Crash

CRASH                    

“Aircraft carrier U.S.S. Entrump to hellcat Eagle 22, you are clear to land.” The radio crackled. It was September 13th 1940, I had just accomplished my mission; I had saved the skies above London for another day. The German blitz had been going on for 6 days by now, and I was part of Eagle three, a squadron secretly deployed in the Atlantic Ocean to provide the British with support bringing down the German bombers. It was day 4 in a row for me and I was frankly exhausted. The huge ship appeared in front of me and the radio inside my hellcat crackled again “Eagle 22 landing gear down, velocity lowered your coming in a little hot.” I decreased throttle and put the gear down just as instructed, it was late, and I was exhausted, and had a few nice bullet holes in my right wing to remind me I probably wasn’t the best pilot out there. I glanced out the cockpit to my right and saw nothing but the endless ocean. It was soothing in a way. I pulled in closer to the carrier’s landing strip and began to pull up. Just then the unthinkable happened. I saw it before I heard it, a huge explosion rocked the U.S.S Entrump and it began to tip to starboard. I had no idea what else to do so I pulled up even farther on the stick and put the thrusters back up on my plane. I saw the propeller spin even faster, but still I was sinking too fast, and knew I wasn’t going to make it back up in the air. Even so I held on, and I wrestled that snake of a control stick with all my might. My tail dipped into the ocean floor as I watch my ship, my home, slowly sink into the sea. Just as I had resigned, given up on pulling out of this, the plane caught and I began to rise upward. I had made it.          

I flew higher up, and glanced below me to see one final crash of the white waves as the Entrump and its passengers sunk below the sea. I had no idea what had happened. I flicked my radio a few times, but of course there was no answer. I was alone, a man without his army, alone in the open skies near hostile territories. I checked my fuel gauge. “Damnit!” I said aloud, speaking to no one but myself. The gauge was in the orange, almost empty. I had no choice. I was going to have to get as close to some shore as possible and do exactly what they had trained us for, crash land, in the roiling bubbling Atlantic below. I knew the Entrump was at least 400 miles out, and I had fuel left for 30 maybe 35 miles. I was screwed and I knew it. There was nothing I could do.  I sat back, took a deep breath, and savored my last few moments I had in the air. As the warning lights began to flash, I slowly brought my Hellcat down closer and closer to the waves below. They seemed like they knew I was coming, they were reaching their white frothy hands up to me, trying to take their next victim early. I lasted as long as I could, but when the time had come, I grabbed the lifejacket from behind my seat and hit the big red button no pilot ever wants to hit. Eject. The wind visor flew off my plane, my most prized possession, and I soon followed it, straight up into the air, propelled by some unseen forces below.

         I pulled my parachute and slowly drifted towards the waves, still grabbing and shoving to get at me. Well they were about to get me. I cut my chute off right before I hit, didn’t want to risk getting caught in it and drowning, I wanted to save any hope I might have had. I hit the frigid water below, and almost lost my battle with the sea right there. I hadn’t put my jacket on yet, and as I hit the water, lost my grasp on it. I sunk down, five; maybe ten feet below before I kicked, hard, real hard, and got my brown haired head back up above the roiling waves. I glanced around, and saw the orange jacket, floating ten feet away, I swam to it, put it on, and did just as they had instructed us to do in the event of a water landing, I floated on my back with my head to the night sky. I drifted for hours, maybe three before I fell asleep even despite all my efforts not to. I opened my eyes to a wave lapping at my feet, my head on sand. I slowly crawled to my feet and spit out some salt water. I checked myself first, I was intact, I had my gear, standard issue pistol, a couple of food rations and my knife. I then scanned the area around me. I was on a small island, tiny, but where I was stuck. I didn’t know what I could do, my ship was sunk, my plane gone. The sun had risen again so I had no idea where I was or how far from civilization I was. I did my best to remain calm as possible; this is what they trained me for, to be calm in insane situations. But I couldn’t help it, I knew I was screwed. So I did what any rational man would do “SCREW THIS!” I screamed falling to my knees again and pounding my fists against the soft gritty sand. After my rage subsided I got shakily to my feet. I walked towards the tree’s growing towards the center of the island, oddly enough they were palms, along with a few evergreens, I had never seen these two trees growing side by side. I took a large fallen limb and scribbled SOS in the sand by the shoreline. Practically useless, but I could think of nothing better. I explored the tiny island until dusk, and found nothing but sand and trees.          

This island was entirely useless, and I could not survive long. I prided myself a strong swimmer, but I knew I could not make it to a shore I couldn’t even see. I foraged a couple of tree branches and piled them up into a small campfire. I searched around for a rock, something I could get a spark from, before I remember the obvious. I had victory cigars in my front right jacket pocket, which meant matches. I took out the damp book of matches and stroked the first match across the sandpaper. Nothing. I took out the second, and it snapped in my hand. Frustrated, I took out a third and hit it upon the sandpaper, and the flame finally caught, the small flame roaring to life. I slowly covered it from the chilling winds and brought it down to the tinder I had set up. Dry as they were, they roared into life, finally providing me with the warmth I needed. I had set up a little lean to under the cover of the trees with the palm fronds. After finding nothing to eat I went to bed hungry, and confused. Who knew about the ship to sink it? Where was I? I fell asleep on my uncomfortable bed of palms, on the isle that seemed to be mine.          

When I woke up I began my life here, and tried to find ways to get off. Every night I would light one of the few flares I had remaining, and watched them one by one go out, as no one answered my call. Parts of my plane washed up over time, but I could find little use for its parts, except I used part of the fuselage to catch rainwater. I made spears for fishing, an axe to cut the palms and other trees to the ground to keep my fire burning. I still had my service pistol and my knife, but rarely, if at all used either. One night I lay awake for hours, staring at my gun, wondering what was stopping me from ending it, no one would find me. Suicide seemed like a happy exit, an easy way out. I actually took the gun and felt the cool metal barrel against my temple. My hand hovered just above the trigger, my blood pulsing heart beating faster, I broke out in a cold sweat, screamed and pulled the trigger.          

Click. The safety was still on. I gave a nervous laugh, and flicked it off. I took the barrel into my mouth this time, tasting the cold black gun metal, the taste of bullets I had once fired in anger, the bullet I was about to fire upon myself, my only refuge to get off this island. I took the gun out, and threw up all over my campsite, but I wasn’t about to quit. I had no choice. I really almost pulled the trigger again, but I thought I heard something, and I threw the gun aside, rushing out to the beach. It turned out to only be the wind rustling the trees and knocking a branch to the ground, but it had still lit a small glimmer of hope back in me, and I put the gun back away. The next morning I heard the “thump thump thump” of a approaching helicopter. I saw the awkward looking machine fly above me, skirting across the sky like a bug on water. I yelled and yelled until I threw up blood, and then yelled some more, even though the chopper was long gone. I had gotten my hopes so high, I thought they were coming to save me, or at least just shoot me, end me, put me off this island, something I could never myself do. I would simply spend hours of the day talking to myself; I made up friends, since I never really had much of a family or any friends back home. Once a grenade with the pin still intact washed up on shore, I had no idea what to do with it so I threw it right back into the ocean. And then finally, it happened.          

I woke up one morning to hear the scream of a gull. It had perched itself next to my bed and kept right on screaming until I shooed it out of the lean to. I stepped out of my living space and into the bright morning sun. I was thirty pounds lighter, had a full beard, and clothing no more than a few palm leaves. I still kept my pilots uniform under my bed, but it was now tattered and still in shambles. Stretching my back and preparing for the morning of scavenging and building anything the wind had torn down, that’s when I heard it. The waves sounded different, I had been here so long and I knew the sound they made. I looked to my left and saw probably the most exciting thing I had ever seen. My heart practically jumped out of my chest. I was looking at the hull of a huge ocean liner, and was looking at a group of men on a dingy rowing towards me. Me. They were here for me. The men landed on shore and rushed to me, clearly wearing the emblem of the US army. “Sir? Are you the flight captain of the Eagle squadron?”

I couldn’t breathe. I hadn’t spoken to a real human in years it felt like. I croaked out “Yes I am”

He smiled, gave me a salute, and said “Sir, were taking you home”

I got on that boat and back to America the war was over. It was December 12, 1945, and I had been stranded, lost at sea, declared dead, missing in action. I had been on the island, the place I had come to call the isle of the fallen hell, for five years, one month, twelve days and three hours. I was home, but nothing was the same, but still, I was home, and my life, my life out of the air force, out of the army, could begin.