When John Frum Came

by Bill Schroeder

  In the darkness, Aboo thrashed about with his walking stick. It struck John’s hand just as he pulled the trigger. Instead of going skyward, the projectile ripped into Aboo.

  Aboo clutched at his chest where a great pain had suddenly developed. He fell to the ground, atop the flare, with his eyes and his pandanus leaf clothes ablaze.

  During the chaos that followed, John and McDuff made a run for the water. A huge figure raced toward them in the darkness. It was Koko, the giant Hawaiian drummer. With a cry of surrender, he threw down his immense body at the water’s edge. He was prostrating himself with arms outstretched to where the echoes of Gene Krupa had been pulsating only moments before. His timing, however, was such that John and McDuff tripped over his huge carcass, somersaulting them ass over teakettle into the shallow water.

  It was a moonless night, but the two of them managed to get back on their feet, and then safely back on the landing craft. Yani was waiting and he pushed the button that winched the landing ramp on battery power to the closed position.

  John Bartlett collapsed out of breath. He looked up at his two smiling companions and said, “How the hell does Fairbanks do this so often, and stay alive?”

  Chapter 40

  There was no one on the beach when the sun came up.

  Yani stood atop the drop-door and strained his eyes for signs of people hiding among the trees, but there was no one. McDuff joined him and said, “You really didn’t think they were going to come down here after last night’s show, did you?”

  “Nobody swim. They afraid Hevehe still in water.”

  “My guess is that they are afraid of Kilibob. Even I had my moments with all the sound effects, and...”

  “Busby Berkeley lives!” said a voice to their rear. “I tell you I am missing my calling. Hollywood needs me,” John Bartlett laughed.

  “I have to hand it to you, John. That was Broadway at its best.” He rubbed his scraped wrists as he spoke. “And I want to thank you again for saving my life. I really think they would have killed me if you hadn’t come to the rescue.”

  “That’s what white hats are for,“ he said. He was still wearing the Annapolis Middy’s cap. “How’s your head?”

  “We must drop Admiral Bartlett a thank you note. I enjoyed that Old Grand Dad. I’m afraid I am undergoing a religious revision — I’m beginning to understand why some people drink.”

  “The thank you note should really go to the guy who owns this fatigue shirt,” he said pointing to the decorations on the sleeve. John was wearing a Marine Sergeant’s fatigue shirt with a corpsman’s red cross on the sleeve. “He was the one who bought the booze from some swabees on the Snitkin. Most of the bottles broke when they hit the deck during all the excitement.”

  He looked at the empty beach. “Well, where is everybody?”

  Yani climbed down from the door and got on to the ladder. “I go tell Blackfella O.K. to come down. We give everybody tinkens. They very hungry now. No water on island. They find coconuts.”

  “Go and tell them to come down, Yani,” McDuff said. “John and I will open the boxes and get ready for them.”

  With that, the young shaman went to pursue his cultural responsibilities.

  “How long can they last on coconuts?” John asked.

  “No problem. It rains here just about every afternoon,” the minister told him. “They have ways of collecting the rainwater as it runs off the trees. It’s amazing the way they adapt to nature. You and I would die in no time if we were left alone here — I almost did on the other island.”

  “What happened?”

  “Yani saved my life,” he said, and as they worked, he filled in the details he had omitted the day before.

  John lowered the door and the two Americans began cutting open cartons. Bartlett described how he visualized forming a long line of natives, and handing them each two cans as they passed.

  McDuff laughed. “Boy, oh boy. Have you got a surprise coming.”

  “How’s that?” John said.

  “People do not get on line in this part of the world, John. The best thing we can do is open as many cases as we can ... stack them on the ramp ... and get out of the way.”

  “You think they’ll just grab?”

  “Our biggest job will be to keep them from swarming over this boat like a bunch of locusts. Yani has promised them that John Frum would bring them enough food that they will never have to plant another garden as long as they live.”

  John started to laugh, until it almost became a howl.

  “What’s so funny,” McDuff asked.

  “Wait till they find out what’s in some of these cans.” He found a tin of Beef In Gravy, and held it up. “They’ll probably think this stuff is great, but the G.I.s call it ‘monkey meat.’ It’s the stringiest cut of beef the government could buy. But that’s O.K. What are they going to think of tuna and noodle casserole? You haven’t lived until you’ve had the government’s version of beef stew — 80% potatoes ... 15% carrots and 5% gravy.”

  McDuff joined in chuckling, and said “John, once you have lived on one of these islands for three months you will think those are gourmet meals!”

  ***

  The people retreated from Yani as he came into the camp clearing. His reputation as a shaman, and perhaps more accurately as a friend of Kilibob and John Frum, had been firmly established. None of the elders challenged his authority after the terrible end to which Aboo had come the night before.

  He mounted a rock and motioned the people to come forward. “John Frum wishes to be our friend. He has told me to invite everyone to come down to the beach. The behavior of Aboo and his friends will be forgotten.”

  “Aboo is dead,” one of the elders said. “We have cast his body into the sea to please the Hevehe. We wish to be friends of John Frum. He is stronger than the Hevehe.”

  “John Frum has come because Yani has called him. He is my friend. He comes from the island of Boston, like Big Man Duff. He is a stronger bis than Big Man Duff. They are friends. They do not choose to speak to you in our language. They ask me to tell you what they say.”

  There were no dissenters.

  “Everybody will get a tinken for each hand. Take them to the place of the old village. I will teach you to open the tinkens with American magic called G.I. canopener.” He showed them the tiny device that hung next to his cross on a string.

  He jumped down from the rock and began his descent to the beach and the great gifts from John Frum had brought from God in Heaven.

  A few minutes later they appeared on the beach, chanting on cue “John Frum, he come! John Frum, he come.”

  ***

  McDuff had an idea before the crowd came down from the mountain. “John, I think we are going to have to bring you down to earth. Last night, in the eyes of these people you were a god. You were really Kilibob. You sure as heck didn’t look like any American sailor I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’ve been told that,” he smiled.

  “What I mean is, you won’t be able to function with these people on a day to day basis if they think you are Kilibob.”

  “So? What do I do?” John said.

  “Get rid of the white officer’s cap. Just wear the Sergeant’s shirt. They’ll be surprised to find out that you are a Black man like they are. My guess is that they’ll be more kindly disposed to you as a result.”

  He tossed the hat up on the narrow walkway. “What next? Should I shake hands with them?”

  “Good point.” McDuff reflected on it. “I’ll tell you what. Suppose you just stand on the deck outside the bridge and wave to them as they come for their tinkens.”

  “Tinkens?”

  “Pidgin. Comes from ‘tin cans’.”

  While they were talking the column of Blackfellas started to come onto the beach. John Bartlett swung up on a nearby railing. “You know them better than me, Doctor. I’ll take your advice and bless them from afar.”

  ***

  Yani came out to the landing craft a
lone to confer with John and Dr. McDuff, and to see if everything was ready. They talked about the situation, and he agreed with the idea that John Frum should stay on the upper deck for now.

  When he signaled the crowd to wade out to the boat, they charged forward as predicted. Yani stood at the open door with his hands raised to stop the rush. Pointing to the figure on the upper deck he said, “This is my friend, John Frum. He brings much cargo for the Blackfella on Chase Island. If anybody makes him angry, he will call Kilibob to come back.”

  There was a shudder among the group. For those not on the beach, the events of the night before had been magnified in the retelling. Kilibob had become a doomsday figure.

  “Now John Frum will live among us as friend. He says you can take one tinken for each hand. We will open them back in village.” He gave a nod and there was a frantic scramble of shoving and grabbing. No one knew what he was getting, so they took the first thing that their hands touched. When all the men had theirs, the women and children squabbled over their portions. There was no need for the minor riot — it would be a long time before they could use up all the boxes on the boat.

  When Pee-wee, the ten year old, and his friends continued to hang around the open door, even after everyone had gone back to the shore, Yani had an idea. He showed the children how to open the cans with the G.I. can-openers. It was no problem for them, the kids caught on immediately. Each case had several silver colored cans without labels. Yani had discovered that these all contained fruit cocktail. They were an immediate hit. He let them open one can each and consume the contents. Then he told them he would give them each three cans of fruit salad if they went to the village and opened the C-rations for the adults. The deal was struck and a problem was solved.

  Chapter 41

  McDuff began to think of the removal of the stacks of boxes right in front of the drop-door as sort of a mining operation. The analogy held because he would find things like mess-hall-sized cans of peaches in a box that simply turned up at random.

  When he had removed the first tier of empty cartons, he came across a huge pallet-load of something named ‘SPAM.’ He called John and said, “What does S-P-A-M stand for?”

  “What? Spam is Spam,” not understanding the question.

  “Well, what in blazes is Spam?”

  “It’s canned pork. Lunchmeat. It’s the big thing back home in the States, and the Navy’s greatest discovery. It serves Spam for breakfast, lunch and supper. You get Spam and eggs, Spam without eggs, Spam sandwiches, Spam and noodles, Spam and gravy. You name it, they serve it with Spam.”

  “I’ve never heard of it,” Dr. McDuff said. “Can we get some out of a carton?”

  “Sure. I’ve sort of lost my enthusiasm for it, but we can fry some up. How about you, Yani, would you like some Spam? It’s pig meat.”

  They found a mess kit and a primus stove in the crew’s quarters. John pulled a couple of the odd-shaped cans from a box and Yani watched with eager anticipation.

  He tossed the rectangular can to Yani, who showed promise as a first baseman if they over got an island baseball team together. “Open it!” he said as if there were nothing to it. The G.I. can-opener did not quite fit. Yani’s puzzlement was written all over his face.

  He saw the key soldered to the bottom of the can, and a tiny protrusion of metal at the beginning of a concealed strip of metal, but made no connection in his mind between the two. He studied the can for ten minutes, as John watched him shift it from hand to hand, and even tried to chew at a corner. Finally, he handed it back to John. He smiled and said humbly, “This fella no have magic. I think John Frum have magic open can. You tell this fella magic.”

  In Yani’s world, nothing worth doing was done simply as a matter of logic and convenience. There was significance in everything — even opening a can of Spam.

  McDuff watched the interplay and intoned his words carefully, trying to telegraph a message to John that Yani might not fully understand. “I’ve found that anything having a technological skill requisite, also necessitates the invocation of magic in the eyes of island acolytes. That reinforces loyalty and insures his assistance. If John Frum wants to maintain his image as a Big Man, he had better share his magical formulas with Yani.”

  John caught the drift of the message, and said, “Yani, John Frum is going to initiate you into the Sacred Order of Key Twisters.”

  Using his best stage magician flourish, the American took the can in his left hand and turned it upside down so the key was exposed. With the fingernail of his right index finger, he pried the key up and bent it back and forth until it came loose.

  Holding the key in his right hand, he showed Yani how to thread the little rounded end of metal at the top of the can through the hole in the key.

  “Now you say ‘Cin-cin-nati.’” He whispered the words slowly, and as he finished saying the word, he twisted the key. There was an audible hiss as the vacuum broke.

  Yani cocked his head much like the RCA Victor fox terrier, Nipper. “What is sssssss?” he asked.

  Thinking fast he said, “It is the spirit of the pig in the can. Now he has left. The meat must be eaten before the sun goes down or it becomes poison. When pig spirit gone make a fella very sick if not eat same day can open.”

  This made perfect sense to Yani and it saved John the hopeless task of explaining the rapid growth of bacteria in a tropical climate.

  Now the real magic of opening a Spam can began in earnest. John showed Yani how to turn the key ever so slowly and evenly so that the metal strip came off in a rigid little coil wrapped tightly around the key. When the entire strip was only a quarter of an inch from the end, John whispered, “O-hi-o.”

  Yani repeated “O-hi-o,” and there was a ‘ping!” as the top became separated. John handed the watch-spring coil of metal wrapped tightly about the key to Yani, and said “You keep.”

  Yani accepted it with reverence and held it in his hand as John removed the lid. He turned the can upside down on a metal mess kit and the tiny monolith of pig-meat stood in pink splendor, dripping salty gelatin. Yani examined the can and saw that the edge was cut absolutely even all around the top, and was sharper than any native knife. In fact, John used the can for a knife and sliced the Spam into six evenly spaced slabs.

  Yani’s face held an expression of awe. Here were slices of pig-meat ready to be eaten with no further preparation necessary. But John was not satisfied with eating the meat ‘as is’. He took three slabs and laid them out in the mess kit, using it as a frying pan. Over the primus stove, the meat browned quickly and the smell was tantalizing.

  McDuff thought it was delicious. John withheld his opinion, pleading overexposure, but Yani declared it the most delightful food he had ever tasted. He had previously been in love with British corned beef, but now he begged to practice his key-twisting skills on another can.

  John could not believe Yani’s reaction. He looked like his mother’s cat on catnip. He turned to McDuff and said, “How much of this stuff did you find out there?”

  “I think the word ‘unlimited’ would describe it,” he said. “No disrespect intended, but if the other natives like this as much as our man, Yani, I think we might have founded a new religion,” John quipped.

  ***

  In the evening, the natives were allowed to make another raid on the C-Rations. This time everyone took an extra minute to get a look at John Frum up on the bridge. He waved to them and some even got up the nerve to wave back.

  John took Yani aside after the evening food frenzy, and said, “Yani, when do I get to meet the people. Especially some of the girl people. I see some women who are pretty attractive.”

  “John want Mary?”

  “Oh, do you have someone in mind? Who is Mary?”

  “All women called Mary in Pidgin. Yani find Mary for you tomorrow.”

  “How about tonight?” John said.

  “You wait. I bring Mary here to boat.” He started toward the open end of the craft, but John caugh
t him by the arm.

  “No. I don’t think Big Man Duff would like it. Ministers are funny that way. I’ll go ashore with you while he’s taking a nap.”

  “Yes. Churchfella Duff no like Mary. Him never take Mary all the time I know him.”

  “I don’t know how they do it,” John said.

  “Him like Patrol-fella Gale. Him only like boy-fella.”

  When he finally figured out what Yani meant, John said, “Well, I’ll be God-damned. He’s a fairy... All the more reason I think I’ll spend the night on shore.”

  ***

  Yani and John came back to the LSM in the morning. They both looked like they hadn’t slept, but John was on the point of collapse. He made it to the bunk bed and fell into it. He mumbled to himself as he surrendered to sleep — “Who the hell would have thought you could catch up on three months in one night? She was ... was ... zzzzzzz.“

  ___

  At about noon, McDuff woke John up. When his eyes opened the older man said, “I was worried about you and Yani last night. I woke up and found you were gone. I was afraid something might have happened to you.”

  “It did,” John said. “If I ever get back to the Navy, I will have the shore leave story to end them all.”

  “I’d rather not know, if you don’t mind, John,” McDuff said stiffly. Discussion of sex with strangers was still more than he cared to undertake. “Yani wants to take some Spam to the village elders. It could be a way to break down the barriers.”

  ***

  After John was introduced as John Frum, a great but friendly bis from the island of Boston in America, each of the elders placed a hand on his chest to feel his heart beat. They were satisfied that he was human and not a spirit.

  Yani picked up a can of Spam and opened it in the manner he had learned. The mess kit was placed on the embers of the fire set up in the middle of a newly built palm-frond hut. In seconds, it was sizzling and after a few minutes, it was thoroughly browned and crisp on both sides.