I’m going to board your ship and seize your stores. This is wartime. I got rights to search an enemy vessel,” he said.

“Look out!” I shouted. “There’s a sha—”

I didn’t even get the word out of my mouth before, as Benny would say, “he lost his flippin’ mind.”

“Shark! No! Don’t! No! Sharks … Stop … Don’t let it get me!” His sunken eyes grew wide and he spun his head around, looking everywhere for the shark. It was closing fast.

“It’s behind you,” I said. “Don’t move. Stop splashing. I think any kind of noise or splashing makes them attack.”

“No! No! No!” he cried. He thrashed and shrieked in the water. The shark was speeding up.

“You’ve got to calm down!” I said, but my voice had no volume, and I don’t think he heard me.

The shark smacked into one of the corpses, and the impact rocked the whole group. The body rose up out of the water, and the great fish bit off the dead man’s arm at the elbow. It had gotten what it came for, and it sunk below the water.

Stenkevitz was weeping. Now he’d floated past us, and I looked around to see if there was anything I could toss to him that might help him defend himself. My stick with the nail was nowhere in sight.

And unfortunately for the sergeant, it looked like the giant predator wanted a second helping. It surfaced again, this time in front of Stenkevitz. He went completely nuts, ranting as it circled him slowly.

“Get away from me!” he screamed, spinning and thrashing uncontrollably. “Stay away!”

If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought the shark was toying with him. Like it enjoyed making him crazy. Stenkevitz followed it with his eyes. His screams turned to frightened moans.

“What you goin’ to do, sport?” Benny whispered.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Nothing? He was going to board—”

“You’re the captain of this ship. You got a fellow crewman in the water in a state of distress. Stenkevitz might be a dunderhead, but he’s a fellow marine. What have I told you about marines?” he rasped.

“They leave no man behind,” I said.

“That’s right.” Benny coughed and it sounded like a hollow drum was beating deep in his lungs. Part of me was amazed that he was still alive.

“I don’t know what to do. He’s drifting away, and I don’t really want to leave him behind, Benny, honest I don’t. But I’m not strong enough to paddle the raft to him,” I said as I slapped my hand down on the pallet. “It may not weigh much now that it’s coming apart—” Stopping midsentence, I turned around and felt the boards one by one. The pallet was fastened together in a crisscross pattern. Four thick boards made up the foundation and two-inch wide planks were nailed to each side of them. One of the corner planks had come loose where the sharks had bitten through it. I carefully rose to my hands and knees. Putting one knee on the plank, I pulled at it with all the strength I had left.

I glanced over at Stenkevitz. He moaned like Teddy did. But the shark didn’t care. It burst forward and tore into the corpse on his left.

“Stop! Someone help me! Please!” Stenkevitz was wailing like a drowning cat.

I groaned with the effort and pulled on the plank. It still wouldn’t give.

“C’mon, champ,” Benny said. “Put your back into it. You got a marine pinned down. He’s takin’ enemy fire. And he’s waitin’ on you to come to his aid. Stenkevitz might be a sorry excuse for a human bein’, but when the chips are down all that matters is that globe and anchor on his collar. You gotta help him.”

I grunted with the strain. “I’m trying,” I said through gritted teeth. The wood splintered and cracked. A big piece of it came loose in my hands. It was about three feet long, blunt on one end, with a sharp point on the other.

The shark ripped several grisly bites from the corpse, and now it was circling again.

“Hey! Stenkevitz! Heads up!” I said. I tossed the board. It whirled through the air and landed about five or six feet in front of him. He understood immediately and paddled his way toward it, snatching it up in his hands.

“Did he reach it?” Benny asked.

“Yeah. He got it,” I said.

When the shark attacked again, Stenkevitz clubbed and poked at it like a man possessed. The shark shook and thrashed, kicking up the waves. Stenkevitz was floating away from us, the distance growing the longer they struggled.

“Try to whack it in the gills,” I shouted. But my voice was merely a weak rasp.

The confrontation with Stenkevitz and the effort to break off the board had taken all the energy I had left. I lay back down on the raft. My head felt funny and the sky was spinning. I closed my eyes. Somewhere off in the distance I could still hear Stenkevitz shouting and cursing at the shark, but eventually I drifted off to sleep.

I woke up as the sun was sinking in the western sky. The waters were calm, and an eerie silence blanketed everything for miles around. My muscles were cramped. I could barely move or see. I struggled to a sitting position. It felt like I’d been staring at a light bulb for hours. When the spots in front of my eyes finally cleared, I looked around in every direction.

Stenkevitz was nowhere to be seen.