Josh did his best to explain the difference, at least as he understood it. “The Japanese are a stubborn people, David, and when they get a thing in their heads, they have trouble getting it out. Right now, the men in Tokyo who started this war are trying to to bloody our noses down here in the Solomons so we’ll ask to parley and let them keep what they’ve won. It’s our duty to make certain they understand that ain’t a possibility by killing as many of their boys as we can.”
Armistead had lowered his head then and wept. Josh did what he could to keep his men from seeing their lieutenant give in to such foolishness, but some had seen. Josh knew then that he could never agree to a Medal of Honor for Armistead. It wouldn’t set a good example. Crying needed to wait until after the war. Plenty of time then to do it, if one was still alive.
Josh wished now he’d never agreed to this cockamamie assignment, but he’d had no choice after Burr had said one word: “Hypo.” That was the same as hearing directly from Admiral Nimitz and Secretary Knox that the Japanese were somehow involved with Armistead’s disappearance. Hypo was the secret name for the team of cryptographers in Nimitz’s employ who’d cracked the Japanese code. Halsey had sent the word to Josh through Burr’s mouth to let him know that there was Japanese radio traffic concerning Armistead. But what was it? Perhaps it had been unclear and that was why nothing more was passed on. Or perhaps Halsey’s admonition to kill Armistead at the first opportunity told Josh all he needed to know.
Josh watched the sun continue to sink into the sea, then looked around and wondered what he should do to prepare for the night. He considered returning to the plantation, to bunk down with Whitman, but then he heard the low thrum of an engine seaward. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as a boat slid around the northern point of the lagoon, its rakish prow identifying it clearly as a Japanese barge, one of the landing craft used to resupply or bring ashore troops.
Josh melted into the shadowy bush at the edge of the beach. The barge apparently had been skirting a reef, as it abruptly turned and headed directly toward him. He considered slipping away but then decided it was his duty to find out what the barge was doing. It might be landing troops. If so, he would need to warn Whitman. He drew his pistol. When the prow of the barge dropped onto the sand, Josh saw that it was empty. A Japanese sailor got off and proceeded to walk up and down the beach, his head cocked as if listening for something.
Josh heard it before the sailor did. Japanese troops, with that odd high-pitched natter peculiar to the Imperial Army, were headed his way. Josh understood now that the barge had come to evacuate Japanese soldiers off New Georgia. He was caught, as it were, between the devil and the deep blue sea, and about all his pistol was good for now was to shoot himself between the eyes so as avoid the misery of certain capture, sure torture, and a slow death.
14
Kennedy and Ready, their morale sunk as low as the sun, continued to hike through the sprawling camp. Hundreds of soldiers, sailors, and marines passed them by with scarcely a glance. Even a few natives walked along, somewhat civilized in appearance by the absence of bones through their noses or anything stuck through their ears. They were dressed in a variety of uniform castoffs. “Hullo, Joe!” they effusively greeted any American they encountered.
Kennedy and Ready trudged past yards stacked high with generators, engines, transmissions, bulldozers, trucks, jeeps, and spare parts of every kind. They plodded past countless pallets weighted down with mounds of uniforms and helmets and mosquito nets and blankets and pistol belts and knapsacks; past piles of artillery shells and rifle ammunition and trip flares and satchel charges and blocks of TNT and a variety of specialized bombs; past ball fields and gymnasiums and outdoor movie theaters and mess halls and officers’ clubs and hospitals and military police stations. They walked so far that Kennedy’s limp became a painful, wrenching process of putting one foot in front of the other. “I’ve reached the end of my string,” he finally confessed.
Ready took stock of his surroundings and was immediately encouraged by what he saw. “Look, sir!”
Kennedy looked after Ready’s point and saw a sign that read NICK’S TROPICAL LAUNDRY. “SO what?” he demanded. “I don’t have any laundry, and neither do you.”
“Nick’s the guy we’re supposed to see about your boat. Don’t you remember?”
Kennedy guessed he did remember, but it didn’t much matter. He couldn’t go any farther. “I’m done in, Bosun,” he confessed. “Completely spent. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, and my back is sprung. Mister Phimble is right about me. All I’m going to do is let you down.”
“Oh, no, sir!” Ready exclaimed. “You’re doing a wonderful job. Here, lean on me. Come on. It’s going to be fine.”
Kennedy put his arm around Ready’s shoulder and the two kept moving, though each step for Kennedy was misery. Finally they arrived at a big concrete dock fronting a harbor filled with rows of anchored barges, landing craft, small freighters, and a variety of other small vessels, which might, they hoped, include at least one PT boat. Kennedy, still leaning on Ready, squinted vainly into the gathering darkness to see what they had come so far to find. “I suppose my boat’s out there somewhere,” he said. “But how do we requisition her?”
“Nick, sir. We got to find that Nick,” Ready urged.
Kennedy sat down on a stack of lumber. “Then go find him, Bosun. I’m just going to rest here for a while.”
Ready could see the lieutenant was truly done in. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and went off looking for someone who might know something about Nick. He soon discovered a guard shack at a gate that opened into a fenced-in compound with a sign that read:
SOUTH PACIFIC COMBAT LOGISTICS COMMAND
Rear Admiral Daniel M. Klibanoff, Commanding
“Say, bub,” Ready said to the guard, who was all gussied up in sailor whites, “I’m looking for a guy named Nick. You know where I might find him?”
“That’s his office over there,” the guard said, pointing with his truncheon to a plywood-sided building that had a deck overlooking the harbor. Men were going in and out of it, a constant stream.
“Is he there, you think?”
“Oh, yeah. Nick’s pretty much always there.”
“How do I get past you?”
“Getting past me ain’t hard as long as you’re going in. It’s getting out that’s the problem. You go in empty-handed and come out with anything, don’t matter if it’s a bullet or a tank, I’ll need to see your paperwork.”
Ready went after Kennedy, told him what he’d found out, and helped him through the gate to the building where Nick was supposed to be. Kennedy hobbled up the steps, then sank down on the deck, his back against the wall, his eyes closed against the pain. Ready peered through the open door into a big open area, where men were going in every direction, papers were flying, typewriters were clattering, file cabinets were being opened and closed, and adding machine handles were being pulled. There was an electric excitement about the place with the singular exception of a long line of men who stood dolefully before a closed door. Ready noticed that the line contained a mixed lot, both enlisted men and officers. One of them, Ready noticed, was even a full navy captain. He picked out a fellow bosun who looked halfway friendly. “Excuse me, Boats, but who’s behind that closed door?”
The bosun, who held a sheath of forms, looked at Ready as if he were insane and replied, “Why, Nick, of course.”
“Why are all these people waiting to see Nick?”
“Because we need stuff.” He held up his forms. “Nick’s the man what’s got it and can give it to us.”
“He’s in charge of everything in this yard?”
“Not officially. That would be Admiral Klibanoff. But Nick’s got the juice.”
“The juice?”
“The power. You know.”
“How long have you been waiting?”
“I got here an hour before sunup. People in front of me got here yesterday. People behind me will
be here tomorrow, or maybe longer.”
Ready came back outside. “We’re screwed, stewed, and tattooed,” he announced to Kennedy, who had dropped his forehead to rest on his knees.
“What are they doing in there?” Kennedy asked, his voice muffled since he was more or less speaking into his trousers.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, I never seen so many people doing it so hard.”
“Did you see Nick?”
“There’s a line about a mile long waiting for him.”
Neither Kennedy nor Ready had noticed a young naval officer sitting at a bamboo table over in a far corner of the deck. The table had an excellent view of the sea into which the sun was busily setting, throwing up its usual brilliant tropical spokes of blood reds, lime greens, amber golds, and pieces-of-eight silvers in an apparent desperate attempt to be noticed. So infused were they with their own problems, they continued to not notice either the sunset or the table or the officer who sat at it until he piped up and said, “It has been my observation that work tends to expand to fill the time available. In this case, the only thing those clerks in there have in any abundance is time, and so they have learned to fill it. For instance, when one of them has an idea, he writes a note and sends it to a dozen other clerks who then read about the idea, file it, and send back their replies, with carbon copies to other possibly interested parties, all of which also have to be signed and filed and so forth. Soon, there is a veritable blizzard of notes and copies and forms going back and forth long after the original note and its purpose have been forgotten. Such is the nature of bureaucracy, gentlemen, and on which our civilization rests.”
Ready helped Kennedy to his feet, and they approached the officer, who wore a crisp set of naval khakis and a wide-brimmed and thoroughly ridiculous pith helmet. Before him on the table was a bottle of actual whiskey, the kind with a label and everything, and a bucket of real, honest-to-God, impossible to ever find in the South Pacific ice. It was all Kennedy could do to keep from grabbing a cube and wiping it on his face.
“Pull up a chair,” the officer said, and Kennedy and Ready did. The man reached into the bucket, casually dropped a few ice cubes into two glasses he took from a bamboo cabinet beside the table, poured some whiskey in them, and slid them across the table. “Be my guest, boys. Lieutenant, how’d you get so beat up?”
“Lost my boat in Blackett Strait up by Kolombangara,” Kennedy answered while taking the glass. He pressed it to his forehead.
“What happened?”
“Run down by a Jap destroyer. Cut us in two. Two of my men were killed. We were castaway on an island. I managed to get cut up on the coral before we got rescued.”
“Tough luck,” the officer replied. “Drink up, so I can give you some more.”
Kennedy drank, and the man refilled his glass and Ready’s, too, seeing as how it was completely empty, including the ice, which the bosun was heavily crunching between his teeth.
“Oh, thank you, sir,” Ready said, and knocked back the refreshed whiskey in one drink. He whistled out a breath. “Do you work here, sir?”
“Sure do.”
“Some place.”
“It is that.”
“You know this guy Nick?”
“You betcha.”
“He must be the busiest man in the South Pacific.”
“Nick is not busy at all,” he answered.
“That line inside says otherwise,” Ready pointed out.
The lieutenant took on a smug countenance. “Well, you see, I happen to be Nick, and as you may notice, the sun is over the yardarm and therefore so am I.” He stuck out his hand to Ready and then to Kennedy. “Charmed, I’m sure.”
“Bosun O’Neal, sir,” Ready said.
“Kennedy,” Kennedy said, with as much energy as he could muster.
Nick had deep-set, nearly black eyes, which inspected Kennedy with intelligent interest. “I know who you are, Kennedy. There’s been a lot of talk about you ever since you got out here. I am truly sorry about your boat. How might I be of service to you?”
“I’m down to pick up another one. The PT-59. I was told you’re the man to see.”
Nick raised his bushy black eyebrows. “Do you have the necessary paperwork?”
“Paperwork? No, but PT-59 belongs to PT Squadron 1, of which I am a member. I’m sure you could look it up.”
Nick peered across the harbor. The sun had finally given up and allowed the sea to swallow it for another day. The boats and barges and other vessels anchored there had turned into purple shadows. Nick shook his head and sighed a quiet sigh. “No paperwork. This is most troubling.”
“I need your help,” Kennedy said. “One lieutenant to another.”
“We’re on a mission,” Ready added, in an attempt to be helpful while also covering his move to the whiskey bottle for another pour.
Nick ignored Ready’s addition to his glass. “I wish I could help you, old man,” he said to Kennedy, “but my hands are tied. Proper paperwork is a necessity of the supply business.”
“Well, what do I have to do, Nick?” Kennedy asked.
“Do?” Nick stretched the word out about a mile. “Doooooooooooo?”
“Yes, do. There must be something I can do to get past this paperwork thing.”
“Are you suggesting a bribe of some sort, Kennedy?”
“Of course not, Nick.”
“I didn’t think so. Honesty is an attribute required of an effective supply officer. If the word got out I took bribes, do you think they’d be lined up at my door? No, indeed. They’d be seeking me out in my living quarters, or ambushing me on this very deck when I take a moment to admire a glorious South Pacific sunset, all the while trying to slip me greenbacks. No, without the proper paperwork, I’m afraid I could not possibly release a PT boat to you. Oh, what’s this? Wipe those unhappy frowns off your faces, you two! Look, how about some poker to take your mind off your troubles? There’s a game tonight at the Tugu Beach O-Club Annex. That would be about half a mile up that way. Just follow the road. How about it, Kennedy? You look like a man who knows his way around a deck of cards.”
“Actually,” Kennedy answered, “I play a mean game of whist.”
“I’m sure that will be helpful,” Nick replied without a trace of irony. “So how about it? The game starts at nineteen thirty hours. Stakes are but a thousand dollars.”
Kennedy paled, which meant he turned a lighter shade of yellow. “A thousand dollars! Too rich for my blood.”
“Come, now. Do you expect me to believe a Kennedy of Massachusetts can’t afford a little poker action?”
“It’s my father who’s got the bucks, not me. Anyway, it never occurred to me to bring a lot of cash to a combat zone. I’ve got maybe five dollars in my pocket, and I borrowed that.”
“Well, never mind, your credit is good with me,” Nick replied. “I’ll front you.”
Ready made a signal to Kennedy that he’d like to talk somewhere other than the table in front of Nick. His signal consisted of bobbing up and down in his chair, flapping his lips soundlessly, and jerking his head over his shoulder.
“Bosun, what the hell’s wrong with you?” Kennedy demanded. “Are you having a fit?”
“I think the bosun would like a private word,” Nick observed. He opened his hands. “Please feel free.”
Ready helped Kennedy to a far corner of the deck. “Get in that poker game, Mister Kennedy,” he advised. “You could maybe make friends with this character and he’ll pony up our PT boat. Or you might win so much of his money that he’ll be glad to give it to you. What’s the worse could happen?”
“That I’d be out at least a thousand dollars, you twit!”
“It’s our only chance, sir,” Ready said.
“I think I’ll go check myself into the hospital.”
“Oh, please, sir, you can’t do that! Play poker and I’m sure everything will be all right.”
“What’s wrong with you, Ready? Don’t you know when y
ou’re licked?”
“No, sir. Just like you don’t know it, neither.”
Kennedy gave Ready a long, hard stare, then released a sigh. “Oh, all right.” They went back to Nick, who had refreshed their drinks. “I’ll play,” Kennedy said, while mentally kicking himself for being an easily manipulated idiot.
Ready tossed back the fresh pour, then held his glass out for another one. “We should drink to it,” he proposed.
Nick laughed and poured Ready another drink. He held up his glass. “To the poker game!”
“To the poker game!” Ready chorused, and he and Nick drank while Kennedy toyed with his glass. When finally he drank, he did so beneath Nick’s benevolent smile.
PART II
I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
—Song of Solomon, chapter 1, verse 5
15
“Mastah,” a feminine voice whispered, so near that it made Josh jump. Then he felt a hand in his, and he smelled the perfume of sweet coconut oil. “This way, mastah,” the voice said.
He questioned the voice. “Who are you?”
“The Marie you met this morning, mastah. Come with me, please.”
Josh had no choice but follow the tug of her hand. Either that or the Japanese would get him. They’d probably get him anyway. All around was the dull noise of men in boots on moss-covered rocks, the swish of fronds being pushed aside, low, mumbled curses as wait-a-minute vines tripped and thorns stabbed, the clunk of canteens.
The girl stopped suddenly, then backed into Josh and put his arms around her. He felt the velvety softness of her bare breasts against his forearms, her curly hair pushed into his chin, her warm, moist scent even greater in his nostrils. She clutched his hands insistently, a gesture meant to still him. The shadows of Japanese soldiers flitted past like phantoms. Then she took his hand and pulled him forward again. “We go up,” she said after some minutes of slipping through the darkness.