The shock of landing took my breath away, and I plunged in a lot deeper than I thought I would, so I had to claw my way back up to the surface, still praying the whole time that somebody had heard me shouting. If not, then it didn’t matter what happened because Woody and I would both be dead soon in this churning ocean.

More lightning lit up the sky and I saw him between waves, still thrashing wildly, twenty yards away. It was hard to swim with my life vest on and hold on to the ring, but I knew I had to get to Woody fast, as panicked as he was.

Except another wave crashed over us, and then another. I spotted him again, but then he went under all of a sudden. My heart just about stopped until he came back up, trying to yell but spitting up salt water coughing and gasping. I finally made it to him and grabbed his arm to hook it over the life ring, but Woody seemed oblivious to what was happening, caught up in his panic. He pulled his arm away and flailed around, nearly hitting me, and then, somehow, he got behind me and wrapped his arm around my neck, pulling us both under.

I fought as hard as I could, kicking, twisting, anything to get away. But Woody was a lot bigger than me, and even when I was able to pry myself free of his arm, and even with my life vest on and hanging on to the life ring, the weight of him on top of me pressed me deeper underwater. I kept fighting until I managed to wriggle free and kick for the surface, somehow still holding on to the buoy. We probably hadn’t been under for more than half a minute, but I was desperate for air when I finally came up. I wasn’t in the clear yet, though, because another wave crashed over me as soon as I got there and I swallowed a lot of water.

Sputtering, I gasped for air and was so scared that I just wanted to get away from Woody. Before I could get any distance from him, Woody came back up, too—still panicking and trying to take hold of me again. I was afraid he’d drown us both this time if he did, especially if he got me around the neck from behind, but I was getting weaker, worn out from being underwater, from the cold, from swallowing so much salt water, and from fighting him off while at the same time trying to hold him up out of the water.

And then out of nowhere, on the other side of a wave, I heard somebody call our names. “Danny! Woody! Where the heck are you guys?”

“Over here!” I yelled. It was Straub. I’d have recognized that big voice anywhere.

The wave crested and suddenly there he was, swimming wildly toward us, splashing so much it was like another wave crashing. Woody was still delirious, though, and grabbed me around the neck yet again, but this time before he could pull me under, Straub was right there with us.

“Oh no you don’t!” Straub said, taking hold of Woody’s arm. And then, not even hesitating, he punched Woody in the face.

And just like that, the fight went right out of Woody.

I didn’t know if the blow knocked him out or if it just stunned him, but he stopped flailing and trying to attack me. He just sort of went limp. Straub and I were able to get him secured to the life ring, and then we both floated on our backs for a minute in the trough of another big wave, buoyed up by our life preservers.

“Didn’t think I’d be able to find you guys,” Straub said once he caught his breath. “I saw you go over the side and it took me a couple of minutes to find a life preserver.”

“Did you see anybody else? Do they know we’re out here?” I asked. I started shivering and realized I should have never stopped moving. The water temperature was probably in the fifties, and I was losing body heat fast.

“Pretty sure somebody saw,” Straub said, his teeth chattering now, too. “But they have to turn around, and I don’t know where these waves have pushed us.”

As if on cue, another wave washed over us and we came up sputtering. But it wasn’t as big as the one before it, and the next one seemed a little smaller, too.

“We just have to wait,” I said. “Thanks for coming. I couldn’t have held out much longer. Woody went kind of crazy.”

“Poor guy,” Straub said. “I guess when you think you’re drowning, your brain shuts down on you and you get terrified.”

“I guess so,” I said, remembering Woody’s arm around my neck, and him dragging me underwater and holding me there.

I wasn’t through being mad at him, even if he had been out of his mind or whatever.

The good news was the storm kept letting up and the waves kept subsiding to the point where they were no longer crashing over us. The bad news was all the ships were running dark—nobody was even allowed to light a cigarette on deck—so it would be hard to see our patrol craft.

I doubted they would turn on the searchlight because of the wolf pack that was lurking around out there somewhere, maybe waiting for a target.

Ten minutes passed and our teeth were chattering so loud I could hear them. Fifteen minutes passed and Woody slid low into the water, barely holding on to the buoy. It took all my strength to help Straub haul him back up.

Half an hour passed and my heart grew heavy. I couldn’t feel my toes and fingers, and I wondered what it would feel like when all three of us slid under, when we didn’t have any strength left to hold ourselves up, even with the life vests on. Or would we freeze to death first?

But I couldn’t let myself think those thoughts. Straub wasn’t going to give up. He was actually humming a song, out of tune. It might have even been “Keep Your Sunny Side Up!” Plus Woody needed me. Mama and Danny needed me.

And then I saw it: a searchlight sweeping over the ocean maybe a quarter mile away. They were still looking for us! I yelled as loud as I could but knew that it was unlikely anybody would hear me over the noise of the engine—if that was our ship. The thought occurred to me that it could just as easily be a U-boat, and I stopped yelling. But Straub picked up where I left off with his booming voice.

The ship came closer, and the searchlight swung closer, too, until finally—thank God!—it found us. At that point I didn’t care if it was a U-boat or a pirate ship, I was just relieved.

I didn’t have to wait long to find out that it was, in fact, our ship. A few minutes later the searchlight was fixed on us, and somebody was throwing a couple more life rings and a line with a harness over the side. Straub and I looped the harness around Woody, who was starting to come out of his stupor, and they hauled him up on board.

Then they threw out the line again, and I fastened the harness on myself the way they’d taught us in boot camp, and they hauled me in, too. Straub insisted on going last.

I thought everybody would be happy to see us and grateful that we were alive.

Instead, once they got Woody up and moving around, Chief Kerr chewed us out for a good ten minutes in front of the entire crew—Woody for coming up on deck without a life vest, and Straub and me for going into the ocean after him instead of following standard procedure and sounding the alarm for man overboard. I felt about as low as I could be by the time he was finished. I guess he did it to make a point to everybody else about safety and following orders and everything, but it sure didn’t take long for me to go from feeling like I was some kind of hero to feeling like I’d let the whole ship down.

I still knew, though, that if I hadn’t gone in after Woody—if I’d sounded the alarm and waited for the ship to turn around to find him—and if Straub hadn’t gone in after me—that Woody wouldn’t have made it out alive.

Chief dismissed everybody and ordered me and Woody and Straub to change our wet clothes and get cleaned up and dried off. They put Woody in the sick bay since he was still pretty out of it, but Straub and I had to clean belowdecks for the whole rest of the night, even though we both had a scheduled watch until the next morning.

For a long time we worked in silence. Then after a while I asked Straub if he thought Woody knew what had happened.

Straub thought about it for a bit, then said, “I bet he doesn’t remember. And if he does, I guess maybe it’s best that we not say anything to him about it because he’d feel pretty terrible. And what the heck. I think just about anybody might lose their head in a situation like that. You never know, and I ain’t going to judge him or anybody else.”

We got quiet again, finishing up mopping, and then, my eyes all red and tearing up, I said, “Thanks for saving me, Straub.”

“It’s okay, Danny,” he said back. “You saved Woody. And he’ll return the favor to us one day.”

*   *   *

They let Woody out of the sick bay the next day and the first thing he did was come find me and Straub. We were both bleary-eyed from lack of sleep after being up all night, plus exhausted from being in the water for so long, and fighting the waves and Woody.

He started to say something but got choked up, tears filling his eyes and spilling over down his cheeks.

Straub put his arm around Woody’s shoulders. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “Could have happened to any of us. And you’d have been there, jumping in to save us, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I don’t doubt it for a second.”

After a minute Woody found his voice. “I know I went kind of crazy out there,” he said. “I don’t much remember all of it, but I’m ashamed of what I do remember.”

Straub waved as if he was swatting the words away like so many flies. “Water under the bridge,” he said.

“Or under the patrol craft,” I added. “Anyway, one thing I didn’t tell you guys was I actually peed on myself when I saw Woody get swept overboard. I figured I had to dive in. Not so much to save Woody as to wash the pee off my pants. That way no one would know.”

Straub and Woody broke out laughing. “Well, they’re gonna know about it now,” Straub said. And that was the end of that.

Except for after my watch, when I climbed down from the observation post like a zombie because I was so tired and I ran into the chief. He was leaning on the rail looking at the ships strung out in front as far as the eye could see. He motioned me over.

“Yes, Chief?” I said nervously.

He was smoking a pipe. It reminded me of my dad’s pipe.

He tamped out the tobacco and ashes and slid the pipe into his pocket. “I don’t know what mother back there on land is sitting up nights worrying about her son, but I do know that it’s my job to make sure that son—no matter how old he is—makes it home safe from this convoy and this war. Do you understand me?”

I nodded but didn’t speak.

“And another thing,” he started, then stopped.

“Yes, Chief?” I said again.

He grunted. “That was a heck of a thing you did last night to save your buddy. And a heck of a thing Straub did to save you. I guess if there is a mother back there on land sitting up nights worrying about her son, she’d be an awfully proud one if she knew.”