A Boy at War

by Harry Mazer

  Davi gestured at Martin. “I had to wake him up. He sleeps like a pig.”

  “Like a pig god,” Adam said, to say something.

  Martin belched. He took the poles and lashed them to the crossbar on Adam’s bike.

  Say it, Adam told himself. But the poles were tied to the bike, and all the things he’d thought to say sounded like lies and excuses, which they were. It would be stupid to say anything now. Davi wouldn’t understand. And Martin—Adam didn’t even want to think what Martin would say.

  They rode out on Kamehameha Highway, going west, toward Pearl Harbor. Adam watched Martin’s broad back, the bike going from one side to the other, as if he owned the road. “We’re fishing in Pearl?” Adam said. Davi looked back and nodded. They were pedaling all over the road. It dipped and rose. There was almost no traffic. Only once, going up a rise, a taxi loaded with sailors came shooting down at them, and they had to scramble to get out of the way.

  “Close call,” Davi said.

  “They almost got us that time,” Adam said.

  “Short fishing trip,” Martin said. They were all laughing. “Haole boy,” Martin said, “you going catch a big fish?”

  “Hope so,” Adam said. He rode alongside Martin.

  “You ever eat Hawaiian fish? The best. You eat mahi mahi, you know you ate fish, man. You wrap that fish in taro leaf, then put it in hot coals.” Martin licked his lips.

  “You ever eat brook trout?” Adam said. “You catch them in ice-cold water, then you fry them over an open fire.” His father and he had done that in the mountains in Tennessee last summer.

  “Best fish come from the ocean,” Martin said, and he reeled off the names of fish Adam had never heard of. “Aholehole, bigeye akule, uhu, ahi. Use ahi head to catch crab. You watch me,” he said. “Fish jump out of the water for Hawaiians.” He arced his hand into the air. “Whiiish! Whiiish! We just put out our hands and they jump in. Ask Davi!”

  “It’s true, man,” Davi said.

  They were almost all the way to Aiea when they stopped near a grove of eucalyptus trees. They followed a track along the edge of a field, then walked their bikes down the hill toward the harbor. Spread out before them were the white oil-storage tanks and the red-roofed buildings of the naval station, the destroyers and cruisers bunched together, and the dark bulk of Ford Island.

  They stashed the bikes in a bamboo thicket and walked along a wire fence. Just beyond a sign saying MILITARY PERSONNEL ONLY Davi slid under the fence where the ground was worn smooth, and Martin went after him. It crossed Adam’s mind that they could get caught. What you do reflects on your family. But he just couldn’t make himself believe that his going fishing could ruin his father’s career. Anyway, his father was never going to know.

  “You coming, haole boy?” Martin said, and Adam slid under. It was as easy as that.

  They scrambled down to the water’s edge, sending stones tumbling. Shorebirds flew up, and ripples fanned out across the water. Pearl Harbor was like glass, calm and quiet. Shadows lay along the shore. The sun was still below the mountains.

  Martin went poking along the shore, while Davi and Adam stood on a rock, looking out across the water. Everything seemed closer down here—the wharves and docks, the dry docks, where ships were repaired, the cranes and hooks and overhead slings. The battleships moored along Ford Island seemed close enough to touch.

  “It’s like a pearl,” Davi said.

  “What—the harbor?”

  “The light.”

  Adam nodded, and they just stood there for a while, looking at everything.

  “What you doing?” Martin called. “Come here.” He had a cigarette in hand, and he was squatting over a little pile of rocks. “We ask stonefish god to help us out. Ku’ula,” he said, “bring us lotta fish.” He blew smoke over the rocks. “Okay. Now the fish are going come to us.”

  Davi took the cigarette from Martin, puffed a couple of times, and blew smoke over the stonefish god. He handed the cigarette to Adam, who did the same.

  “My dad give that to me,” Martin said. “He said, ‘Here, son, have a good smoke.’”

  “Some story,” Davi said.

  Martin was looking at the battleships lined up along Ford Island. “Look at those big buggas. Which one’s your father’s?”

  Adam pointed. “The one closest to us is the Nevada and just fore of that is the Arizona. That’s my father’s ship.”

  “Look at all those guns. How many?”

  “Twelve fourteen-inch guns.”

  Martin whistled.

  “Those big battleships, they’re bigger than two football fields put together. Each one has a displacement of more than thirty thousand pounds. They carry a thousand sailors.”

  Adam couldn’t stop. He loved those ships. They were so powerful and so graceful, floating fortresses, the most powerful warships in the world. “They’ve got fourteen-inch armor plate. Bullets bounce off them, even bombs can’t get through. They have so much firepower, nothing and nobody can touch them. Those big guns you see, those long rifles, they can shoot a fifteen-hundred-pound shell twenty miles and hit the target.”

  “Like that.” Martin flipped the cigarette as far as he could into the water.

  They spread out along the shore, turning over rocks and wading in the water, looking for bait: worms, crayfish, little minnows, anything to dangle on the end of a line. Martin cupped his hands in the water, then stood up. He’d caught three minnows, which they put in a can. “You see, haole, Ku’ula provides.”

  “Martin, Adam,” Davi called. “Look at this.” He was down along the shore and had found a rowboat half hidden in some bushes. The oars were neatly placed together under the seat. “It must have drifted here,” he said.

  “What a find,” Adam said. They had planned to fish from shore but the boat was too good to resist.

  “Ku’ula provides,” Martin said again.

  They stowed the poles under the seat. Davi placed each oar into its oarlock. Adam sat down next to him, and Martin pushed them off.

  Davi and Adam rowed together. The sun came up, and a breeze rippled across the harbor. Martin dropped his line in the water. He complained that they were rowing so fast, he couldn’t keep his line down.

  They stopped rowing, and for a moment they just sat there. The battleships were plainly in sight. Adam focused on the Arizona, his father’s ship. Signal flags fluttered. It was almost time for reveille.

  The rowboat bobbed in the water. All at once bugle calls sounded from every direction, and the bands on the ships started playing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Adam thought about his father on the fantail, standing at attention, saluting the flag, and then looking out in their direction, seeing the rowboat and the boys in it . . . and recognizing him.

  He hunched over. “You know, Davi, we better move.”

  Just then he became aware of the whine of planes in the air. He looked up. High overhead, dozens of planes flew in formation, approaching from every direction. Some planes were coming in low over the water. It must be some kind of military exercise, Adam thought. A war game.

  A plane flew across the water, straight at them. It roared over, so low Adam could see the silver belly and the wheels hanging down. So low the prop wash shook the boat.

  “What the hell?” Davi said.

  The plane was past them, climbing sharply.

  “Navy cowboy,” Martin said.

  “Uh uh. It wasn’t navy,” Adam said. The markings were all wrong. Instead of bars and stripes he’d seen red circles, like on a Japanese plane. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he’d seen something drop into the water. It looked like the pictures he’d seen of torpedoes.

  “Maybe they’re making a movie,” Adam said. And then, as if he’d ordered it, there was an explosion and a thick cloud of smoke erupted over Ford Island.

  “Sound effects,” Martin said.

  A moment later a blast of hot air battered them. There was another explosion. And another. “That sounds so real,
” Adam said. He had to shout to make himself heard over the noise.

  “Maybe somebody made a mistake,” Davi said.

  “Big jerk,” Martin said.

  “Big trouble,” Adam said.

  They were all standing in the boat, laughing. Martin pointed at the planes, “shooting” at them with his finger.

  Planes, bombs, explosions. It was almost real, Adam thought, the way a newsreel is real. You knew it was a movie you were watching, not the actual war, but while you were sitting there, watching, it felt real. All that was missing now was the announcer with the god-like big voice. Those are enemy planes, ladies and gentlemen, and you are sitting in the front row. A ringside seat.

  Bombs came tumbling out of the planes like black sticks. Flames and smoke rose from the battleships. Flags were on fire.

  “It’s real,” Adam said, half to himself. Those planes, shooting across the water, the wheels hanging down, the open cockpits, the red circles. All those red circles. Were the planes Vals? Japanese torpedo bombers? Or were they American planes marked like Japanese planes?

  “Look at them!” Davi was standing on the seat, waving his arms, cheering as if he were at a ball game.

  “Those are Japanese,” Adam said. He didn’t even know if it was true or if he was in some crazy weird dream. He couldn’t stop thinking that it was just like the movies. But there was something very wrong with the thought because this wasn’t the movies. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t make-believe. Those were real Japanese bombers, dropping real bombs.

  Why was Davi cheering? What was he doing? Signaling them? Yes, signaling them! He was Japanese. Japanese first! Who had said to come to Pearl Harbor to “fish”? Who had “found” the boat? Who had gotten them out here? “Dirty Jap!” Adam dragged Davi down. He wanted to get him. Kill him. Drown him.

  Martin grabbed Adam. “You crazy!” They were all tangled together, rolling around in the bottom of the boat. Martin forced Adam back on the seat. “Stupid,” he said. “Crazy man! We got to get out of here.”

  Davi squatted in the stern, panting, rubbing his arms and staring at Adam. Martin thrust an oar in Adam’s hand and took the other oar. “Row, or I’ll bust your face.”

  They rowed hard, away from the battleships and the bombs. Water sprayed over them. The rowboat pitched one way and then the other. Then, before his eyes, the Arizona lifted up out of the water. That enormous battleship bounced up in the air like a rubber ball and split apart. Fire burst out of the ship. A geyser of water shot into the air and came crashing down. Adam was almost thrown out of the rowboat. He clung to the seat as it swung around. He saw blue skies and the glittering city. The boat swung back again, and he saw black clouds, and the Arizona, his father’s ship, sinking beneath the water.

  Everything happened at once. The plane . . . bullets darting across the water . . . screams . . . the boat shooting up into the sky.

  Adam hung in the air. He saw the red circle on the fuselage, he saw the gunner in his black helmet, and below him he saw the empty rowboat. Then he was in the water, down under the water. Water in his nose and in his throat. He came up next to the boat—it was almost on top of him. He clung to the side, choking and spitting.

  The boat rode up and down with the waves, and he hung there, staring at the ragged row of holes along one side. They were so regular they could have been made by a sewing machine needle.

  Something awful had happened. The sky was black where the Arizona had been. “My god, my god, oh, my god.” He clung to the side of the boat thinking, It’s Sunday morning, and we were fishing.

  Suddenly there was silence. He could hear the wind. The planes had cleared from the sky. Our side is coming, he thought, and he pulled himself half out of the water and looked around for Martin and Davi. He was afraid. He wanted to see them, and when he didn’t, he didn’t let himself think what he was thinking—that they were dead.

  “Davi,” he called. “Martin! Davi!” His stomach clenched. “Martin . . . Davi . . .”

  He got in the boat. His back was burning, and when he touched it, there was blood on his hand. Had he been shot? He didn’t know. Maybe a bullet had grazed him.

  “Davi!” he shouted. “Martin!” He stood up. In the distance he saw something bobbing up and down in the water, maybe a piece of driftwood. Then an arm came out of the water and he saw Davi and, beside him, Martin.

  There was only one oar in the boat. Adam used it like a canoe paddle, swinging it from one side to the other. “I’m coming,” he yelled, but it was slow going. The boat kept swinging the wrong way, fighting him, bucking him like a mule.

  He cursed and yelled. It was so hard to keep the boat on course. It was taking so long to get to Martin and Davi. He kept looking up, afraid the planes would come back. The sky was obscured by black smoke, but at moments it cleared and he saw the green sugarcane fields in the distance and beyond them the quiet mountains. It was unreal. It was all unreal: the battleships half sunk, the bullet holes in the boat, Davi and Martin in the water.

  When he reached them—they were clinging to the other oar—he saw that something was wrong with Martin. Davi got right in the boat, but Martin wouldn’t. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do anything. He was afraid to move. A splinter the size of a pencil was sticking out of his chest. It moved every time he breathed. It made Adam sick to look at it. “Take it out,” he said.

  “I can’t. It’s sticking out my back.”

  “No, it isn’t,” Davi said. “I told you it wasn’t. I looked.”

  “I can’t,” Martin said. “Leave me alone.”

  Adam exchanged a glance with Davi. “You row,” Davi said, “I’ll hold him.” He leaned over and grabbed Martin’s shirt.

  It was hard rowing with Martin like a dead weight in the water. Adam rowed, staring blindly at the battleships in front of him, like a city on fire.

  At the opposite shore Adam slid the boat in among the pilings, then just sat there. He was exhausted.

  It took him and Davi both to get Martin up the ladder to the pier. Martin was pale, as if all the blood had drained out of him. Davi went up first, reaching down to hold Martin. Adam supported him from behind. That was the way they went up, one rung at a time. When they reached the pier, Martin sank down beside a pile of gravel. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes scared Adam. He patted Martin’s shoulder. He didn’t know what to say.

  The pier was a twisted, chaotic mess. It was like an anthill that had been kicked open. Sheds and ships were torn apart. Men were running every which way, dragging water hoses, crouched behind gun emplacements. A black sedan was weaving its way down the pier, detouring around holes and hunks of concrete and torn metal and dangling wires.

  “See that car?” Adam said to Davi. “Maybe they’ll take Martin to a doctor.”

  Davi grunted. He was barely speaking to Adam. Adam wanted to tell Davi that he was sorry he’d grabbed him in the boat. He couldn’t explain it. It was just something that happened, something stupid like hitting himself in the head with a brick. It was as if an evil spirit had grabbed him, taken him over. It had to do with his father and the Arizona and being scared to death.

  He was going to apologize to Davi, but not now. The important thing now was to get help for Martin. Davi was talking to a sailor who was standing nearby with a pistol in his hand. Suddenly he hit Davi with the gun and knocked him down. “Jap!” he yelled. “I’ve got a Jap!”

  Adam ran, yelling at the sailor, “Stop, don’t! Stop it.” He hardly knew what he yelled. “We’re Americans, Americans.”

  Men came running and pulled the sailor away. Adam helped Davi up. He was shaking, and there was blood on his face. The black car had stopped near them. “Put him in,” the driver said. “I’m taking wounded.” She was wearing a Red Cross uniform.

  Davi got into the car and Adam ran back for Martin. When the car was full, Adam jumped on the running board and hooked his arm around the center post. He put his head in the car. Martin and Davi were squeezed together in the backseat n
ext to a couple of wounded men. “Here we go,” Adam said, as the car started to move. “It’s going to be okay.” He wanted to reassure them and himself, too, that their luck was changing—his father was going to be okay, too. But the sight of the wounded men and Martin gasping for breath and Davi with his bruised face made him shut up.

  The car turned when an explosion shook the pier and spun out of control. It swung one way and then the other. Adam was thrown off. The car was heading straight into the harbor, but at the last minute it righted itself and kept going.

  For the first time Adam was alone, and fear came. He’d been going and going—one thing and then another and then another. No time to think, no time to be scared. Now Davi’s bloodied face was in front of him . . . and Martin holding his chest . . . and himself in the water . . . and the Arizona, crumpled like a piece of paper.

  He was tired. He was beyond tired. He was exhausted. He wanted to go home, to be in his own bed with a blanket over his head and not have to think or remember. It was all too strange, too awful.

  He climbed down the ladder, back to the rowboat, thinking he’d row back to where they’d left the bikes and go home. But when he got in the rowboat, he couldn’t do anything.

  He sat, head down, arms wrapped around his knees. Water slapped against the pilings. The boat rocked, and Adam rocked with it. Maybe he slept. A chill wind woke him. He smelled smoke and heard muffled explosions.

  He opened and closed his hands. He blinked his eyes and turned his neck. Everything worked. Reaching around, he touched the edge of the wound. It was raw and it stung. He couldn’t believe he’d been shot. Soldiers were shot. Not kids. He looked down and counted his bare toes. Suzi, Doozi . . .

  A small brown bird flitting among the pilings caught his attention. It was carrying bits of straw to a hole in one of the timbers. Maybe the bird had a nest there. Davi would know. He’d ask him when he got back.

  “Sailor!”