Through Waters Deep (25 page)

South of Iceland

Jim clambered onto the deck and got to his feet. “Come on, Mack. Let's see what we can do.”

He followed Mack Gillis down the slanting deck.

“Avery! Hey, Avery!” That was Mitch Hadley's voice.

Jim spun around.

Hadley was serving in communications tonight. He must have been destroying records in the radio room. He motioned with his thumb to the cargo net. “You're going the wrong way.”

“Men are trapped in number two gun mount.”

“Captain ordered abandon ship.”

“Yes.” Jim walked backward, intent on his goal. “He gave me a personal direct order to do so.”

“You—you're disobeying a direct order?” A tone of awe entered Hadley's voice. “You're not floating?”

“Nope. Making waves.” Most likely a wave that'd drown him. Despite the destruction all around, despite the crackle of flames and the shouts of men and the acrid stench of
smoke, despite the almost-certain death facing him, a smile crept up. “You don't have to help me.”

Hadley paused, then loped toward him. “Are you kidding? And let Floating Jim get all the medals and commendations?”

Jim turned and dashed to the gun mount. “Most likely posthumous medals, you know.”

“The more of us working, the more likely some of us will live.”

“Thanks.” Jim shot him a grateful look. “Those are good men in there. They deserve a chance.”

The door to the handling room stood open. Jim poked his head in. Empty, thank goodness. Seven men safe.

Up to the gun mount. The ladder to the platform had been ripped away, so the men used pipes and dangling lines to get to the top.

Mack plastered his hands to the mangled wall of the mount. “Hank! Udell! Freddie! Can you hear me?”

Jim yanked on the twisted door, but it wouldn't budge. “We need something to use as a crowbar.”

“The ladder!” Hadley leapt back down to the deck and handed the ladder up to Jim.

“That might work.” He jammed the end of the ladder into gaps in the door frame.

The ship creaked and tipped more to stern, to starboard. The fire heated the metal beneath Jim's feet. If the flames reached the ammunition in the handling room down there, it'd be over in a gruesome flash.

“Come on! Hurry!” Jim and Mack leaned hard on the ladder, and the door squealed in protest. “Hadley, get back up here!”

“Already here.” He joined in.

The three men shoved with all their might, feet sliding on the deck. Jim didn't want to think what was making the deck slippery. Fuel oil. Had to be fuel oil.

“O God, strengthen my hands!” The door popped open, and Jim flopped to his knees. “Out, out! Everyone out.”

But Mack climbed in. “Hank! You okay?”

“Come on! Come on!” Jim grabbed the first hand he reached.

The hot case man tumbled out the door. “Thank you, sir. Thank you.”

“How bad is it?” Jim inspected the man for injuries, while Mack helped the powder man out.

“One man dead. Lots of men is hurt.”

“You're in good shape. Start getting these men off the ship. Fast as you can.” Jim leaned inside. “Everyone out. Come on!”

One by one, the men climbed out. Mack assisted his brother, who was bleeding badly from the head. “That's the last of 'em, sir. Except Udell.”

“Stay with your brother.” Jim motioned him to the cargo net. “Thanks for your help.”

“Udell's in bad shape, sir.” Mack looped his arm around Hank's waist. “Doesn't want to leave.”

Jim groaned and glanced at Hadley. “Coming with me?”

“In for a penny, in for a pound, my mama always said.”

“Let's hope we're not in for a pounding.” Jim climbed through the door, fighting to keep his balance on the tilted deck.

“Mr. Avery?” Udell's voice came out strained in the darkness. “What are you doing? Get out of here.”

“Not without you.” He yanked his flashlight from his pocket and aimed it at the voice.

Udell shielded his eyes from the beam. “I ain't going. Look at my feet. Just look.”

With his stomach in his throat, Jim angled the beam down, to the twisted, bloody remains of Homer Udell's feet. “Oh no.”

“I ain't never walking again. I'm a sailor. My life is over.”

Light-headed, dry mouthed, Jim couldn't stop staring. Just like Lillian. Only this wasn't Jim's fault. And didn't Lillian's life disprove Udell's statement?

Jim licked his lips. “Don't talk like that. We'll get you help.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Udell's voice climbed and broke.

“I don't know,” Hadley said, “but can we figure it out on the other ship?”

“Great idea.” Jim slipped his flashlight into his pocket. “You're coming with us. Durant ordered everyone to abandon ship, and that includes you and me and Mr. Hadley.”

“Yeah.” Hadley climbed out the door, then reached in and beckoned. “Mr. Avery and I are already in trouble. Don't make it worse for us.”

Jim squeezed beside Udell and shoved his shoulder and hip. “Come on. Your hands still work. Scoot to the door.”

“If you weren't officers, I'd cuss you out.”

“Go ahead.” Hadley pulled the petty officer's arm. “I'll return the favor, you stubborn old sea salt.”

When Jim grabbed the man around the knees to lift him through the door, Udell rewarded him with a couple dozen of the Navy's best swear words.

The ship shifted to starboard, at least thirty degrees. Jim sucked in a breath, half icy, half fiery. They had to get off the ship fast so they wouldn't get pulled under when it sank.

“Come on. Let's go.” Jim anchored his hand under one shoulder.

Hadley grabbed the other, and they dragged Udell up to the edge of the gun platform and swung his legs over the side.

Jim slid down to the deck. Hadley lowered Udell, and Jim braced the wounded man's fall.

Then Jim and Hadley took Udell under the arms again
and made their way up the inclined deck. Jim ignored the petty officer's moans and cries. If he had to hurt the man to save his life, so be it.

Breathing hard, coughing from the smoke, Jim grasped one of the poles that held the lifelines and heaved himself forward, muscles screaming.

No cargo net on this section of the hull, but with the destroyer at such an angle, they could just slide into the water.

Water covered with burning fuel oil.

Jim groaned. He'd seen the training film on how to escape through burning oil, but he'd prayed he'd never have to use it.

A shout rang out across the gap. On the other destroyer, men pointed to the three men on the
Atwood
.

Jim waved. He needed their attention and help.

He and Hadley stuck their heads under the lifeline, straddled the tilted deck edge, and helped Udell into the same position. The gun captain looked pale, his eyes rolling, his posture slumped. He was going into shock from the blood loss. All the more reason to hurry.

“Burning oil,” Hadley said with a growl.

“We know what to do.” Jim unfastened his life vest. “Take off your life vests so we can stay submerged below the fire. I'll slide down first, clear a hole in the flames. You follow with Udell. Get to me right away so I can help. Swim low and fast. When we come up for air, thrash like crazy to beat off the flames.”

Hadley tossed aside his vest. “That'd better be a big shiny medal.”

Jim grinned at him. Live or die, he'd done his best, and he'd even gained a friend in the process.

Following the instructions in the training film, Jim tore off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt except for the top button, and flipped the tails up and over his head to protect his face from the oil and flames.

Cold bit at his chest, and darkness closed in. “Ready, Hadley? You've got to come right after me.”

“Ready.”

“Lord, you promised, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.' Help us all.” Jim pushed off, sliding fast down the steel hull, friction warming his back and bottom, feet held flat to clear the largest hole possible in the flames.

He plunged into the water, the cold slapping every square inch of his body, squeezing him. Every instinct told him to surface, but training kept him down, as low as he could go.

He kicked out, wrestled the shirt off his face, leveled off, pushed away from the ship.

A muffled set of splashes sounded right behind him. Jim slowed his stroke, waiting for the other men. A hand brushed his leg, and Jim fumbled for it, yanked it, grabbed under the shoulder.

He swam hard, his free arm sweeping wide, legs kicking fast and sharp.

Udell's shoulder jerked in his grasp. Hadley must be surfacing for a breath.

Jim aimed straight up, to the flickering yellow light of the flames on the water. Turn away from the wind. Away, so the flames wouldn't go down his throat. “When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”

He thrashed with his free arm. Wildly. Came up in a black circle of water surrounded by taunting, mocking flames. Jim turned his head away from the wind and sucked in a hot, deep breath, nasty with the taste of burning fuel oil.

He forced Udell out of the water, but the man's head lolled back.

“Over here!” a man shouted, maybe twenty feet away. “Not much farther. You can do it.”

Over the flames, Jim caught sight of a life raft with two men inside, reaching for them.

“Ready?” Jim asked Hadley.

The man nodded, slow and thick.

Cold was getting to him, getting to Jim. They had to hurry. “One, two, three!”

Jim thrashed with his arm, then dove, kicking hard, his face and hands and legs numb. Swimming was harder now, more weight behind him. With each stroke, the weight increased, pulling him lower.

Please, Lord, keep Hadley
conscious. I can't drag both of them. I can
't.
He kicked with all his might but felt like he was going nowhere.

His arms, his legs felt solid, immobile. His lungs burned for air. He needed to breathe. He kicked upward, like using tree trunks to stir a giant vat of syrup. Slow. So slow.

Jim broke the surface, drew in a breath. The flames. They were gone. He'd passed them.

“Over here! Over here!” So close, the voice. So close, yet miles away.

Splashing, splashing. A hand grasped his elbow and pulled.

Jim cried out, “Udell! Hadley!”

“Here.” Hadley's voice came out weak beside him.

“This one first.” Jim shrugged off the hand grabbing him and used his last ounce of strength to swing Udell to the life raft. “Get him.”

The men on the raft hauled Udell up inside, then Hadley, then Jim. Like a flopping, dying fish, he lay on the netting, his back in the water, gulping giant frigid breaths.

He watched the scene from a distance, like a play on stage. The Negro sailors on the raft, paddling to the destroyer. A litter being lowered by a line, Homer Udell being rolled inside, strapped in place, and hauled to the destroyer's deck. The lines looped around Hadley's waist, around Jim's waist,
the two flopping fish caught and cast onto the shore of the deck.

Men descended on him, tore off his clothes, all of them, scaling him like the dead fish he was. Somehow he felt warmer naked, then someone threw a blanket around him, and someone else tipped back his chin and forced a cup of rum down his throat, hot, burning, making him cough, making him vomit seawater and fuel oil. Then more rum came down, warm and woozy.

He liked the rum, liked the blanket, liked the warmth.

“These two are fine,” a gravelly voice said, an unfamiliar voice. “Get 'em down to the wardroom to warm up.”

Two men pulled him to standing. Jim's knees buckled, but he caught himself, forced his granite legs to walk, his naked legs.

How could he go to the wardroom? There was a protocol for how an officer dressed in the wardroom, and Jim found himself giggling like a girl, shaking, laughing at his hairy naked legs. “I'm not dressed for dinner.”

“Told you. He's fine.”

“Sounds loopy to me.” The men helped Jim forward, down the hatch, down the passageway, and into the wardroom.

Half the room was set up like a medical ward. Homer Udell lay on a table with pharmacist's mates working on him, and other men lay on cots receiving first aid. The rest of the room was filled with men wrapped in blankets, familiar faces.

“Jim!” Arch grasped him in a bear hug. “Jim, old boy.”

Thank God his friend made it. “You're not dressed for dinner either.”

Arch burst out laughing. “Neither is Durant, so we're all right.”

“I have to sit.” Jim's legs gave way, and he sat on the deck and arranged the blanket around his legs.

Arch sat next to him, then Mitch Hadley.

“Hadley, my buddy.” Jim reached his hand out of the blanket and shook the man's hand. “Glad you made it.”

Hadley shook his head, his wet dark hair sticking up in all directions. “Blacked out at the last minute. Don't remember coming on board.”

“But here we are.”

“Yes, here we are.”

“There you are.” Lt. Cdr. Calvin Durant glowered down at Jim.

He would have looked more formidable if he weren't dressed in nothing but a blanket with his hair sticking out like angel wings on either side of his balding head.

Jim saluted with his free arm. “Ensign James Avery, reporting for my court-martial.”

“I ought to, you know.” Durant's glare didn't dim. “I ought to have you keelhauled, run up the yardarm, and flogged for good measure.”

“I agree, sir.” Jim tucked his shivering arm back inside the cozy blanket. “But first, tell me how many of the men survived. Udell? Is he going to make it?”

The captain gazed at the operating table. “They're amputating both feet, but he should survive.”