Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

would have expected to make it through disaster unscathed, George was the first one gone. The first one he knew about. "Jacob Segal? Do you know him?"
    No one did. Or none of the men still able to say so. There were a few men who had clearly been fished wounded out of the sea, and lay groaning in the bottom of the raft, beyond even hearing Daniel's question.
    "Are there others nearby?" he asked instead, and then, knowing it was pathetic, "Do you think a message got out, sir?"
    The young ensign nodded vigorously. "I'm sure it did, sailor. They'll find us any time now."
    "Right." It had been stupid to ask.
    The ensign pointed south, or what was probably south given the position of the sun. Although Daniel wasn't sure of the time of day or much of anything else. He was pointing off to the left, anyway. "There are a lot more of the men that way. About two hundred yards and on. Several dozen."
    "Thanks." Daniel didn't have to ask why the two men wielding paddles in the raft were going the other way. He thought one more man would swamp the thing, for all the ensign's talk of loading on more wounded. Easier to say no if there was no one nearby to hear you.
    It was past noon when he blundered into the first group of floating men. They all had life-vests, thank God, although some were injured and clearly failing. Daniel floated among them for a while. Geoff from his turret crew was there, and they spent a moment in conversation, but had no news for each other. Among the injured was one of the quartermasters, and even as Daniel listened to Geoff's account of his own escape from the ship out a port and up a dangling line, the quartermaster gave a rattling gasp. One of the men closer to him reached over, fumbling on his neck for a pulse. After a minute the man shook his head.
    Daniel let himself drift away from the group and went back to his searching. It was futile. He knew it was. In this vast sea were no doubt hundreds of men, scattered over a broad area. The ship had been making good headway right up to the moment she went down. Given that the men probably left the ship one after another and not all at once, they must be strewn along the path of her last few minutes, which could be several miles of sea. And then with the waves and the winds and the men's own efforts, Jacob could be anywhere. But Daniel kept looking.
    The sky became dull and overcast by mid-afternoon. It was a blessing, easing the fierce heat that blazed down on them. The dimmer light didn't bore into his eyeballs as fiercely either. He'd paused to take off his shirt and drape it over his head and shoulders earlier. Even so, his skin felt tight and raw, and he was glad for the shade.
    He found more men, some dead, some living. He kept collecting life jackets from the dead. It was the only constructive thing he could do out here. He didn't think anything of it until he found himself sobbing and cursing at a corpse, as he struggled to untie the water-swollen knots in the ties of its vest. He already had two spare vests in hand at that moment. After a long moment spent retching and choking back to some kind of sanity, he left the corpse with its jacket and swam on.
    At some point he lost the crate. It had been slowly sinking and breaking apart, never meant to withstand a full-grown man yanking it about. When the slats came off the frame, he let the bits float away and tucked an extra jacket under each arm instead. An hour later, he had parted with both of them to men in greater need. He swam on.
    Twice he heard the sound of an airplane somewhere in the skies overhead. Each time he tipped his head back, straining his eyes against the light, turning in a slow circle. But he caught no sight of the planes. Either they were flying above the thickening cloud cover or they were further away than he realized.
    He drifted towards a small group of men who floated in the water, all holding onto a rope that tethered them together, when one of the men screamed. It was a shrill, strange sound. The man waved an arm, let go of the rope, and then disappeared from view. The man who had been next to him yelped and then cried out, "Shark!"
    As if called together out of nowhere, fins appeared in the water. Daniel noted one going past, a scant ten yards from where he floated. The dark triangle had a white tip on it, and the sheer size was impressive. Another man cried out and was pulled under. Blood drifted in the water, reddening the surface as the sun began to break through again.