1945

Oh, hell, maybe he was just a little tense being so much closer to Japan than they had been a few days ago. They'd all been surprised when the five-ship unit had changed its routine and moved well north of their original position. Now, instead of being behind the fleet, they were just within the navy's defensive perimeter. Then he laughed to himself. Like, how did he know that they really were closer? There had never been any land in sight to prove to them that they were actually any nearer Japan than they had been before. Maybe it was all a big joke and they'd wake up tomorrow off San Francisco.

Then he saw it again. It was dark and just a few feet above the waves, and it looked like some weird bird of prey. But it wasn't a bird. It was definitely a plane and it was close, very damn close and coming at them. He yelled and the antiaircraft battery came alive. Ensign Hollowell saw the dark shape and hollered out the range but not the order to open fire.

There was a second's hesitation. What if it was an American plane? Was the Augusta's floatplane out on some damn fool errand? Hollowell sure as hell didn't want to shoot down an American plane.

At that moment, the portside destroyer opened fire, and searchlights lit up the sky. Instead of helping, it blinded the men in the Augusta.

"Dammit," snarled Jardine as he tried to blink away the sudden loss of night vision.

"Can you see it?" screamed Hollowell.

"No!" Jardine could see nothing except light streaks across his eyes. Then it was in front of him. "Yes!" he yelled back. The guns opened up at the dark plane that was dreadfully close and still only a few feet above the water. Streams of tracers laced the sky, but none seemed to hit the plane that was now only a hundred yards away and closing in with horrifying quickness.

"It's going to hit us!" Haverman moaned, and covered his head. The plane was headed right for them. Then, at the last second, the plane was struck by a shell and shuddered. It seemed to rise up higher by a few feet and flew right over Jardine's head. It was so close that he saw the landing gear above him. With a roar it crashed into one of the eight-inch bow turrets. Explosions and flames racked the bow of the ship, hurling Jardine to the deck. He screamed in fear and confusion as the cloud of burning gasoline swept above them, showering him with flaming debris. Frantically, he pounded at the host of little fires that had started around him until they were out. Only then did he realize that he had burned his hands.

Behind him, damage-control parties rushed toward them and their hoses sent water hurling onto the major fires. Secondary streams doused Jardine's gun mount and ended any fear of their ammunition exploding. Jardine heard others moaning in pain and realized that, other than his hands, which had begun to blister, he wasn't badly hurt. He whimpered at the joy of it. The goddamn kamikaze, and that's what it had to have been, had tried to kill him, but had failed. He was still lying facedown, with debris on top of him. He had to have a lot of bruises, but all of his limbs seemed to be functioning.

Ensign Hollowell lurched to his feet. The right side of his face was all red and one eye was closed. "Sound off," he ordered, and the men complied, identifying themselves. Everyone was alive, but a couple were injured. Haverman said he thought his leg was broken, and that seemed to be the worst of it, presuming that Jardine's burns weren't too bad. Maybe he could get a trip back to the States out of it?

"I think I'm okay," Jardine responded, "but there's a bunch of crap on my back." He didn't want to move. The debris wasn't all that heavy, but there might be an unexploded shell or something else that might hurt him if he moved it himself. "Somebody check it out, please."

Ensign Hollowell staggered to him and pulled some things off him. Then he looked down. "Aw, shit," Hollowell said, and started gagging. "It's an arm."

Jardine shrieked and jerked away, causing the limb to flop down on the deck where he stared at it in shock and revulsion. The arm had been ripped off at the shoulder and was badly burned. "Ain't one of our guys," Jardine finally said. "Thank God." Somebody had been ripped apart, but it wasn't one of his buddies in the gun mount. He was being heartless, but so what? He was alive and the other guy wasn't and that's all there was. "Hey, maybe it belongs to that Jap pilot?"

Hollowell looked at the severed arm in the light of the still burning gasoline. Damage control had brought the fire under control and there were no more explosions, but flames still flickered in a score of places.

"There's a ring on the hand," Hollowell muttered, and willed himself to examine the ghastly thing further. "Oh, Christ have mercy," he whispered as he turned the charred hand over and examined the ring. "Oh, Lord."