Robert Jones

Words: 5100

Last Emotions, 1941-43

Gusts of ocean air burst across rusting ship decks, scaling corroded steel walls and staircases. Swirling eddies of heavy salt air twist upward encircling the smokestack, mixing with hot particles of burnt bunker oil before trailing behind the ship. Hinges creak and groan on steel doors slightly ajar as wind whistles through narrow passageways. 

“Will we make this ocean crossing without incident?” Sergeant Webb silently asked himself, keeping his balance with one hand on deck railing while taking short steps forward then back to keep from falling overboard as the ship continued rising and falling with each rolling ocean swell. 

Closing his eyes letting cold, salt air stream across his face, changing thought, he mumbled, “Late at night, if I jump to the Ocean deep, my soul is the Lord’s to keep.”

“Sarge, got a smoke?” Webb heard behind him, recognizing Private Emerson’s raspy voice.

Reaching in his shirt pocket, pulling out an open pack of Pall Malls, handing it to Emerson, he said, “Keep the pack,” letting further words to his poetic, suicidal thoughts escape his mind. 

"Got a match?" Emerson asked, thinking how lucky he was to have such a fair and honest, no nonsense leader. He trusted the Sergeant with his life. 

"Inside the pack," Webb answered, wishing he had purchased a couple more cartons of cigarettes from a small delicatessen next door to the Port of New York. A lit cigarette, a deep draw, holding it in his lungs before exhaling, helped frayed nerves before exhaling. As well, he wished he had gotten another two bottles of illegal whisky at the same time before shipping out to England days earlier, in ’43. Strong drink helped him sleep a few hours when below deck.  

“Breeze feels good,” Emerson said.  

“It’s why I come up here when I can.” 

“Know the feeling,” Emersion agreed. 

When below deck, three-tier bunks attached to cold, steel walls with little space between each canvas hammock makes it hard to sleep more than a few hours with a constant variety of interruptions. With six to eight men sleeping, smoking, playing cards, drinking or reading in close, overly warm quarters, the rancid stink of humans intensifies when at sea for more than a week. Other irritants are heavy breathers and snorers and constant twisting and turning from uncomfortable sleeping positions. Smokers, underarm odors, stink from crotch and feet or cutting gas from lousy ship food, too. Worse is the stench of urine coming from the latrine next door or the putrid smell of vomit from seasickness.  

Unnerving is when waking to a rat traipsing lightly across a bare chest looking for a morsel of food or one of the black devils licking your sweaty skin for the salt.   

Mess hall cooking and eating the foul slop aboard ship only makes matters worse when finding a roach belly-up on one’s meal serving, swimming in your coffee or skittering across a dining surface when readying to sit down to eat. Disturbing and creepy is when a roach drops an egg sack holding 30 to 40 of its kind behind a grouping of condiment containers holding salt, pepper, tomato catch-up and mustard. On rare occasions, one might see tiny newborn dots from the egg sack begin spreading out in different directions. A slap of newspaper or book usually takes care of the problem.    

"I prefer fresh air,” Webb added.

“How many ships in the convoy?” Emerson asked, seeing ships on the horizon in all directions under a full moon. 

“Forty, fifty, maybe more,” Webb guessed, seeing a large number of ribbons of black smoke trailing behind each ship for as far as the eye could see in any direction. 

Sight of the so many ships let Webb mumble a few lines of a longer poem he had begun manipulating in his mind to escape long hours of boredom and monotony that comes with long-term, shipboard confinement.

“A battle-line of ships 

Under a midnight moon

Each trails a line of ribbon black 

In a soon to be blacker night 

Once our only light of night sets”

“Our unit headed ta England?” Emerson asked, ignoring what he did not understand of the Sergeant’s quirky verse on darkness and ships in the night under a full moon. Thinking the Sarge’s poetry a bit bizarre and weird, he slipped a cigarette between his lips. 

“We’ll be there at the end of the week,” Webb added. 

“Can’t wait ta fight the Germans,” Emerson said as he widened his feet for stability after turning his back to the wind, cupping both hands as a windbreak to strike a match. Cocksure of himself, he felt the war would be a short and glorious victory for America and he would get a hero’s welcome parade upon returning home. If lucky, he might get a kiss and hug, perhaps more, from his high school sweetheart. 

Webb watched the naïve young man’s match flame out trying several more cupped, hand strikes before tobacco flared. Inhaling, filling his lungs, Emerson enjoyed the nicotine sensation it gave before exhaling. Webb figured Emerson being only nineteen years old and fresh off the family farm had an attitude of daredevil immortality as many young men often do. Just as he did shortly after graduation from high school and boot camp in late 1940.

“Don’t get too anxious or we’ll bury you sooner than later,” Webb said, looking seaward. 

There was a sudden flash of white followed by thundering explosions. Fire lit the night a short distance from their ship as Webb tightened his grip on deck railing to steady himself from the sudden, violent blast.  Emerson took several quick balancing steps forward then back as his cigarette slipped from between his lips, falling to the deck with a slight bounce. Simmering embers of red scattered from the partially smoked cigarette before rolling over the edge of the ship to the sea below. One internal explosion after another from the torpedoed vessel continued pulsing at the air around them, flame-reaching high into the night.  

The torpedoed ship, rising and plunging with rolling seas, simultaneous explosions going off, Emerson stumbled backwards. Letting go of the railing as their ship swayed from the close explosion, he fought for balance by reaching out for Webb’s shoulder. Finding it. Gripping it. Webb wrapped his arm around Emerson’s back as his other hand tightened on the handrail, giving the extra support and balance that he and Emerson needed to keep from falling overboard. The open pack of Pall Malls fell from his hand. 

Emerson, after regaining his grip on the railing and steadying his balance, Webb released his arm from Emerson’s back then looked seaward as their ship passed the burning transport when a second torpedo hit it. Detonating, the ship rose slightly off the ocean surface for split seconds, metal flying in every direction. Flame erupted upward as the ship settled back into the sea, its backbone structure bent at an odd angle leaving the ship with a visible twist to it. Seawater begin rushing over its broken decks as warning systems – “ahooga, ahooga” – begin sounding off with background clangs of ship’s bells ringing and echoing across an endless horizon of water for all ships to hear. Warning crewmembers and soldiers to beware of what lurked under surface waters. Men topside of the burning ship leaped for their lives, their bodies covered head to toe in bunker oil and flame. Each torso illuminated the night as a torch might when falling to a watery surface, extinguishing flames as icy seawater cooled their hot charred bodies. 

Webb and Emerson could only watch, listen and do nothing. The heavily damaged vessel hissed, popped and steamed from cold ocean water rushing in, splashing, over hot boilers and engines. 

Stomach tight, heart beating fast, Webb’s lean body trembled, knowing what could and probably would happen to a number of the ships in the convey if the torpedoes kept coming through the night under a full moon. 

"Goddamn’em! Again, the night is theirs," Webb whispered of German submarine crews. He knew the outcome for young men like Emerson under his command if a torpedo slammed into the hull of their ship. 

“What?” Emerson asked. 

“Expect more of the same before the night’s over. There’s an unknown number of submarines waiting to extract a heavy toll on our convey before dawn,” Webb said, remembering what happened to previous North Atlantic convoys of ships sailing to England or Scotland from the United States.  

Emerson searched black waters under a full moon for survivors, hearing painful pleas fading to whispers. Then silence as distance grew between their ship and floating survivors.

Internal detonations splintered what remained of the stern of the ship’s hull. What few lights remained on the heavily damaged ship began flickering before dimming to faint sparkles of luminance the deeper it sank. Charges flashed and thumped, boiling upward before bursting on surface waters as the ship rapidly took on water. Darkness of the ocean’s depth swallowed the ship complete. One heavily damaged lifeboat floated upright as a small number of survivors swam for it through burning oil slicks. A second ship assigned to their section of the convoy exploded, losing part of its stern, going up in a flash of white thunder and flame.     

Webb knew from experience the words a number of surviving crew and young soldiers would soon be crying out, knowing they were on the doorstep of death with little or no chance of rescue from frigid waters. 

"They're last words from young men I don’t want to hear. Lord, please… please don’t let this happen to my men this night,” Webb whispered to himself. 

Master Mike, ship’s mascot and Captain’s constant companion, scampered aboard a secured lifeboat not far from where Emerson and Sergeant Webb stood. The scrawny, scraggly haired terrier commenced yapping, giving German U-boat commanders a piece of its mind for so much noise and putting his master’s life in danger on its watch. 

“Don’t you hear’em calling out!” Emerson said of the voices pleading to be saved in the dark waters.  

"There’s nothing we can do,” Webb answered back. 

“We’re leaving’em behind! They’re pleading for us to come back and save’em!” Emerson raised his voice as their ship distanced itself from those needing rescued from freezing North Atlantic Ocean waters. 

 “We can’t! It’s what the Krauts want,” Webb said, knowing they dare not slowdown, turnaround or stop for survivors. “Captain needs to begin defensive maneuvers to save lives.”

“They’re pleading to be saved! We have… ”

“Goddammit! Shut up and pray if that’s what you do!” Webb barked, having little patience with Emerson’s whiny ways recalling last words of drowning buddies off North Africa a year earlier, in ‘42. The same last words being spoken at that moment from survivors floating in cold, dark waters not far from their ship. Words Emerson and a number of those under his command might be crying out before this night became day if their ship was torpedoed. 

"But Sarge, I…"

“Have a smoke,” Webb said, handing Emerson the slightly wet pack of cigarettes after retrieving it from the ship’s deck. “Sorry for yelling at you.”

“I don’t understand!” 

“Cry for’em. Pray for’em. Don’t die with’em. Listen and learn from the mistakes of old men who have seen battle,” Webb said.  

“But...”

“A few ships will return shortly to pickup survivors when it’s not so dangerous,” Webb lied to ease Emerson’s mind, knowing circumstances often dictated otherwise. 

Webb knew survival would be slim to none through the night for survivors in icy North Atlantic waters from scalding burns, bleeding out and drowning if any more convey ships were targeted. From his own experience off North Africa, Webb understood the thinking of German Submarine Captains and exactly why they sank as many transports as possible. First, it destroyed needed supplies for the war; second, it eliminated manpower to fight the war; third, it increased those needing rescued. Rescue could mean a loaded transport might return to save crew and soldiers of a torpedoed ship, giving a submarine captain and crew the chance to rid of another ship carrying yet more needed supplies and troops for the war. 

Emerson begin discarding wet cigarettes overboard one at a time, looking for a dry one to smoke and calm anxieties of seeing ships near and far being torpedoed and sinking, leaving struggling survivors behind. He feared the same could happen to the vary ship he sailed on this night. Finding a dry cigarette, lighting it, he heard destroyer sirens screech and bleep warnings along the horizon of what silently lurked and prowled beneath the convoy of ships. 

Standing next to Emerson, Webb recalled those faint cry-outs for help from young men who died close to a year earlier, in ’42, when left behind after their troopship had sunk off North Africa from a German Wolf pack of submarines. Their pleas for rescue, for life, would be similar to those under his command and care this night if they took a torpedo hit before first light. The young men then and those he sailed with this night were both fresh from a mom’s nurturing apron strings

The words his men might be whispering or screaming this night after taking a hit with a torpedo would be the same heart wrenching words his father had heard on World War I battlefields in France from young soldiers. 

Webb whispered to himself what his dad had told him of his own battlefield experiences in World War I. “It's a death-song sung to moms for as long as man has gone to war and wasted the talents of youth. Those few words will ring forever in your mind when you first hear a man-child's last dying words. On your last breath of life, you’ll cry'em too. I did more than once myself at Somme in ‘17. If you hear those same words from comrades in arms and they die in your arms, so does apart of you.”

A year earlier, in '42, on a convoy of supply ships and troop transports heading for French Morocco, North Africa, to fight Vichy French, the troopship Webb (then a Corporal) had shipped out on had taken a torpedo hit mid-ship. Sinking in minutes it had left those few alive floating in mid-Atlantic Ocean waters crying out their last emotions; heart rendering words each mom feels in heart, soul and mind thousands of miles away as her man-child takes his last breath of life. Webb had called out those very same words as his dad had in Battle of the Somme when there seemed no hope or ships in sight floating in frigid waters off North Africa. By dawn, Webb floated on a consortium of wood crudely lashed together using bits of rope, wire and clothing. 

Rescued two days later by a British destroyer off North Africa, the US Army shipped Corporal Webb, including a small number of other ship survivors back to America for medical care in ‘42. Only upon arrival back in the States did Webb receive notice of his mom’s death. After weeks of recovery and rehabilitation on base, constantly thinking of his mothers passing with tears and a broken heart, Webb received a promotion to Sergeant from Corporal. Shortly after the promotion, he submitted a request to return to combat duty. Within a month of release from a doctor’s care, he received orders to ship out on the next convoy to England. The very ship he sailed on this night.  

“Last words spoken by so many young men moments should have been a lesson to the world long ago. Mothers cry and plead with politicians and wealthy entrepreneurs for wars to cease and treaties signed," Sergeant Webb said, seeing Emerson give him that peculiar look. 

A destroyer passing off their starboard, rising and plunging in rhythm with each ocean swell breaking over the destroyer’s bow, washing over decks, sirens blaring, its crew began blasting depth-charge drums off its starboard and stern. Each charge soared high before arching and falling back to the ocean surface, sinking to a predestined depth before exploding in a loud thump. A rising plume of ocean water climbed skyward, pausing before returning from whence it came, leaving behind a thread thin line bending slightly for a moment under a full moon. Drizzling droplets of mist shimmered reflections of moonlight falling back to the sea.

Depth charges thumping one after the other, mayhem everywhere, impossible to ignore the night’s action, Webb closed his eyes to reflect back to better times. A favorite memory of a short distance outside Whitefish (Montana) came to mind. At seven years old, he and his mom had hiked a short distance on a warm mid-June night under moonlight to a secluded waterfall near their mountain home. Sitting on a blanket next to the waterfall both watched and listened to late spring snowmelt tumble and roar over a steep cliff as she pointed to the moon high above the crest of the waterfall.  

"Look at the misting vapor rise. See how it swirls and rolls, tumbles, rising again against a chalky white moon as a line appears. See how it bends, arching over the waterfall under a full moon,” she had whispered in his ear, tickling it as she held him close on her lap in that moment of magic as only a mother can do.  

“It’s a midnight rainbow under a full moon. The roar of falling water is musical thunder to the excitement of a moon-bow bending as it readies to send its invisible arrow to where we cannot go. To what we cannot see or touch but will fulfill your dream. Make a wish before it disappears.”  

On those long ago, warm Saturday nights sitting along the Flathead River after roasting wieners and homemade hotdog buns, his mom would read old Arabian fables from a book her mother had given her. Lying on his back listening to her read tales of old, he would look for shooting stars with a background of many winking back. Other times she would quote one of Rumi’s many poems, her favorite, “Saladin’s Begging Bowl.” 

“Mom, what I wouldn't do for one of those tales of old and special hugs," Webb whispered, then smiled remembering how her eyes twinkled, crow’s feet wrinkles deepened and bridge of her nose crinkled when telling tales of millennia past. When finished she would give him one of her addictive smiles followed with a hug and a kiss on his forehead.  

“I miss your sweet smile and infectious laughter Mom. Hope you are in a better place than where my men and I are going.”  

Another ship erupted from a direct hit, second torpedo close behind, night sky ablaze exposing a convoy of nearby ships and profiles of others on the far horizon. Newly fueled explosions quickly followed, flames reaching skyward once again to the heavens as if to touch the bottom of the moon, setting it afire. The ship folding in on its self as a closing jackknife might, breaking in half. Both ship halves sinking instantly. There would be no survivors of such a violent explosion, torpedo possibly hitting the munitions magazine compartment dead center. 

Young soldiers begin coming on deck crowding around Webb and Emerson, staring in awe and silence at what they had never experienced before. Ships were going up in thunder and flame one after the other. Ships packed with friends they had trained with in basic training. Friends they had shared three-day leaves with, going to town to hustle young women, drink, shout, laugh and dance the night away weeks earlier. Friends they had introduced their younger sister to for a date to a town dance or movie. Friends they had taken home during basic training for a weekend for one of their mom’s great meals. Friends they would never fight battles with or see again.

 “Damn!” Webb said aloud, letting memories of a seven-year-old boy, a special memory of his mom, a wish on a midnight moon-bow and a partial poem evaporate with a violent explosion off their portside. 

“Please Lord… please don’t let those last few words be spoken tonight. My men deserve more than to be accidental heroes,” he murmured, not wanting to hear last words of dying men again as in ‘42   

“What words!” Emerson asked, searching the Sergeant’s face for an answer to his odd behavior.

Caught off guard Webb turned, saying, “Just mumbling old memories. I do that a lot. You will too before this war's over,” Webb said. “Finish that letter you started?”

“Yah,” Emerson said, surprised when the Sergeant suddenly changed subjects. “My parents and sisters, my fiancé is next. Plan to mail’em when we reach England.”

The Sarge wanted to hit something. Anything! Instead, he stiffened his arm at his side in tremors, fisting knuckles white thinking of the potential fate of men under his command, whispering, “Shadows on hills. No daffodils. Sun rising over barren…” 

Letting remaining words of the verse slip away, he whispered, “If they survive this night and many more at sea, they won’t on battlefields in France or Germany. Maybe England if invaded. Either way, many a family will mourn the loss of a beloved son before the war ends. Long after war is over, the dead buried and forgotten, all that is left behind of a son’s death for a parent, siblings or wife and children are physical objects of wood, stone, metal or glass to visit, hold or view.  Crosses of wood to repaint a fading name; graves stones to touch and cry, place  a flower and say a prayer; photo frames to hold and recall of what was and will never be again.” 

  Destroyer sirens bleeped and shrieked taking a zigzagging course, releasing depth charges at phantom submarines, its watery shadow tagging behind. Process repeating itself on a return trip, releasing more charges, destroyer chasing its own ghostly shadow.

“Mom, you are still the most important person in my life as these young boys are to their moms,” Webb thought, his fingers stroking thick scars on his neck and right shoulder from splashes of burning bunker oil and icy seas off North Africa in ’42. 

Fourth and fifth ships in front and to their right kept night skies alight in an inferno of flame and thunder. Fourth ship breaking up before sinking. Fifth dead in the water and heavily damaged waited its final fate as crew began offloading lifeboats. 

More of Webb’s men began coming on deck from below deck. Mesmerized, they watched the convoy destroyed ship by ship, human by human, under a moonlit night turned momentary day from repeated explosions. Many swore, shaking a fist of vengeance at German submarine captains they could not see. Others spewed threats of hate and death upon seeing so many boot-camp brothers going down with their ship. Another yelled at a convey ship steaming away, leaving behind those needing rescued behind, its captain and crew ordered not to become another causality of war. Several men bowed their heads, a few on their knees, hands clasped at chest level praying for a rescue ship to arrive to take those still treading water aboard ship. Some trembled in fear, disappearing below deck for prayer and a miracle to what they were witnessing wouldn’t happen to them. One young man behind Webb began reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Another, “Lord, you are my shepherd this night. Lead those in your flock at sea to safety this night.” 

Fifth ship took a second torpedo. Survivors began jumping overboard as a few lifeboats launched with a small number of survivors, filling beyond capacity once at sea. Others swam towards already full lifeboats to grasp side railings to stay afloat. A few begin swimming towards a ship steaming away from them as they pleaded for rescue. Voices became no more that a whisper, then silence. Under a full moon heads bobbed on a surface of liquid blackness to stay afloat before slowly tiring, voices going silent and sinking below the surface. 

Five ships sunk. A sixth took a hit, slowing its headway as fires blazed and hoses put out fires. Bilge pumps worked furiously pumping out flooded compartments. 

Remaining convey silhouettes continued running evasive patterns past an unknown number of unseen U-boats. How many more submarines lay in wait? Ten? Maybe twenty? No one knew or dared guess the number of wolf pack submarines waiting for the convoy to pass, torpedo tubes prepped to fire.

Master Mike howled and yipped at each explosion.

“Over there!” Private Dickinson shouted. 

“Where!” a person standing next to Dickerson cried out. 

“There!” 

Crew and soldiers stared in disbelief to where he pointed. A torpedo was coming their way, a second close behind. They had no place to hide, no enemy to shoot at or fight in hand-to-hand combat. There would be no air support so far from land and many days at sea. They could not use deck-guns, submarines submerged below surface of the ocean. Destroyers to few and overworked at chasing submarines. There was no one to rescue them from what spun and splashed their way. Death became the event horizon no one could flee or fortify from. 

“What do we do?” Dickinson screamed.

“Find a life vest!” Webb screamed over pleas for life, prayers for help, and those in panic, not sure what to do.  

At less than seventy yards, crew and young soldiers fearing for their lives begin jumping overboard. Others dashed for a secured lifeboat.  Yet others froze in place mesmerized by the silvery moon reflecting points of light a hundredfold in churning, whitecap waters of fast moving torpedoes at less than fifty yards. With no place to escape fate, death closed its distance for young men who bought packaged Bazooka Bubble Gum with two or more baseball player cards (Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio) inside each for their younger brothers; they gave young sisters dolls and Nancy Drew mystery books; their moms hugs and kisses and dads handshakes and  hugs before boarding a bus or train for basic training. 

“Everyone overboard,” Emerson screamed before jumping into the sea without a life vest.

Devil’s one-two punch loomed large as Webb and Dickinson followed Emerson into icy waters with no time to secure life preservers or search for a nearby lifeboat. First torpedo slammed near the bow, breaching the hull, lifting decks upward in a sudden flash of whiteness followed with thunder and flame, trapping crew and soldiers below deck. Deck explosions followed splintering lifeboats as more detonations followed below decks. Ship still moving forward without power took the second hit mid-ship. Exploding, ship engorged in blazing fires, smokestack dangling by metal threads, the bent ship continued shuddering from stem to stern. Internal detonations breached the hull letting icy, saltwater flood the engine room. Boilers burst, splashing, soaking and scalding those in its path. Burning bunker oil spilled and plumed, spreading outward from the ship in all directions, trapping those treading water and others swimming away from the explosions and fires.  

Rats streamed from the innards of the breached hull into the ocean.

Bow submerging, sucking loose wreckage and floating debris back into the vacuum of the sinking ship, releasing it the deeper the ship sank. Stern last to disappear into the dark depths of the ocean repeated the process.  

Struggling, finding safety on floating wreckage, Webb searched waters around him seeing dozens of bobbing heads and ship clutter rolling on the crest of ocean swells under a setting moon. Screams for help from crew and troops with open, raw skin burns and bleeding wounds filled the night. A number of stronger crew and soldiers helped a shipmate stay afloat, often to their own demise. Weakened soldiers and crew wearing heavy, cold weather fabrics of wool and cotton struggled to stay afloat as clothing soaked up freezing seawater, dragging each below the surface of the sea when their desperate fight for life ceased. Others treading water watched the nearest supply and troop ships swing away seeking safety from what skulked and roamed beneath ocean waters pursuing new targets.  Quiet ones floated arms out, face underwater, legs dangling deep, vital fluids seeping from open wounds. 

“My wish will be denied this night,” Webb whispered, after pulling himself further onto a wooden hatch-cover.  

Off in the darkened distance another ship took a torpedo.  

“Ma, I love you,” Webb heard a young soldier’s last words.

“Mom... help me!” another cried out. “I don’t want to die!”

“Oh mom, dad!” 

Another called out. “I love you mom!”

“Pop!” an unseen voice said. "See you and mom in heaven.”

“Mom, it hurts so…”

"Why me!"

“I don’t want to die!”

“Anna!” a voice called. “I love you. Tell our baby I love her.”

Master Mike whimpered in the distance.

"Sons and moms share the same blood,” Webb whispered, feeling what each soldier felt when saying their last emotions.  

“Mom… it’s so cold,” Webb heard in the distance.

Horizon of here and there puffs of thin white translucent clouds passed under a setting full moon before blending into the night’s darkness. Black skies, leaning away from morning horizon as stars blinked an unintelligent code. Another ship in the far distance lit the night taking a torpedo hit.  

Dawn. Hearing no one calling out, no ships in sight, Webb pulled himself further toward the center of the oversized, wooden hatch-cover. Wherever he looked, ship debris and lifeless, floating torsos rose and fell with ocean swells. A wooden raft floated in the distance with an unidentifiable, shirtless person aboard. If alive, he would be too weak to wave, call out for help or swim to join a fellow shipmate.  

Feeling something watching his every movement, Webb looked at the opposite end of the hatch-cover seeing a set of black, beady eyes watching his every move. 

Numb and shivering, scar tissue tightening from freezing seas, Webb murmured:

“Don’t go to sleep

I must stay awake

Don’t go to sleep

I must stay awake 

Don’t go to sleep 

Must ask the lord” 

“Mom, I love you.” Webb screamed out, tears in his eyes, putting his head down on the water soaked wood knowing he would soon see his mom, hear her sweet voice. 

“I can’t go to sleep. Lord, I can’t give you my soul to keep. I can’t! My men need me,” he whispered.

Looking up he saw the rat had left, possibly gone to other floating debris for its own safety.

Having said his last emotions a second time in less than a year, he began accepting his fate. Yet he knew he must not ask for what he might not want, finality. Three, maybe four days passed, seawater lapping at wood, Webb’s emotions climbing and crashing back and forth across the threshold where life and death meet. In and out of consciousness, death on the horizon, he closed his eyes, seeing his mom’s smiling face, her beautiful brown eyes. 

“Mom!”

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