mattresses, marched down the gangplank and demanded passage. The captain just threw up his hands. "My God, man! If you can find an inch anywhere!"
The doctor found it. The wounded were laid on deck and he did what he could without drugs or fresh dressings to make them comfortable. At night the ship sailed under a tropical moon, which lighted up the sea like polished glass and made the little five-and-a-half-knot ship an easy mark. But the night passed without incident. In the dawn, as they were nosing westward toward the Indian Ocean, suddenly a flight of twenty-seven enemy planes were sighted. The planes were searching the sea for American ships. They deemed the little vessel worth a bomb or two and a spray of machine-gun bullets across her deck before they flew on in quest of bigger prey.
Severely crippled, and with dead and wounded aboard, the ship limped into the nearest port to bind up her wounds. There the captain put it up to his passengers. He intended to make the run to Australia, though he figured there was only one chance in a thousand of getting there. Those who wanted to make the run with him could have free passage, provided they were willing to work. About 80 per cent of those aboard decided against it. The dangers of shipwreck outweighed capture by the Japs.
"It wasn't anything I felt I had a right to decide for my nine Americans," said Dr. Wassell. "I went down to where they were and put it up to them. Did they want to take the chance at sea, knowing its practically certain dangers, and in the condition they were in, or stay behind? To a man they voted for sticking with the ship."
The ship set out for Perth. Only then was it found that the captain had no chart to sail by. The only map of the Indian Ocean aboard was in a Rand-McNally pocket atlas belonging to a newspaper correspondent. A large piece of paper was produced, and a pencil and ruler. The paper was spread out on the deck and ruled
