“We are leaving within the hour,” Felicity confirmed. She nodded toward the tired old ship. “There is our transport. Let us hope she might have an easy sea. She is rocking even in this placid water.”
“She appears seaworthy,” Kennedy said, in a voice that was suddenly weak.
“You are well?” she asked.
“I’ve never felt better in my life.”
She interrupted him. “And Thurlow? What of that big oaf?”
Kennedy smiled. “We came in together. He was anxious to get back to his cave and see his boys.” Kennedy’s smile faded. “Will you forward me your address when you know it? I’m heading back up to Lumbari. All the PTs are being converted to gunboats since they got a look at the Rosemary. She’s still mine if I want her, and I do.”
“Why? Haven’t you done enough out here?”
“How can any man do enough when so many other men have given everything they have?”
“Dear Jack.”
“Felicity,” Kennedy began, but he stopped when she turned her head away.
“No good-byes,” she said. “Not between us. Allow me to savor this fantasy all my days, Jack. We are still in Noa-Noa. We are forever there. It wasn’t burned over. It yet thrives. Don’t you see us, Jack?”
“Yes,” he said, gently. “I see.”
Felicity knew he didn’t see at all, but that he at least said he did warmed her. “Ah, John,” she said, proudly taking her lad under her arm as he came up. He was also protected by a poncho. But not Felicity. She stood in the rain, her shoulders squared, her chin up, the picture of the undaunted Englishwoman. “I would imagine you have much to do,” she said to Kennedy. “As I have,” she added pointedly.
Kennedy touched John-Bull’s cheek. “Take good care of your mother, sport.”
“I will, sir. Give Jap a kick for me, won’t you?”
“You know I will,” he said, and walked away. Felicity’s arms ached because they felt so terribly empty, but she did not call out to him. She only watched him, searing his image into her mind, before turning toward the old steamer and an uncertain future.
59
The boys erupted from the cave at the sight of Josh, struggling off the steep path that led up through the bush from the collapsed punch bowl valley. They were so glad to see him, they were nearly speechless, which was fine with Josh, since he had nothing much to say in return. Although the broken bones in his leg were healed, he was a man whose heart was troubled. He sought a moment alone with Ensign Phimble. “What news?” he asked.
“Nothing, Skipper. Not of Joe Gimmee or Penelope. I did as you asked and put the word out to everyone heading up the Slot to be on the lookout for either one. But nothing. I’m sorry.”
“She should have at least said good-bye,” he said.
“Missus Markham said she got away, at least to the beach. She must have caught one of the canoes. Skipper, it’s hard for me to say this, but maybe she got from you all that she wanted. She didn’t need to say good-bye.”
“Nothing else from up north?”
“Like what?”
“Armistead?”
Phimble stared at him. “You do recall that he’s dead, don’t you?”
Josh stared back. “Sure I do,” he said. “I just wondered if they found his body.” Then he asked, “Any mail?”
“You have a letter from Dosie,” Phimble answered, knowing what the real question was, and handed the envelope to him just as it stopped raining. The clouds blew away and the sun beat down and the steam began to rise.
Far to the north, a woman stirred inside her hut. She listened to the gentle lapping of the surf, then rolled over on her back and touched her stomach. She stared at the golden light coming through the slats of bamboo, and a tear rolled down her cheek.
Josh turned the letter over and tried to discern its contents by looking at the manner in which Dosie had written his name, but there was nothing in her handwriting that was much different. Phimble walked away, and Josh went to Look-it Rock and sat down. It had only been a little over two months since he’d sat at that very same place and read Dosie’s last letter, the one that had been so hurtful, the one that had made him so angry that he needed to hurt her in return.
The woman rose and went outside. The sea was warm and blue, and her sister was bathing in it. The woman entered the sea and walked until the water lapped just beneath her breasts. She smiled at her sister, who was also touching her stomach, for the same reason she did. It made her smile, and imagine what might have been, and yet could be. “Josh darling,” she whispered, and was happy for the moment.
Josh tore open the envelope, and as he did, he felt something feathery at his side. It was Dave the megapode, hunkering down for a nap. He patted the bird on his bony head, then opened up Dosie’s note, which had been written on a single page. He read, and as he read, a frown formed, then deepened before gradually fading as if gentle hands had smoothed it away. The letter from Dosie was a love letter. She was in one of her moods, she wrote, when she was reminded by the sand of the Killakeet shore, and its great, violent ocean, and the flashing light of his father’s lighthouse, of the adoration she had for him, and how her love would never die, no, not ever, no matter until the ends of the earth and time. She lived, she wrote, only to see him safely home. At the end of her letter, she begged for news from him, reminding him that it had been three months and more since she’d last heard any news at all.
The old man sat at his table. He had gone into the forest alone, and there built himself a house in the trees. After a triumph, a man sometimes needs time alone to sort through in his mind what really happened, and the importance of it, and what it all meant. He had writing paper, taken from an abandoned plantation house he’d come across on his solitary journey, and several pencils. He wrote a little more each day. It was a love letter to the people of the Solomon Islands. He did not know when he would finish the letter, or if he ever would, but it would not much matter. This was a matter for the gods, and they would know what was in his heart, and they would take the message of education and freedom to his people in their own good time. “Joe Gimmee,” he said aloud, just to savor the sound of his once and future name. Far away, and all around, others said his name every day, too, and it also made them smile. They trusted, and they believed. Trust is always a thing of beauty, and belief always a thing of joy.
Josh rose from the rock, went inside the cave, and sought out Stobs. Stobs looked up from his radio. “A couple of months back,” Josh said, “as you may recall since it was just before I went down to see Colonel Burr, I wrote a letter to Dosie Crossan and gave it to you to put in with my reports. I know the folks in Washington received those reports, but Dosie ain’t got her letter yet.”
Stobs blushed. “That don’t surprise me much, Skipper.”
“And why not?”
“Mister Phimble.”
“Mister Phimble?”
“He told me to burn your letter.”
“Phimble told you to burn my letter?”
“Yes, sir. And I did, too.”
Josh stared at the embarrassed boy for a long second, then walked back to Look-it Rock, after first stopping by the box where such was held and retrieving a bottle of Mount Gay rum. He settled down, holding the bottle in his big hands. Then he noticed that Dave the megapode had climbed off the rock and was looking at him. When Josh looked back, the megapode’s hard little black eyes seemed to grow until Josh found himself lost within their darkness until there was a tiny light, a blue-green pinprick that grew larger, as if it were a hole in reality. Josh understood that if he wished, he could look through it, and he did. He saw the woman in the water, and her glistening ebony body, and when she turned, he saw her smile, and the reason for it. Then Josh saw another woman, who was looking at someone on the beach. Josh strained to see who it was, this shimmering, ghostly figure, but then a strange weariness came over him, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he found himself alone, the opening gone, replace
d by an endless expanse of island, and sea, and time.
A FURTHER HISTORICAL
NOTE AND A FEW
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
When Josh Thurlow and his boys moved from Killakeet to the Solomon Islands, it was incumbent upon me, as their chronicler, to read up on the new location. Pretty soon, books on these fascinating islands were stacked to the ceiling in my study. I’ve hung around a few Pacific islands and figured I already knew all there was to know, but it wasn’t long before I realized how wrong I was. The Solomons are unique. Since my focus was on the effect of World War II on these islands as well as the prewar colonial experience, my reading gradually coalesced to those two arenas. For readers interested in the war in the Solomons, among the best references are The Solomons Campaigns, 1942-1943 by William L. McGee, Touched With Fire: The Land War in the South Pacific, by Eric Bergerud, Alone on Guadalcanal: A Coastwatcher’s Story by Martin Clemens, and Samurai! by Saburo Sakai. For those who would like to learn more about the colonial experience, as well as a little about how copra is made, the wonderful memoir Headhunting in the Solomon Islands, Around the Coral Sea by Caroline Mytinger is about all that is required. The “headhunting” in the title, by the way, refers to Miss Mytinger’s quest for portrait subjects. Bad Colonists by Nicholas Thomas and Richard Eves is another take on the European men and women who tried to make the Solomons their home. For a look at the modern Solomons, reflecting the aftereffects of the war and colonialism, I recommend the clever and amusing Solomon Time by Will Randall.
It didn’t take long, as I read through these and other reference works, before I began to discern the spirituality of the people of the Solomons, and especially the fascinating cargo cults that have grown up there and on nearby islands. Joe Gimmee and his movement were not unique to the war era. Cargo cults were around for decades prior to the war and still exist today. In fact, most of us are a member, one way or another, of a cargo cult. Richard Feynman wrote an interesting essay on that subject in his book “Surely You ‘re Joking, Mr. Feynman!” where he suggested that nearly all advertising depends on our predilection to reach the wrong conclusions based on a limited amount of evidence. For good reading on the cults as they exist in the South Pacific, I recommend John Frum He Come by Edward Rice, Mambu: A Melanesian Millennium by Kenelm Burridge, and Cargo Cult: Strange Stories of Desire From Melanesia and Beyond by Lamont Lindstrom.
Of course, many readers will wonder how I learned about the experiences of John F. “Shafty” Kennedy, Richard “Nick” Nixon, and James “Jim” Michener that I relate in this book, especially since none of these men chose to write about their experiences with Josh Thurlow or with one another. It’s difficult to explain this lapse, but perhaps they were sensitive to the memory of David Armistead, whose disappearance remains a mystery to this day. In any case, to discover for yourself John Kennedy’s experiences in the South Pacific, as well as his family life just prior, you need go no further than the magnificently researched JFK: Reckless Youth by Nigel Hamilton. The Kennedys at War by Edward J. Renehan, Jr. will provide further insight as to the fate of older brother Joe and why John F. became his political stand-in after the war. For Richard Nixon’s experiences in the South Pacific, including his ability to play world-class poker, one might want to selectively read RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon. Although he fails to mention his trading with Joe Gimmee in this hefty autobiography, I was fortunately able to read between the lines. Utilizing a blend of fact and fiction, James Michener’s Tales of the South Pacific tells much about him and others he met during his time around the Solomons during the war. His failure to mention Kennedy and Nixon or their famous poker game in his book was probably due to when he wrote it (first published in 1946), well before either of those two gentlemen decided to be involved in national and international politics. I suspect an overzealous editor or legal adviser deleted Michener’s acknowledgment to our own Bosun Ready O’Neal, who, as I have written herein, first suggested the work that became South Pacific.
In writing this book, I also depended on firsthand accounts of men and women who experienced the Solomons during the war. Sadly, every day we lose more of these magnificent folks, time taking its inevitable toll. Many of them wished to remain anonymous, but Quartermaster Chet Williams, who served with Kennedy and the PT boats in the Solomons, was a great source of vital information. He recalled very well seeing Kennedy’s boat burning the night the PT-109 was run over by that Japanese destroyer. He and others who knew the future president wondered what happened to him in the weeks after his “rescue.” I am proud to reveal here for the first time the adventure that saw him north to Noa-Noa. I suspect it was very nearly the last time John F. Kennedy was truly a happy man.
Others, as always, were required to help me along the way. My wonderful wife, Linda, did her usual fine job of digging through the initial manuscript and pointing out my various follies. She also keeps our Web site (http://www.homerhickam.com) up to date and answers most of the fan mail. Sean Desmond, the best editor in the world, accomplishes his usual magic with his keen eye for plot, characterization, and detail. This book is dedicated to Captain Pat Stadt and the crew of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter RUSH. While I was in the midst of writing this book, they provided me with a breathtaking adventure in the Pacific. I learned more with them about life aboard a small ship at sea in three weeks than years of research could have otherwise provided. Finally, thanks to Frank Weimann and Mickey Freiberg, my agents, who somehow, against all odds, have so far kept me gainfully employed. As for Josh Thurlow, his adventures are far from complete, and he will sail again along exotic shores.
Read on for an excerpt from
Read on for an excerpt from
THE FAR REACHES
Available Now from St. Martin’s Press
1
“Sister, we die now?”
“If it is God’s will, Nango.”
The American bombardment had gone on for nearly an hour, and it seemed the big sand fortress might collapse beneath the weight of the mighty shells. But even as the thunderous assault sent down a rain of sand and coral dust on top of them, Sister Mary Kathleen smiled encouragingly at the muscular and intricately tattooed young man who had asked her the most pertinent question. She reflected, even at that awful moment, that they were quite the pair. Except for a wrap of bright red lava-lava cloth about his waist, a necklace of white cowry shells and shark’s teeth around his thick brown neck, Nango was essentially naked. She, on the other hand, was completely clothed from the top of her head to her slippered feet in the white shrouds of the habit of her sisterhood, the Order of the Sacred Heart. She allowed her smile to fall on the other fella boys, too. They had backed against the wall and were regarding her in anxious silence. “Prayers, me boys,” she told them, pressing her hands together and letting her smile broaden to show them she wasn’t afraid, even though she was. “Let them flow up to heaven. I’m praying to me little Saint Monessa, God bless her. She’ll get us through this. I’m certain of it.”
One of the fella boys replied in their native tongue, a dialect of the Marquesan language, which was itself a dialect of ancient, pre-missionary Tahitian. “I think the Japanese will kill us soon, Sister.”
“Japonee no killem me!” another of the fella boys replied hotly in pidjin. It was Tomoru, a giant of a man, and, like the rest, covered with elaborate blue tattoos. He puffed out his hairless, muscular chest. “Me killem Japonee, Sister. You say, me do.”
“No, Tomoru,” she replied, in his dialect. “Do not say such things, even in pidjin. They may understand.”
“They” were the Japanese troops, the Rikusentai, Imperial Marines, who had crowded inside the sand-covered fortress to stoically wait out the ferocious naval artillery pounding of Betio, the main island of the atolls called Tarawa. In contrast to the near-boredom of the marines, most of whom were squatting with vacant expressions on their faces, a naval lieutenant was hugging himself and his legs were clearly trembling. Each time a shell landed nearby, h
is eyes darted to the roof of the bunker as if he feared it would cave in on him. Sister Mary Kathleen’s heart went out to the man. He was clearly terrified, yet so constrained by his nationality and rank that all he could do was perpetrate an inner scream that she could hear quite clearly. When a lull in the bombardment went longer than a minute, Sister Mary Kathleen caught the lieutenant’s eye, and he hurried over. “May I help you, Sister?” he asked, still hugging himself as if he feared falling apart if he let go.
She nodded, and said, in a near whisper, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant Soichi, but I really must go.”
“Go?”
She nodded again, her summer blue eyes modestly downcast. “Go,” she reiterated.
“Ahhhh,” Lieutenant Soichi said, understanding now. “Go. Well, I understand why you would not care to squat over a pot like the others. I will be pleased to accompany you outside now that the shelling has stopped for the moment. But we would have to hurry.”
“I am quite able to hurry, Lieutenant,” she said, smiling at him.
He tried to smile back, but he was too nervous, and it came out a bit crooked. “Let me just explain the situation to Captain Sakuri.” He cast an uneasy glance at the native men behind her, and confided, “Those men, they always look like they want to murder me.”
“That is because,” she answered, “they do.”
“Ah, well,” he shrugged. “I suppose they have good reason.”
She nodded. “Yes. Very good reason. More than you might imagine.”
After absorbing her comment, Soichi bobbed his head and then picked his way through the lounging troops, and thence to a rikusentai officer who harangued him about something for several minutes, then waved him away. Soichi bowed to the man deeply, then put on a helmet and hurried back to the nun. “We may go now, Sister. If you’ll follow me.” He swept his arm toward an aperture in the fortress, one of two.