Teddy and I thrashed underwater, our limbs colliding as we tried to right ourselves. I couldn’t see anything, most importantly the shark. Grabbing Teddy’s arm, I kicked to the surface, pulling him with me.

“Benny!” I hollered as loud as I could.

“I’m here, pipsqueak! I’m right over here!” he answered back.

I spun around in the water looking for him. But the waves were too big. I didn’t see Benny or our raft anywhere.

“Where?!” I shouted.

Teddy was clutching my back and dragging me under. We resurfaced and I shouted at him.

“Teddy, you gotta settle down or we’re both going to drown,” I yelled. I tried prying his arms from around my neck, but he had a grip like iron. The only thing I could think to do was to duck beneath the water, pulling him with me. I held my breath and waited, making sure I didn’t sink too far.

Teddy still struggled and thrashed, trying to hold on to me, but his instinct for survival finally won out and he shot upward. I came up sputtering behind him and grabbed him loosely around the neck.

“You got to kick your legs, Teddy, so we can tread water. We need to find Benny and get back on the raft,” I said.

I didn’t have to worry about Teddy kicking his legs. He was wild with fear. He spun about like a maniac. It kept us above the water, but it also brought us an unwanted visitor.

“Patrick!” Benny shouted again.

His voice was coming from somewhere behind me. I turned, holding Teddy with my left arm, and no more than ten feet away was a shark coming at us with its mouth wide open. This close, its teeth looked like daggers. Its jaws yawned even wider, its mouth looked big enough to swallow the two of us whole. It came closer, and all I could focus on was the way its teeth gleamed with bright white menace against its dark skin.

I still had the board in my right hand and I swung it with all the strength I could muster. It hit the shark square on its gills. The beast seemed to bristle and dove beneath us, the rough surface of its skin scraping against my legs. I could barely see it, only the tail slicing through the water’s surface. And now it was somewhere below. The sky was dark now, and cloudy. What kind of place was this? The sun burns all day and at night you get clouds covering up the moon so you can’t even see.

“Benny!”

If he answered, I couldn’t hear him over the sound of waves, wind, and my shrieking brother.

Two more fins popped up out of the water, slowly circling us. They were just out of reach of my weapon, such as it was. Teddy thrashed and struggled, so I pulled him onto his back, my arm looped over his left shoulder and under his right arm. I had to stop him from attracting their attention.

“Teddy!” I shouted. “Take a deep breath and hold it. It will help us hide,” I whispered in his ear. For once, he did what I told him. I did the same and floated on my back, supporting Teddy by letting him rest on top of me. We let the waves carry us. But the sharks kept circling. I wondered if they could smell the blood from my cuts.

We let our breath out slowly and started to sink. The big fish were yet to make a move toward us. “Take another breath, Teddy,” I whispered. “The Japanese are close.” Teddy sucked in a great lungful of air. We held our breath and floated again while the sharks sized us up.

Every instinct told me to shout out for Benny. But I had this feeling that if I did, the sharks would attack. And I might set Teddy off again. The thought of holding our breath throughout the night and beyond was not something I was looking forward to. But it beat dying.

Soon, more fins appeared. Now there were sharks all around us. There was no way for me to keep my eye on all of them.

“Teddy,” I whispered. “We’re in the jungle now. Hiding in the underbrush just like with Iggy. Those dark things, those are the enemy. You watch the front and I’ll watch the back, and if you see them coming, you say so. You shout out and Iggy will shoot it. Nod your head if you understand me.”

Teddy took another deep breath and nodded. I turned him until we were floating back-to-back in the water. As we held our breath, I hooked my left arm through Teddy’s right arm. I held the short board in my right hand. In my mind, I sat in the stands at Briggs Stadium with my dad. I closed my eyes and saw Hank Greenberg stepping up to the plate, his spikes digging into the dirt. I saw the pitcher wind up and release the ball. Then I saw Hammerin’ Hank take that sweet swing, the ball jumping off the bat, rifling its way through the air and over the wall. The sharks were the baseball. The board was my Louisville Slugger. If any shark came near us, it was going to get a quick lesson in how a kid from Detroit, Michigan, could fight. If we were going down, we were going down swinging. I didn’t know another way to be. I wouldn’t just give in. Benny said there were people looking for us. We were going to make it out of here. All of us. Or my name wasn’t Patrick James O’Donnell of Detroit, Michigan.

The smallest of the group slowly swam toward me. I guess it could smell the blood on my legs after all. I twisted us around so that Teddy was behind me. Closer and closer it came. Its nose was blunt and square, and it slowed its approach as it drew nearer. The shape of its head made it hard for me to get the right angle to hit it in the gills. The other sharks just kept circling us.

I figured if I popped it square on the nose now, I’d just make it angrier. But I wanted to be ready, just in case, so I lifted the board out of the water. I noticed that my arm was covered in blood and the dark sludge of diesel fuel. We must have hit another patch of it. But even though I was bleeding more than I’d thought, the smallest shark just sort of hovered two feet away. It didn’t attack us, and neither did its friends. Maybe it was like Benny had said. We were small and they were looking for something more than an appetizer.

Back home, our next-door neighbors, the Moselys, had a dog. His name was Brewster and he was a friendly mutt. Teddy and I liked playing with him. Every day, when we came home from school, Brewster would come bounding over from the Mosleys’s yard to greet us. The first thing he would do was sniff our legs, hands, and arms, really checking us out, to see if we smelled like anything interesting.

It was like the shark was doing the same thing. Teddy and I were holding our breath and floating along. As long as we didn’t kick or splash, the sharks acted like curious dogs more interested in smelling us than eating us.

“Teddy, you keep an eye out,” I said. “If one comes near, you let me know.”

I must not have had a very interesting scent, because the shark in front of me took one last look, then dove beneath the surface and was gone. It was no cause for celebration. The others hadn’t gone anywhere. I couldn’t shout out for Benny. I was afraid the noise would bring them after us. Now I worried that Benny and the pallet had been carried away from us on the current. Would this be how we would spend the night? How we would die? A standoff where we tried to be quiet and the sharks waited for us to make a single sound, as if that were permission to finish us off?

“Aah! Aah!” Teddy shouted, pulling me back from my morbid thoughts. I jerked around to look, and found one of the sharks swimming toward him along the surface of the water. I pushed him behind me, and as the shark lunged forward, I swung the board down on its snout as hard as I could. With a great thwack, the board splintered in half lengthwise. It was like fighting a dinosaur with a toothpick.

One of the broken pieces spun out of my hands. But the piece I was left with had a sharp point. The shark shook its head as if it was confused, then angled toward me. I jabbed the sharp edge of the stick at its eye. The shark didn’t back down, but I didn’t, either. I kept stabbing at it as it stared out at me with cold, soulless eyes. It looked like a robot from one of the science fiction comics we bought at Kresge’s. All it was designed to do was eat.

“Get away!” I shouted. “Get away from us!”

I stabbed at it again and scored a direct hit on its eye with the pointed end of the stick.

“Leave us alone!”

“Aah, aah!” Teddy had lost his concentration. He kicked and screamed and thrashed in the water. We had nothing to lose, so I shouted and kicked with him. I hit the shark in the eye again, and it peeled away. But the noise was now drawing the attention of the other sharks, and they veered toward us.

“Hang on, Teddy!” I said. “Hang on! I won’t let them get you! Don’t worry, buddy! You’re the best bro—”

A large wave rose up behind the sharks, and there came Benny on the pallet. It hit the water with a loud smack, right between the onrushing sharks, who were startled by its unexpected appearance.

“Get up here, boys! Hurry!” Benny shouted. The sharks turned tail and swam away, but I was pretty sure they would be coming back. I grabbed Teddy and put his foot in my cupped hands to boost him up onto the pallet.

“Help me, Teddy,” I said. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to make it up. Teddy just sat there, not moving, curled up on his side. Benny scooted over and held out his arm. I couldn’t take his hand. It was too badly burned. He couldn’t lift me. I finally found the strength to clamber up the rest of the way.

The waves lifted the raft again and it slammed down on the water’s surface. I rolled over onto my back.

“How did you find us?” I said.

“Told you,” Benny said. “Marines don’t leave no man behind.”