Two of the men wrestled with the top depth charge, barely budging it. Ten men would be required to roll back all the charges, if they could even squeeze into the cramped space. How long would that take? More than a minute. Much longer. Then the destroyer could only drop half the depth charges, completing only half the pattern. The chance of the U-boat surviving to torpedo them would be doubled.
But what about Ozzie? The young man’s face wrenched in agony, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his arm twisted at an awkward angle to relieve pressure on his smashed fingers.
Jim’s breath came hard. He gripped the upper rails of the rack as if they were the jaws of an animal trap, as if he could pry them apart and save Ozzie’s hand, Lillian’s leg.
But he couldn’t. Lillian lost her leg. Ozzie would lose those two fingers.
“Range two-double-oh. Sound contact lost,” the talker said. “Mr. Avery, sir, should I tell the captain we’re down to one rack?”
Jim stared at the man in his headphones. They were close enough to lose sound contact. They had to release the depth charges in thirty seconds. If they did, Ozzie would lose the other two fingers on that hand. What if the contact was a whale? A pocket of cold water? What if Jim sacrificed Ozzie’s hand for nothing?
But what if it was a U-boat? What if they only dropped half the charges, and the U-boat survived to sink theAtwoodwith Ozzie and two hundred other men on board?
Jim had to decide, and he had to decide now.
Time to be an officer. Time to be bold. He straightened up. “Hill, switch back to bridge control.”
“What? He’ll lose his hand.”
“That’s an order. Do it now.”
Hill’s square face agitated, but he leaned over and flipped the lever.
“Please don’t,” Ozzie cried. “Please, sir. Please don’t.”
“Call for a medical team,” Jim told the talker, then he circled the rack and set his hand on Ozzie’s shoulder. “Get as much of your arm out of the way as you can. I’m sorry, but we need to sink that sub before it sinks us.”
The man scrunched his eyes shut, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Jim clenched his shoulder.
Behind Jim, the port rack clicked, and a depth charge splashed into the water, set to explode at one hundred feet.
Five seconds. Ozzie’s muscles tensed beneath Jim’s hand.
Five, four, three, two, one.
The lever clicked. The charges rolled forward. Ozzie screeched.
As soon as the charge rolled by, Jim grabbed his shoulders and pulled him free. “Come on, men. Get him out of here.”
Sailors dragged the screaming man away from the racks, to the open space behind the number four gun mount.
A loud hollow explosion sounded behind the ship. The stern heaved out of the water, and Jim fought to keep his balance. The water turned white in a rapidly spreading circle, then a giant plume erupted in the center. The first depth charge.
Two more depth charges rolled off the stern. Three more explosions fired, churning up the sea.
Jim leaned back against the smoke generator, his breath galloping. A group huddled around Ozzie. Some of the men held him down while a pharmacist’s mate wrapped gauze around four bloody stumps.
TheAtwoodshifted to a circling pattern, and the Y-gun fired both 300-pound depth charges.
No further sound contacts. No torpedo wakes in their direction. But no oil or debris rose to the surface.
Jim stood there, gloved hand splayed on the cold steel of the smoke generator, while blood froze on the depth charge rack and the medical team helped young Ozzie Douglas down to sick bay to start a new life without the fingers on his right hand.
A vile taste filled Jim’s mouth. For the second time in his life, he’d acted boldly. And for the second time in his life, someone had been maimed.
28
Boston
