by Homer Hickam
Shafty tripped over Marvin, who growled a low warning. “The inevitable Coast Guard mascot dog,” he marveled. “Does he bite?”
“If you provoke him enough, he’ll take off your leg.”
In the cockpit, Phimble would scarcely turn around to shake the officer’s hand. “Pleased to meet you” was the best he could do, but it was clear he wasn’t, particularly.
Josh frowned at the quantity of suitcases, duffel bags, and crates coming aboard. “How’d you collect all this stuff?”
“A gentleman needs a change of clothes or two, not to mention books to keep his mind alert,” Shafty replied with no apparent concern.
“Books are heavy,” Josh worried.
“Yes, they are, in more ways than one,” he replied. He selected a tome from one of the crates. “I happened to write this one.”
Josh glanced at the book, which he presumed was a dime novel. “What else is there about you I should know?”
“I suppose you should know that Armistead and I are both sons of ambassadors. His pater was assigned to France, mine to Great Britain. How about those apples?”
“Can you drive a PT boat?” Josh asked.
“With alacrity.”
“Then, assuming alacrity means what I think it means, that’s good enough. Otherwise, I don’t care whose son you are or what nooky novel you wrote.”
Deflated, the PT officer replied, “Righty-o.”
“I suppose I should know your actual name,” Josh relented.
Frowning, Shafty studied Josh’s face. “Am I to understand you really and truly don’t know who I am?”
“Why does everything have to be so difficult with you?” Josh demanded. “What the hell is your name?”
“Well, sport, I am Kennedy, the terror of the Solomons. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is the entire moniker, but my friends like to call me simply Jack.”
Josh pondered the frail-appearing, skinny, sallow, and thoroughly miserable-looking creature. “How about I just call you simply Shafty until I figure you deserve better?”
“Around here, I’m used to it.”
“Let’s get something straight, Shafty. Whatever you did back in the world and who the hell your daddy is don’t mean crap to me. You and me, we’ve got jobs to do. My job is to tell you what to do. Your job is to do it. Just don’t forget that and we’ll get along fine. Understand?”
“I understand,” Kennedy said. “And I will do my best.”
Josh gave Kennedy a penetrating stare. “I expect better than your best. Now, find yourself a spot and hang on. Mister Phimble ain’t quite learned how to fly.”
8
“Missus,” Colonel Burr said in his most solicitous voice, as he rose from behind his desk.
“Colonel,” Felicity answered, and took her usual chair while the colonel snapped his fingers. His clerk entered with a steaming pot of tea and dainty porcelain cups, all on a tray. Felicity smiled at the clerk as he tried to act the proper servant in his heavy boots and camouflage utilities. “Aw, shit,” he said, as he spilled the tea from her cup into a saucer. “You can drink it outa the saucer, ma’am,” he said. “Won’t hurt nothin’.”
“That will be quite all, Sergeant Stipich,” Burr said with an implied threat in his tone, and the man made a hasty exit.
Burr took his cup, pinky out, and raised it to Felicity. “Here’s to you, missus. A creditable day, is it not?”
“I daresay, Colonel,” Felicity answered, sipping the tea, which tasted terrible, entirely too sweet and thick. God only knew where the Yanks had gotten the awful stuff. Try as she might, her face screwed up a little.
“Not to your liking?” Burr asked, alarmed. “I’ll have the man who made it horsewhipped! Sergeant, tear off them stripes!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” came the resigned but stoic reply from the parlor.
“No, no. The tea is quite good,” Felicity lied. “If you are reading my face, I fear you are merely reading my general homesickness. Colonel, please help me and John return to our island home. It is within your power. All your men tell me that if there is any officer in the Solomon Islands who knows how to get a thing done, it’s Colonel Montague Burr.”
Burr was susceptible to flattery, and he took what Felicity had just told him as the absolute truth. “Of course I could arrange it, missus,” he answered in his grand style, “but it is not yet safe to go north. The Japanese, for all I know, occupy your island. I would not consider letting you and little John-Bull risk your lives until I’m absolutely certain you would be as safe as you are here on Melagi.”
Felicity lowered her eyes, and even batted them in what she hoped was a provocative manner. “If I do not return and make my copra, I will be ruined, Colonel. You must let me go.”
“Do you not like it here, missus? I have done everything I can to make certain you and the boy are comfortable. Do the men harass you? I notice them lining up to watch you each day.”
“No, they are all very kind and attentive.”
“Yes,” Burr said. “They respect and admire your person, missus, and, of course, little John-Bull.”
Felicity rested the cup and saucer gently on Burr’s great desk. “Colonel, for what purpose do you imprison me here?”
Burr allowed an expression of astonishment to cross his ugly mug. “Imprison? Why, missus, I desire only your safety and comfort!” He rose once more from his chair and crossed to stand beside her. His hand briefly touched her shoulder. “Tell me what I can do to make you happy. You know I would do anything. Anything at all.”
Felicity impulsively took Burr’s hand. “Colonel, the only thing that will make me happy is to be allowed to go home.”
Burr let her hold his hand for a long second, then withdrew it. “I can’t, Felicity,” he said. “I. . . I think I would be lost without seeing you each and every day.”
Felicity folded her hands in her lap. “Montague, you are a dear, dear man.”
Burr cleared his throat. “I have a jeep. If you’d like to go with me one afternoon, perhaps this very one, I would be pleased to take you on a picnic. There is quite a beautiful waterfall on the south side of the island, so I’m told.”
“Yes. Morissette Falls. I know it well. The owner of this plantation used to organize trips to it on horseback. I’ve been several times.”
“With your husband. I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel as if I am struggling with a ghost.”
Felicity smiled. “With many ghosts, Colonel. I see these islands as they once were, not as you see them now. Oh, what fun we had! Parties like you wouldn’t know, with good food and fine drink and dancing. But now, this war, this terrible war. Sometimes, I fear . . .”
“You needn’t fear anything as long as you are with me,” Burr simpered.
Felicity was resolute. “It isn’t pain or death I fear, my dear Montague. It is the fear that no matter what might happen, I shall never again stand in a room of my fellow mastahs and missuses, with our Malaitan servants standing nearby like ebony statues, and then hear once more our voices raised, proud and defiant.” Felicity could almost hear them singing, and their voices echoed, on and on. “Let me go home to Noa-Noa. Please, Montague.” Tears crept from the corners of her eyes and found their way down her cheeks.
Burr presented her a handkerchief, swiftly withdrawn from his hip pocket. “Dear God, but I can’t. If something happened to you, I would never forgive myself.” He turned abruptly when there was a knock on the door. “What the fu—What is it?”
“Sir, your scheduled company commander meeting,” the clerk said, his sleeves relieved of their stripes. “They’re waiting.”
Burr heaved a long sigh and returned to his desk. Felicity stood, dabbing at her eyes. “I should be going in any case,” she said, returning the handkerchief. “I am sorry to be such a bother.”
“My dear Felicity!” Burr cried. “A bother to me you will never be. Will you at least consider my offer for the picnic? It needn’t be the waterfall. Anywhere you like. A pretty beach, perhaps?”
; Felicity smiled, her eyes downcast. “You are such a dear man.”
Burr puffed up. “I would do anything for you, I swear, anything but let you go.”
“Would you be a planter? After the war, I mean? Do you see yourself in this life, this terrible yet remarkable life of the colonial planter of the South Seas?”
“My people have always been farmers. My grandparents even lived in a sod house on the Kansas prairie. But I would ask you to think of a different life. A woman such as yourself deserves to live in comfort, with the finest things available to her. A well-appointed house, an automobile, bridge on Thursdays with the other women of her station. I should like to see you away from this place. For your own good and, of course, for the good of little John-Bull.”
“Your kindness sometimes overwhelms me,” Felicity whispered.
“Tomorrow, then? I shall drive the jeep myself. Pick you up at eleven hundred hours sharp?”
“All right, Montague. All right.”
Felicity left Burr’s office, startling the young Raider officers assembled in the parlor. They leapt to their feet and tore off their helmets. “Gentlemen,” she said, acting very much the grand lady as she swept through the gaping assembly.
“Get your friggin’ asses in here!” she heard Burr bellow as she made her way outside and down the steps and thence along the path back to the beach. She had played the gentlewoman to the hilt but now was prepared to yell at Captain McQuaid, just for the sport of it.
But Captain McQuaid was nowhere to be found. Instead, she discovered three young men without shirts working on his boat. They were so muscular and handsome, they quite took her breath away. The men stopped what they were doing and watched her approach with equally appreciative eyes. One of them walked brazenly up to her, though he took off his tub cap and held it over his belly button as a sign of respect. He was a tall and rough-featured man, with a shaven head. By the alchemy of the feminine mind, she was immediately able to deduce he was American navy, and not a marine Raider. “Ma’am,” the sailor said by way of a greeting.
“So you’re working to get the old Minerva afloat, are you?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ve rented her for the week.”
“May I ask why?”
The man looked around at his fellows, who all looked away. “Well, you see, ma’am. . . we heard there were islands out there that had maybe . . . other people on them, like.”
“Other people? Women, you mean?”
“Well, yes, ma’am. It’s been a powerfully long time since we seed one, you know, not counting yourself. Only you’re much too high-flown for the likes of us. Nothing meant by that, ma’am, as you can imagine. Cap’n McQuaid, he said he knows where a bevy of what he calls Maries be. We don’t mean them Maries no harm, of course. We just want to look at ‘em, that’s all, talk to ’em maybe some. We ain’t bad, ma’am. Honest we ain’t. Just lonely, like all the men out here.”
Felicity touched the man on his arm. “I don’t believe you’re bad,” she said while feeling a bit light-headed at the firmness of his muscles. “Nor any of you boys. But let me tell you the truth. Captain McQuaid may know where some ugly old pickaninnies might be, but for comely maidens, there is but one place, an island to the north. Its name is Noa-Noa. Perhaps you have heard of it?”
The sailor took on a worried aspect. “Ma’am, would you tell us how to find this island?”
“I will do better than that. Noa-Noa happens to be my home. If you are willing, I will let you take me there, and you may stay as long as you like. I’m certain the pretty Maries of Noa-Noa will be more than pleased to entertain you.”
The sailor gave her proposal some thought. “How long would it take to get there, ma’am? We’re shipping out next week.”
“Oh, it’s only a day sail. If we get an early start, you can spend three or four days courting Noa-Noa Maries before you have to get back.”
The sailor looked around at the other two men, both of whom looked back with faces creased by eager grins. He smacked his fist into his hand. “We’ll take the chance. Hell, we’ve missed the boat before. They just yell at us for a while, then put us aboard another one. Noa-Noa. Yes, ma’am. I reckon we’d be glad to take you there.”
9
When the boys completed stowing the lieutenant’s things, Josh told them to listen up. “This here’s Mister Kennedy. He’s going to be with us for a while. He gives you an order, it’s like it’s from me. Any questions?”
Once raised his hand. “How do I get out of this chicken-shit outfit?”
Josh glared at him. “You can get out right now if you don’t mind swimming back to Melagi.”
Once hung his head. “I was just funning, sir.”
Josh was clearly in no mood for fun. “Each one of you boys come up here and introduce yourself,” he demanded.
The boys did as they were told except for Marvin, who was using one of his hind feet to scratch at a flea behind his ear, and Dave, who was still fast asleep. Pogo studied the PT officer for a long second. “Kennedy fella sick too much,” he said to himself, then touched his lucky shark tooth and went to sit with Marvin, where he plucked the offending flea from the dog’s ear, snapped it between his long fingernails, and ate it.
After the other boys had finished their introductions, Millie lingered for a word with Kennedy. “What else do you have besides jaundice, sir? I’m the medic of the outfit.”
“My back might have gotten a bit sprung when my boat was sunk,” Kennedy said in a low voice. “And my feet and legs are scratched from dragging them across a coral reef.”
“Anything else?”
Kennedy touched his stomach. “Low-grade fever much of the time. My bowels need a bit of work. I was hoping to get them some attention until your Commander Thurlow came along.”
Millie beckoned Kennedy aft, so as to get away from the other boys. “Peel off your uniform and let me take a look at those coral scrapes . . . Uh-huh . . . They got you good, didn’t they? . . . But they seem to be healing, though they’ll certainly leave scars . . . Are they itchy? I’ve got some salve here that might help some . . . Let me know if any of these scratches start to smell funny or you get some red lines that sort of streak out from them. OK, Lieutenant, you can get dressed. What exactly is wrong with your bowels?”
Kennedy tucked in his shirt. “Sometimes they’re too loose, and sometimes I’m plugged up like I’ve, uh, got sand packed in there.”
“Which way are they now?”
“Sand.”
“When I had trouble like that, my mama used to give me a good dose of cod liver oil.”
Kennedy shook his big head. “I’ve taken cod liver oil until I nearly looked like a fish. I’ve tried every remedy known to mankind. You see, I’ve had this problem all my life.”
Millie gave the lieutenant’s bowels some thought. “Doc Folsom—he was the doc on Killakeet Island, where most of us is from—used to say the bowels and the brain are connected closer than any two other organs. Maybe, beg your pardon, sir, it’s your brain that needs some work.”
A sad smile slid across Kennedy’s tired face. “My brain’s about all I’ve ever been able to depend on, Millie.”
Now that the lieutenant had his pants back on and his shirt buttoned up, Ready came over for a word, sending Millie away with a jerk of his chin. “You ever rode in a Catalina, Mister Kennedy?”
“No,” Kennedy replied, then leaned in. “Is that Negro really our pilot?”
“Negro? If you mean Ensign Phimble, yes, he’s our pilot all right, and I reckon he can fly this plane as good as you can skipper a torpedo boat. As a matter of fact, reckon he can do anything as good or better’n you . . . sir.”
“No offense meant,” Kennedy said.
“No offense taken,” Ready answered, although it was clear there was.
Phimble pushed Dosie up on her step, drove her to altitude, then called the lookouts to stay awake. “We might not be alone up here, fellas,” he told them.
Blanche Ch
annel between Rendova and New Georgia was indeed a dangerous stretch of water. A Japanese fighter plane could lift off from its base on the big round island of Kolombangara and be over the channel in minutes, diving out of the sun or popping out of puffy white clouds. And it wasn’t only Jap that was the problem. American ships spying an aircraft silhouetted against the sky would often shoot first and ask questions later. One screaming chunk of lead or steel, no matter where it came from, could kill you just as dead as any other.
Sure enough, as New Georgia coalesced out of the afternoon steam, Phimble caught sight of a cluster of American landing craft in the process of carrying troops and supplies toward a long, narrow beach. If he could see them, he knew, they could see him, and their crews were most likely racing to their guns. Phimble jinked away only to discover he’d turned toward a pair of destroyers racing in to protect the landing party. He saw the telltale red blinks of antiaircraft fire lighting up their turrets followed by a streak of tracers flashing past the cockpit. Phimble threw the Catalina into a hard turn and, though she shook and complained, Dosie came about and left the destroyers shaking their fists behind.
“If you’re finished playing around, how about taking me to see Whitman?” Josh demanded.
“You’re welcome, Skipper. What a wonderful commander you are, indeed, for recognizing that I was doing my best to keep us from being shot down by our own ships.”
“Just fly,” Josh grumped.
“Fly it is,” Phimble replied, just as grumpily, then turned the Dosie to line up parallel to the coast.
The Truax plantation lay between Mbanga and Lambete, two tiny settlements difficult to spot from the air since they were hidden by the overhanging bush. Phimble was focused on finding the cove he’d been told was a good landing site, and Josh was back to thinking about Armistead, when a shout startled them both. It was Again in the forward turret, and he was yelling, “Bandits at two o’clock high! They’re Rufes!”
Again was right on the money. A Rufe was actually a modified Zero fighter plane with a long pontoon attached at its centerline and two smaller pontoons on its wingtips. They were a bit slower than the superb little land-based fighters but just as well armed. There were four of them, and they were coming in from the northeast, likely from Kolombangara.
