Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

odd. Both sharks were gone. Never in four weeks had the sharks left. Louie got up on his knees and leaned out over the water, looking as far down as he could, puzzled. No sharks.
    He was kneeling there, perched over the edge of the raft, when one of the sharks that he had touched leapt from the water at terrific speed, mouth wide open, lunging straight at his head. Louie threw both hands in front of his face. The shark collided with him head-on, trying to get its mouth around his upper body. Louie, his hands on the animal’s snout, shoved as hard as he could, and the shark splashed back into thewater. A moment later, the second shark jumped up. Louie grabbed an oar and struck the shark in the nose, and it jerked back and slid away. Then the first shark lunged for him again. Louie was recoiling when he saw an oar swing past, sending the animal backward into the ocean. To Louie’s surprise, it wasn’t Phil who had saved him. It was Mac.
    Louie had no time to thank him. One of the sharks jumped up again, followed by the other. Louie and Mac sat side by side, clubbing each shark as it lunged at them. Mac was a new man. A moment before, he had seemed almost comatose. Now he was infused with frantic energy.
    For several minutes, the sharks took turns bellying onto the raft with gaping mouths, always launching themselves from the same spot. Finally, they gave up. Louie and Mac collapsed. Phil, who had been startled awake but had been unable to help because there were only two oars, stared at them in groggy confusion.
    “What happened?” he said.
    Louie looked at Mac with happy amazement and told him how grateful and proud of him he was. Mac, crumpled on the bottom of the raft, smiled back. He had pushed himself beyond his body’s capacities, but the frightened, childlike expression had left his face. Mac had reclaimed himself.
    ——

    Louie was furious at the sharks. He had thought that they had an understanding: The men would stay out of the sharks’ turf—the water—and the sharks would stay off of theirs—the raft. That the sharks had taken shots at him when he had gone overboard, and when the raft had been mostly submerged after the strafing, had seemed fair enough. But their attempt to poach men from their reinflated raft struck Louie as dirty pool. He stewed all night, scowled hatefully at the sharks all day, and eventually made a decision. If the sharks were going to try to eat him, he was going to try to eat them.
    He knelt by the raft wall and watched the sharks, searching for a beatable opponent. One that looked about five feet long passed. Louie thought he could take it. Louie and Phil made a plan.
    They had a little bait on the raft, probably the remains of their last bird. Phil hung it on a fishhook and strung it into the water at one end of the raft. At the other end, Louie knelt, facing the water. Smelling the bait, the shark swam toward Phil, orienting itself so that its tail was under Louie. Louie leaned as far overboard as he could without losinghis balance, plunged both hands into the water, and grabbed the tail. The shark took off. Louie, gripping the tail, flew out of the raft and crashed into the water, sending a large serving of the Pacific up his nose. The shark whipped its tail and flung Louie off. Louie bolted back onto the raft so quickly that he later had no memory of how he had done it.
    Soaking and embarrassed, Louie rethought his plan. His first error had been one of appraisal: Sharks were stronger than they looked. His second had been to fail to brace himself properly. His third had been to allow the shark’s tail to stay in the water, giving the animal something to push against. He settled in to wait for a smaller shark.
    In time, a smaller one, perhaps four feet long, arrived. Louie knelt at the raft’s side, tipping his weight backward and keeping his knees far apart to brace himself. Phil dangled a baited hook in the water.
    The shark swam for the bait. Louie clapped his hands around the tail and heaved it out of the water. The shark thrashed, but could neither get free nor pull Louie into the water. Louie dragged the animal onto the raft. The shark twisted and snapped, and Phil grabbed a flare cartridge and jammed it into the shark’s mouth. Pinning the shark down, Louie took the pliers and stabbed the screwdriver end of the handle through the animal’s eye. The shark died instantly.
    In his Honolulu survival course, Louie had been told that the liver was the only part of