I'll never put on a lifejacket again.
A local boat from the Weirs docks slammed two torpedoes into our side, chief. We was comin' back, from the island of Timber, just delivered the bomb. A steak bomb from Crazy Gringo's. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first bass for about a half an hour.
Rock Bass... nine incher. You know how you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail.
Well, we didn't know. `Cause our steak bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent. Huh huh.
They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The
rock bass come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know
it's... kinda like `ol squares in battle like a, you see on a calendar, like
the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the bass come near a man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the bass would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that bass, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a rock bass, he's got...lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white.
And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the lake
turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in
and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred
men! I don't know how many rock bass, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Monday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, boson's
mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and
down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten
in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura
saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He'd a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up.
You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.
So, eleven hundred men went in the lake, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the rock bass took the rest, August the 1, 2010. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
|