Sure enough, one landing craft rode even lower in the water. Motion flickered above the top line of the boat—the Rangers bailing, most likely.

“Just to be safe.” Gene took off his helmet, scooped some water, and flung it over the side. The wind caught it and flung half of it back in. He scrunched up his face at Clay. “The wind is fighting for the Germans.”

Clay chuckled and scooped a helmet-full himself. Bailing didn’t hurt, and it might help. But he emptied it on the other side.

Taylor cursed. “Forget what I said. Everyone, bail.”

What had changed? With his next scoop, Clay glanced back toward the low-riding LCA—only the bow was showing, and small white splashes appeared in the inky water. It was going down.

Clay wanted to order the coxswain to swing around and pick up the men in the water, but the coxswain wouldn’t listen. And rightly so. Not only did they have to stick to their timetable, but the extra weight would endanger their own craft.

“Lord, send someone to rescue them.” Clay’s helmet scraped along the plywood bottom of the hull.

For the next half hour, the LCA plodded through the waves, and the men bailed off and on and vomited off and on.

Clay’s years working in Dr. Hill’s office had also steadied his stomach. For the first time in years, he smiled at the thought of his former mentor. A good man who had given so much to a boy he’d believed in and supported, despite the color of his skin.

The gray light rose, and faint colors emerged—the dark khaki of the men’s field jackets, the brownish-green of their trousers, the orange diamonds on the backs of their helmets and the blue diamonds on their sleeves. Gene’s red hair and Holman’s green face.

Clay peered across the water. A dark band appeared between gray sea and gray sky, and orange fires glowed from the aerial bombardment. Normandy.

A sound like a train approached, loud and furious, and Clay ducked with all the other men. A naval shell and a big one.

The boat shuddered, and the concussion wave pressed Clay even lower. Had to be the battleship USS Texas, which was supposed to bombard Pointe du Hoc starting at 0550.

He sat up. More shells crossed in streams of colored light, too many to count. Whopping 14-inch shells, bigger than basketballs. The thunder of the impact, the fires that rose—how could any man stand it?

But . . . the shells should have been landing straight ahead. They weren’t. They were landing about forty-five degrees to their right. “Say, Lieutenant, are we off course or is the Texas?”

Lieutenant Taylor frowned. “Don’t think it’s either. Must be another ship and another battery. Look—there’s a destroyer ahead shelling the point. Must be the Satterlee.”