Devil at My Heels: The Story of Louis Zamperini (14 page)

BESIDES FOOD AND
water, the mind is a crucial line of defense against adversity. I knew this from college. Dr. Roberts, the physiology professor at USC, had told us, “Your mind is everything. It’s like a muscle. You must exercise it or it will atrophy—just like a muscle.”

I immersed myself in routine, glad to do mental exercises like making meals for my crewmates. I also added columns of figures in my head. Then double columns. I solved equations. I hated math and may not have gotten the answers right, but I didn’t care. I also took a mental inventory every day.

In movies, the longer someone stays isolated the more they lose their minds. It’s not necessarily true in real life. In the movie
Cast Away,
instead of going nuts, that guy had it made! Sometimes the greatest thing in the world is to be alone; there’s no reason to go stir-crazy or buggy. It’s a beautiful life. Everything you do to survive is positive and an accomplishment. You figure out how to catch the fish,
get water, build a hut. Even if a castaway isn’t the happiest guy in the world, there’s no reason for him to go insane.

Proof of that is Robinson Crusoe. When the longboat came ashore for him after four years, naturally he was a ragged mess—beard, tattered clothes. But he was perfectly competent. He was afraid they were going to miss him, so he shouted, and when his rescuers saw him, they thought, He has a demon! Turn about! and headed back toward the ship. But Crusoe was smart. He yelled, “I believe in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!” They stopped rowing and said, “Demons can’t say that.” They rowed back, rushed up, and immediately embraced him. Did four years of isolation damage his mind? More likely his mind was better than when he first got lost.

The more I did to keep my brain active, the sharper it became, despite the horrible conditions. I had no distractions or interference from the outside world. No job to go to. No girlfriends who needed attention. Instead, I tried to remember my life as far back as I could, and I asked my crewmates to do the same. To my surprise it brought up events I didn’t even realize I’d forgotten.

I also planned for the future. Every day I pushed to hear more of what we dreamed of doing when we got home. My big idea was to turn the P.E. depot in Torrance into a nice restaurant with a bar. Someone eventually did it, too.

“Well, I want to be a schoolteacher,” Phil said. “I want to live in La Porte, Indiana.” He’d tell me about the Indianapolis 500. He used to take the family, bring a lunch, spend the whole day. I’d tell him about our lifestyle in California.

Phil’s dad was a preacher, and Phil knew the words to lots of church songs. He’d lead and we’d sing with him.

Mac, on the other hand, was much weaker and quieter than usual. I tried to encourage him. “When we land in the Marshalls or Gilberts”—I didn’t say
if,
I said
when
—“we’re going to find a deserted island and live for as long as we can.” I’d flown over them often on bombing runs, and I knew from my training that we could survive there.

People always ask, “How did you keep track of the time and the days?” A lot better than with pencil and paper, where one might make
a mistake writing it down. Every day was so precious we had no trouble remembering; in fact, we had all day long to think about anything we wished to—even if it was only our names. Again, it’s not like in the movies. Hollywood tries to make it more dramatic and create all kinds of emotional moments with guys moping and groaning and crying. In reality, there’s no pressure other than whatever it takes to eat, drink, and stay alive. I could lie back and meditate peacefully for hours if I desired. I could talk about the past and the future. I didn’t have to lose my mind unless I wanted to.

What moments of despair I did experience came mainly from the weather. We were adrift in the middle of the world’s biggest ocean. It could get brutal during a storm, with waves twenty-five to thirty-five feet high. Then the next day it would be perfectly calm. One day we were fighting for our lives, the next we were enjoying the clouds, the sunset, the soaring albatross, the dolphins and porpoises. Through it all I never lost my sense that life could be beautiful. I kept my zest for living, morning and night. I’d made it this far and refused to give up because all my life I had always finished the race.

WE STILL WORE
the tropical khakis—long pants, short-sleeve shirt, T-shirt—we’d dressed in the day we left on the rescue mission. But soon our clothes turned yellow, the color of the raft’s rubber coating.

We also broke out with water sores—open, pussy messes the size of a quarter or half-dollar—from being wet all the time. Otherwise, we never got sick, no sniffles or colds. Why? There were no diseases to catch in the middle of nowhere.

MOSTLY, I HAD
happy dreams. I slept in a muddy quagmire, a foot deep, or on a rocky hillside, or on a hard woodpile. Never water.

ON THE TWENTIETH
day I removed Phil’s bandage. He’d healed nicely. He could now move easily between rafts and join the living.

AFTER THREE WEEKS
I realized we’d been adrift longer than Rickenbacker, and had set a record about which, despite my relentless optimism, no one might ever know. People have survived longer, on a raft as big as a room with a shelter and a stove. That’s different. I pitied flyers who had crashed in the Aleutians. How long could they live? Hypothermia killed them overnight, if not sooner. It just depends on the luck of location and facilities. On a sturdy raft, with lines and fishhooks and nets and knives, anyone could live indefinitely. Men have survived 130 days or more on a big navy raft, and when rescued they were just as fat as the day they crashed. Not us. We were slowly wasting away.

The drastic change in diet caused a line to appear across our fingernails and toenails, darker in front, lighter behind, marking the moment like a personal calendar. After a few days we even stopped going to the bathroom. At first we weren’t sure why, but eventually we just accepted it—and occasionally made a joke or two.

“Hey, Phil,” I said one afternoon. “Do you remember the time I pulled that laxative trick on you for stealing my gum?”

“I sure do,” he laughed. “Let me hear it again.”

We both knew the story, but it helped to pass the time.

“Yeah. Well, I always chew gum when I fly because it makes my ears pop. I like Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit; it has kind of a mellow flavor. But every time we’d get ready to take off you guys would go, ‘Oh, hi, Zamp,’ and, flashing big smiles, pull the gum out of my pocket for yourselves. After a while I thought you ought to buy your own. But you and Cup wouldn’t do it. Next thing I knew you were taking two sticks each, leaving me with one. I switched to P-K gum, figuring you wouldn’t like it, but you did.

“Finally I thought, Those son of a guns. I’m not only going to get even and stop this nonsense, but teach them a lesson in morals.

“In college we used to chew Feenamint gum as a laxative. On the package it gave the potency—three pieces was listed as harsh. Of course, I couldn’t just put a pack of that in my shirt pocket or you’d
get suspicious. So I got some Feenamint and put it in the P-K wrappers. Feenamint was a little larger than P-K, so it wouldn’t go in flat; I had to put each piece in at an angle. Then I put it in my pocket and waited. When you helped yourself to my gum I just acted angry and walked away.”

“I thought you
were,
” said Phil.

“About four hours later, we were on a mission that took us eight hundred miles out. Usually, when we had to relieve ourselves on the plane we used a little portable toilet contraption into which we inserted a waterproof bag. Then we tied the top and tossed it out the window. I remember you went back and did your business. Then Cup…”

“And Mitchell said, ‘What did you guys eat for lunch?’” Phil added.

“Right. And then the gum hit and you rushed back again.”

“And I used the last bag,” said Phil.

“Then it hit Cupernell again.”

“And there were no bags.”

We both laughed so hard we could hardly talk. When I caught my breath I said, “It hit Cup so hard he had no time to waste. He got the four gunners and screamed, ‘Hold me! Hold me!’ Then he hung his butt through the waist window and let go, creating an abstract mural along the fuselage!”

“When we got back we still didn’t know what had happened,” said Phil.

“The ground crew chief said, ‘What the hell is that?’ I said it was an emergency camouflage job. Later, I admitted my prank but said I had no regrets except that we weren’t flying over enemy territory when it happened.”

“But then Cup said, ‘After all those juicy steaks at P.Y. Chong’s, I
needed
a good cleaning out!’” said Phil.

“And I said, ‘In that case you owe me twenty cents for the Feenamint.’”

I AWOKE TO
find the sun in my eyes. Phil was already up, Mac stirring.

“What time is it?” I asked.
“There’s the sun,” said Phil, pointing to it hovering not far above the horizon.

“Looks like eight o’clock.”

“What’s for breakfast?” Phil asked.

“How about bacon and eggs?” I replied. “Or ham? Toast, jam. Orange juice.”

“Didn’t we just have that?” Mac mumbled.

“Probably,” I said. I tried to vary the menu, but it was hard to keep track. “We could have pancakes instead. My mother had a great recipe. Biscuits and fresh fruit, too.”

“Not for me,” said Phil. “I’m still full from dinner. The risotto and gnocchi really filled me up. I don’t think my stomach can take it.”

“That’s the wine,” said Mac. “You drank a bottle by yourself.”

“Who can say no to Chianti?” I said.

“Or dessert,” said Mac.

“Biscotti, gelati,…” said Phil.

“Tiramisu,” we all added at the same time.

ON THE TWENTY-SEVENTH
day I heard a noise overhead.

I looked up and saw a plane almost too distant to do us any good. Desperate, we took a quick vote and decided to use two parachute flares plus one packet of dye in the ocean to attract the plane’s attention. I also used the mirror to flicker at them, but the plane disappeared.

Then suddenly it reappeared, descending. They had seen us.

That was probably the most emotional moment of our lives, three grown men, tears running down our faces because we knew we’d be rescued. Man, it was great. The plane—it looked like a B-25—circled. We waved our shirts and screamed.

In return we got machine gun fire.

“Those idiots!” I yelled. They thought we were Japanese. Then I saw the red circles, the rising sun, on their wing tips. The plane was a Japanese Sally bomber, which looks similar to our B-25.
They
were Japanese!

I slid into the water and hung below the rafts to avoid the bullets.
Phil and Mac did the same. My Boy Scout leader had told me that water would stop bullets after about three feet. He was right. The bomber’s aim was true, and I could see the bullets pierce the raft only to slow and sink harmlessly. We weren’t hit.

When it was safe, Phil and Mac tried to get back in the raft. They were so weak I had to boost them both, then climb in myself. When the bomber came around again Phil and Mac couldn’t get back in the ocean. They’d have drowned. However, I slipped overboard, preferring to socialize with two seven-foot sharks than be an easy target for the enemy. My survival instructor had told me to show a shark my teeth and the whites of my eyes, to scare it. That didn’t seem to work, but a good straight-arm to the snout did.

Each time the bomber strafed the raft, I pushed myself deeper, holding on to the parachute cord so the current wouldn’t whisk me away. Yet the current was so strong that it was tough to remain vertical, which made it easier to scare sharks and avoid bullets. How I got through those twin terrors, I hardly remember because I worried more about what was happening to my friends in the raft. I could see the bullets pierce the canvas and rubber raft and plunge into the water. I was afraid Phil and Mac had been hit. But were they dead? When the plane circled for another pass I pulled myself into the raft to discover a miracle: they’d missed Phil and Mac by a couple inches.

The strafing continued for nearly thirty minutes. Each time I told them to lay out, dangle their arms, attract no attention, pretend they were dead. Otherwise they had no chance.

Then the Japanese made a pass without firing, and I assumed they thought Phil and Mac were gone. Or they’d had their fun shooting at what they thought were dead men, anyway. Maybe it was over.

But moments later the plane returned, this time directly on course. I went over the side, my head between the two rafts, and looked up to see the bomb-bay doors open. I thought, Oh, no! Sure enough, a black object emerged: a depth charge. It was the ultimate in barbarism, a little extra target practice. I stopped breathing, waiting for the terrible blow to shatter the sea. It landed thirty to fifty feet away—but didn’t explode. Evidently, the bombardier didn’t arm the charge properly, and it sank to the bottom. Had it exploded, it would have finished us.
Then the Japanese disappeared, leaving two wrinkled rafts, riddled with bullets, rapidly deflating, and three desperate men not certain if they’d survive another day.

PUT AN INNER
tube in a swimming pool and shoot it full of holes with a .22. It won’t sink. Some air remains, plus rubber floats. One of the rafts—Phil’s former hospital bed—had the bottom shot out and was beyond repair. The other, us on top of it, lay nearly flat in the water and in some spots, inches below the surface.

Now we really had to fight for our lives. I grabbed a pump, screwed it to a valve, and started pushing like mad. The bullets were 7.7s, larger than a .22 shell but not as big as a .25. I could count a total of forty-eight holes. Fortunately, a hole in rubber semiseals automatically, and when the air pressure outside and inside is virtually the same, no air escapes. Bubbles emerged as I pumped, and we floated slightly higher, but this was a long, long way from okay. The holes needed patching, and thus began the eight most miserable days of our lives. We had to pump around the clock; it nearly killed us.