When John Frum Came

by Bill Schroeder

  Once the work party returned to the Snitkin, and the landing craft’s crew were still out haggling, John realized that he was the only soul on the amphibious boat. He found a secluded corner out of the sun and stretched out for a nap.

  ***

  The soldiers guarding Yani were strung out single file on the path up the mountainside. One led him by a rope around his neck, a second followed with a similar rope behind. If he tried to make a break for it, they would strangle him until someone shot him. Not trusting subordinates to accomplish such a vital mission, Captain Nagama, pistol drawn, led the small group. Lieutenant Shakaru followed with three other men with rifles. They were supposed to be looking for a white pilot, but all they could think about was the guards who disappeared during the night. The dense greenery might conceal dozens of natives with long, sharp, barbed spears.

  When the search party reached the clearing that McDuff had used for his base, the soldiers poked their bayonets into everything he had left behind. It was clear that he had gone. They stayed close to each other during the search, although they saw no signs of life in the bush. When they reached what had been the food stores, Yani knew his tribesmen had been there, and were most likely very nearby. There wasn’t a single tinken left anywhere.

  Lieutenant Shakaru said something ugly and threatening to Yani, and he nodded toward the path. They strung out the procession on the narrowing path again, and resumed the climb. When a fissure opened within the crater the whole side of the mountain seemed to slide. Loose rocks above and below them began tumbling down in an avalanche of crumbling pumice and basalt. Terror struck. Earthquakes were common in their own country, and they knew there was nothing they could do but pray. The last man in the little column was struck by a boulder the size of a football, and disappeared over the edge and into the ocean below. The rest fell to the ground, and waited out the tremor. The rain of hot ashes had cooled somewhat by the time it reached the lower level where they were, but everything smelled like rotten eggs.

  “Keep going,” Captain Nagama urged. “Let’s get to some level ground, and off this damned sliding gravel pit!”

  The pace picked up and they reached the relative safety of the platform of level ground forming the top of the cone. Nagama reached the top first and the two men holding Yani on the ropes spread out to either side of the Chase Islander. Lieutenant Shakaru guarded the rear — but only for a few moments. One of the men seemed to suddenly grow a spear out of his chest, and slide off the path. Another was struck with a warclub thrown by a man who blended with the black basalt outcroppings. The Lieutenant ran back down the path, propelled by sheer terror. No one was pursuing him; he was running from his own fears. All eyes were on Yani, and his captors.

  Captain Nagama pointed his pistol at his captive, and the two men with the ropes had now unslung their rifles, and pointed them at Yani. They stood at the edge of the crater, looking down at the glowing center.

  The army officer evaluated the situation from a military standpoint. Perhaps he could use Yani as a shield and a hostage to get back down the mountain. Through his body language, which included pointing into the crater, and his tone of voice he made it clear to Yani that he would hack his head off and throw him into the fire if he did not help them down the mountain.

  It was a standoff. No one did anything but stand there for a full three minutes. Each waited to see what would happen next. The natives knew that with Ooma dead, they would be without a shaman if something happened to Yani, and the tribe would perish.

  Nagama’s desperation was on a personal level. This was not the way he saw the war ending for him. He was furious. He drew the Samurai sword his father had given him when he became an officer, and waved it menacingly at Yani. He railed at the island warriors who now allowed themselves to be seen.

  “I was never intended to be run through with a filthy, wooden spear wielded by a cave man. I am an educated man. I am the son of generations of Samurai. I deserve to die on a field of honor, in battle with someone more my equal. I am ready to die honorably with a bullet in my chest for the Emperor and my Country.”

  Three seconds later, the once Reverend Doctor Moses McDuff, now turned guerrilla, granted his wish.

  ***

  Although the archipelago known as the Volcano Islands, lay considerably further to the north of Island 321, the name could have applied to any of the green dots in the South Pacific. For the most part, they were the tops of volcanoes rising thousands of feet from the ocean floor. The advance party that had gone ashore on Island 321 felt seismic activity from the first day. However, the Navy command did not want to hear such complaints. The sailors and Marines were ordered to consider such rumblings as normal, and go about their duties as assigned.

  It was also a geologic fact that many of the volcanoes were connected to each other along a fault in a huge tectonic plate. When one burped, they all hiccuped. In fact, all the islands over a wide range were joined by a plateau-like shelf that made the water too shallow for something the size of a freighter to get very close. Amphibious craft were the only way materiel could be ferried ashore.

  John Bartlett was stirred from his brief nap by a sudden commotion at the rail of the Snitkin. A growing crowd of men were yelling and pointing toward the island. He sat up and turned his head toward where the men were looking. He was just in time to see a fireball of gas, lava and smoke burst skyward. A few minutes later he heard what sounded like hail coming down on the boxes, crates and cartons stacked around him. They were little, hot, black marbles of obsidian, volcanic glass. He scrambled to his feet and almost dove into an open doorway of the crew’s quarters.

  As the stones clattered on the metal roof of the conning-tower-like structure, he looked again toward the island. What he saw was horrifying. A large portion of the beach was sliding into the ocean amid much hissing and steaming. He could see Marines trying to outrun the encroaching waves, then disappear in the surf.

  Aboard the Snitkin, panic was breaking loose. The public address system blared: “General Quarters. General Quarters.”

  In the shallow waters off the little atoll, gentle swells were taking on the aspect of roller coaster dips. The captain wanted to get out to sea and away from the shelf that magnified the ocean’s movement.

  Marine Lieutenant Bartlett realized that there was no one on the landing craft to steer it to safety. Not that he was sure where “safety” was. Heading into the sinking island did not seem to be an option. If the truth were known, he was more concerned about the loss of his father’s red-tagged possessions. If they lost this boatload of equipment, they would be forced to live on standard Government Issue.

  He scrambled onto an empty cargo net, hanging over the side from a crane. “I’ll hang on to the cargo net,” he yelled to the deck officer. “Lower me onto the boat. I’ll handle it.”

  Clinging to the net, he dropped to the LCM, but found it difficult to maintain an upright position. Although they were right next to each other, the freighter rose and fell at a different rate than the lighter boat. The pallets started to shift to starboard when the hawser connecting the two ships was pulled taut by the action of the sea.

  The relative positions of the two ships changed so rapidly that the cargo net first lay limp on the deck, then virtually jumped into the air. On the first try, Lieutenant Bartlett fell off the net and thumped hard onto a wooden case.

  Unsympathetically, the deck officer called “Give it up, Lieutenant. God damn it, get back so we can get the hell out of here.”

  As the rope to the cargo net tightened, Lieutenant Bartlett got a foot tangled in it and rose into the air, hanging by one leg. The crew reeled him in like a Marlin that had broken the surface. If they didn’t get him up fast enough, he would be dropped back into the deck head-first.

  John watched the procedure from below with an idiotic grin. His old pal, Frankie, rose rapidly to the end of the crane and they swung him aboard. He was dropped unceremoniously on the deck of the Snitkin. His steel helmet kept h
im from getting a fractured skull, but his neck was in pain. The deck officer said again, “We want to get out of here as fast as we can. That God damned island is sinking, and we don’t want to get sucked in after it. This is the South Pacific. We’re gonna get ripped apart, capsized or blown away if we don’t get rid of the damn landing craft.”

  “You can’t cut it loose. All our equipment is on that boat.”

  In the meantime, two Marine sergeants and the Chief Petty officer who piloted the landing craft out to the supply ship were panicking also. They had come aboard the larger vessel loaded with money from the men back on shore. Their objective was to buy as much liquor of any variety as they could put their hands on. The chief was now sitting on four cases of Old Grand Dad, while they rigged the cargo net to swing them over the side.

  “Belay that shit,” the deck officer screamed, trying to sound nautical. “You guys aren’t going anywhere with that cargo net...”

  The Snitkin took a sharp drop, like an elevator slipping two floors. In spite of the officer’s orders, the cargo net swung out and lowered the cases of whiskey down toward the smaller boat. However, it was on a downward trip and the cases crashed into the rapidly ascending steel deck amid the heart-rending sound of breaking glass.

  Apprentice Seaman Bartlett was on the net in a flash. He cut the rope with a bayonet before it could be yanked up into the air again for a second dashing. With no counterweight, the rope reeled back up like a window shade. The hoist looked like a yardarm. If he had his way, Chicken-shit Lieutenant Frankie would be swinging from it.

  The precious fluid from the broken bottles spread out across the deck as John watched.

  ***

  The sudden shot that felled Captain Nagama took everyone by surprise. One of Yani’s tormentors, the one who had held the trailing rope, raised his rifle above his head, and in a grand gesture of surrender threw it into the underbrush. He stood with both hands above his head, smiling and chattering about bearing the Blackfella no ill will. The Chase Islander nearest him ran forward with an ornately carved warclub, and hit him squarely in the face.

  The second guard took a defensive position for hand-to-hand combat with his bayonet-tipped rifle as he had been taught. In a half crouch, he challenged the bearer of the warclub. The black man smiled and obviously relished the opportunity to demonstrate his proficiency with his massive weapon. Almost in a wrestler’s stance, he circled his opponent, and moved in closer.

  The position assumed by the Japanese solider also proved a springboard for a quick sprint. Converting all his adrenaline to energy, he darted to the right and chose to do a modified swan dive into the steamy volcano’s throat rather than allow himself to be either defeated or captured by the fierce natives hemming him in on all sides.

  Yani took the ropes off his neck and threw them to the ground with a display of showmanship. McDuff stood up almost immediately after it was clear the soldiers were surrendering. He seemed to be ready to use his rifle again, if need be, but after the scuffle was over he carried it by its sling, almost dragging it behind him.

  He and Yani walked briskly. When they reached each other, the two men embraced in a show of true emotion. He had saved his friend’s life, finally returning the favor Yani had performed back on Christ’s Despair. Tears of joy and relief streamed down their faces.

  A rhythmic noise caught McDuff’s attention. All the warriors were thumping the butts of their spears on the ground or against their shields, and were banging warclubs against outcroppings in unison. Then, almost like a referee in a boxing match Yani raised one of McDuff’s arms. He turned to the agitated men and shouted, “Pooja! Pooja!”

  The men thumped louder and faster and chanted together: “Pooja! Pooja! Pooja! Pooja!”

  In addition to his Harvard Bachelor of Science Degree and his Doctorate of Divinity from The True Church of God Seminary, Moses McDuff was now a warrior of the Pooja totem. He was a crocodile.

  Chapter 34

  No one on deck saw it coming. All eyes were on the drama of the broken booze bottles. The rising and falling of the U.S.S. Great Snitkin up to this point might have been compared to a gentle rocking compared to what happened next.

  The ship’s Captain, Carl V. Stoepel, standing on the narrow deck alongside the bridge, saw it through his binoculars. About five miles astern, it looked like one of the breakers that were consuming the beach of Island 321 — except it was between forty and sixty feet high and was as wide as the limited horizon.

  The Captain had never seen one, but he knew its name ... It was a tsunami — a tidal wave. He knew how the captain of the Titanic must have felt ... except this was no iceberg. Captain Stoepel gave a blast on the ship’s whistle and yelled over the intercom to the engine room: “Ahead Full! — Flank speed!” He really didn’t think he would be able to outrun it, but he had to at least give it a try. When the huge propellers engaged, the big ship gave a shudder and started to move forward.

  But Stoepel could feel there was something wrong. Instead of going in a straight line, the ship was pulling to port, as if it had left an anchor in the water. He realized in a moment what it was ... he was dragging the LCM along with him.

  He got on the horn. “Attention, all hands. Cut loose the landing craft on the port side. Cut loose the landing craft on the port side — On the double!”

  Lieutenant Bartlett ran to the gunwale and shrieked, “Wait, we’re not on it. We’re not on it.”

  “Look to the stern, Lieutenant,” the Deck Officer barked. “Cut that son-of-a-bitch loose before we all drown together.”

  The Marine looked to the rear of the ship and saw the tsunami gaining on them rapidly. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Cut the hawser immediately,” he told the nearest sailor.

  “With what?” the sailor answered. The cable was three inches thick and was as taut as a rubber band. The Lieutenant ripped a fire ax away from its bracket on the bulkhead, and began whacking away at the huge rope.

  Suddenly he noticed that the line was going slack. The LCM was sliding down the face of a wave, and was about to collide with them side to side. It hit them with the jar of two bump cars in an amusement park. The wave preceding the tsunami lifted the huge ship’s stern out of the water. Its screws were no longer submerged and they came out of the water turning at full speed. The entire ship vibrated like a gong. Rivets popped on its sides where the steel plates had been weakened by rust.

  Prayers for salvation went up from the crew in a body. When the hull smashed down again into the water, its propellers whirred faster than they had ever been designed to go, the U.S.S. Great Snitkin surged ahead.

  The landing craft slid down a wave in the opposite direction snapping the weakened tether. John Bartlett watched the rows of cargo start to shift. He stayed in the crew’s tiny quarters above the diesel engines, and quickly sealed the watertight doors. He felt the boat creak and groan as it strained on the leash that held it to the large freighter. Then in an instant the LCM seemed to leap out of the water as the line broke with a whip-snap.

  The lurch knocked him off his feet and he hit his head on one of the supporting beams in the little compartment.

  Unconsciousness was the best thing that could have happened to him. Had he been awake, he might well have died of fright as Landing Craft (Mechanized) #666 rode the biggest tidal wave since Krakatoa went skyward 60 years before.

  ***

  Lieutenant Shakaru, his pistol in one hand and his sword in the other reached the end of the path. The two guards were still where they had been posted earlier, but now they were headless. He took only fleeting note of their condition and called out as he ran, “Sergeant Ubo! Sergeant Ubo, where are you?”

  “Here, Lieutenant. Here, down by the beach. Be careful. They’re all around,” he heard someone call. A ten-foot spear thunked into the sand next to him, missing him only by inches. A burst of machine gun fire erupted from a clump of bushes on the beach. He could see one of his men waving him toward the camp they had set up the night
before, and ran for it while the soldiers laid down covering fire.

  What was left of the Japanese infantry company had retreated to a small peninsula that jutted out into the water. From this promontory, they had a view of the entire beach.

  Lieutenant Shakaru threw himself into the sand behind some convenient rocks, panting furiously. “Report!” he said to Sergeant Ubo.

  Crouching behind the machine gun, and not taking his eyes off the beach, he said, “As soon as you left, they sent out a bunch of old women to get the body of their chief. Some of the men thought they would scare them, so they fired into the air. The women scattered, and we thought it was over.”

  He hesitated. “A few minutes later the air was thick with native spears and arrows. They looked like a swarm of mosquitoes. Any of the men who were not here inside the camp were nailed.”

  The officer looked over the top of the sheltering rocks. He saw men in uniform strewn across the beach. Some had as many as three spears in them.

  “How many men did we lose?” he asked.

  “The question is how many are left. There are only six of us here, counting you, sir. I have little hope for the guards on their posts.”

  “I’m sure they’re dead,” Shakuru said, remembering the bloody corpses he passed when he ran down from the mountain. He looked out to sea, and remembered that the torpedo boat was far from Chase Island by now. “What about ammunition, and supplies?”

  “We used most of the rice for the feast last night. Our ammunition is in boxes out there on the water’s edge,” Sergeant Ubo said despondently.

  Suddenly the palm trees danced in unison as if they were animated by what seemed to be an inner spirit. Some swayed to such a degree that their coconut clusters were tossed 30 feet from the tree. Yet others just snapped in the middle, allowing the tops to crash to the ground.