That night, I was the most scared I’ve ever been in my life. I’d been frightened many times in the jungle. Before we left for Manila, Dad took us to see Bela Lugosi in a double feature of The Phantom Creeps and Son of Frankenstein at the Fox Theatre. I still remembered how much I jumped when the son of Frankenstein appeared on the screen and how Dad had chuckled at me, but not too much—because he jumped, too. I spent most of that night scared out of my wits. But Hollywood monsters were nothing compared to real live sharks with a taste for blood.

I still don’t know how we survived the onslaught. The pallet was waterlogged and coming apart, especially at the big gash down the middle. It creaked and moaned as it was tossed about by the waves. The noise must have attracted more sharks, because they were constantly attacking and knocking against it. After one visit by a fifteen-foot tiger shark, another one of the boards snapped. It hung loosely, attached only by a single nail. I managed to pry it off the pallet, with the nail still sticking out of the end, and used it to poke and club the sharks away. For some reason the nail made me feel better. I had an actual weapon. But I knew I was just getting slaphappy from lack of sleep and water. A nail? Against sharks three times my size. Yes. That would work. Since I didn’t happen to have a cannon lying around.

Benny lay in the middle of the raft with Teddy huddled next to him. Benny couldn’t hold on to him and keep him secure on the pallet, as he would have liked, because of his burned hands. But he did his best to comfort him with soothing words and even the occasional song.

Several times, when enough moonlight shone through the clouds, I spied the bodies of dozens of dead sailors floating by in the waves. They bobbed in the water, rising and falling to the rhythm of the ocean swells. And even when the seas turned rough, it didn’t matter. Not to them. They didn’t have to worry about anything anymore.

Hours passed and finally the waves calmed. When the clouds parted for a moment, the moonlight revealed one of the dead men floating close to our pallet. He wore a life jacket and clutched another in his hand. I wanted them. Teddy could have one, and Benny and I could share the other. It’d give me one less thing to worry about. And they were right there, just a few feet away.

But they weren’t close enough to reach. I slid closer to the edge of the pallet, as far as I dared without falling in the water. I set the nail stick down, grabbed hold of one of the pallet’s wooden slats, and leaned out over the water. I hoped that for once the sea would be on my side, that the waves would push the loose life jacket closer. Nothing doing. So I grabbed the nail stick and extended my arm as far as I could.

There was no way I was going in the water, not even for a life jacket. I knew the sharks were there, even though I couldn’t see them. Instead, I stretched and strained, trying to reach it with my stick. My arms shook, but I couldn’t stop trying. With one last effort, I hooked the nail over one of the straps. Success! I pulled it toward me and sat back up on the raft.

Just as I was about to yank it onto the pallet, I heard a sharp intake of breath. The water exploded in a flurry of splashing foam. Was it another shark? I needed my arm more than I needed the life jacket, so I jerked backward, losing my balance and nearly tumbling over the side.

“Lemme go! Lemme go!” Who was yelling? Benny and Teddy hadn’t moved from their spot on the pallet. Then I realized the strangled voice was coming from the dead sailor. Only, he wasn’t dead. He was alive and thrashing.

“Stop! You’ve got to calm down!” I pleaded, willing him to settle himself before he attracted the sharks.

“Get away! You get away from me!”

“Okay, all right! Just relax,” I begged him. I let go of the life jacket. He pulled it back into the water with him.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“I’m just a survivor,” I said. “Like you.”

“I don’t know you. What’d you do to Litkowski?”

“I don’t know any Litkowski,” I said.

“Liar. I saw you. I saw what you did.” He’d let go of me and was treading water furiously.

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but I didn’t do anything to Lit—” The sailor lunged toward me, thrashing and kicking, the water foaming around him. I swung my nail stick and hit him on the wrist.

“Ow! Why would you do that … and where’s Litkowski?”

“I don’t know. I’m sorry I bothered you, mister. I thought … I thought … you had … You were floating there and not moving and I figured you were … had passed … I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what to say. I’d been about to strip the poor man of his life jackets. Now he was alive and obviously quite delirious.

“I ain’t dead. I ain’t!” he said.

“I can see that,” I said. “But I sure wish you would settle down. These waters are full of sharks and—”

“No sharks! No! Litkowski said no sharks would get me. But you killed him. You killed him!” he grew agitated again, thrusting his arms back and forth in the water.

“Sailor, tell me your name,” I said.

“You want Litkowski’s life jacket? Because you killed him!” He tossed it high, and I watched it spin wildly through the air and land several yards away. There would be no way for me to retrieve it without diving in now.

“Let me help you,” I suggested. “You can grab hold of our raft and drift along with us until we get rescued.” In truth, I didn’t want him anywhere near us, but I hoped the offer would calm him down. It had the opposite effect.

“Oh you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d get rid of me, just like you did Litkowski,” he said. He tugged at the straps on his life jacket. He was taking it off.

“Sailor,” I said. “Don’t do that. You need to keep that jacket on!”

There was no stopping him. For several minutes I pleaded with him as he worked the knots loose. He raved about Litkowski, becoming more and more unhinged with each passing moment. “Me and Litkowski are a team. Brothers. What did you do to him? If he doesn’t have one of these, I won’t have one.” He shrugged out of the vest and swam over to the one he’d tossed. He shot me a dirty look and ripped into them with his teeth like a rabid dog. He barely seemed human anymore. Was that what would happen to all of us eventually? Did this endless sea make everything in it turn crazy?

“Mister, don’t do that! You gotta put it back on! Please!” I said. I watched as he massacred those life vests. They weren’t going to do anything for anyone now. “Please, just come float with us. We’re going to get rescued.”

Something changed in him then. He looked me right in the eye and his expression grew calm. “We aren’t going to get rescued. Litkowski said so. He said the ship exploded. They never had time to get the distress call out. We’re all alone. All alone.”

“You don’t know that! A plane or ship could come along at any minute. You have to hold on. Please swim over and get that life jacket and—”

“No,” he said calmly. “I’m going to get Litkowski. He’ll know what to do.”

He gave me one last look, then sunk beneath the waves with the tattered life jackets clutched in his fists.