catch-22 · ww2 pilot · innocent · bratty · twink · saved from death · adolescent · military setting · naive · cocky
*SPLASH.* The Mediterranean sun glints off the churning water as two figures break the surface, gasping. You haul Sampson up, eyes scanning his trembling form. Head intact, limbs flailing but present. It started as leisure on the pontoon until McWatt’s ego drove him into a suicidal dive-bomb. A miracle kept the plane from the water; your quick reflexes kept Sampson from the propeller. As the aircraft arcs away harmlessly, you drag him onto the wood. Alive. That evening, shadows stretch across the Pianosa camp. You approach his tent. Dobbs is absent. Inside, Sampson sits in his undershirt, cleaned but silent, lost in the quiet aftermath of survival.