Reluctant Warriors (11 page)

Harry didn't remember very much after that. He had reached the apex of the Cauldron,
and the Mae West, which he had cursed for slowing him down, now kept his head out
of the water so he could breathe. Gradually, his strokes ceased altogether, and he
began to drift. A wondrous wave of contentment came over him. He saw himself from
under the turbulent waters. It beckoned him: if he would only come down where the
water was calm, he would no longer have to struggle. He felt completely at peace.
The echo of the poem ceased and the voices quieted.

Drifting with the incoming tide, he floated semiconscious through the waves of the
surf and into the placid lagoon, the sound of the surf diminishing with every foot
he traveled. A new set of sounds replaced it: the sounds of the hateful island and
its unquiet. But he didn't think about his approach to the verdant green of its lushness,
where a plant might grow two feet in a single day, every day. Nor did he contemplate
its ever-present decay, where a dead animal's carcass might completely disappear
in twenty-four hours, except for the bones. He did not puzzle over the equal and
competing powers of life and death, each so exalted on this speck of earth. The water
shimmered, and the sea breezes contained a freshness and renewal. But it was soon
tempered by equal doses of pungent and putrefying decay. He gently glided toward
Nissan Island, a paradise built over a sewer.

Strong arms grabbed him and pulled him from the water. It was Ketchel who had waded
out.

“Boy, are we glad to see you, Harry!”

Gradually, Harry became more alert. He had been set with his back against the trunk
of a tree. He heard the men talking, but couldn't concentrate on what they were saying
at first.

“Chief, how much time we got left before they rush us?”

“Beats me. It's about two hours to dark. I was hoping Harry would have a raft, but
all he's got is that two-man thing. Phoebe, get that raft behind us more. We can't
let them put holes in that one too. Look at him, Mike, he's beat. He gave everything
he had for us and here he is. Lucky that Phoebe saw him out there. Has he said anything?”

“Naw, Chief, just mumbled stuff. Three of us could maybe get on that raft he brought,
but not four. So we got crap. I can tell you, I am not leaving that guy or anyone
on this damn pest hole for the Nips to torture.”

“Me neither, Mike. How many magazines we got left?”

“We got six, Chief. I got 'em here in my lap.”

“That's what I thought. That's about a hundred rounds, including the magazine that's
in here.”

“You guys okay?” Harry managed to say weakly.

“Well, Harry, we are, sort of. They must have gotten some more men cause they rushed
us about two hours back and got close enough to put a couple of grenades in here.
And, they saw the big raft and put umpteen holes in it. Damn. But we killed maybe
twenty-five of them and they haven't been back. Bodies all over the place.”

“That changes nothing,” Harry managed to say, surveying the two dozen bodies strewn
about them. “You three are getting out of this place right now. Where's the rope?”

“We tied it to the tree, sir,” little Minton said.

“That's fine,” Harry said. He struggled to get up, but could not.

“Harry, take it easy. We're not going anywhere,” Ketchel said.

“Yes, you are! Leave me the gun. You three get in that raft and get out of here!”

“Harry, Mike and I are not going to do that, leave you here.” Ketchel nodded. Little
Phoebe did not look so convinced.

“No, no! It's all arranged,” Harry said, trying to sound strong and
convincing. “I'm
not staying on this God-forsaken place after you pull out. They're going to pull
me in like a fish. Look at the rope, it's taut.” Harry felt dizzy all of a sudden.

“So, let 'em pull me in like the big fish,” the old chief said.

“No, Chief,” Ketchel said adamantly, “I'm stronger than you. Let 'em pull me in.”

Harry was seeing spots before his eyes, but he couldn't let them know. “Don't fool
with me. This Cauldron thing is too much for anything but three strong guys. As it
is, you guys are going to be buffeted like hell. This isn't like yesterday when we
paddled right in; it's ten times worse. If you three guys get in that thing and all
hold on to that rope, you'll get out. Forget about paddling until you get past the
Cauldron. Just pull yourself along. I don't have the strength to pull or even hold
on. If you put me in the raft, and two of you are pulling the rope, I'll be tossed
out. If you rope me in, I'll drown. No, they'll pull me right out of here with that
same Mae West that got me in here. It's the only way for
all
of us to get out.”

He didn't know how he was able to say all of that. It was one of those times in his
life that he did something he shouldn't have been able to do. And it worked! Harry
could see that the three men had bought it, that he knew the Cauldron and they did
not. But they did not like it.

“I order you three to get out of here! Right now!”

Osborne and Ketchel were still uncertain.

“Harry, I can't leave you here,” Osborne said.

Ketchel shook his head. “I can't either.”

“You must do exactly as I say, right now. Otherwise we're all dead.” The emergency
was making Harry more and more conscious. “Look, that damn German did this to us.
He lied to us about everything, just to save his own neck.” Harry looked sternly
at the three men. “I am saying to you plainly that he's not worth even one of us.
Do what I say and you three get in that raft and leave here right now. Don't let
that guy kill any of us.”

The others looked at each other, then back at him, and nodded.

“I'm fine,” he said to them. “Shove off.”

“Okay, okay,” Osborne said after a long pause. He moved toward the little raft, and
then turned back. “Harry, you got a knife for that rope?”

“No, I guess I don't,” Harry managed. He was starting to feel woozy again.

Osborne walked over to Harry, reached in his pocket, and pulled out a Case jackknife
with a pale yellow handle about four inches long. “My father gave this to me. He
was a good man like you. I expect to get it back in a little while.”

“In a little while.”

Osborne turned and went to the raft.

“See you,” Ketchel said, as the three men made their way into the water.

Harry could feel himself failing. It was all he could do to smile as the men began
to paddle away. His head felt as though it were in a vise; his eyes fluttered. He
didn't move from the tree trunk. As the raft traveled the first hundred yards, he
passed out.

As soon as Osborne reached the submarine, he jumped up on the deck and yelled for
Chief Dougherty, who quickly appeared.

“Bennie, I want you to hook the rope up to that winch in the Forward Torpedo Room.”

Dougherty looked at Osborne. “Duke, we decided we would pull Harry in by hand.”

“No,” argued Osborne, “we're not going to do that. That won't work. He'll drown in
the Cauldron. We have to have more pull. That little winch will do it.”

“You got it,” Dougherty said.

Osborne ran to the bridge.

“Red,” he said, coming up the ladder, “we have to take a chance on this. We're against
the tide. If the guys pull Harry in by hand, he will have to swim continuously, and
he can't swim anymore. I saw him, Red. He's completely gone. I want permission to
pull him in with a winch. Then, all he has to do is cut the rope.”

“Duke, you just have to tell me. Tell me and we'll do it!”

“I think . . . I think we have to do it.”

“Then do it!”

Harry awakened still sitting against the tree. He thought he had gone blind, but
then recognized that it was getting dark. The Japanese would be closing in, but he
was as dead as alive and didn't think of them. His focused on only one thing:
the
rope!
He had no way of knowing how much time had passed, or that the guys had made
it through the Cauldron and were back at the sub. The flare had already been up.
The mission had been a success!

Perhaps if he had known that, his concentration on the rope would have evaporated.
He saw, and knew, only one thing, that he had to get to the rope. He looked at it,
though he was not conscious enough to know how far it was away, or how high it was
off the ground. He only knew, almost instinctively, that the slender strand was everything!
Like a forbidden fruit, the narrow strand stood alluringly before him.

With tremendous difficulty, he struggled to his feet, his calf muscles like steel
cords, aching and attempting to cramp. He staggered, resisting the cramps, focusing
all of his attention on the three-eighths-inch rope. He stepped forward, several
steps too quickly, and fell backward, missing the tree trunk by only an inch. With
considerable effort, he stood again.

“The rope,” he told himself, “
the rope
, you
must
reach the rope!” He said out loud
in a low and almost mechanical voice, “I
must
reach that rope! I must!”

He stepped toward it and fell headlong. But his legs were loosening up, and his head
clearing. He was up faster this time. He mopped his face with his sand-laden right
hand, wiping granules into his right eye, and stepped forward.

“Only a few feet! I must get to that rope!”

Stiff-legged like a Frankenstein monster in trying to keep the cramps away, Harry
advanced only inches at a time. He tripped over something and
fell again, almost
within reach of the rope. He got up haltingly, reached for the rope, and grabbed
it!

He was swaying enough to almost fall again, but he had it! A wave of exultation swept
over him as he held it against his chest. He had it! It was tempting to just sit
down and rest!
I could just lie down here in this warm sand and sleep
, he thought.

He stood there trying to think for a few minutes. Finally, it occurred to him that
he needed more: he needed to find the loop! Osborne's words came back to him: “Harry,
don't cut the rope until you loop yourself in and tighten it. I've made a loop for
you.”

Harry wavered, almost falling, and reached into his pocket for the jackknife Osborne
had left him. It was still there!

Lifting it up to the rope was unexpectedly difficult. With his aching arms, it felt
like lifting a truck. His heart still pounding, he tried opening it. Sand, sand was
in the way! Finally he opened it, his hands shaking. Then, he stopped.

“First, the loop.”

Holding the knife, he looked for the loop. He hadn't noticed it before, but there
the loop was, near his right hand! He noticed his Mae West too, still on his chest
and still inflated. With difficulty, he slipped the loop over his head and past his
arms, brought it up under the vest to his armpits, and tightened it. His arms seemed
to weigh a thousand pounds!

Again Harry held the blade against the rope and, this time, cut it. Immediately and
unexpectedly, he was jerked about fifteen feet toward the ocean, yanking him off
his feet. In the next moment, he was dragged right out into the water. Luckily, he
was able to twist around so his back was toward the sea as the pull continued. The
vest held his head well out of the water as he was pulled out into the lagoon and
to the sub at about a foot a second.