Devil at My Heels - Louis Zamperini [54]
“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