Josh felt very tired. He knew Armistead was talking nonsense, but it was seductive. The Japanese were a reasonable people, even if their leaders weren’t. What would it hurt to talk to folks, explain things? “How did you contact them?” he asked as the men in the launch rowed steadily for the beach.
“I sent word to the Japanese detachment on Vella Lavella. Their commander visited me under the protection of Joe Gimmee. Then a few days later, he sent word that transport was coming to pick me up. I told them to meet me here because I wanted to see Joe’s miracle first. I think there are powerful Japanese who know they’re going to be beaten, Josh. They desperately want peace. That’s why they’ve gone to the trouble to send a submarine for me.”
“This is crazy, David,” Josh said, though there was a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“Maybe. But isn’t it worth a try? After all, what’s the worst thing that could happen? That they will cut off my head? That they will eat me? I discovered one of our own doing that already.”
“Whitman’s a madman.”
“My cousin Franklin Roosevelt has a plan, Josh. He is marching island by island toward Japan until he gets his bombers close enough. Then he is going to pound every Japanese city into dust, and with them millions of innocent men, women, and children. Who is the madman?”
“We have to avenge Pearl Harbor.”
“Two thousand men died there. It was an atrocity. But an apology and reparations should answer for that, not the lives of millions who had no part in it.”
“If you leave on that sub, Tokyo Rose will be on the air tonight telling all our boys what you’ve done.”
“If that happens, it won’t matter. The war will grind on. But what if they’re sincere? Just think of it! Your boys, all the boys, will go home, alive and unmaimed.”
Josh discovered he was saddened and sickened by the vision Armistead had painted. In his mind, he saw soldiers on distant beaches, sobbing into their own curdling blood. And he saw the cities burning, the people screaming as they burned with them, their skins black and charred, as horrible as the lump in the fire pit on Whitman’s beach.
“I’m going now, Josh,” Armistead said. “Either shoot me or let me go.”
The I-boat’s launch was nearing the breakers. “They know, David,” Josh said, using his last argument. “Don’t you understand? They know what you’re doing, and they sent me to kill you.”
Armistead frowned. “How could they know?” Then the expression on his face changed to one of understanding. “They’ve broken the Japanese code,” he said in awe. “That’s the only way they could know.”
Josh cursed himself. He had said too much, and now he had no choice. He took careful aim, as careful aim as ever in his life.
Whitman stayed conscious long enough to see his wife smile down on him. He wished he could tell her how beautiful he thought she was, but then he started to get very sleepy. He recalled the times when he had waked in the middle of the night and looked at her sleeping, then couldn’t get back to sleep because he didn’t want to lose a moment of admiring her. He had always wanted only good things for her, and he had wished others wouldn’t look down on her just because of the color of her skin. Then, one night, while he was contemplating her beauty, it came to him as if it were a gift of the gods. It was the idea of forming a little army, which would be ready to take over as soon as the English gave up on the Solomons, which he knew they would after the war. He would set himself up as king, and then Kimba would be his queen, and no one would ever look down on her again.
My queen, he wanted to say to her now. Kimba, my queen. But he didn’t say anything, because he couldn’t talk with a throat cut to the neck bone. Instead, he stared up at her, willing her to understand how much he loved her. He saw by her expression that she was pleased he was bleeding to death. He was glad that he was making her happy at last. And then he went to sleep, which is to say he died, not to wake on this earth but somewhere else, the other else.
Penelope stood and wiped her bloody machete on the leaves of a philodendron. “Whitman him finish altogether,” she said, with complete satisfaction.
“I do so admire your straightforward approach to handling a difficult man, Penelope,” Felicity said from the saddle. She held out her hand. “Climb up. You will be safe on my plantation.”
“No, Missus Markham. I shall go with my father. Please tell Josh Thurlow that I will always love him, though I know he cannot love me as I deserve.”
“What man can any woman?” Felicity asked, then was startled by a noise that was very loud and deep, even greater than thunder. It grew until the entire island of Noa-Noa shook from it. Great bombers were coming in over the island, dropping load after load of bombs. “My dear God,” Felicity cried, her hands to her mouth as she watched the massive spouts of smoke and earth and blasted trees stomp across her island.
Kennedy swam out to the gunboat, and Once helped him aboard. “Give me a report,” he demanded.
“We’re fine, sir. Where’s the skipper?”
“I’m not sure.” He looked out to sea. Most of Joe Gimmee’s canoes were rapidly receding toward the horizon. Then came the thunder of the heavy bombers. Kennedy watched Noa-Noa being shattered before his eyes. “Why are they bombing the entire island?”
Ready shrugged. “I guess they want to make sure they get that airfield. The skipper told me to call it in and tell them it belonged to Jap. Looks like they believed me.”
A canoe came around the western point of the lagoon. In it was a woman with plaited flowers circling her head. She waved at Armistead and began to paddle furiously, trying to beat the Japanese sailors to the beach. The officer in the launch frowned at the woman. Josh lowered his pistol and nodded toward the canoe. “They make good women around here, David. A man could go into the hills of Vella and be happy, live out his days, maybe even raise a family.”
“Turn Turk?” Armistead looked at the canoe and then the madly rowing Japanese. “That would be a cowardly choice.”
“Well, son, I’m afraid that’s your choice, that or going back with me.”
“I’m going with the Japanese. Or you can kill me. Those are your choices.”
Josh sighed and shook his head. “You’ve been wrong about nearly everything, David, including my choices.” Josh raised his pistol and shot the Japanese officer in the launch through the heart. The impact of the heavy bullet lifted him out of the boat into the water, where he sank. “A lot of men would have trouble hitting anything from this distance with a forty-five,” Josh said with some satisfaction, though he resisted blowing the smoke from the pistol’s barrel.
The sailors in the launch stopped rowing and stared at the froth in the water that marked their dead officer’s disappearance, and then looked with startled faces at the two Americans on the beach. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to be welcome on that sub anymore, David. So let’s go over your choices again. Go with Victoria, or come with me.”
Armistead closed his mouth, open since Josh had displayed his skill with a pistol. “If I go with Victoria, what if I get caught?”
“You’re an old hand in the jungle. You won’t get caught. Look, I’m offering you a chance to get clear of all this. I never said it was logical, dammit!”
“Why aren’t you going to kill me, especially now that I know about the code? It’s a simple question.”
Josh didn’t know why. The question might be simple, but its answer surely wasn’t. He got as close to it as he could, considering he only had seconds to spare. “We were on Wilton’s Ridge together. That makes us brothers. Brothers don’t kill brothers. Anyway, you don’t know anything. You just think you do.”
Victoria beached the canoe and ran up to Armistead and threw herself into his arms. He tilted her chin with his finger and gazed into her eyes. “You’ve done your part in this war,” Josh said. “Go on with the girl. Just don’t show your face again, at least until the war is over. Those are my terms.”
Victoria held Ar
mistead around the waist, burying her head in his chest while he stroked her hair. “Maybe I haven’t been thinking straight for a while,” he said.
“Who the hell can in these islands? Somebody once told me the heat and the bugs out here are enough to drive a man insane. Throw in Wilton’s Ridge and one of your own men made into long pig . . . Hell, David, look at you with them tattoos and earrings. You’ve already gone oriental. You’re the only one who don’t know it.”
The deep worry lines on Armistead’s face seemed to smooth. He smiled. “I’m going to run, Josh. I’m going to get clear.”
“I envy you, David. More than you could possibly know.”
Armistead took Victoria’s hand and walked rapidly with her to the canoe. Josh watched after them, failing to notice that the crewmen on the I-boat had been busily cranking around its deck gun. Josh noticed it soon afterward, because it was fired in his direction. After that, he had to struggle back to consciousness, and discovered he had blood and sand in his eyes. Then he tried to get to his feet but found that difficult, since his right leg didn’t seem to work very well. He peered through the pink haze to see if the canoe with Armistead and Victoria had gotten away but couldn’t see it.
Then he sensed someone’s presence. He wiped his eyes again, this time managing to dislodge a remnant of sodden grit, enough so that a small, clear window opened, and enough that he saw combat boots and bare legs. “David, what are you doing? Get clear!”
Armistead said nothing, but Josh saw now why he had returned. The Japanese sailors had beached their boat and were racing toward them. Armistead had his pistol out and began to fire. Victoria was nearby, weeping, pleading to Armistead to get in the canoe. Then a roar filled Josh’s ears, and he was astonished to see a Catalina flying low over the I-boat. Something small and black dropped from the aircraft, and the conning tower of the submarine disappeared in a spray of smoke and flame. The men firing the deck gun began to burn.
Armistead’s pistol clip was empty. The Japanese sailors had stopped their charge to gawk at the disaster that had visited their boat. Armistead drew his K-bar. They took one look at him coming at them and ran, all but one small sailor with a big rifle. Panicked, he fell backward, the rifle butt striking the sand just as Armistead reached him. The rifle went off, and Victoria screamed a tattered wail that trailed off into sobs. Then she knelt on the beach and repeatedly struck herself in the face. That was the last thing Josh remembered for a while.
After refueling, Ichikawa returned to Noa-Noa alone on a recon mission and beheld a terrible sight. The entire island was burning. He looked aloft and saw the vapor trails of four-engined American bombers. It was all most strange. Why would the Americans bomb their own airfield? Then he spotted the gunboat and lined up on it. But before he could make his run, big tracers flew past his nose. He pulled up and saw that a Catalina had made a run on him. He recognized it as Dosie. Of course, no Catalina was capable of dogfighting with a Rufe, not with an ace pilot like Ichikawa at the controls. But before he destroyed it, Ichikawa slid up beside Dosie and looked into its blister window and saw Fisheye. He waved at his friend.
After the first wave of bombers had passed, Kennedy hurried into the shattered plantation to find Josh. He found him, finally, on the northern beach. He was unconscious, his chest and face peppered with small wounds and his right leg obviously broken. Kennedy, without even thinking about his back, lifted Josh up and threw one of his big arms across his shoulders and somehow dragged him through the burning plantation to the beach. Once and Again saw them and dived in to swim their skipper to the gunboat. Ready pushed the throttles full ahead to get away from the next wave of falling bombs. It appeared the big bombers were determined to knock down every tree on the island.
Phimble called to Fisheye over the intercom. “Fisheye, blast that bastard out of the sky. Do it now, while he’s just sitting there!”
“I can’t do it!” Fisheye cried. “It’s Ichikawa-san!”
“Yes, and in a second, he’s going to fall back, get on our tail, and that’ll be the end of us.”
Fisheye knew Phimble was right. Ichikawa was still waving at him, nodding, and smiling. Fisheye swiveled his gun around, sighted along its long snout, and pulled the trigger.
Three big slugs slammed into Ichikawa’s engine. It sputtered a few times, then died. Ichikawa was surprised, but then grateful that his friend Fisheye had become such a fierce warrior that he would unleash a surprise attack, even on a friend. He was proud that he was such a good teacher. He had turned the simple American into a true samurai! He waved to Fisheye in salute; then he could no longer hold his Rufe level, mainly because Fisheye had fired again, this time directly into the Rufe’s canopy. The Rufe fell away, spiraling into the sea. There was no parachute.
• • •
Josh came awake, lying in front of the gunboat splinter shield. Kennedy and Phimble hovered over him. He saw his company and said, “Well, Eureka, what brings you up this way?”
“Colonel Burr said you needed to duck,” Phimble replied. “Since I knew you wouldn’t, I thought I’d better come up and help you out.” Then he told him about bombing the I-boat and Fisheye shooting down the Rufe.
“What were you doing on that beach?” Kennedy asked Josh.
“I followed Armistead there.”
“Where is he?”
“You didn’t see him? Or the girl?”
“No. Just you and some dead Japanese sailors.”
Josh gave it some thought, then said, “He was killed in action, brave to the last.”
“We should collect his body,” Kennedy said.
Josh shook his head. “He caught a slug. I guess he fell into the water. Likely the sharks have seen to him by now.”
Kennedy studied Josh for a long second. “Quite the coincidence that you found Armistead on the same beach where the submarine was.”
“Coincidences ain’t your concern, Jack,” Josh growled, then grimaced as the pain in his leg reannounced itself. Millie appeared and unceremoniously pulled down Josh’s pants and stuck a morphine Syrette into his hip. Josh welcomed the warm rush that coursed through his veins. Before he lowered himself to sleep, he said, “Just remember this, all of you. David Armistead was kidnapped and did his best to get home. He was a good marine to the end.”
“Sirs, something to see,” Ready said from the bow.
Kennedy stood up to see whatever fool thing Ready wanted them to see. It turned out there were actually two things. One was Felicity’s plantation, which was on fire, every structure and every palm. The copra warehouses were especially glorious as they produced beautiful, white-hot flames, which in turn created dazzling yellow clouds, billowing toward heaven. The other thing to see was all the boats. They were actually landing craft, and the bobbing helmets of the men within them told their story. The 5th Marine Raiders, led by Colonel Monkey Burr, were coming ashore on poor burning Noa-Noa, and toot sweet.
PART V
LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am.
—Psalms, chapter 39, verse 4
58
The landings on Noa-Noa, reads the official history of the 5th Marine Raider Battalion, were characterized by an unusual use of heavy bombers in a support role to destroy a small Japanese airfield which headquarters feared might be expanded. Enemy opposition was lighter than anticipated and the commander of the Raiders, Colonel Montague Singleton Burr, messaged Regimental Headquarters that the island was secured within a single day after taking his men ashore. The battalion subsequently turned over Noa-Noa to Seabee elements for the construction of logistics facilities, and retired to its base on Melagi for refit. Its next action, as an element in the invasion of Bougainville, would prove to be a bit more difficult.
Melagi sat beneath the rain, the blood-warm rain, her great volcano covered by steam that ran down her sides like ghostly rivers. On the old plantation, the Raiders, most of them fortified by drink from various applejack
stills, took shelter in their miserable little tents. Soon, above the steady beating of the deluge, their voices were raised in song.
We sent for the nurses to come to Me-soggy,
The nurses they made it with ease,
Their asses on the table each bearing this label:
Reserved for the officers please.
Bless ’em all, bless ’em all. . .
Felicity Markham stood in the rain on the beach and looked across the sea, across the terrible tragedy of Iron Bottom Bay and the distant, faded blue-green island of Guadalcanal where so many had died and were already nearly forgotten. There would yet be so many islands where men would fight and then would be lost in the memory of history as the remorseless years ground by.
Before her, anchored in the sand, was an old steamer, come across from Australia to carry away the wounded brought down from Bougainville, as well as the lost and the destitute, which was how she characterized herself and her son. A lighter, a small power boat, was going back and forth to the steamer with the stretchers holding the wounded. Nurses from the steamer did their best to keep their patients dry, holding ponchos over them, but all were soaked to the skin.
Felicity looked around for John-Bull and was startled by the appearance of Jack Kennedy. “The terror of the Solomons,” she said, extending her damp hand. “When did you pull in?”
Kennedy, wearing a Raider poncho, took her hand. “This morning. I wasn’t sure you were still here, but then I saw John-Bull. The Raiders are having a softball game in the mud, and he’s cheering them on. He said it would be for the last time.”