Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

his ear. Jacob jolted and made a small sound.
    "There. There you are. Stay with me, buddy."
    "Tired."
    "I know. And you can rest. I have you. Just don't go out on me. All right? We'll get rescued soon."
    "Mm."
    "I promise. And when you're better we'll go out on the town. Go to a nice restaurant, right? We'll have a steak with all the trimmings and then I'll find a good hotel. A place with nice sheets and a chocolate on the pillow and everything. I'll take you to bed and you can fuck me until neither one of us can stand. We'll find one with a shower big enough to share. Just you and me and warm clean water."
    "Got 'nuff water."
    "There you are. That's my Trip. Okay, no water. Just a bed. You and me and a big bed."
    "Orange juice?"
    "Sure. We'll drink a Buck's Fizz."
    "Wha'?"
    "Two parts orange juice, one part champagne. You'll love it. We'll sip it in bed. One glass between us."
    "Sounds good."
    "Of course it does." Daniel squinted at the overcast sky. The sun was low, maybe an hour or so till sunset. Night was the enemy. Without a light, there was no chance they would be spotted in the dark by ships or planes. The fall of darkness would mean another eleven hours to survive before hope of rescue.
    He licked his dry lips and went on, half whispering, half croaking, telling Jacob anything he could think of. He talked about home and his family, the farm, his brothers and sisters. He talked about joining the Navy and every dumb thing he ever did in training. His throat was raw and dry, and thirst was moving from a distraction to a fucking obsession, but he plugged along. Once in a while he'd get a grunt or a whispered word from Jacob and know that Trip was listening to him. It was all Daniel could offer, the only thing he could do for his man, to remind him that he wasn't alone here in the water.
    Sometimes they saw other men or rafts in the water, but never close enough to call out to. There was less floating debris, and none of it food that Daniel could see. He was beginning to really regret those onions. Although they might make a man throw up, eaten raw, in which case Jacob would lose more moisture than he'd gain from eating them. Jacob seemed half-unconscious anyway. Daniel let his regrets go.
    He had his eyes closed, not wanting to see the moment when the sun dipped below the horizon, when Jacob stirred against him. "Hey, Daniel. Is that...?"
    He opened his gummy eyelids painfully, scanning for a shark, or a body, but Jacob was staring further in the distance. And there, almost fading into the grey of water and clouds, was a ship.
    Daniel held his breath as she steamed towards them, slowly getting bigger. They could only see her from the top of each wave, and it was like one of those old flip-books. Each turn of the page, the hull was a little bigger and a little clearer. Daniel closed his eyes on the down-swoop, and then held them as open as he could, not wanting to even blink, when they crested.
    "Is she one of ours?" Jacob rasped.
    He hesitated, not wanting to be wrong. He didn't want to give false hope, although at this point even a Jap ship and captivity would be welcome, if it got them out of the water. But as she approached, he could be certain. "Yeah. Yes, she's ours. Look at her!" He coughed as a wave splashed acrid water into his open mouth. But it couldn't dim his mood.
    Darkness was beginning to close in. As the ship got nearer, a powerful searchlight broke out from her deck. Daniel could hear the men in the water shouting and calling and screaming off to his left. He saved his breath and his energy. No one on a ship would hear them over the sound of the screws. But a ship approaching in these waters with the lights on had to be looking for them. And what a beautiful sight.
    "Almost home," he murmured in Jacob's ear. "Stick with me just a little longer."
    Overhead there was the buzz of a motor and then a PBY float plane dropped down out of the cloud cover. It flew low over the water, off to the west of Daniel and Jacob. Daniel could see it clearly against the fading light in the sky. There were objects dropping from the belly of the plane. Life-jackets perhaps, rafts, provisions. Daniel licked his lips in hopeless reflex, wondering if they were dropping fresh water. It doesn't matter, he reminded himself, we'll be on board that ship soon.
    He wondered if the plane would land, but after a couple of passes it rose again. Either the water was too rough or the light too uncertain for the pilots to risk it.