Authors: Homer Hickam
“Then I want you to stay,” she said flatly.
Josh explained why he couldn't do that, as much as he wanted to. If he did, he told her, perhaps the bad men would come back and hurt other people in the village. “Evil cannot be allowed to win,” he told her. “It must be destroyed by good men, else it grows.”
Then, sensing that he could not convince her, he said simply, “I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you, too, even if I don't come back. You have to trust me on this.”
Hearing these words, she did not cry, though Josh had supposed she might. He realized Manda was like most of the children on Tahila. She had a sure grip on reality and understood that things did not always go well in life. She also knew she was in the embrace of a loving village. Manda did not need him. It was he who needed her.
Still gazing at his daughter, Josh sat back. What had he become? Where
was Josh Thurlow, the son of Keeper Jack of Killakeet? Where was that boy of the dunes and the sea, that gentle boy who'd risked getting a finger bitten off just to save an old mud turtle? How was it that this boy had become an efficient killer of men in the South Seas?
Josh didn't know, nor did he have time to think on it.
Not now,
he told himself. The time for such thoughts, or regrets, was past. The raid on Ruka was on. He would have to kill again.
Colonel Burr had organized the raid. There were to be thirty men and one woman in the party. Burr himself, of course, and his two marines would go, with Sampson remaining behind to help guard Tahila with the women's militia. Josh Thurlow, Ready O'Neal, and the eleven Ruka fella boys were also going, plus fourteen Tahila fella boys. The entire village was furious because of the attempted attack by the two Japanese barges and the deaths of Rose and Turu. It was necessary for Burr to turn away volunteers, including Chief Kalapa. The chief was too fat, but Burr told him he couldn't go because he was indispensable to Tahila, which would suffer mightily without his leadership. One woman in the party was allowed and that was Kathleen.
To prepare for the raid, Burr asked Nango to build a model of Ruka Township. He had done so from memory with contoured sand and shells and mangos for the structures in the town. Burr had carefully studied it; then he had instructed each of his squads on the route they were to take after landing in the harbor, and the Japanese positions that were to be destroyed. Rehearsals were accomplished.
“Toot sweet!”
Burr bellowed again and again to the fella boys when they became confused or tired. “Speed is required! All same run-run, you savvy?”
The Tahila fella boys savvied, and they savvied something else, too. It would be a desperate fight. That was when they threw down the rifles Burr had pressed on them and picked up their spears and machetes. This was the way they fought, the old way, closing on the enemy until his dying breath was in their face. Burr accepted it, made his adjustments, and kept training. For five days, they had rehearsed, and now midnight had come, and the raid was on. They would sail in the outriggers northwestward and then curve around to Ruka. This would take a day. At night they would rest, and land on the beach at Ruka Township an hour before dawn.
All was prepared. Nothing else left to do but go. Josh rose and, after kissing a sleeping Manda, walked through the dark to the lagoon, where the raiding party was gathering. Josh looked over the assembly. The marines were dressed in their Tarawa utilities with freshly honed K-bars strapped
aboard their hips. Tucker carried a machine gun on his shoulder. Garcia was draped with bandoliers of ammunition. The marines' women wept silently beside them.
Nango and the Ruka fella boys held their Japanese rifles, and the Tahila volunteers gripped their spears and machetes. Behind them was the Tahila women's militia. Sampson, with a crutch under one arm and his hand on the holster of a forty-five pistol, stood in front of them. He nodded to Josh. If the raid failed, the Japanese would surely come again. Sampson and the women would somehow have to stop them. Behind the women warriors were the rest of the villagers, including Mr. Bucknell and Chief Kalapa, both registering deep sadness.
Pushing through the crowd came Carl Spurlock, a long-barreled pistol strapped to his belt, and beside him Gertie and Tilly. “The old girl wouldn't leave me alone about it, you see,” Spurlock explained, nodding toward Gertie. “She's after some action.”
Gertie, grinning, the whites of her eyes flashing in the torchlight, fondly patted a gleaming machete.
“Tilly will stay behind, to guard our house,” Spurlock went on while the plump little woman wiped away her tears.
Burr nodded to Spurlock and Gertie. “You and Gertie are welcome, Mr. Spurlock. You'll be with the Ruka fella boys. Talk to Nango. He'll fill you in on the plan.”
Kathleen bade all to bow their heads. “Go ahead, Captain,” she said to Josh.
Josh said, “I'm no preacher, but my old skipper in the Bering Sea, Captain Falcon, prayed a special prayer before he went into battle. I don't know if it's a righteous prayer or not, but I never knew a man headed into combat who didn't like it said. Here it is, and bless me for a fool if God don't like it:
The Lord is my Captain. I shall not question Him!
His will takes me across the great waters.
He fills my sails and makes my heart strong.
He leads me to war in His Name's sake!
Yea, though I sail through the sea of death, I do not fear evil!
For He is with me! His powder and shot, they comfort me.
He makes me invincible before mine enemies.
His spirit is like rum; and my cup runneth over!
This much I know!
I fight for the right, the good, and the Holy.
I will therefore prevail and God's mercy will be mine.
For I sail in the gunboat of the Lord forever!
At Josh's “Amen!” the raiders lifted their heads. Burr walked up beside Josh. “Time to go,” he said.
And go they did.
The raiding party surged forward and climbed into the outriggers while their women and the men left behind sang a low, ancient song, begging them to return safely from their long and dangerous journey. Paddles dug into the water as the boats flowed across the lagoon. The sails were raised, billowing and popping in the wind. The Tahila people continued to sing and then the outriggers disappeared, swallowed up inside a strange, cold mist.
Ready woke to stare at the interior roof of the treehouse. He blinked once, his eyes ahead of his mind, and began to sort through the odd dreams that had visited him as he slept. Somewhere nearby, there were voices raised in song. He sat up slowly, with both hands holding his head, which seemed thick and wooly. He pressed his eyes closed and tried to think more clearly. Then he felt beside him for Kathleen. She was not there.
A pale blue light flowed through the windows. Ready climbed from the bed, knocking a cup from the bedside table. It bounced on the bamboo floor and Ready stared at it, a dull memory returning. It was the cup Kathleen had given him. It was also the last thing he recalled. She had said it contained something the widows had prepared, something that would help him to sleep before the raid.
Ready walked quickly to the windows. The blue light was the rising sun, weakly permeating through a strange, dense fog that had rolled into the lagoon. He realized now what Kathleen had done.
He quickly pulled on his utilities, then his socks and boots, and picked up his rifle. Though his head was pounding, he ran down the spiral staircase and took the path to the beach. A few villagers watched him approach. Shockingly, the outriggers were gone.
Ready saw Chief Kalapa. “Why did no one wake me?” he demanded.
“Kathleen say you stay,” Chief Kalapa quietly replied. “She say husband no die for her sin.”
Ready's eyes landed on a canoe. It belonged to Chief Kalapa and it was very fast. “Chief, I need your canoe,” he said urgently, and didn't wait for permission. He ran to it and pushed it into the lagoon and climbed aboard. He brought out the paddle and dipped its blade into the water and felt it bite.
“Canoe no belong big sea, Bosun!” Chief Kalapa called. “Too much rain, wind, canoe sink!”
Ready didn't care if his craft had been designed for the open water or not. He was a sailor. He would handle whatever came. With a dozen powerful strokes of the paddle, he ran the canoe through the passage between the coral reefs. Then he lifted the mast and raised the sail, which instantly ballooned in the vigorous wind that swept him and the fog along.
Throughout the night and much of the day, the anxious fella boys kept paddling, each flowing dip marked by their deep grunts, like a terrible war chant. Finally, fearing that they might exhaust themselves, Josh called a halt to the paddling and told the outrigger captains to make their men rest and let the wind do the work. Work it did, and the outriggers swept along, finally breaking out of the blue-gray mist and into the open air. The brilliant sun crept across the sky over the raiding party, while the sea remained empty of Japanese barges or any other vessel.
Toward dusk, Burr had his boat move so that he could climb across to Nango's outrigger, which held Josh and Kathleen. He had something he wanted to say. “I feel like Agamemnon, bound for Troy, Josh,” he said. “Do you recall your Homer?”
“Educate me, Montague,” Josh replied.
“O excellency, O majesty, O Zeus,”
Burr quoted Agamemnon according to the old tale.
“Beyond the storm cloud, dwelling in high air, let not the sun go down upon this day into the western gloom, before I tumble Priam's blackened roof down, exploding fire through his portals! Let me rip with my bronze point the shirt that clings on Hector and slash his ribs! May throngs around him lieâhis friends, head-down in dust, biting dry ground.”
Josh smiled, though grimly. “As I recall, Zeus did not answer. It took ten years for Agamemnon to take Troy.”
“We will do a mite better on Ruka,” Burr swore.
“We'd better,” Josh replied.
Kathleen listened but remained silent, for she had not the words that would tell anyone what she feltâand feared.
Then the sun, in a shower of fire, fell into the sea, and the little fleet pulled down its sails and waited, waited for the sun to return and the battle to begin.
During the night, the odd mist came again. A bit unnerved, the raiders floated along a gray, steamy wall. The fella boys, certain the fog had come from the gods, moaned and groaned at the sight of it. “Can we find Ruka, Pangoru?” Burr whispered to his outrigger captain, as they both peered into the great nothingness.
The big tattooed islander stopped his prayers to the old gods to answer the colonel's question. “Panua and Juki, they fight,” he informed Burr, speaking of the two major goddesses of the Far Reaches. “Juki, she chase away Panua. She build dream wall. Say Panua no come these islands no more.”
“Why are they fighting?” Burr asked.
“Juki say Panua too much jealous god,” Pangoru answered, tapping his head. “But all gods too much crazy.” He rapped the mast with his knuckles to ward off any listening god's revenge.
“How do you know all that?” Burr asked.
Incredulity showed on Pangoru's tattooed face. “Fella boys all time hear gods.” He touched an ear. “Listen, Curbur. You hear.”
Burr listened but didn't hear anything except the slosh of the sea around the outrigger. Then he noticed that a few of the fella boys had cut themselves along the hairline and blood was streaming down their faces. “Pangoru, tell these men to stop hurting themselves!” he cried.
Pangoru shrugged. “They say Panua, they sorry. They say Juki, they sorry. Gods stop fight so men they fight.”
Burr sighed at the superstitions of all fighting men, then glanced at the sky. The stars twinkled back at him, but the moon was down. It was satisfyingly dark, perfect for a well-rehearsed raid. In two hours, he knew, the sun would boom from the sea and with it his hope for surprising the enemy. “We must go soon, if we're going,” he said to the outrigger captain. “Whistle out now, Pangoru. Tell the others to raise their sails.”
Pangoru nodded, then whistled across the darkness. The trilled replies were instantaneous. “All say, Ruka, we go!” Pangoru exclaimed. Very quickly, the little fleet was blown into the fog wall, the mist swirling around the boats like shadowy ghosts. The sails groaned as the wind became vigorous, adding
to the sense that there were spirits all around. The fella boys started wailing, matching the groaning sails, and cast their prayers to Panua and Juki to leave them alone to fight the Japonee.
In Nango's outrigger, Kathleen prayed to her Irish child-saint. “Saint Monessa, let us find our way, we beg ye!” she said aloud, and her prayer was immediately seconded with a booming “Amen!” by Nango. Under her breath, she added, “Please give me the strength, dear Monessa, to do what I must do.” She reflected then how different she was now that she had put her veil aside, how she saw humility and even inner serenity as her adversaries, perhaps even the reasons for her greatest sin. For had not her constant striving toward humility and a nun's natural subservient inclinations been the twin causes of her downfall? After enduring the greatest of humiliations, was it natural that she might accept the hand reached out to her, even though the bearer of that hand had abused her? She thought perhaps yes, though she was not certain, nor was she likely ever to be. That was part of her frustration, her pain, and her fear.
Kathleen forced herself to stop thinking along those lines.
must not rationalize what I did!
she raged inwardly. Most of all, more than anything, she knew she could not allow herself to recall the sweetness of surrender. For it had been sweet and, in its own way, so terribly good. I
am damned beyond recovery,
she thought, then bowed her head.
Sweet Saint Monessa, save me. Stop me mind. Let me do what I must do!