“So?” Ready demanded. “That’s good, isn’t it? Maybe he won’t attack if he knows we’re here.”
“Maybe it will make him cautious, but he will come anyway. Remember that plank on the cross? ‘Give me the nun,’ it said. He murdered an island to send that message, Bosun. He ain’t gonna stop for a few white men with guns.”
Ready, chafing under Josh’s uninvited advice, answered, “I’ll give it some thought.” Then he gestured over his shoulder and asked, “What do you think of my treehouse? I’m nearly done. It’s for Sister.”
“Bosun, your priorities are all wrong. You need to defend this island, not play the architect for that nun.”
“I have seen to the defense of this island, Captain,” Ready asserted. “Mr. Bucknell and Chief Kalapa think I’ve done a first-class job. And I did it without your help, I might add. Now, I promised Sister Mary Kathleen a house of her own, and I intend to build it.”
“I hoped you had gotten past your infatuation with her.”
“Don’t worry about me, Captain,” Ready replied. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Not if you’re harboring any kind of hope you’ll yet win her over. She’s a nun, Ready. A nun! Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“She’s my friend,” Ready answered, “and that’s all she is.”
“Oh, I’m certain of it,” Josh replied sardonically.
“Is there anything else you have to say, sir?” Ready demanded. “Otherwise, I’m pretty busy. And I’m sure you’ve got some charcoal to make.”
Josh absorbed the insult, because he had to. “All right, Bosun. Have it your way. But here’s an idea to perhaps win the battle that’s coming, and soon, whether you believe it or not. Stretch a thick hemp cable across the lagoon and secure both ends to palm trees. Put weights on the cable to keep it a few feet underwater, and the outriggers and canoes will glide right over it but a barge won’t. Its prop will snag. Your guns could tear it to pieces before the Japs could get it free.”
Ready rubbed the back of his neck, giving the idea some thought. “I don’t know, Captain. It would take a lot of work.”
“No, it won’t. There’s a ton of hemp line in the boathouse. The women know how to wrap it to make it thicker. Two inches thick is all you’ll need. Look, Bosun, it’s the only chance you’ve got. If the Japanese get on shore, you’re done for.”
Ready studied Josh. “How come you’re not arguing with me to pack up an outrigger and leave?”
“Because I don’t care what happens to you. You and your mutinous marines can stay here and rot, for all I care. But Rose won’t go, so I’m stuck. You have my idea. If you don’t do it, well, piss on you.”
Ready nodded. “We’ll stretch a cable across the lagoon, Captain. It’s a good idea. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Anything else you’d like to say? An apology? Coming back under my command?”
“No, sir. You were drunk. I took your job. Reckon I’ll keep it.”
Josh’s temper boiled over. “You know the cause of all our trouble? That damned nun!”
“How can you blame her, Captain?” Ready asked quietly. “She would never hurt anybody on purpose.”
“I’ve had time to think about it, Ready. Something stinks here to high heaven. Ask her to tell you why Colonel Yoshu wants her so bad. She’s got a nasty secret, for sartain.”
Ready looked away, to the treehouse he was building for the woman he loved. “Good evening, Captain. If you have any other ideas, I’ll be glad to hear them.”
“Why would I have any ideas?” Josh demanded. “I’m just the charcoal man.” Then he stalked away.
40
The next morning saw Josh and his family off on their adventure to the Beach of the Dead Whales. He was still angry over his encounter with Bosun ’Neal, and he’d almost decided not to go. No, he told Rose, he would go down to the beach and make sure the worthless wretch of a mutineer stretched the cable across the lagoon as he’d promised. But Rose instantly set him straight. “The children were scarcely able to sleep last night,” she admonished. “You promised them an adventure, and an adventure they will have.”
“But, Rose, this is important!”
“Yes, but it’s Bosun’s job, not yours. Your job is with your family.”
Josh could see clearly by the set of his wife’s expression that any other argument he might advance would be to no avail. So he strapped on the forty-five pistol he’d retrieved from the boathouse when no one was paying attention, and off he went with Rose, Turu, and Manda for a day of adventure. He would, he swore to himself, check on the cable when he got back.
It was a nice hike, during which Josh and Rose discussed many matters, including the gods, brought on when she told him the mountain they were crossing was named Panua, after the Tahila goddess of ill fortune.
Josh stopped to help Manda step across the thick roots of a ceiba tree and then followed close behind, to ensure she didn’t trip on anything else. She was a cute little girl, and respectful and polite, too. Josh had never met as sweet a child. In fact, he loved her and was, according to everyone who mattered, her father. Josh would have gladly died for her, for all his new family. “Why would you name a mountain after a goddess of ill fortune?” he asked Rose.
“Why, to appease her, of course,” Rose replied, astonished at the ignorance Josh displayed. “She is a jealous god, jealous of all the other gods as well as some humans. She is therefore often unhappy and compelled to cause trouble.”
Josh scratched up under his cap, which he noticed, once again, wasn’t there. He missed the damned old thing and wondered briefly if some marine had picked it up on Betio. “Why would a god be jealous of a human?” he asked after his moment of cap distraction.
“Because some gods are not loved, only feared,” Rose answered. “Poor Panua is one of those, and her feelings are constantly hurt. It is why I often pray to her, to thank her for being a goddess, and to ask her to forgive me for finding the love she cannot have.”
“You told me you were a Christian. Why worry about the old gods?”
“Because the old gods are also real, of course,” Rose replied. “The Christian God is just as real, but He is the most jealous god of all. He is so jealous He tries to make his followers believe that none of the other gods exist. We, who know better, are amused by Him, poor thing.”
Josh decided to carry Manda and swung her up on his back. She held onto his shoulders with her strong little hands and nuzzled along his ear. He felt her warm breath along his cheek and was seized with a profound and inexplicable joy.
“You and Manda make a very nice couple,” Rose teased.
“Quiet, woman,” Josh said. “I am thinking about your last comment. So God almighty, the great Jehovah, is pathetic in your eyes?”
“Yes, husband, He is quite a sullen god. In contrast, His son Jesus is a good and gentle god, much nicer than his father. We believe, in fact, that his father caused this war.”
“What?” Josh demanded. “How can you say such a thing?”
“I suppose we could be wrong, but that’s what we believe,” she said. “The father of Jesus started this war because He knows we will never stop believing in our other gods.”
“You think God is punishing the people of the Far Reaches with the Second World War?”
“Not just us. Everyone. He’s trying to scare the whole world so people will turn to Him, and only Him.”
Josh gave the proposition some thought, then shook his head. “I don’t see why He’s killing us Americans, then. We mostly have no other gods except old Jehovah.”
“Are you certain, husband? No other gods?”
Josh thought it over, then said, “I see what you’re getting at. Our other gods are money and power.”
Bored with the talk between her parents, Manda became restless on his shoulders. Josh swung her down and watched as she clambered over rocks and roots to catch up with her brother. “She is a good girl,” he said. “Who was her father
?”
“A fine man. In fact, he was Chief Kalapa’s brother. He drowned with several other men while sailing to Ruka.”
“How long ago was that?”
She thought for a moment, then said, “Just over three years. There was a storm. He and his crew mates were found on a Ruka beach.”
“Was he also Turu’s father?”
“Yes, of course.”
“And since Chief Kalapa only has daughters, does this mean Turu may be the future chief of Tahila?”
“There is no doubt. Even if Chief Kalapa has a dozen sons, Turu will be the choice of the village. Everyone knows this. There is none brighter than he.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to ask impertinent questions.”
“You may ask me any question you like, husband.”
The question escaped his mouth before he could stop it. “Do you love me?
“Yes,” she answered.
“I love you, too,” he replied with some awe. “And I love our children.”
“Then,” she said, “it is good we are together.”
They walked on, the great vengeful, bloody-minded big God of the missionaries and the unhappy little gods of the Far Reaches forgotten. When they reached the crest of Panua’s mountain, the family stood together, holding hands, and admired the glorious green island below. Then, with the sun resting warmly on their shoulders, they began the long climb down toward the waiting sea. The descent to the beach was a scramble. From high above, Josh saw that the stretch of otherwise barren sand was dotted with white, oddly shaped formations, some like huge ice cubes, others like long curved plaster rods, and some like picket fences protruding from the sand.
Though it had the appearance of a playground for giants, the beach was a graveyard, covered with the bones of huge creatures. Josh noted a great jaw, the narrow bones swung open as if anticipating a meal, and several towering brattices of ribs. Teeth, as big as his fist, were scattered like snowballs. Vertebrae the size of footlockers sat alone or were still attached, forming a portion of huge, segmented backbones. A few hardy beach vines had secured holds on some of the ribs and backbones, draping them with masses of strange hairy red and green tendrils. Also col’raizing the whale graveyard was beach morning glory, its green, glossy leaves brave and bright and covered with white blossoms just starting to close against the rising heat. There were also hundreds of coconuts, strewn around like cannonballs left on some ancient battleground. It was an eerie and somber place, yet somehow thrilling and beautiful.
The sun bore down like a great, hot hand, and Josh leaned against a tall rib that offered shade and studied the remarkable sight, a cemetery of whale bones, and of a particular kind of whale that he recognized at once. “Sperm whales,” he marveled to Rose while the children frolicked among the skeletons. “Just like Moby Dick. Wh’da thunk it?”
The children were playing with a giant vertebra, rolling it like a thick wheel along the hard-packed sand. Rose took a seat on a backbone that supported a double row of towering ribs. “What is your impression, husband?” she asked.
“Fantastic is the only way to describe it!”
“You are pleased I brought you here?”
Josh grinned and wiped the sweat from his eyes. “You bet I am.”
“Then I am pleased as well.” She smiled and shaded her eyes with her hand to watch after the children. Then she spotted something lying in the sand. It was a lagoon canoe paddle. “This paddle belongs to Kando, the father of Mori, Chief Kalapa’s first wife. I recognize his mark on the handle. When I have been here before, I always find lost things from the village.”
“I think there is a powerful current that sweeps into this cove,” Josh observed, “but the skeletons are still a mystery. There are too many of them to imagine they’re here only because of the current. They must come nearby to die. But why?”
“Only the whales know,” Rose answered. “They have their ways, and they are not ours.”
Josh decided to go exploring for ambergris while Rose went off to play with the children. He allowed himself to admire her for a moment, smiling at how she could so easily become childlike herself. He saw her waiting below while Manda climbed one of the great ribs. The girl threw herself off into her mother’s arms, and then Rose, still holding Manda, twirled around and around with excited laughter. Turu came running up with a tooth, so large he had to use both his hands to hold it, and Rose went down on her knees to marvel at it. Then Manda picked up another tooth and tossed it into the hollow center of a particularly large vertebra, which started a game of throwing teeth into the hole, accompanied by much good-natured jeering when a toss was missed.
Josh walked among the magnificent yet sad remnants of creatures that had once ruled the sea. He knew sperm whales were not gentle souls. They were voracious feeders, diving into great, sunless depths to eat the masses of squid that could be found there. When Josh had been a cabin boy aboard the Bathsheba, he’d heard tales from whalers about sperm whales they’d found floating dead on the surface, their slick gray skin mottled by the wagon wheel–sized suction cups of giant squids. It was said that the big bulls especially liked to battle the giant squids, sought them out even, just to show them who was boss of the sea. How the old whalers knew that, Josh wasn’t certain, but he liked to believe it was true. What he knew for certain was that ambergris seemed to be the result of the sperm whale’s diet, since usually the gunk was found wrapped around squid beaks. The theory went that ambergris was a protective coating formed in the whale’s guts.
Josh observed a towering mass of bones stacked up inside sea-carved rock alcoves. Storms had flushed them there, he supposed. He approached one of the towers and marveled at its height, at least sixty feet. The bones were jumbled but fixed perfectly against one another so they created a rigid structure. Josh touched a long rib that protruded from the base, discreetly pulled on it, and found it solidly wedged. He peered into the mix of bones, to see if ambergris had perhaps collected in the sand below. Seeing nothing, Josh walked around the edge of the tower. He found only teeth, sprinkled like seeds from a ghostly tree of bones.
He walked along the cliff that formed the beach until he came to a second alcove of bones. This stack wasn’t as high as the first one, but still impressive. It seemed to have attracted jaw and skull bones. His nose caught a dank odor, and he looked behind a vertebra and spied what he’d been looking for, a fist-sized lump of ambergris. An arm’s reach inside the base of the stack, just below a jawbone empty of teeth, he saw another. He carefully inserted his arm under it and clutched the spongy stuff, slowly withdrawing both lumps. But when his arm accidentally touched a bone, he felt the entire structure shudder, then begin to wobble. A huge skull fell from the top, and he barely dodged it. Then another bone fell, and Josh knew the whole impossible structure was going to topple. Clutching his treasure, he ran for safety, all the while yelling at Rose and the children to get clear.
The tower of bones swayed, then fell over, hitting the sand with a tremendous clatter. Bones flew in all directions, ricocheting off one another and hurtling into the air. Finally, when the last bone had struck the beach and tumbled to a stop, Josh picked his way through the skeletal parts and saw, with some relief, Rose, huddled with the children, standing in the water some distance away. “What are you doing, husband?” she demanded.
“Look!” Josh said, holding up his lumps of ambergris. He hurried over and thrust them toward her.
Rose turned up her nose. “More whale spit.”
“Do you know what these are worth?” Josh demanded. “I bet I could get a thousand dollars for each of them.”
Rose’s nose remained in the air. “And what would you do with these two thousand dollars?”
“Why, I would buy” Josh stopped and thought about what he could buy and concluded there wasn’t much he wanted or needed, other than what he already had. “I don’t know. Something,” he said. “I mean if you ever needed anything, or the kids.”
Rose frowned, then sh
ook her head. “Silly man. We don’t need anything. Throw that away. Let the gods have it to roll around on the beach.”
Josh looked at the ambergris and then, shrugging, tossed the two lumps aside. “You’re right, Rose. Anyway, we’ve had ourselves a splendid adventure.”
She released the children, who raced to the scattered bones of the fallen tower, shrieking with laughter. Soon they were tossing teeth around, bouncing them off the ribs with glee. Josh and Rose sat down and watched the children and listened to the wind play a song through the bones of the great whales. “This is good,” he said, pondering the empty line of the far horizon. “This is very good.”
“Yes,” Rose answered.
“I’m a happy man, Rose.”
“Of course,” she said as if to be otherwise were the most foolish thing in the world.
It was on the way back, halfway up the path that took them to the top of the cliff, that Josh, sensing something amiss, scanned the sea. In a moment, he saw it. “Dammitohell,” he breathed.
“What is it?” she asked nervously.
“A Japanese barge, Rose. Likely out of Ruka. I told Bosun ’Neal they were here and he wouldn’t believe me. Now here’s proof.”
“Are they here to attack us?” she asked, pulling the children close.
Josh peered at the barge, tiny and gray in the distance. “I don’t think so. They’re going away from the village. Probably just sniffing around, maybe looking for an alternative landing site. They won’t find a good one.”
“What shall we do?”
Josh put his hand on Rose’s arm, then patted Manda’s head, and next pretended to cuff Turu on his ear. The boy grinned up at him. “We’ll go back to the village and let Bosun ’Neal know what we’ve seen. I just hope he’s got that cable strung.”
And so they did, although along the way Josh studied some rocks on the final ridge before entering the last leg of the path to the village. He climbed up to them and, as he hoped, was gratified to find a cave. It was small and a bit damp, but it would serve his purpose. He called Rose up to inspect it. “This is a good place for you to hide should the Japanese attack. I will stock dried fish and water here.”