“That’s it,” Nick shouted over the roar. “We are out of here.”

“One more second,” Don replied, nearly his entire upper body in the water as he continued to feel around.

Nick was struggling into his climbing harness, and looked over sharply when Don gasped oddly. “Don?”

Something had shifted. A second ago, Don had been lying on a tree trunk, and now suddenly he was pressed against the far wall of the pit with the length of wood pushed against his chest.

“Nick,” he cried out, his voice strangled.

Nick rushed across the pit to his brother’s side. His frantic motion must have shifted the whole pile further because Don suddenly screamed. The wood pushing into his chest slipped even more, and in the light of his miner’s lamp Nick could see a dark stain forming on his brother’s coat.

Water continued to hammer them from above, a torrent as bad as any summer rainstorm.

“Hold on, little brother,” Nick said, grasping the tree branch. He felt an odd vibration coming from the wood, an almost mechanical sensation, as though the end hidden underwater was attached to some device.

No matter how he tried to pull it out, the branch was firmly lodged against something hidden below the water. It remorselessly continued to drive into Don’s chest in a slow, steady thrust.

Don screamed at the pain. Nick screamed, too, out of fear and frustration. He didn’t know what to do, and he looked around for some way to lever the bough out of his brother’s body.

“Just hold on, Don,” Nick said, tears mingling with the salt water sluicing off his face.

Don called his name again, weakly, for there was three inches of wood impaled into his flesh. Nick took his hand, which Don gripped, but quickly the strength afforded him by fear and pain began to ebb. His fingers slackened.

“Donny!” Nick cried.

Don opened his mouth. Nick would never know what his brother’s final words were meant to be. A clot of blood erupted from Don Ronish’s pale lips. The first eruption turned into a steady stream that turned pink in the spray as it ran down his neck and across his chest.

Nick threw his head back and roared, a primeval call that echoed off the pit walls, and he would have remained at his brother’s side forever had the second of his oakum plugs not burst, doubling the flow of water pouring into the pit.

He fumbled with the rope in the deluge, clipping his harness into the loop. He hated what he was about to do, but he had no choice. He tugged on the plumb line. His other brothers had to know something was wrong because they started hauling him from the pit instantly. Nick kept his light trained on Don until the lifeless body was just a pale outline in the stygian realm. And then it was gone.

DON RONISH’S MEMORIAL SERVICE was held the following Wednesday. The world had changed dramatically during the hours the five brothers were playing at being explorers. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and the United States was now at war. Only the Navy had the kind of dive equipment necessary to recover Don’s body, and their parents’ request had fallen on deaf ears. His casket remained empty.