Beside a Burning Sea

by John Shors

  Now, as Annie waded through the water, Roger focused his binoculars on her small figure. A rust-colored ant bit his knuckle, and cursing the island’s insects, he smashed the ant against a branch. He put the binoculars again to his eyes and saw that Annie was only wearing undergarments. Quickly he became aroused. He clenched the binoculars hard, refocusing them constantly in order to maintain the best possible view of her. He swore silently as he remembered how she’d slapped him. The memory invaded him like an illness. No woman had ever slapped him, and no attack had ever felt so personal. She’d assaulted and humiliated him, and he’d do the same and much more to her.

  Roger watched her put on her shirt and shorts. She hugged Ratu and then moved toward Akira, who walked in her direction, his limp barely noticeable. When they finally met she embraced him briefly. Roger wondered if the Jap was aware of her breasts against him. They were small breasts, Roger reflected, but still he must sense them. Did the monkey want to rip off her shirt and squeeze them tight?

  Hating the two of them, Roger counted the days until he could feel her. Once the Japs landed, he’d lead them to the cave and then have his fill of her. He imagined breaking her toes, as he’d done to those boys so long ago. That way, she’d be unable to run from him. Or he could slap her repeatedly until she begged him to forgive her. Or he could do both.

  Roger shifted his thoughts to Akira. He swore to himself that the Nip would suffer and that he’d see Annie suffer. How best to do that? he wondered. How can I ensure that he and his bitch share their misery?

  As Roger descended the banyan tree, he debated such questions, ultimately not deciding upon anything until long after dusk had fallen. At that point, though he craved a cigarette and his head felt as if someone had driven a railroad spike into it, he clucked his tongue excitedly and went to sleep.

  DAY NINE

  The past comes to me

  Like a shadow to its source.

  Where is the monsoon?

  Longing for Dreams

  The tide was rising. Jake had noticed how the harbor swelled and the beach shrank each morning. To him, it seemed that the two entities were in a never-ending war over territory. The sea and beach fought the same way that night and day fought—a patient, hopeless struggle for domination of space.

  Following Ratu into deeper water, Jake held his spear aloft. Despite their prowess as hunters, the two friends hadn’t been able to spear many fish the previous day. The drying rack they’d built wasn’t even halfway full. Knowing that Joshua depended on him, and that he was failing his commanding officer, Jake had asked Ratu if they could fish in deeper water, where bigger fish might linger.

  “I tell you, Big Jake, it’s much bloody harder to throw a spear into deep water,” Ratu said. “Aim lower than you think you need to because water will lift the spear up.”

  “Ouch,” Jake muttered, as his toe stubbed against something hard and sharp.

  “What did you say?”

  “Oh, ain’t nothing worth repeating.”

  “If I’m going to tell you things, mate, you need to listen. I do think I’m interesting, but I don’t just want to talk for myself. If I’m going to do that, I’ll talk about sports. Maybe about the greatest cricket players or something like that.”

  “Don’t you worry none. I’ll aim lower. Or was it higher?”

  “Bugger off, Big Jake. I don’t know what to do with you. I really don’t. Throw lower. Much lower.”

  The water was up to Ratu’s belly and Jake’s thighs. To their right, birds circled over a series of ripples. Believing that large fish were feasting upon something near the surface, Ratu and Jake waded toward the ripples. Sure enough, a school of thousands of inch-long fish was being chased by a handful of much larger predators.

  “Barracuda!” Ratu exclaimed, pointing at the long and narrow fish. “Their mouths are full of teeth, Big Jake. Be careful when you spear them or you’ll have an angry barracuda hanging from your leg. And the blood will bring his friends, and suddenly you’ll be little more than barracuda dinner. Once I saw—”

  Eyeing a large barracuda that rose to the surface, Jake threw his spear quickly and with great force. The spear struck the fish right behind the head and skewered it completely, pinning it to the sand.

  “Brilliant!” Ratu shouted. “What a cracking good shot! Your teacher must have been fantastic!”

  “My teacher fancies his voice a heap more than his spear. I ain’t seen him hit a darn thing in two days.”

  “Teachers can’t always do everything. And who’d do all the talking if I didn’t? This island, I tell you, would be a dull place if I left all the talking up to you.”

  Jake chuckled, watching the bloody water for other barracuda. “Ever since those dolphins, you’ve been happier than a pigeon in a puddle.”

  “You should have come with us, Big Jake. You definitely need to next time. What bloody marvelous fun it was. And I want to introduce you to Ratu Junior.”

  “Does he prattle on as much as you?”

  “Probably more.”

  “Then I’ll pass, thank you kindly.”

  “Oh, put a sock in it, Big Jake. You’d bore him anyway.”

  “I reckon he’d—” Jake stopped, his words dying as a large shark swept into view, heading straight for the twitching barracuda. “Behind you!”

  Ratu spun in the water, leaping out of the way of the shark, which tore into the fish. The water immediately turned a deeper shade of crimson. The shark’s top fin and tail emerged from the sea as it consumed the barracuda. Ratu started to flee for the beach, but seeing that the shark was occupied with its meal, he stepped forward, raising his spear.

  “No!” Jake shouted. “Head straight ashore. Now!”

  Wishing that his father could see him, Ratu edged closer to the bloody water. The shark, which was about six feet long, was having a hard time consuming the part of the barracuda that was pinned to the seafloor.

  “Leave him be!” Jake shouted.

  Ratu didn’t hear his friend. He wanted a tooth from the shark so much that his senses were entirely focused on the churning water. He saw the broad back of the shark’s head emerge from the sea, and remembered where his father had told him to strike. The shark thrashed, banging the spear that held the barracuda in place. The spear started to fall. The shark turned in Ratu’s direction. It came at him.

  Ratu raised his arm back as far as possible and then stepped forward with his left foot, twisting his body to the left, heaving the spear with all his might. The spear struck the shark just behind its gills, driving deep into the creature. But the shark didn’t die and swam madly in a circle, like a kitten chasing its own tail. Ratu stepped away from the predator, his heel striking a mass of coral, which sent him tumbling backward. The shark bumped into his legs, its rough skin scratching him. Ratu tried to crawl away but the red water seemed to boil over him. Then he saw Jake wrench his spear from the barracuda and drive it into the shark’s head, drive it so hard and deep that the shark was suddenly pinned to the seafloor.

  Jake grabbed Ratu’s hand and pulled him toward the beach. About to shout at Ratu for being so rash, he had to stop himself when Ratu wrapped his arms around him. Jake carried him to the sand, where they sat and watched the shark slowly die. Though Ratu trembled, he didn’t seem overwhelmed with terror, which surprised Jake.

  “A coconut for them thoughts?” Jake finally asked, massaging an ache in his right shoulder.

  Ratu slowly looked up from the water. “The shark. It didn’t . . . it didn’t want to die.”

  “No, I expect it didn’t.”

  Ratu nodded absently. After a few dozen heartbeats of silence, he turned to Jake. “Have you ever killed a man?”

  “No.”

  “Is it like that, you think?”

  “I reckon it’s something like that. And then some, I’m sure.”

  Ratu nodded again. “I don’t ever want to kill a man, Jake. I won’t have to, will I? No one will send me to kill a man?”


  Jake sighed, unsure of how to respond. Finally, he said, “I expect when you’re old enough to be sent for, you’ll be old enough to decide. And if you don’t want to do it, well, then, ain’t no need to do it.”

  “I won’t. I won’t ever do it.”

  The shark finally stopped twitching. “That was one tough fellow,” Jake said.

  “Will we have enough food?”

  “What?”

  “After we cut him up, will we have enough food?”

  “Yes, I suspect so.”

  “Good. Then I think . . . I think I’ll take a break from fishing.”

  Jake put his arm around Ratu. “Now that we got a tooth for your father, we can get to finding them shells.”

  “That would be good, Big Jake.”

  Jake gently blew on Ratu’s knee, which had been scraped raw by the shark’s rough skin. “Maybe, Ratu, maybe that old shark done told you something.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I reckon you know.”

  Ratu moved Jake’s arm aside and stood. “Big Jake?”

  “Yes?”

  “I still want the tooth. But it’s not for me. It’s for my father.”

  Jake rose, patted Ratu on the back, and then waded into the water. “Well, then, I reckon we’d best get busy.”

  LATER, WITH STRIP upon strip of shark meat drying in the sun, the survivors gathered at the base of the banyan tree. Eyeing all the food, Joshua nodded appreciatively toward Jake and Ratu. “We certainly picked the right hunters.”

  “Ratu gets the credit, Captain,” Jake replied, nudging the boy. “It ain’t healthy to have fins around these parts.”

  “Well, I’m awfully glad you got the shark instead of the other way around.”

  Jake removed a stem from his mouth. “That makes three of us, Captain.”

  “How long,” Joshua asked, “do you think it will take to dry?”

  “In this sun? I reckon three or four days should darn near do it.”

  Joshua glanced at the drying rack. “As soon as it’s ready we’ll wrap it in leaves, pile it in the lifeboat, and then all head toward the cave. Some of us will row, and others will walk.”

  Scarlet scratched at a fresh mosquito bite. “Is the cave really going to be better than the beach? Maybe we should just stay here. If we’re here and one of our ships passes, we can easily signal it.”

  “We can signal a ship from almost anywhere,” Joshua responded, stooping to pull a thorn from his ankle. “Believe me, the cave’s not only safer, it’s much more comfortable. Like I said before, there aren’t many bugs, for starters.”

  “No bugs and built-in air-conditioning,” Isabelle added.

  “Really?” Scarlet asked.

  “Like you’re in some fancy hotel.”

  “Let’s keep cleaning up this area,” Joshua said. “When we leave, the place needs to look like no one’s ever set foot here. Our charts are probably the same as the Japanese charts. And our charts say the island’s deserted. No reason to give anyone any idea to think otherwise.”

  “So for three days, sir, we just do what we’ve been doing?” Nathan asked, standing deep in the shade, as he was still recovering from a bad case of sunburn.

  “I don’t see any reason why—” Joshua stopped talking when he saw Akira suddenly rise and step toward the beach. Akira said something in Japanese and pointed beyond the harbor. A gray dot marred the sea, breaking up the flat horizon. Joshua grabbed the binoculars from where they hung from a branch.

  “Is it American?” Roger asked abruptly, his mind reeling with the problems that such a ship would pose to him.

  “Yes, yes,” Scarlet added. “Is it ours? Oh, please let it be one of ours!”

  Joshua adjusted the binoculars until the ship came into focus. The vessel had two smokestacks and bristled with heavy guns. On its gray side were white markings of some kind. “A Jap destroyer,” Joshua said, his heart racing. “But why . . . why is she all alone? She’s a sitting duck.”

  Akira moved to Joshua and politely asked if he could use the binoculars. Joshua nodded, and Akira quickly located the destroyer. He looked at the name on the side and said, “Akebono.”

  “What?” Joshua asked.

  “So sorry. Daybreak is the ship’s name,” Akira replied, handing back the binoculars.

  “I wonder what she’s doing here,” Joshua said, again eyeing the ship, which wasn’t under way and seemed to just sit atop the water. Though the destroyer was several miles away and didn’t pose an imminent threat, Joshua felt unnerved, as the Japanese often used destroyers to protect troop transport ships or aircraft carriers. Typically, Japanese destroyers traveled in groups of three or four and shielded more important ships from plane and submarine attacks. As far as Joshua knew, a lone destroyer was a highly unusual sight.

  “Why is she all by herself?” he asked Akira. As Akira again looked through the binoculars, Joshua wondered if he was wise to trust Annie’s rescuer.

  “She has recently been fighting,” Akira replied.

  Joshua nodded. “I saw the damage to her superstructure.”

  “She could be conducting repairs, yes? Hiding in these islands and doing repairs?”

  “Or she could be waiting to rendezvous with other ships. It just doesn’t make sense for her to be so isolated out here.” Joshua felt a tap on his shoulder and was surprised to see Annie beside him.

  “May I look?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Annie refocused the binoculars and let out a small gasp when she saw the ship in full detail. She was used to the innocuous lines of Benevolence and not the long guns that dominated the Japanese destroyer. The ship gave her the chills. “It’s so . . . menacing,” she said softly, handing the binoculars to Joshua.

  Knowing that the Japanese had more than one hundred such ships, Joshua scanned the horizon for other visitors, but saw nothing else but the distant islands. “She’s all alone,” he said, still bewildered.

  Roger asked for the binoculars and took in the full view of Akebono. He knew that the Japanese would take the island by force, and suspected that his foe was correct. The destroyer had arrived early and was repairing the damage to its superstructure while waiting to escort a troop ship through these shallow and dangerous waters. “The Nip’s right about the repairs,” he said, delighted that he’d soon be off the island, and envisioning the cigarettes he’d smoke and the women he’d dominate. “I bet she’ll be gone in a few days.”

  By now the entire group had gathered around Joshua, and everyone took turns looking through the binoculars. Annie wondered how the Japanese could call the ship Daybreak, finding it incomprehensible that anyone would compare such a machine of war to dawn. Isabelle methodically counted the large guns, committing the destroyer’s profile to memory. Nathan worried that the war would drag on until his son would someday be forced to fight such ships. And Ratu looked at Akebono so long that when he finally handed the binoculars back to Joshua, circles had formed around his eyes. “It looks like the shark,” he said, stepping closer to Jake.

  “I don’t think this changes our plans,” Joshua said finally, addressing the group. “They can’t see us. Not if they don’t come closer and we’re careful with our fire.”

  “What if they come ashore?” Scarlet asked.

  “That ship wasn’t designed to carry large numbers of troops. Nobody is coming ashore.” Joshua let the binoculars hang from his neck, and for the first time no one asked for them. “But we need to keep a better eye on the horizon,” he said. “I think someone should stay put on one of the hills above us and watch to see if our visitor gets any companions.”

  “I’ll do it,” Scarlet said almost immediately. Unlike most everyone on the island, she didn’t have anyone close to her with whom she could share her thoughts. For days she’d felt like an outsider, and she was tired of the feeling. She reasoned that at least if she were atop a hill she could be helpful.

  “Are you sure?” Joshua asked.

&n
bsp; She held out her hand, and he placed the binoculars within her grasp. “What do you want me to look for?”

  “If that ships leaves, if she comes closer, people down here need to know. But we especially need to know if other ships appear. If that happens, please hurry down.” Joshua pointed to the hill that he’d climbed during his first day on the island. “It’s not a bad walk,” he said, “and it’s close.”

  “Then that’s where I’ll be.”

  After Joshua thanked her, Scarlet slung the binoculars around her neck and grabbed a full canteen and some bananas. She then headed into the jungle. Because of the bugs, she hadn’t spent much time beyond the beach, but she’d heard Isabelle say that the higher one got, the more wind prevailed and the less one had to worry about such airborne pests.

  For the first time in several days, Scarlet felt a pulse of happiness as she entered the jungle. Though she hated the mud and the insects and the damp heat, she was eager to climb the hill and have the binoculars to herself. With the binoculars, she could keep her eye out for ships and could also watch the island’s colorful and varied birds. She’d been fascinated by these talkative creatures for several days, and they were about the only thing that prompted her to pause in obsessing about her brothers.

  Scarlet had always enjoyed birds. One of her fondest memories was visiting Central Park with her grandmother and feeding pigeons. She’d participated in this ritual almost every Saturday afternoon for several years. Though hundreds of pigeons had always seemed to gather about them, Scarlet, like her grandmother, had her favorites and tried to give them extra bits of bread.

  Wishing that her grandmother could see the island’s birds, Scarlet continued through the jungle, eyeing parrots and cockatoos. Even on the beach Scarlet had never seen the brilliant and varied plumage that she did now, and she was certain her grandmother would have thought this place to be a small slice of heaven. She’d have watched birds from dawn to dusk.