we can find a dry place and sit it out,” I said, looking around. I spotted a clump of brush under a small stand of palms, and headed for it. The others were in no hurry, although the gray wall of rain from the storm was nearly upon us.
“Maybe it’s Joe Snyder’s crew, where he went down in Charity’s Sake.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
“Let’s go look.” If Hoffman had had a tail, he would have wagged it.
“Later.”
“Hell, no matter where we hide, we’re going to get wet. If it’s them, they’ve got food, survival gear, all of that.”
“Could be Japs, you know.”
He was sure the Japanese didn’t leave a seaplane mark.
The first gust of rain splattered us.
“I’m going to sit this one out,” I said, and turned back toward the brush I had picked out. Pottinger was right behind.
Hoffman ran up beside me. “Please, sir. Let me go on ahead for a look.”
I looked at Pottinger. He was a lieutenant (junior grade), senior to me, but since I was the deputy plane commander, he hadn’t attempted to exert an ounce of authority. Nor did I think he wanted to.
“No,” I told Hoffman. “The risk is too great. The Japs won’t want to feed us if they get their hands on us.”
“They won’t get me.”
“No.”
“You’re just worried I’ll tell ‘em you’re here.”
“If they catch you, kid, it won’t matter what you tell ‘em. They’ll come looking for us.”
“Mr. Pottinger.” Hoffman turned to face the jay-gee. “I appeal to you. All our gear is out in the lagoon. You know the guys in Charity’s Sake as well as I do.”
Pottinger looked at me and he looked at Hoffman and he looked at the squall line racing toward us. He was tired and hungry and had never made a life-or-death decision in his life.
“Snyder could have made it this far,” he said to me.
“There’s a chance,” I admitted.
He bit his lip and made his decision. “Yes,” he told the kid. “But be careful, for Christ’s sake.”
Hoffman grinned at Pottinger and scampered away just as the rain hit. I jogged over to the brush I had seen and crawled in. It wasn’t much shelter. Pottinger joined me.
“It’s probably Snyder,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“Could be anybody.”
There was a little washout under the logs. We huddled there.
“Hoffman’s right about one thing,” I told Pottinger. “We won’t be much drier here than if we had stayed out in it.”
While it rained I field-stripped the Colt and cleaned the sand and grit out of it as best I could, then put it back together and reloaded it. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. I had a feeling we were going to need everything we had.
After the squall had passed, the fresh wind felt good. We sat on a log and let the wind dry us out.
We were alive, and the others were dead. So the wind played with our hair as we looked at the sea and sky with living eyes.
For how long?
I had seen much of death these last few months, had killed a few men myself … and oh, it was ugly. Ugly!
Anyone who thinks war is glorious has never seen a fresh corpse.
Yet we kill each other, ruthlessly, mercilessly, without qualm or remorse, all for the greater glory of our side.
Insanity. And this has been the human experience since the dawn of time.
Musing thus, I kept an eye out for Hoffman. He didn’t come back. After an hour I was worried.
Pottinger was worried, too. “This isn’t good,” he said.
We waited another hour, a long, slow hour as the rain squall moved on out over the lagoon, and the sun came boiling through the dissipating clouds. Extraordinary how hot the tropical sun can get on bare skin.
The minutes dragged. My head thumped and my stomach tied itself into a knot. I wanted water badly.
One thing was certain; we couldn’t stay put much longer. We needed to get about the business of finding drinkable water and something to eat.
“I guess I fucked that up,” Pottinger said.
“Let’s follow the keel mark,” I suggested.
We didn’t walk, we sneaked along, all bent over, even crawled through one place where the green stuff was thin. Hoffman’s tracks were still visible in places, only partially obliterated by the rain. And so were the scrapes of the flying boat’s keel, deep cuts in the sand where it touched, skipped, then touched again. The plane had torn the waist-high brush out of the ground everywhere it touched. Still, there was enough of it standing that it limited our visibility. And the visibility of the Japs, if there were Japs.
The thought had finally occured to Pottinger that if we could follow Hoffman, someone else could backtrack him. He was biting his lip so tightly that blood was leaking down his chin. His face was paper white.
The pistol felt good in my hand.
We had gone maybe a quarter of a mile when we saw the reflection of the sun off shiny metal. We got behind some brush and lay on the ground.
“That’s no black Catalina,” I whispered to Pottinger, who nodded.
Screwing up our courage, we crawled a few more yards on our hands and knees. Finally we came to the place where we could clearly see the metal, which turned out to be the twin tails of a large airplane. Japanese. The rest of the airplane appeared to be behind some trees and brush, partially out of sight.
“A Kawanishi flying boat,” Pottinger whispered into my ear. “A Mavis.” He was as scared as I was.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice quavering. “You were right, and I was wrong. Letting Hoffman go running off alone was a mistake.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I told him. “There aren’t many right or wrong decisions. You make the best choice you can because the military put you there and told you to decide, then we all get on with it.”
“Yeah.”
“You gotta remember that none of this matters very much.”
�
�Ahh …”
“You stay here. I’ll go see what Hoffman’s gotten himself into.”
I wasn’t going to go crawling over to that plane. Hoffman had probably done that. His tracks seemed to go that way. I set off at a ninety-degree angle, crawling on my belly, the pistol in my right hand.
When I’d gone at least a hundred yards, I turned to parallel the Mavis’s landing track. After another hundred yards I heard voices. I froze.
They were speaking Japanese.
I lay there a bit, trying to see. The voices were demanding, imperious.
Taking my time, staying on my stomach, I crawled closer.
I heard Hoffman pleading, begging. “Don’t hit me again, for Christ’s sake.” And a chunk of something heavy hitting flesh.
Ooh boy!
When they were finished with Hoffman, they were going to come looking for Pottinger and me. If they weren’t already looking.
I had to know how many of them there were.
I crawled closer, trying to see around the roots of the grass bunches that grew on the dunes.
The Mavis had four engines, one of which was blackened and scorched. Either it caught fire in the air, or someone shot it up.
Finally I got to a place where I could see the men standing in a circle.
There were four of them. They were questioning Hoffman in Japanese. A lot of good that would do. I never met an American sailor who understood a word of it.
The Japs were taking turns beating Hoffman with a club of some kind. Clearly, they were enjoying it.
The Mavis was pretty torn up. Lots of holes, maybe fifty-caliber. It looked to me like a Wildcat or Dauntless had had its way with it.
I kept looking around, trying to see if there were any more Japs. Try as I might, I could see only those four. Two of them had rifles though.
About then they whacked Hoffman so hard he passed out. One of them went for water, dumped it on him to bring him around. Another, decked out in an officer’s uniform, went over to a little pile of stuff under a palm tree and pulled out a sword.
They were going to chop off the kid’s head.
Shit!
I should never have let him go trooping off by himself.
The range was about forty yards. I steadied that pistol with a two-hand grip and aimed it at the Jap with the rifle who was facing me. I wanted him first.
I took my time. Just put that front sight on his belt buckle and squeezed ‘er off like it was Tuesday morning at the range. I knocked him off his feet.
I didn’t have the luxury of time with the second one. I hit him, all right, probably winged him. The other one with the rifle went to his belly and was looking around, trying to see where the shots were coming from. I only had his head and one arm to shoot at, so I took a deep breath, exhaled, and touched it off. And got him.
The officer with the sword had figured out where I was by that time and was banging at me with a pistol.
I rolled away. Got to my feet and ran, staying as low as possible, ran toward the tail of the Mavis while the officer popped off three in my direction.
“How many of them were there, Hoffman?” I roared, loud as I could shout.
“Four,” he answered, then I heard another shot.
I ran the length of the flying boat’s fuselage, sneaked a peek around the bow. Hoffman lay sprawled in the dirt, blood on his chest, staring fixedly at the sky.
The Jap bastard had shot him!
I sneaked back along the hull of the Mavis, thinking the guy might follow me around.
Finally, I wised up. I got down on my belly and crawled away from the Mavis.
I figured the Jap officer wanted one of those rifles as badly as I did, and that was where he’d end up. I went out about a hundred yards and got to my feet. Staying bent over as much as possible, I trotted around to where I could see the Japs I had shot.
The officer wasn’t in sight. I figured he was close by anyway.
I lay down behind a clump of grass, thought about the situation, wondered what to do next.
I had just about made up my mind to crawl out of there and set up an ambush down the beach when something whacked me in the left side so hard I almost lost consciousness.
Then I heard the shot. A rifle.
With what was left of my strength, I pulled my right hand under me. Then I lay still.
I was hit damned bad. As I lay there the shock of the bullet began wearing off and the pain started way up inside me.
I tried not to breathe, not to move, not to do anything. It was easy. I could feel the legs going numb, feel the life leaking out.
For the longest time I lay there staring at the sand, trying not to blink.
I heard him, finally. Heard the footfall.
He nudged me once with the barrel of his rifle, then used his foot to turn me over.
A look of surprise registered on his face when I shot him.
POTTINGER:
I heard the shots, little pops on the wind, then silence. After a while another shot, louder, then twenty minutes or so later, one more, muffled.
After that, nothing.
Of course I had no way of knowing how many Japanese there were, what had happened, if Hoffman or the ensign were still alive …
I wanted desperately to know, but I couldn’t make myself move. If I just sat up, I could see the tail of the Mavis … and they might see me.
I huddled there frozen, waiting for Hoffman and the ensign to come back. I waited until darkness fell.
Finally, I slept.
The next morning nothing moved. I could hear nothing but the wind. After a couple of hours I knew I was going to have to take a chance. I had to have food. I tried to move and found I couldn’t. Another hour passed. Then another. Ashamed of myself and nauseated with fear, I crawled.
I found them around the Japanese flying boat, all dead. The four Japanese and the two Americans. The Japanese officer was lying across the ensign.
There was food, so I ate it. The water I drank.
I put them in a row in the sand and got busy on a grave. I shouldn’t have let Hoffman go exploring. I should be lying there dead instead of the ensign.
Digging helped me deal with it.
The trouble came when I had to drag them to the grave. I was crying pretty badly by then, and the ensign and Hoffman were just so much dead meat. And starting to swell up. I tried not to look at their faces … and didn’t succeed.
I dragged the two Americans into the same hole and filled it in the best I could.
I was shaking by then, so I set to digging on a bigger hole for the Japanese. It was getting dark by the time I got the bodies in that hole and filled it and tamped it down.
The next day I inventoried the supplies in the Mavis. There was fishing gear, canned food, bottled water, pads to sleep on, blankets, an ax, matches.
After I’d been on the island about a week I decided to burn the Mavis. The fuel tanks were shot full of holes and empty, which was probably why the Mavis was lying on this godforsaken spit of sand in the endless sea.
It took two days of hard work to load the fuselage with driftwood. I felt good doing it, as if I were accomplishing something important. Looking back, I realize that I was probably half-crazy at that time, irrational. I ate the Japanese rations, worked on stuffing the Mavis with driftwood, watched the sky, and cried uncontrollably every now and then.
By the end of the second day I had the plane fairly full of driftwood. The next morning at dawn I built a fire in there with some Japanese matches and rice paper. The metal in the plane caught fire about an hour later and burned for most of the day. I got pretty worried that evening, afraid that I had lit an eternal flame to arouse Japanese curiosity. The fire died, finally, about midnight, though it smoldered for two more days and nights. Thank God I had been sane enough to wait for morning to light it.
With the fire finally out, I packed all the supplies I had salvaged from the Mavis and moved four miles along the south side of the island to a spot w
here a freshwater creek emptied into the sea. It took three trips to carry the loot.
I never did try to cross the lagoon to the wreck of the Sea Witch. On one of my exploratory hikes around the island a few weeks later I saw that she was gone, broken up by a storm or swept off the reef into deeper water.
I fell into a routine. Every morning I fished. I always had something by noon, usually before, so I built a fire and cooked it and ate on it the rest of the day. During the afternoon I explored and gathered driftwood, which I piled into a huge pile. My thought was that if and when I saw a U.S. ship or plane, I would light it off as a signal fire. I had a hell of pile collected but finally ran out of matches that would light. The rain and the humidity ruined them. After that I ate my fish raw.
And so my days passed, one by one. I lost count. There was nothing on the island but the jungle and birds, and wind and rain and surf. And me. Just me and my ghosts alone on that speck of sand and jungle lost in an endless universe of sea and sky.
Later I learned that five months passed before I was rescued by the crew of a U.S. Navy patrol boat searching for a lost aircrew. Not the crew of the Witch or Charity’s Sake, but a B-24 crew that had also disappeared into the vastness of the great Pacific. The war was way north and west by then.
I must have been a sight when they found me, burned a deep brown by the sun and almost naked, with only a rag around my waist. My beard and hair were wild and tangled, and I babbled incoherently.
The Navy sent me back to the States. They kept me in a naval hospital for a while until I sort of got it glued back together. Then they gave me a medical discharge.
Cut off from human contact during those long nights and long, long days on that island, I could never get the ensign and Modahl and the other guys from the Witch out of my mind. They have been with me every day of my life since.
I have never figured out why they died and I lived.
To this day I still don’t know. It wasn’t because I was a better person or a better warrior. They were the warriors — they carried me. They had courage, I didn’t. They had faith in each other and themselves, and I didn’t. Why was it that they died and I was spared?
The Sea Witch Page 7
