Read an Excerpt
Chapter One
USS SedgewickAUGUST 1942 — The navy's Caribbean command received a priority dispatch from tile USS Sedgewick:
RESCUED 12-YEAR-OLD BOY PHILLIP ENRIGHT AND HIS
CAT FROM UNCHARTED CAY X SURVIVORS OF SS HATO
TORPEDOED APRIL THIS YEAR X BOY AND CAT SEEM TO
BE IN GOOD CONDITION X PROCEEDING CRISTOBAL X
The destroyer sped on toward Panama. She hummed and quivered along, pitching gently over the smooth sea, temporarily secured from hunting German U-boats.
Down in sick bay, the ship's hospital, I sat on a cold metal stool while the doctor checked me out. Took my temperature, looked in my mouth and ears, took my blood pressure.
I told him I felt fine.
With Stew under my arm, I'd been brought aboard from the rescue boat naked as a plucked pigeon, holding Timothy's wooden-handled knife as my only possession from our time on the island.
Lieutenant Robert Heath, the doctor, couldn't believe I'd survived, alone and blind, for almost two months on that remote patch of sand up in the Devil's Mouth.
"Timothy prepared me to live alone," I said. I owed my life to him.
"Who was Timothy?" Dr. Heath asked.
A cold disk was on my chest. He was listening to my heart. Stew Cat purred in my lap.
"An old black man from the island of Saint Thomas."
But he was much more than that. He was my guardian angel, then as well as now, protecting me from danger and mistakes. Though he was dead, he still talked to me in my darkness.
During that terrible moment, only yesterday, when the navy plane flew across the island and then went away, the sound dying like abee buzz, Timothy looked down on me and said, "Don' warry, Phill-eep, dey'll be bock." I heard him distinctly.
"From Saint Thomas, eh?"
I looked in the direction of Dr. Heath's voice. He sounded young. "Yes. Timothy got me out of the water after our ship was sunk. A few minutes before, this tomcat had crawled aboard our raft. Just crawled up there like he owned it. Timothy didn't invite him."
I had to laugh about that, Timothy sometimes saying, "dis turrible cot."
"How long were you on the cay?"
"From sometime in April until today." Five months, I thought. I'd been told this was August 22, 1942, still a time of war. According to my own "time-can," into which I dropped a pebble or piece of shell each day, I'd been alone on the cay for forty-seven days.
"What happened to Timothy?"
"He died after a hurricane hit us. He used his whole body to protect me. Wind and flying debris tore him up. Killed him."
"What a shame," Dr. Heath said sympathetically.
Yes, it was.
"What did you eat all that time?" Dr. Heath asked, adding, "Lie back."
"Oh, fish and langosta, coconuts, sea-grape leaves. . ."
He made a huhmp sound, then laughed. "Not a bad diet at that."
Then he tapped around my stomach, telling me to cough. "You were blind before the ship was torpedoed?"
"No. I got hit on the head when we were abandoning it and lost my sight a few days later, on the raft."
He made that huhmp sound once more.
"Will I ever see again?" I asked.
"You'll have to talk to an eye doctor, but there's always a chance. You might need an operation." He paused, then said, "Phillip, I'm curious about something, really puzzled
"About what?"
"How did you manage for two months without that old man? How did you get food? You couldn't see."
"He'd made fishing poles for me. Strapped them to a palm tree before the hurricane hit. He'd planned for me to be alone. Planned everything. And I knew that whole island like I knew my house in Curaçao. After I buried him I put our hut back together and started a fire."
"Remarkable," said Dr. Heath. "Really remarkable. . ."
I had just been doing what Timothy had taught me.
"Now, sit up again. I'm going to tap your knees with a mallet to test your reflexes. Have you had that done before?"
'Yes.
I wondered how the doctor looked. How big was he, how old?
I'd been doing that all day, trying to imagine faces, starting with the two sailors who rescued me. I knew how Timothy looked, having seen him for two days before my sight failed. But now I had no way of telling age or looks except by voice.
The doctor tapped between my knee joints, then said, "Well, that's it. You're as healthy as anyone on this ship, a lot healthier than some. Remarkable."
"I was lucky," I admitted.
"Now, I've ordered a bland diet for you to begin with. . ."
I'd already had a milkshake.
". . . since your stomach probably won't be ready for hamburgers or steak. . ."
Oh yes, it is, I thought. Yes, it is! If I never have another fish it will be too soon.
". . . for a few days. So instead, things like rice and mashed potatoes and soup. . ."
"Can I have gravy?" Could I have every single thing that I'd missed on the cay? Everything. Macaroni and cheese. Hot dogs. Hamburgers. Ice cream. Candy.
He chuckled. "Yes, you can have gravy. Anything else?"
"Candy." That was something I'd really missed.
"Sure, what kind?"
"Hershey almond, Baby Ruth...
"I'll have the ship's store guy come in."
"And will you feed my cat?"
"He's already been fed. Milk and rice. He was hungry. Anything else?"
I shook my head. "No, thank you."
"Glad to have you aboard," he said, and departed.
I think all the officers on that destroyer walked into sick bay that afternoon, and half the ship's crew, just to look at Stew Cat and me.
