The captain's order was the last sound he'd heard from any of the crew of the Lovely Lydia. He'd been surprised that the side hatch had opened, and surprised again when his Mae West had actually worked, helping him to bob on the surface like a child's cork toy. He'd paddled away from the plane, then turned back, waiting for the others to exit, but none had.

He'd called out once: "Get out! Get out! Please get out!"

And then he'd floated, waiting.

After a few seconds. Lovely Lydia had abruptly pitched forward, nose down, and silently slid beneath the water's surface, leaving him alone in the ocean.

This had always disturbed him. The captain, the copilot, the bombardier, and both gunners, they had always seemed to him to be so much quicker and sharper than he was. They were all young and athletic, coordinated, and skilled. They were quick and efficient, good shots with a machine gun or a basketball, fast around the bases legging out an extra base rap, and he had always known they were the real warriors on the Lovely Lydia, while he'd always thought of himself as this silly bookworm student, a little thin, a little clumsy, but good with calculations and a slide rule, who had grown up staring at the stars in the sky above his Vermont home, and thus, more by accident than patriotic design, had become a navigator and was more or less along for the ride. He had thought of himself as merely a piece of equipment, an appendage on the flight, while they were the fliers and the killers and the real men of the battle.

He did not understand why he had lived and all the men who'd seemed so much stronger than he had died.

And so he'd floated alone on the sea for nearly twenty-four hours, salt water mingling with his tears, on the edge of delirium, swimming in despair, until an Italian fishing boat had plucked him from the waves.