Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [52]
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