the situation to take solace in that fact. She started to hug her sister, but Isabelle turned and crawled toward the bodies around them. Annie did likewise, instinctively checking pulses as she had ten thousand times before. She felt the beat of several hearts, but seeing the gaping wounds before her, knew these hearts would soon quiet.
Suddenly, the Japanese soldier with the leg wound gripped her arm and tried to pull her to her feet. Failing to do that, he shouted something and dragged her toward the hatch. Annie screamed—certain he was bent on harming her. However, the soldier let go of her arm and pointed at her waist. Though the water was almost to her stomach, Annie’s mind still reeled and she didn’t realize that Benevolence was sinking. She desperately pushed her patient away and started to attend to the injured again, wading to where Isabelle tried to save a dying doctor.
The soldier, whose name was Akira but who hadn’t been called that name for several years, glanced at the hatch, which was already halfway underwater. Whoever stayed any longer in the room would die. Grabbing the small, brown-haired nurse, Akira dragged her toward the hatch. She tried to fight him, but she wasn’t strong and he hurriedly pushed her through the opening. The older and larger nurse must have heard her sister’s screams, for abruptly she left the doctor and struggled through the now chest-deep water toward the hatch. She shouted something at Akira, but secondary explosions ripped through the ship, obscuring her words. He gestured frantically toward the hatch. Water poured through it, and he had to use his shoulder to push the nurse beyond the opening. It took all of his strength to drag himself through the violent water and into the emptiness beyond the steel.
Outside, the two nurses shrieked and held onto the ship’s side. Above them, Benevolence burned and boomed as additional explosions gutted her innards. The center of the ship was unrecognizable. Fire billowed from an immense fissure that was partly underwater. “Swim!” Akira shouted at them in English. “Swim or you will drown!”
Remembering Joshua, Isabelle frantically spun in the water, looking for him, repeatedly screaming his name. Benevolence was quickly dying beside her, and she felt the sea try to suck her down with the ship. Despite her overwhelming fear for her husband, she didn’t want to get yanked into the blackness below, didn’t want to drown in that blackness. And so she kicked away from the steel.
“Good!” Akira shouted. “You both follow me! You understand, yes? Now please follow me!”
Isabelle wept as she swam after the soldier. Though the nearby fires dominated much of her world, she saw the brilliance of the stars and, prompted by this sight, she began to pray for her beloved. She begged God as she had never begged him—for she knew Joshua well and understood that he’d be the last to leave his ship.
WITHIN THE BURNING INFERNO that had once been Benevolence, the assistant engineer struggled up the tilting deck. By pressing his bare feet against either side of the narrow passageway, he was able to propel himself upward. Though he heard many screams and many voices needed saving, he ignored these pleas for help—for he desperately needed to rescue the boy.
Though Jake had only known the young Fijian for two weeks, he treated Ratu almost as if he were the son he’d never had. Jake had found the stowaway hidden deep within the engine room. And Jake had listened to his pleas, seen him holding back his tears, and decided that the boy should be looked after. Why Jake had subsequently related so powerfully to Ratu was somewhat of a mystery to the big engineer. Perhaps this attachment initially formed because Ratu’s face was almost the same color as Jake’s—a shade of mahogany that seemed so out of place aboard a ship where almost everything and everyone was white. Moreover, Ratu had left Fiji to search for his father, who led American forces as they battled Japanese from island to island across the South Pacific. And seeing how Ratu so yearned for his father, Jake had decided to help and comfort him during his ill-conceived journey.
As Jake propelled himself up the passageway, he shouted Ratu’s name. The boy liked to watch sunsets from the bow, and if Ratu had been on the bow when the torpedo struck, he’d likely be alive. Jake knew that the ship would float only for another minute or two. He