Beside a Burning Sea

by John Shors

  Joshua, who wore the binoculars, occasionally left the cave and searched the moonlit seas for ships. A formation of Zeros had flown over the island not long after he’d buried Scarlet. They’d proceeded due east, several trailing smoke and one flying erratically.

  A year earlier, Joshua would have felt guilty about having his duty supersede his desire to quietly reflect upon and pray for a fallen comrade. But he’d since learned that if he didn’t adhere to his duty, he’d end up watching others die. And so he alternated between talking quietly with Isabelle and inspecting the seas.

  Akira sat away from the fire, near the entrance of the cave. Annie was close by, and though they conversed, she was much less talkative than usual. Not surprised by her desire for silence, and not wanting to intrude upon it, Akira surreptitiously watched Roger and formulated a plan. Though uncertain whether Roger could speak Japanese, Akira’s instincts told him that Roger was hiding something.

  Akira’s plan was almost complete when Annie found his eyes. “Can we go for a walk?” she asked quietly.

  He nodded and rose to his feet. Outside, the thick air was warmer than it had been for several days. The night was clear, and the light from the moon and stars faintly illuminated the island and sea. Akira thought about how this part of the world now lay within an infinite shadow, and how in North Africa and in the Soviet Union and in the swells of the Atlantic, men were fighting beneath the bright sun.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to death,” Annie said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve seen hundreds die, but . . . but they all seem to hit me.”

  He helped her circumvent a tide pool. “That is good.”

  “Good?”

  “That means you are still alive. I have seen men who are used to death, and they are as dead as the people who lay lifeless before them.”

  She continued to hold his hand after they had rounded the pool. “Nanking, it didn’t . . . do that to you? It didn’t harden you?”

  An image of the little girl flashed before him. “Nanking will always, always be a wound within me. But even though that wound almost killed me, I still live.”

  She sighed, intertwining her fingers with his. “No one should have such wounds. It’s not right. To fight two world wars in twenty years isn’t right.”

  “There cannot be a third.”

  “With men ruling the world? That seems wishful thinking.”

  They walked in silence, their feet moving from stone to sand to stone. Akira still wasn’t used to holding a woman’s hand in the open, as he had never done such a thing; it was frowned upon in his country. But the feel of her palm against his greatly warmed him. “May I tell you something?” he asked, wanting to share his feelings with her, hoping that they might give her solace in her time of need.

  “If you want to.”

  “I would like to tell you that you are . . . my greatest discovery.”

  “What? What do you mean?”

  He glanced at her eyes, which seemed almost too full for her somewhat girlish face. “As a boy, I discovered small worlds within mountains. As a young man, I discovered words. And now I have discovered you. And that discovery has . . . it has made me complete.”

  Annie sighed, suddenly disbelieving that much good existed in the world. “But, Akira, you’ve never been around women. Maybe . . . it’s like you’re on a ship, looking for new land. Maybe I’m just the first land that you’ve encountered. But beyond me there’s probably a much greater place.”

  He smiled. “I enjoy it when you speak like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you are painting something.”

  “But how do you know your feelings for me are real when you’ve never had such feelings before? Maybe you’re not experienced enough to know the difference between what’s fantasy and what’s real.”

  He spied a sand dollar and handed it to her. “Perhaps I do not want to continue looking for other lands. Perhaps I have found a home that inspires me. Why would I look for something new when I have discovered something beautiful? Something magical?”

  “I can be naïve and shortsighted and foolish, and there’s really nothing magical about me.”

  “But that is my choice, yes?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To understand my own contentment, and to stay on that land rather than looking for something else.”

  “Maybe,” she answered, stroking the sand dollar. “But my country fights yours, and we don’t know what the future will bring. And that frightens me. Scarlet just went to look for some birds, and now she’s dead. How do we know what’s going to happen tomorrow? I know that I love you. But is that enough? How can that be enough when it can be taken from us?”

  Akira continued to walk, searching for the right words. “I am new to love, yes? So I know very little. But a coin, a house, an arm . . . these are things. And things can be taken. But love is a feeling, and how can someone take a feeling?”

  “A bullet can take all sorts of things, Akira. I’ve seen it happen too many times.”

  He sighed, unsure of how to respond, unsure of how he felt. “A bullet can take a life,” he finally said. “It can pull a daughter from a mother or a husband from a wife. And that . . . thievery can cause more pain than we were built to endure. But Buddhists believe . . . I believe that people who find each other in this life will find each other again in the next.”

  “And love makes that possible?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you have such faith in a time of such madness?”

  “Because I saw her. The little girl. I was dying, and I saw her. And she was happy. She was at peace. And if I am to die, you must think of me as being in this same place.”

  A tear tumbled down Annie’s face. “But I haven’t seen this place, Akira. It’s not fair for you to expect that of me. You can’t . . . leave me and expect that.”

  He stopped, turning to her, watching a tear drop from her chin, gently tracing the tear’s trail with his forefinger. “You are right,” he said softly, understanding and sharing her fear. “And I am so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I know what you’re trying to do.” She put her arms around him and pulled him close, squeezing him even tighter when she heard him smell her skin. “I think a feeling can be taken,” she said, her voice growing more resolute. “And I don’t want . . . to experience that. I don’t want Isabelle to either. So whatever you have to do to keep that from happening, will you do it? Will you please do it?”

  Akira closed his eyes, aware of her body against his and the comfort that this encounter generated. “You will see another side of me,” he said, worried that such a sight might drive her from him.

  “I’m not afraid of that side. I know it’s not who you really are.”

  He kissed her temple. “Thank you . . . for being you.”

  She turned to him, pressing her lips against his. “And thank you for not sailing on.”

  He smiled. “Only a fool would sail on, Annie. Who but a fool would find such land and sail on?”

  DAY SIXTEEN

  There is no finding

  Like the first feeling of love.

  Crickets feast on song.

  Paths Diverge

  After finishing a breakfast of mango, when he knew that Roger’s eyes were surreptitiously upon him, Akira asked Joshua if he could borrow the machete. Joshua, realizing that Akira’s plan was unfolding, pretended to weigh his decision. Several awkward heartbeats passed before he reluctantly nodded. Akira bowed and then strode to where the weapon rose from the sand. Pulling it free, he walked from the cave and into the jungle.

  Believing that his actions would prompt Roger’s interest, Akira forced Annie out of his thoughts. He couldn’t be distracted by her, even as pleasant as that distraction was. And so he focused on the task at hand. His field of vision sweeping the jungle, he headed toward a bamboo grove that he’d earlier discovered. In a few minutes, he found the spot and studied the uniform stalks
of bamboo that rose like oversized green pipes from the moist soil. The stalks rubbed against each other, creating a discordant and somewhat eerie series of low groans.

  Finally settling on a stalk that was about as thick as a woman’s wrist, Akira chopped hard with the machete, quickly creating a three-foot pole. Sweat gathering on his brow, he walked back to the cave, depositing the machete in the same spot as he’d found it. Glancing about, he saw that Annie and Isabelle had disappeared. Roger was pretending to fill a canteen, but his stare darted to Akira the way a snake’s tongue inspects the air.

  Reminding himself of the American’s quickness, Akira carried his crude sword outside. Though he hadn’t held such a weapon since Nanking, memories of a real sword’s weight and feel flooded into him. Before he could push the thought aside, an image of practicing swordplay with his father flashed before him. His father’s face was unlined and untroubled and slightly bemused by the growing strength of his son’s thrusts.

  Akira moved north along the beach, the sand leaving a temporary vestige of his passing. After a hundred or so paces, he turned toward the sea. Closing his eyes for a moment, he tried to bring the world into him, opening his mind to a kind of meditation—a process of purging and purifying thoughts, something that his father had taught him over many months. Akira heard, but didn’t see, a group of gulls far above. He smelled the salt, the decay, the scents that the wind bore to him from distant places. He felt the sun on his face and then on his back as he slowly turned from the sea to the island.

  Though Akira would have liked to set the makeshift sword down and to properly meditate, he felt that a violent man would be drawn to violent acts. His experience had certainly taught him as much. During his years of war, he’d watched men seek out carnage almost as if it were an element, like air or water, that had to be brought into them so that they could live. And so he viciously swung his sword in a series of classic and complex attacks, the bamboo pole humming in his hands as it parted the space before it.

  Though Akira hadn’t much liked to train with a katana, he’d known that doing so pleased his father, and he’d done it. And as the years had passed, he’d gotten quite good at it. He’d never been a brilliant pupil, for brilliance stems from joy, but he’d been fast and sure, and his father had often smiled at his feats.

  As soon as Akira noticed Roger walking in his direction, he pretended to be slightly less skilled than was true. He brought his feet too close together. His cuts and blocks were a quarter heartbeat too slow. He even dropped the pole once, quickly picking it up and continuing with his thrusts.

  Roger followed Akira’s footsteps. When the American was ten feet away, Akira lowered his weapon. “Fancy yourself a samurai?” Roger asked, smirking. Suddenly longing to throw Akira from a cliff in the same way that he’d killed Scarlet, Roger stepped closer. “The samurai are a lie,” he said. “Monkeys aren’t brave. They aren’t honorable.”

  “But samurai were both,” Akira replied, his stance seemingly relaxed.

  “You swing that stick like a girl trying to hit a bug.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “To learn how girls fight.”

  “I wish you would leave.”

  “Know what I wish, you goddamn Nip?” Roger asked, stepping closer, the need to bloody his adversary’s face suddenly dominating him. “I wish I could taste what you’re tasting.”

  “I am tasting nothing.”

  “How does the little bitch taste anyway? She looks so sweet. I’ll have to try her myself.”

  Hating Roger’s words and wanting to be free of them, Akira started to respond, and then pretended to abruptly stop himself. “Do you . . . do you hear that?” he asked, furrowing his brow, feigning bewilderment.

  “Hear what?”

  “Can you hear them?”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “So many!”

  “What the hell are you—”

  “Planes,” Akira answered quickly in Japanese.

  Roger’s eyes unconsciously darted upward. He saw a slice of blue and almost immediately realized that he’d been tricked. “Clever little monkey,” he replied, lunging for his adversary.

  Akira had been expecting such an attack and stepped backward, simultaneously swinging his pole with all his strength. Though Roger was quick, Akira was quicker. His weapon struck hard against Roger’s unprotected side, breaking a rib. Most men would have doubled over and fallen at such a blow, but Roger merely grunted and let his momentum carry him into Akira. His rage at being tricked and then struck overwhelmed him, and Roger smashed his open palms into the sides of Akira’s head. Having extended himself in his attack, Akira was temporarily defenseless. Both men toppled backward. Akira was beneath his assailant and gasped when the air was hammered from his lungs by the force of Roger’s knee.

  Akira struggled to breathe and fight, disbelieving Roger’s strength. He saw his adversary raise an open hand as he prepared to strike, but then Roger turned and realized that Joshua and Jake were running toward him. Still enraged, but not blinded by that rage, Roger rolled off Akira and began to run. Akira leapt from the sand and started after him. Though Akira knew that Roger moved like a deer, he’d been wounded, and even a deer can’t run well with an injured rib. And so Akira hurried after him, paying little heed to his throbbing head. Understanding that Roger had somehow betrayed the Americans and that Annie’s life was at risk, Akira ran as he never had. The sand and sea swept past him as if cars on a busy street. Soon Roger entered the jungle, and Akira rushed into the foliage, leaping over rocks and logs. Behind, Joshua and Jake struggled to keep up.

  Cursing, Roger held his side with his right arm and swept deeper into the jungle, following a trail he’d secretly marked two days before. Small piles of rocks led him forward and, rounding a corner and recognizing two dead trees that he’d leaned against each other, Roger reached a smooth boulder and leapt forward as far as possible, hitting the ground hard, rolling to minimize the impact.

  Akira hurried ahead, catching only glimpses of Roger, but following the sound of his ragged breaths. Roger’s tracks curved to the right, and suddenly his damp footprints disappeared. Somehow, despite his pain and fear and exhaustion, Akira realized that he was in danger. He tried to stop, his right foot sliding on firm ground and then going through the branches and leaves that Roger had placed above his trap. Feeling himself tilting toward and falling into the hole, Akira leapt off his left foot, propelling himself sideways. He managed to grab the trunk of a slender tree as the trap’s roof collapsed. The sapling bent and slowly broke, providing Akira the time to carefully drop into the pit. A spike scraped his calf, but he wasn’t impaled.

  Akira shouted at Joshua and Jake to stop. They appeared in a few seconds, both sweating profusely. When Joshua saw Akira at the bottom of the stake-lined pit, he fell to his knees, pounded the ground with his fist, and shouted Roger’s name. Knowing that Roger had escaped, and that he was surely the reason for Benevolence’s sinking, Joshua screamed again in rage. He cursed Roger so loudly that his words seemed to reverberate throughout the jungle.

  After kicking over the stakes, Akira climbed from the pit, reaching upward to take Jake’s hands. “Damn that man to hell,” Joshua muttered, dismayed that he’d let Roger escape.

  “He can speak Japanese,” Akira said, his head aching from Roger’s blows.

  Jake’s brow furrowed at these words. “But . . . I reckon that means—”

  “That he betrayed us,” Joshua said. “He told them about a secret cargo that Benevolence was carrying. And he sank our ship, God help him.”

  “If my countrymen land here, he will lead them to the cave,” Akira added, wiping blood from his calf. “And they will want to eliminate the survivors.”

  Joshua thought of Isabelle and their unborn child. A sudden fear of their getting hurt caused an intense sense of panic to surge within him. “We’ll have to move again,” he heard himself say. “But where to? He knows the island better than any of
us.”

  An unseen bird squawked in the distance. Jake shifted a spear from one hand to the other, musing over a plan that had occurred to him several days ago. “I expect this soil’s used up,” he said, his mind surprisingly clear. “As used up as an old mule.”

  “The soil?” Joshua asked. “What do you mean?”

  Jake dug the butt of his spear into the ground. “You see, Captain, on a farm it don’t pay to stay put. Instead, you move your crops around, so that you raise wheat, then corn, then barley on the same spot of ground. You plant a new crop each season. Every darn one. That way you ain’t letting crops make the same demands on soil year after year. That way you get a healthy crop.”

  “You’re saying . . . we should move? But where?”

  “Move islands, Captain. Surprise that snake and put everyone on the lifeboat and move islands.”

  “Roger could see us move. He’d just tell the Japanese.”

  “Not if we left at night,” Akira interjected.

  “But he’ll figure it out,” Joshua countered. “It just buys us time.”

  “Better to buy time, yes, than nothing at all?” Akira asked.

  Joshua tried to think, hating the feeling of helplessness that had suddenly swept into him. He worried about whether they could make a night passage of probably ten miles, knowing facts about boats and currents and patrols that neither Jake nor Akira understood. “Is there any chance of us catching up to him in the jungle?” he asked Akira.

  Though a part of him wanted to continue along Roger’s trail, Akira couldn’t fathom leaving Annie so unprotected. “If we do, we leave the cave, yes?”