Chapter 1
7/1/2026
The Atlantic stood pitch black, broken only by faint starlight and the ghostly silhouettes of the convoy as it zig-zagged through the night toward France.
Petty Officer Second Class Homer Olsen leaned against the breech of the four-inch gun, exhaustion pressing down on him like a physical weight. Four crossings in barely four months. Troops east. Spent brass west.
The ocean had become nothing more than a gray, rolling hell with no end in sight. On this run, they’d stuck him and Brody with a fresh gun crew to train, most of whom had never heard a shot fired in anger.
The James St. Lawrence, a converted liner, was crammed with soldiers, spilling out of the berthing onto the decks like ants. Olsen had already dropped Swanson, a mouthy private, on his ass for stumbling too close to the gun tub on rubbery sea legs.
Sleep came in snatches. One of Olsen’s men had slipped while cleaning the gun carriage and snapped his arm. The rest of the crew covered the missing slot, which meant Olsen stood double watches. In between, he drilled his crew hard, building muscle memory. The Navy gave them precious few live rounds to practice with. If a U-boat ever showed itself, they’d learn on the job.
Olsen blinked hard, trying to force his eyes to focus on the black water. Open or closed, it all looked the same.
And then the night exploded.
A ship on the outer edge of the column erupted in a fireball, the roar rolling across the water like thunder. In the sudden orange glare, Olsen saw it—the wicked black hull of a U-boat cutting through the waves, white water foaming around its conning tower.
Adrenaline arced through his body like electricity.
“U-boat to starboard!” he shouted. “Range two thousand yards!”
The ship’s klaxon began to wail. Silence didn’t matter now. The entire convoy was on high alert since the first explosion.
The gun crew scrambled in the dark. Olsen cranked the brass range clock while the loader rammed a shell home.
“Fire!” Olsen ordered.
The four-inch gun recoiled on its mount, spitting flame and smoke.
The shell splashed short.
“Again!” Olsen cried, sure he had the submarine zeroed now.
They reloaded fast. Olsen spun the wheels and fired a second time. The shell streaked across the water and hammered into the base of the U-boat’s sail. The submarine heeled sharply, but she hadn’t surrendered the fight. A line of boiling water lashed by the torpedo’s propeller appeared between the U-boat and the James St. Lawrence.
The troop ship shuddered as the torpedo kicked in her ribs, lurching the James St. Lawrence violently to starboard and tossing Olsen and his crew from their perches. Steam and fire exploded upward from amidships. Screams from the wounded filled the night.
Olsen rolled to his feet, ears ringing, the world tilting hard beneath him. The ship was going down fast.
Soldiers surged toward the rails to abandon ship. Lifeboats on the starboard side swung free, but the list of the ship pinned the port boats against the hull. Panicked men jumped barefoot into the freezing black water.
Olsen snatched an axe off the bulkhead and charged the jammed boats. He swung hard, cleaving the first line with a ringing bang. The lifeboat started to slide. Soldiers rushed it, shoving and clawing.
Someone ripped the axe from his hand. More men slammed into him, treating him like a seagoing bellhop. The deck tilted steeper by the second.
Olsen swung over the rail and ran down the barnacle-encrusted hull, boots sloshing in rising seawater. The cold was a vicious, freezing knife driven straight into his bones. He sucked in one last deep breath and dove, kicking hard away from the barnacle-encrusted hull.
When he broke the surface, the James St. Lawrence was rolling on her beam ends, her keel flashing in the faint starlight. Men still clung desperately to her. He screamed for the soldiers to swim away from the ship, to escape the suction.
Then, the grand old liner slipped beneath the waves on her way to Davy Jones’ Locker.
Men screamed all around him, begging for salvation or calling for friends. Others clung to the gunwales of overloaded lifeboats, fighting and cursing as soldiers tried to pull them aboard or shove them off.
Convoy ships dotted the pink horizon. The merchantmen wouldn’t stop for survivors. If rescue came, it would be from the escorts. Olsen knew their chances were slim.
He treaded water long enough to unlace his heavy boots and kick them off. Next came his dungarees. He knotted the legs and swung them high. With a savage downward thrust, he slammed the waist into the sea, trapping the air inside. Olsen slid his chest between the floating legs and rested there, a moment’s reprieve even as the black sea sucked at him.
Olsen wondered what had become of the U-boat. He thought he’d scored a hit—probably dumb luck—muscle memory flexing in the sheer panic. Had he reacted quicker, he might have saved the ship, but second-guessing wouldn’t do him any good. Now, it was a fight for survival against the merciless sea.
As the sun rose, Olsen kept refilling his makeshift bladder. Soldiers tried to imitate him, but their khakis wouldn’t hold air. One by one, exhausted men slipped beneath the waves until Olsen was utterly alone.
The sun cooked his face and neck. The sea froze the rest of him. Hypothermia was the real enemy, but without a way to get out of the water, he, too, would succumb when his strength gave out.
Chapter 2
7/15/2026
Olsen turned at the sound of creaking oars. A lifeboat drew near. Amazingly, it was only half-full of men, two of them, Brody and Rollins, from his gun crew. They hauled him aboard. Olsen pulled his dungarees back on as he sat in the bow, teeth chattering from prolonged exposure.
“Have a sip of water,” Rollins urged, handing him an open tin.
With shaking hands, Olsen took it. The water was warm and had a metallic taste, but it was the best thing he’d ever drunk. He wanted to down the entire tin, to purge the salt from his parched throat, but he knew they must ration it. Carefully, he resealed the can and handed it back.
Olsen glanced around at the ten haggard faces.
Brody and Rollins, he knew. Ambrose worked the oars slowly, sunlight flashing on the droplets each time they came out of the water. Flinty, the old man’s black steward, sat with his back straight as if proper etiquette required him to maintain his decorum. Swanson, the private he’d flattened for stepping into his gun tub, glared right back at him. Olsen knew he’d be trouble. The others were strangers.
The man at the tiller was slim, with a long neck and a pencil-thin mustache. He had single gold bars on his shoulder boards and a cavalry pin on his collar.
“You got a plan?” Brody asked the gun crew leader.
Motioning toward the butter bar at the stern, Olsen said, “Ask the lieutenant. He’s the ranking officer. What’s your name, sir?”
“Cardon. Myer Cardon.”
“Your orders, sir?” Olsen asked.
Cardon shifted, uneasy at being put on the spot. His Adam’s apple bobbed for a few silent moments. “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I’m just a veterinarian.”
“A veterinarian?” Rollins repeated in dismay.
“Easy, Archie,” Olsen advised softly, even though he himself felt greatly let down. What did a veterinarian know about surviving on the high seas? Olsen glanced around again. What did any of them know about it? The Navy trained them in damage repair and firefighting—save the ship at all costs. No one told them what to do once she slipped beneath the waves.
He studied the lifeboat for a few minutes, seeing the sail rigging and the survival rations. They had a chance, but they’d have to pull together.
“Sir, if I may,” Olsen piped up. “We were only a few days out from Saint-Nazarie. I suggest we row east.”
Cardon cleared his throat. “Excellent suggestion, Petty Officer. Take charge of it.”
Olsen set a watch schedule for manning the oars. Everyone would take a turn with no exceptions for rank. He then inventoried their rations—sea biscuits hard enough to use as a hammer, tins of stale fresh water, and a few cans of beef. He handed a compass to Cardon.
“What should we do with this?” a private named James asked, pointing to a pole wrapped with canvas that was lashed down the center of the boat.
“It’s a sail,” Flinty replied.
Olsen glanced quickly at the old steward. “You know how to use it?”
“Cap’n Grierson showed me, sir. Back before the war.”
“Then you’re in charge, Flinty. Get us underway.”
“You gonna let a colored tell us what to do?” Swanson demanded.
“I trust him more than I trust you,” Olsen replied. “Besides, if you could do it, you wouldn’t be sitting on your can.”
Swanson glowered murderously at Olsen, but the petty officer gave him no more thought.
The steward and two others stepped the mast and rigged the lines to keep it in place. Next, they raised the lug sail, an efficient design with a top yard, or lug, to spread the canvas.
Olsen moved to the stern to sit beside Cardon as Flinty trimmed the sail, showing the soldiers and sailors how to find the wind. Olsen watched carefully, always an observant student and quick learner, which had served him well with rapid promotions on gun crews.
The lifeboat crew settled in to let the wind carry them to France. Flinty kept a weathered eye on the seas, ready to spring into action.
Olsen studied the compass. He’d never needed one in Texas, where the buttes and the mountain tops made navigation easy. But here on the listless sea, there were no landmarks to guide them home. No one knew how far they had drifted off their original course or how long it would take them to reach land. The compass was their bearing. Their salvation.
During the second night, a brutal squall blew up. Waves towered above the boat. Flinty reefed the sail, keeping the boat close-hauled to the wind. Rain poured down in sheets, pelting the men like hail. Before Flinty could fully drop the sail, the wind tore it loose and flung it into the sea.
A soldier named Bittencourt dove over the rail, swimming hard toward the waterlogged canvas. Olsen snagged a line and tossed it out behind the boat, but it was too short to reach the swimmer. Bittencourt floundered, holding the sail and trying to reach the rope.
Olsen rose into a half-crouch, ready to spring in after him, but Flinty grabbed him by the belt and slammed him back onto the seat.
“He’s a gonner, sir,” Flinty shouted over the wind. “No use losin’ two men.”
The boat pitched down the face of a steep wave. When Olsen looked back for Bittencourt, he couldn’t see him. The sea had claimed the first of its victims from the little boat.
Without the sail, the lifeboat began a slow turn, sliding up the face of a wave and nearly capsizing at the top.
Olsen jumped to the thwart, pushing aside the two men crouching near it. Rollins helped him slip the oars into the locks, and then Olsen dug them deep into the water, turning the boat to face the waves head-on.
They rowed into the teeth of the tempest all night, taking turns at the oars. By daybreak, Olsen’s muscles ached, and his wet hands had blistered and cracked, stinging with the constant intrusion of saltwater.
Daylight only made things appear worse. Now, they could see the green mountains marching down on them, peaked with white-water beards and spume blowing in the wind. The slate gray sky foreshadowed more of the same. The driving rain showers quenched the men’s thirst as they opened their mouths to the heavens.
Cordon had found extra sail cloth in the storage compartment. He tore strips to wrap the men’s hands. Even his own bled freely from cranking the oars.
“I heard you say you were from Texas,” Cordon said as he wrapped Olsen’s wounds.
“Fort Stockton. My father has a ranch there.”
“What type of horses did you ride?” Cardon asked.
Olsen winced as Cardon tied off the bandage with a tight knot. “Quarter horses.”
With a nod, the vet said, “I rode the same in Tennessee.” Hesitating a moment, he added, “I thought I would be safe, away from the front as a veterinarian, but no place in the world is safe from God’s wrath.”
“God had nothing to do with this!” Rollins shouted. “It was the bloody Hun!”
A few of the men chuckled. They’d been awake for more than twenty-four hours, exhausted from exposure and rowing. A guy named O’Neal slept in the bow.
Olsen was about to take his turn on the oars when O’Neal jumped up. “I see it!” he shouted, pointing into the distance. “There’s a ship!”
“Where?” someone asked as they all strained to see into the gloom.
“It’s right there!” O’Neal shouted again. “Turn the boat. Let’s row toward it.”
“There’s nothing out there,” Cardon stated.
Before they could stop him, O’Neal dove over the side and began swimming.
“Come back!” several shouted, but it was no use.
They couldn’t afford to row after him. If they turned the boat, they risked capsizing and losing the entire crew.
Olsen glanced around at the haggard men. “Pull it together, fellas. We need every one of you if we’re going to make it through!”
The soldiers mumbled. Brody and Rollins stared numbly at him as Olsen began to row. He threw his back into it, pulling the little craft as hard as he could, but he soon tired, and it was all he could do to keep her headed into the waves.
Olsen handed off his oars and sat near the stern. He nodded off as the boat continued to rise and fall, dreaming of slathering hot biscuits with butter like his mother used to make.
And then he was awakened by shouting.
Chapter 3
08/01/2026
Olsen wasn’t sure how long he’d been asleep when Cardon began to shake him. His bones ached, and his cramped muscles screamed when he tried to move. Olsen pried open his salt-encrusted eyelids and stared into the lieutenant’s wild face.
“Swanson is drinking all the water!”
Olsen roused himself, trying to understand why the officer hadn’t handled it himself.
Rising on his elbows, he saw Swanson with the water tin tilted to his scabbed lips. He tossed the empty container down at Flinty’s feet. Swanson’s eyes met Olsen’s in an unspoken threat, daring him to move.
“Have your fill?” Flinty asked.
Suddenly, a blade glinted in Swanson’s hand. “I don’t take no sass from coloreds.”
With a wicked thrust, he buried the knife in the steward’s chest.
Olsen was up, the boat rocking as he rushed forward. He crashed his right fist into Swanson’s jaw and swept his left forward to hit him again. Swanson tottered on rubbery legs. Olsen clipped him with another combination, driving him overboard.
Swanson came up sputtering and started swimming toward the boat. Ambrose didn’t stop rowing, his eyes grim and his jaw set.
Olsen knelt beside Flinty. He pulled the knife from the steward’s chest and tried to staunch the bleeding. Flinty’s eyes were glassy, and his head lulled unnaturally.
Cardon put a finger to the steward’s neck. “He’s gone.”
The lieutenant uttered a short prayer, crossed himself, and the survivors rolled Flinty into the cold Atlantic. When Olsen looked up, Swanson had drifted farther back, his head a bobbing dot. He felt no remorse at leaving the killer behind.
Turning now, he saw Ambrose still kneeling beside Cardon, yet to take their eyes off Flinty’s body.
“Man the watch!” Olsen ordered.
When no one bent to the oars, Olsen seated himself amidships and took them in hand. His foot bumped the empty water tin. The dull thud resounded throughout the boat. Olsen had the same thought as the rest of them: It was impossible to survive.
They’d lost men already. More would surely follow with no water and few rations.
After that, the only sound was the creaking of the oar locks.
Olsen kept rowing through the night. His hands bled and soaked through the bandages.
Johansen dunked the tin into the ocean and tipped it to his lips.
“Don’t,” Cardon rasped.
Johansen wiped his lips after a long drink. “It’s better than dying a thirsty man.”
Cardon swatted the can from his hand. “Take a turn at the oars, soldier. That will keep your hands busy.”
Olsen made way for Johansen. Exhaustion set upon him as Olsen sat in the stern beside Lieutenant Cardon. He had doubted the officer’s capacity to lead, but the man had grown more effectual as their plight continued. Olsen hoped Cardon could put those lessons to use on the battlefield someday. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift from the sea to the dry plateaus and rugged peaks near his father’s ranch.
“Johansen!”
The shout startled Olsen awake, yet his mind seemed gauzy, unable to signal his limbs to move.
Cardon leaned over the edge of the lifeboat, arm extended as he continued to shout for the young soldier. “Give me your hand, son! Come back aboard!”
Olsen sat up a bit, saw Johansen’s face glowing above the waves. The Norwegian laid his head back and lifted his legs to float. And then he was gone.
Cardon sat back on the thwart, his head in his hands.
“How long?” Cardon muttered in despair.
No one spoke. Olsen felt his pain but didn’t understand the question.
Cardon lifted his face toward the heavens. “How long, Lord, must we suffer?”
Olsen stared across the waves, watching them shift restlessly against the dawn sky. The bow of the lifeboat drifted. She took a wave near broadside, lifting her starboard rail and dipping the port into the sea. Olsen shouted for Cardon to man the oars.
When Cardon failed to respond, Olsen started to rise.
“I’ve got it, Boats,” Brody said, easing the lieutenant aside and taking his place.
Olsen knew Brody had bent to the oars more than any man. Brody had been a machine, a rowing metronome, even giving his share of food and water to the others. Yet, Olsen could see the cost. The vibrant spark no longer danced in Brody’s brown eyes, and his body was a mass of wet sores.
“I’ll spell you,” Olsen said. “We all will.”
Brody straightened the boat, bringing their bow into the waves again.
“You rest, Boats,” Brody said, then added softly, as if to himself, “I’ll get us home.”
Olsen knew they couldn’t stand much more. His body, like everyone else’s, was shutting down. He had trouble thinking straight. His tongue was thick in his dry mouth, lips cracked and bleeding, his sunburned skin blistered, and hands raw from rowing.
The steady creak of the oars and the warming day lulled Olsen back to sleep.
When he awoke hours later, sensing a restless giddiness to the lifeboat, Olsen saw Brody’s lifeless body shifting in time with the sea tugging at the oars. Olsen moved forward to shake his friend awake, but Brody fell backward off the seat. Olsen dropped heavily onto the thwart, and his hands automatically gripped the oars.
He rowed without thinking, the action ingrained in his brain. Water splashed against the bow. Oar locks creaked in the soaked wood. The sun rose and beat mercilessly down on them.
Cardon and Rollins rolled Brody into the sea. Olsen thought about Brody as he watched the body slip away. He wasn’t a praying man, but he said one now. The other deaths hadn’t affected him much, but Brody’s passing caused his soul to ache.
Flinty, O’Neal, Bittencourt, Swanson, and Johansen had been strangers. He didn’t have any emotional attachment to them, but Brody had been with him for two crossings. They had stood side by side through tension-filled nights, waiting for the next ship to explode.
Yeah, Olsen thought, Brody was a decent fellow. A hard-drinking, hard-fighting steady hand on the gun, who always had my back.
It was him alone Olsen mourned.
Olsen didn’t know how long he stayed at the oars. His numb mind shut down to rudimentary elements: fill the lungs, pump the heart, row the oars.
Cardon, fire red from sunburn, lay in the stern. Rollins, face thick with beard, curled at Olsen’s feet. Ambrose and James, two kids from the Bronx, huddled near the bow.
The sudden blast of a horn startled them all from their stupor. Olsen kept cranking the oars, afraid to look. Cardon roused himself to peer at the horizon.
Another blast of the horn sounded across the water. Olsen twisted in his seat.
Steaming toward them was the sleek gray hull of a U.S. Navy destroyer.
© 2026 Evan Graver