mess.’
Holberg pushed him down in his seat. ‘Not now, Curtis,’ he said angrily. ‘We need to get you out of here. This man is trying to save your life.’
Harry passed Cain his life jacket. ‘You’d better put this back on, Lieutenant.’
Cain gave him a grim smile. ‘Thank you for coming to help,’ he said.
It took another twenty seconds of frantic sawing to cut through the harness.
‘Do you think you can walk?’
Stearley nodded.
‘Let’s go,’ said Holberg. But Stearley was still too unsteady on his feet and quickly collapsed in the swirling sea water.
‘We need to get him out by that rear exit,’ said Cain. ‘He’ll never make it out through a window.’
Holberg, Cain and Harry grabbed Stearley and struggled to drag him through the cramped interior.
‘Let me be,’ said the co-pilot. ‘I can walk.’
The Macey May lurched forward and they almost lost their balance.
‘Quick,’ said Holberg. ‘She’s about to go down.’
The interior was constructed of a series of alloy rings, and the three of them grabbed hold of them to steady themselves as they dragged Stearley towards the rear, Cain and Holberg pulling on his arms, Harry behind, holding his feet. As they reached the rear exit the plane lifted rightout of the water by about twenty degrees and Harry lost his footing, sliding down towards the mangled wreckage of the waist.
He hit his head when he stopped and felt momentarily dazed, then saw Cain making his way back to help him. ‘Come on, Friedman, we’ve got to get out of here fast.’
They looked up to see Holberg standing at the exit, pulling the compressed air handle on Stearley’s life jacket and pushing him out back first, then Holberg shouted over to the men on the wing, ‘Into the rafts, boys. Get away from her before she goes down.’
He hesitated at the door, looking down the fuselage at Harry and Cain, struggling to regain their footing. ‘Come on, men, get back up here,’ he shouted. ‘Don’t get sucked under.’
‘Captain, jump,’ they heard Corrales shout from outside.
The Fortress shifted again as the nose filled with water. Holberg started to climb down the interior, but the closer he got the more the plane dipped down. With a supreme effort Harry and Cain managed to claw their way back up to the exit, now fighting gravity as well as their waterlogged flight suits.
‘Come on!’ urged Holberg.
But he waited, knowing his weight was keeping the Fortress from dipping further, and when Harry and then Cain came within reach he held out a hand to help them.
Holberg pushed Harry out and he landed face first in the sea, the shock of the freezing water taking his breathaway. There was another splash right next to him. It was Cain. They surfaced to see Holberg still framed by the doorway.
They watched the bedraggled figure of the captain hesitate at the doorway. Then he jumped too.
Stearley was still floating in the water, too weak and dazed to help himself. Seeing him a few feet away, Harry dragged the co-pilot back to the nearest raft, which Corrales, John Hill and Dalinsky had now occupied. It took the three of them, and several near capsizes, to drag the co-pilot and Harry into the raft.
The tail end of the Fortress was now forty degrees up from the water. The nose had disappeared and water washed around the pilots’ cabin. They could still see the eerie glow of the internal lights just below the surface.
The B-17 swung further to the upright, its massive tail section hanging over them all. There it stood for a few moments as Holberg and Cain swam frantically towards the other life raft.
The Macey May gave another lurch then slowly began to sink into the sea. Now the wings were gone entirely and trapped air continued to belch and hiss from within. The tail hung suspended for a few more seconds, then a great bubble of air surfaced around it and it vanished into the depths.
LaFitte, Bortz and Skaggs had boarded the other life raft and they dragged
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