Jim groaned. He’d seen the training film on how to escape through burning oil, but he’d prayed he’d never have to use it.
A shout rang out across the gap. On the other destroyer, men pointed to the three men on theAtwood.
Jim waved. He needed their attention and help.
He and Hadley stuck their heads under the lifeline, straddled the tilted deck edge, and helped Udell into the same position. The gun captain looked pale, his eyes rolling, his posture slumped. He was going into shock from the blood loss. All the more reason to hurry.
“Burning oil,” Hadley said with a growl.
“We know what to do.” Jim unfastened his life vest. “Take off your life vests so we can stay submerged below the fire. I’ll slide down first, clear a hole in the flames. You follow with Udell. Get to me right away so I can help. Swim low and fast. When we come up for air, thrash like crazy to beat off the flames.”
Hadley tossed aside his vest. “That’d better be a big shiny medal.”
Jim grinned at him. Live or die, he’d done his best, and he’d even gained a friend in the process.
Following the instructions in the training film, Jim tore off his coat, unbuttoned his shirt except for the top button, and flipped the tails up and over his head to protect his face from the oil and flames.
Cold bit at his chest, and darkness closed in. “Ready, Hadley? You’ve got to come right after me.”
“Ready.”
“Lord, you promised, ‘When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee.’ Help us all.” Jim pushed off, sliding fast down the steel hull, friction warming his back and bottom, feet held flat to clear the largest hole possible in the flames.
He plunged into the water, the cold slapping every square inch of his body, squeezing him. Every instinct told him to surface, but training kept him down, as low as he could go.
He kicked out, wrestled the shirt off his face, leveled off, pushed away from the ship.
A muffled set of splashes sounded right behind him. Jim slowed his stroke, waiting for the other men. A hand brushed his leg, and Jim fumbled for it, yanked it, grabbed under the shoulder.
He swam hard, his free arm sweeping wide, legs kicking fast and sharp.
Udell’s shoulder jerked in his grasp. Hadley must be surfacing for a breath.
Jim aimed straight up, to the flickering yellow light of the flames on the water. Turn away from the wind. Away, so the flames wouldn’t go down his throat. “When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
He thrashed with his free arm. Wildly. Came up in a black circle of water surrounded by taunting, mocking flames. Jim turned his head away from the wind and sucked in a hot, deep breath, nasty with the taste of burning fuel oil.
He forced Udell out of the water, but the man’s head lolled back.
“Over here!” a man shouted, maybe twenty feet away. “Not much farther. You can do it.”
Over the flames, Jim caught sight of a life raft with two men inside, reaching for them.
“Ready?” Jim asked Hadley.
The man nodded, slow and thick.
Cold was getting to him, getting to Jim. They had to hurry. “One, two, three!”
Jim thrashed with his arm, then dove, kicking hard, his face and hands and legs numb. Swimming was harder now, more weight behind him. With each stroke, the weight increased, pulling him lower.
Please, Lord, keep Hadleyconscious. I can’t drag both of them. I can’t.He kicked with all his might but felt like he was going nowhere.
His arms, his legs felt solid, immobile. His lungs burned for air. He needed to breathe. He kicked upward, like using tree trunks to stir a giant vat of syrup. Slow. So slow.
Jim broke the surface, drew in a breath. The flames. They were gone. He’d passed them.
“Over here! Over here!” So close, the voice. So close, yet miles away.
