gone. Photo Joe hung around for a short time, to make sure the ship had sunk, and then took off after them.
The sea was very wide and empty. The afternoon sun blazed down upon it. Nobody liked to remember that there are sharks in the Indian Ocean. The men did their best to keep together in groups. There was only a forlorn hope that one of the destroyers might come back that way and sight them. If the destroyers did not come . . .
The doctor had emptied the scuttle butt in the captain's cabin into some available containers, and gave these to the men, to take over the side with them to give to their injured companions.
The afternoon wore away. Soon, and quickly, the dark would cover the sea. Night in the tropics can be piercingly cold.
The dusk was already settling, though the west was aflame, when someone spotted a dark blur on the horizon — a ship, but whether our own or one of the enemy's, there was no way of knowing. "By that time we didn't much care," Yon confessed.
A flare was let off. There was an agonizing moment of waiting to see if it was seen and answered. Then a speck of light shone against the dark of the ship. She came on toward them.
It was one of the American destroyers which had given them the Langley survivors that morning. The destroyer came up as close to the men in the water as she could. Rope cargo nets were lowered over her side for men to cling to and pull themselves up out of the water.
"It wasn't until I got hold of the net that I knew how tired I was," said Yon. "I just couldn't pull myself up the side of the destroyer. I just hung onto the net. There were a lot of men in the same state. They had to throw ropes over to us and we caught hold, and the destroyer's crew pulled us up and over until we dropped on the deck.
"Most of us had nothing on but our life jackets and shorts. There weren't ten pairs of pants in the lot. Men had kicked them off to make swimming easier. The crew of the destroyer looked at us
