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No! Not yet.
he commanded himself. Everything he cared about was right there on earth. It
was much too soon to leave. His heart began to race. Pain and discomfort
returned. He felt the raw wetness engulf his body like dishwater filling
a sponge, and the cloying fuel stench attacked every sense as if
his olfac-tory capacity alone were insufficient to absorb it.
He embraced these sensations like a long-lost friend; he would force
himself to stay awake, concentrate, breathe more carefully, dissociate pain
from soul, and fight to stay alive.
It might hurt, he decided, and would probably make no dif-ference in the end,
but if by some miracle he were rescued, any amount of suffering would seem
insignificant.
Rolling his arms and scissor-kicking his legs, Ben antici-pated the rhythm of
the swells and steadied himself against them. He timed his breathing to take
air only when his head was completely above water.
More time passed; he had no idea how much. In this struggle against death,
seconds felt like hours, hours like seconds. Every muscle was drained, his
lungs ached, his skin so cold it burned, except on the fingers and toes, which
by now possessed no feeling at all. How much longer could he keep that up?
Forever if he had to!
Without warning, he felt something wrap itself around his neck.
Now what? Ben thought, his instinctive shout of surprise choked off by the
stranglehold. He lacked the strength to resist. Nothing remained left in him.
Then he realized it was a man s arm, and heard the sweet sound of Ensign
McGuigan s gravelly voice.
Jumpin Jesus. Smitty! You okay, boy?
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This was the impossible made real, and in the face of it only a distant
portion of Ben s brain could muster emotion. He paid no homage to any feeling
but amazement. Mack had braved those waters, risked his own life.
For me!
The officer towed him safely to his raft.
But Ben s fortunes would change again when the rafts were spotted by a
Japanese troop ship, HIJMS
Asahi Maru.
The Americans watched in helpless terror as the enemy ship bore down on their
raft.
Japanese sailors pointed weapons and mo-tioned for them to board. Two American
boys carried Ben, mercifully unconscious, into the bowels of the ship.
Ben Smith s most primitive sense was his first to awaken:
Oh my God! The smell! He couldn t breathe. Jesus, he d sur-vived for this?
Ben now sat on a hard steel surface, his body rolled into a virtual ball, neck
twisted, head buried between his knees. His lungs still burned from
ingested diesel, his mouth tasted it. A ship s engine pounded his
ears. And sweat-soaked human bodies mashed against him.
Where am I?
In hell, a tortured voice croaked. Its fear was unmistak-able, infectious.
Ben felt his heart race. What?
Asahi Maru
, said another.
Ben turned toward the words. They seemed calmer, but al-most catatonic.
Japanese?
What else? said the almost-familiar voice. Empty Jap troopship. Taking us
to a POW camp. If we live.
Jesus. How long ve I been out?
A third voice answered: Bout a day. Figured you might ve died. Some have.
More room for us.
A day? Ben thought. A whole day?
Then a man shrieked: inhuman, a lunatic being tortured. Too quickly,
Ben tried to raise himself, banging his skull against asbestos-clad pipes
hanging just three feet above the deck. He looked up and saw only a dense
network of pipes, many superheated.
Out! Out! Out! the sailor screamed. God, oh God, oh God! Get me out!
Mother, come and get me now!
The twenty-five-foot-by-thirty-foot-by-thirty-five-inch makeshift prison,
enclosed at its sides by three layers of over-lapping chicken wire, exploded
in a din of shouting and scuf-fling. Stop him! Got one running amok! Try
and tackle him! Two hundred men filled the shipsworks dungeon, one panicked
sailor flailing and clambering among them.
That s a live-steam return pipe! It ll cook you ...
Ben not only heard but felt a high-pitched squeal. Feet stumbled on deck and
over men s bodies. A
heavy, hollow thunk echoed: head slamming into a valve cover. Then another
noise, much like a crisp apple crushed between two powerful hands.
After a few seconds of silence he heard only the same soft cries, moans, and
pleadings.
Time wore on, hours then days. All around Ben, hard-packed, were British and
American sailors, mostly teenagers like him. But their numbers were
diminishing.
To Ben s right sat Petty Officer Hauptman, to his left Seaman Moses Walker.
Each man s shoulder touched his own.
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Hauptman shivered.
In this heat?
And Moses s arm had been broken; how badly, no one could tell. The ship s cook
slept or moaned, but little more.
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