Free Omnibus.The.Sea.Witch.2012 by Stephen Coonts

then the Zero swept overhead so close I could hear the roar of his engine. At that point it was running better than ours, which was missing badly.
    I glanced up in time to see that the enemy fighter was trailing fire. He went into a slight left turn and gentlydescended until he hit the ocean about a mile from us. Just a little splash, then he was gone.
    Our right engine still ran, though fuel was pouring out of the wing. As if we had any to spare.
    The island lay dead ahead, but oh, too far, too far.
    Now the engine began missing.
    We’d never make it. Never.
    Coughing, sputtering, the engine wasn’t developing enough power to hold us up.
    I shouted at Pottinger to hang on, but he had already let go of the controls and braced himself against the instrument panel. As I rolled the trim nose up, I gently retarded the throttle.
    Just before we kissed the first swell the engine quit dead. We skipped once, I rolled the trim all the way back, pulled the yoke back even though the damn cables were severed, and the
Sea Witch
pancaked. She must have stopped dead in about ten feet. I kept traveling forward until my head hit the instrument panel, then I went out.
    POTTINGER:
    The ensign wasn’t strapped in. In all the excitement he must have forgotten. The panel made a hell of a gash in his forehead, so he was out cold and bleeding profusely.
    The airplane was settling fast. I opened the cockpit hatch and pulled him out of his seat. I couldn’t have gotten him up through the hatch if Hoffman hadn’t come up to the cockpit. The ensignweighed about 120, which was plenty, let me tell you. It was all Hoffman and I could do to get him through the hatch, then we hoisted ourselves through.
    The top of the fuselage was just above water. It was a miracle that the Jap float fighter didn’t set us on fire, and he probably would have if we had been carrying more fuel.
    “What about the others?” I asked Hoffman.
    “Huntington is dead. The Zero got him. So is Amme. I don’t know about Tucker or Svenson.”
    We were about to step off the bow to stay away from the props when a wave swept us into the sea. I popped the cartridges to inflate my vest, then struggled with the ensign’s. I also had to tighten the straps of his vest, then attend to mine—no one ever put those things on tightly enough. I was struggling to do all this and keep our heads above water when I felt something hit my foot.
    The ensign was still bleeding, and these waters were full of sharks. A wave of panic swept over me, then my foot hit it again. Something solid. I put my foot down.
    The bottom. I was standing on the bottom with just my nose out of the water.
    “Hoffman! Stand up!”
    We were inside the reef. A miracle. Delivered by a miracle. The ensign had gotten us just close enough.
    The
Sea Witch
refused to go under, of course, because she was resting on the bottom. Her black starboard wingtip and vertical stabilizer both protruded prominently from the water.
    When we realized the situation, Hoffman worked his way aft and checked on the others. He found three bodies.
    We had to get ashore, so we set out across the lagoon toward the beach, walking on the bottom and pulling the ensign, who floated in his inflated life vest.
    “He took a hell of a lick,” I told Hoffman.
    “Maybe he’ll wake up,” Hoffman said, leaving unspoken the other half of it, that maybe he wouldn’t.
    HOFFMAN:
    The only thing that kept me sane was taking care of the ensign as we struggled over the reef.
    Maybe he was already dead, or dying. I didn’t know. I tried not to think about it. Just keep his head up.
    Oh, man. I couldn’t believe they were all dead—Lieutenant Modahl, Chief Amme, Swede Svenson, Tucker, Huntington, Varitek. I tried not to think about it and could think of nothing else. All those guys dead!
    We were next. The three of us. There we were, castaways on a jungle island in the middle of the ocean and not another soul on earth knew. Howlong could a guy stay alive?