In Harm's Way by Doug Stanton

Author:Doug Stanton [Stanton, Doug]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Military, World War II, United States, Naval, General, USS Indianapolis, Non-Fiction
ISBN: 9780805073669
Google: oBaI6MnPHxcC
Amazon: 0805073663
Publisher: Owl Books
Published: 2003-05-02T05:00:00+00:00

The rafts of marine private McCoy and Captain McVay drifted ahead of what remained of the other groups. McCoy and McVay were about eight miles apart, and each was about seven miles from Haynes.

Amazingly, Captain McVay’s crew was nearly untouched by madness. The other good news was the relative smoothness of the sea, which had replaced Tuesday’s swells. Assessing his collection of rafts, McVay knew the boys were teetering on the brink of exhaustion. In a low voice that, given his parched mouth and throat, was a huge effort, McVay pleaded with the boys to stay still and expend as little energy as possible. Quietly, he begged them to keep looking out for planes.

The tension was nearly unbearable. At one point, as many as nine sharks were circling the rafts. The crew had spent hours fishing and they’d had little luck, although John Spinelli had been able to catch one fish. He’d cut it into strips and arranged them on the raft’s edge to dry in the sun. But Mc Vay had been afraid to let the boy eat the small, black triangular fish, fearing it might be poisonous. Spinelli obeyed and tossed it overboard. The sight of this was torture for the others, who’d been sucking sullenly on milk tablets or nibbling at their meager rations of salty Spam and crackers.

McVay’s four rafts were spread out over seventy-five feet of ocean. He was trying to create as large a visual target as possible for passing aircraft. At 5 A.M., after spotting a plane’s red and green running lights, Mc Vay had shot two star shells—illuminating rounds—from a pistol he’d scavenged from his raft’s emergency box. Later, he spotted what he thought was a B-24 or B-29 bomber flying in a westerly direction. It had to have taken off from Tinian and was almost certainly on its way to Leyte.

But as had been the case time and again, with so many planes that had offered a moment or two of hope, the diligent boys’ signal mirrors had failed to attract notice. Mc Vay knew that his sense of self-discipline was the only thread holding his boys to sanity.

John Spinelli didn’t like the terrible quiet on the raft, but he was more troubled by what he saw in his captain’s eyes. Spinelli knew what Mc Vay must be feeling, but could do nothing. Turning his glance toward another of his raftmates, Spinelli noticed the increasingly odd look in the boy’s eyes and told himself to watch this one carefully. All morning, the guy had been gazing at the enormous shark trailing their rafts. The fish had bumped the rafts, nuzzled them, even lifted the rafts’ corners as if testing its power. The guy never took his eyes off the fish. It was like he was hypnotized.

Suddenly, as the shark passed again, the boy slashed out with a tiny, two-inch penknife. Spinelli couldn’t believe it—the crazy bastard had actually managed to stab the shark between the eyes! Cannonballs of water landed around

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