by Brian Payton
Raindrops ooze down the glass, distorting the trees and house beyond. Twenty-five years of age and she’s terrified her happiest days are behind her. John is fond of saying that words are of little consequence, as cheap as yesterday’s news. And this from a writer. Action, he says, is the only language fit for love.
Beside their bed she prays to God, to quell her anger. She prays to the Blessed Virgin, to overcome her despair. She prays to St. Anthony, patron of lost or missing things. She jolts with the telephone’s ring.
Tom Sorenson apologizes in advance. He says he hasn’t found much, other than having confirmed that John was quietly seeking assignments to cover the war in Alaska. Whether or not he made it, no one seems to know. Were he a betting man, he says he’d lay money on John having made it to “the action”—Dutch Harbor or even Adak. He double-checked with editors here in Seattle, plus Los Angeles and New York and no one’s heard from him. He adds that the government has evacuated the native people from across the Aleutian Chain, all but those held by the enemy on the island of Attu. Americans held prisoner on American soil. A story we all need to know. His voice seems tired, weighed down. Perhaps with the realization that John’s trail has gone cold, or the thought that he should be there too. In his pause, Helen feels him search for encouraging words.
“I believe we’ll all be reading John’s stories soon enough,” he says. “On page one, above the fold.”
She hangs up the phone and marches into the dining room, which has been given over to research. Helen had brought out the table leaves for more usable space. The clippings of the few reports now coming out of Alaska—little more than official Navy bulletins—are laid out chronologically. She picks up the big atlas and lets it fall open to the spread featuring the territory. Graphite smudges mark the page that drew John’s repeated attention. She imagines his touch, envisions the squareness of his palms, the scar across the knuckles of his right hand.
Studying the map of this obscure colony, she thinks how much it resembles an elephant in profile. Alaska sticks its head out into polar seas, complete with a tusk reaching west toward Siberia. More apropos, the tusk of a woolly mammoth. She wonders how much land the Japanese now control and just where on this tusk John might be.
The Aleutian Archipelago: fourteen large and fifty-five small volcanic islands, strung over more than a thousand miles. Somewhere there, he’s alive. On good days, her faith overshadows doubt. And what is faith but belief independent of proof, a conviction that stands on its own. To this, she knows John would roll his eyes. The thought makes her smile.
Had John been a soldier, inquiries could be made to find out where his unit was stationed. She could simply write to him! And she knows he would contact her if he could. Yet there is only silence.
Helen does not know how she is going to find him. She knows only that she must go there to do it.
FOLLOWING LAST NIGHT’S steady rain, the sun’s touch is reassuring. Helen wears a floral print dress, lilac and white, an old favorite of John’s. It distinguishes her from the gray uniform of that dwindling class of men who somehow manage to stay.
Maxine’s Women’s Wear sprawls across two large floors in the heart of the city between Sable’s Books and Rexall Drugs. Helen’s supervisor, Penny, is at the counter, filling out orders for summer stock. She is in the habit of doing this well in advance to gain some measure of security against worsening shortages and delays.
Penny lost her husband in the Solomon Islands. She has no children to soothe her grief or brighten her future. She compensates by being overly diligent in her duties and expecting everyone else to keep up. For this, Helen forgives her.
“Early bird,” Penny says as Helen enters the store. Penny looks up with large, brown eyes shadowed by lack of sleep.
“Morning. I wanted to come in a bit early to let you know that, well, I have to leave.”
“What do you mean? You just got here.”
“I . . . It’s John. I . . .” Helen has prepared a speech, making allowances for how her decision might affect Penny, who received the news of her husband’s death the day he was buried at sea.
“I’m not sure where I’m going yet, but I have to go,” Helen says, afraid she sounds like she’s coming unhinged. “I have to try and find him.”
Penny studies the counter between them.
“I’ll be available for a week or so while I figure this out. I hope it’s enough time to find another girl.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Penny feigns interest in the order form. “I’ll have a check ready for you Friday. You can stop by and pick it up or I can mail it, if you prefer.”
“I won’t leave you in a lurch.”
“Having someone around who’s already decided to leave is bad for morale. Just take the day off and come back for your check on Friday.”
“Don’t be like this, Penny. Please. At least wish me luck.”
“Helen, he’ll be okay. He’s a reporter—not a soldier.”
Helen holds her ground and stares back until Penny is forced to look up. “I’ll miss you.” This is not what she intended, adding to the burden.
Helen walks around the counter, throws her arms around her boss, hugs her till she relents.
“Put out the sandwich board,” Penny says. “I’m going to work you like a dog for the rest of the week.”
Helen turns and walks past racks of clothes, whose inventory she knows by heart, past mannequins with which she is on all too familiar terms. The bells jingle as she steps through the door with the sidewalk sign, into the morning light. She opens it, makes a small adjustment, steps back to judge the effect.
Helen glances up as a slight young man rounds the corner, fists pumping as he gathers speed. He dodges people and telephone poles as he closes the distance between them. His head is bare, jacket open and swinging behind him. He glances from side to side, searching. And then she recognizes the fifteen-year-old kid who lives next door to her childhood home. What is he running from, or to? He catches her eye, then picks up the pace in her direction.
“Jimmy?”
“Your dad . . .” He pants out the news. “Something’s wrong. He showed up at our place. Couldn’t talk. And his arm. He can’t lift it. Mom and Dad took him to the hospital.”
He grabs her hand. “Let’s go.”
She steps out of her shoes, gathers them up, breaks into a run.
THREE
THROUGHOUT THE BOMBARDMENT, EASLEY OBSERVES the birds. From inside the cave, he can see only the far side of the ravine and the low gray sky. He watches gulls and terns wheel through the gusts above and pick through the rocks below. The sounds of the Americans hammering the island are distant but menacing. There is the hornet’s buzz of planes overhead, the crackle of Japanese antiaircraft fire, the occasional thump, thump of ordnance scarring the land. The birds, however, seem oblivious to it all. Throughout one particularly thunderous drop, Easley watches a gull stand poised on a single foot as it preens the underside of its wing.
The boy’s beard is growing in feeble patches. Rather than make him appear older, it only calls attention to his youth. It sprouts in sandy wisps, a shade or two darker than the hair on his head. There are gaps between sideburns, mustache, the crop on his chin. Easley wonders for the first time how he himself must appear. He hasn’t seen his own reflection for going on a week.
They do not speak during the bombing runs but sit silently on seats fashioned from flat rocks and cushions of sedge. It’s not wholly uncomfortable. They have made progress in fortifying the cave. The parachutes have been transformed into hammocks. Anchor lines have been tied to large boulders and the silk hangs a foot or two above the wet stones, the extra material folded in to trap body heat. Each night they take rocks from the fire and place them underneath their hammocks to enhance the perception of warmth.
The fire pit itself is a point of pride. They have built a windbreak to corral the heat and redirect it back inside the cave. The wall is sturdy, curved, and—given the circ
umstances—would win the respect of a journeyman mason. Its upper lip is used for roasting shellfish, boots, and socks.
A third cluster of explosions can be heard in the distance. This drop has a note of finality. The low cloud reflects, amplifies the sound. Easley and the boy look up at each other, then glance back at the birds—among which there is not even the slightest hint of distress.
They have taken a keen interest in birds. The first one they killed was an exhausted cormorant holding its wings outstretched to dry. The meat was greasy and tasted of the sea, but was a grand improvement over mussels. That night their faces glistened with fat in the firelight. And today, before the bombing run, they were supremely fortunate to kill a ptarmigan. The grouselike bird was caught between its winter and summer plumage with a brown head and back, legs and tail still white. Killing it required little skill. The bird took no evasive maneuvers, it simply froze and hoped the men had not seen it. The boy wound up and pitched a stone at close range, a remarkable shot to the head. Easley retrieved the bird, held it aloft like a prize as the boy jumped up and down until he tipped over in the grass, kicking his feet in the air like a fool. Easley stared into its still shiny eyes. He kissed it square on the beak.
Visibility is too poor to risk signaling planes again. Three previous attempts have been made, with parachutes quickly hauled out and spread upon the grass. All to no avail. The risk of drawing attention from a Japanese foot patrol seems to outweigh the faint hope of being spotted through the clouds. They await more favorable conditions to signal for help, aware that help may never come.
Now that the war seems over for the day, the boy picks up the ptarmigan and begins to pluck. He drops the feathers into the fire pit. Easley looks up at their supply of wood; a few sticks of dry driftwood piled near the boy’s knee and a larger quantity of half-dry wood carefully stacked up in the cave. Wood is getting harder to find, and they have become even more precious with its use. Easley decides to check and see if anything new has washed ashore. He grabs his parachute pack and slips it over his shoulders. “I’m going for smokes and booze.”
“Don’t forget the pie.”
Above the cave, Easley can see for miles along the shore. He scans the clouds for aircraft and the horizon for ships, as is his habit, then quickly spins around—he has forgotten to check behind him.
The warmer air of the past few days has pushed the snow line well up into the foothills. While clouds obscure the peaks, he can catch glimpses of the slopes. Then the floaters come back into focus—drifting dust, lint, and gnats. He rubs his eyes, looks again. This time he sees a long black speck against the snow. Easley stares until he sees it move. This is no trick of the eye.
With his face now flat on the grass, Easley waits several minutes before lifting his head again. Like an amoeba under a microscope, the black speck slowly splits in two, moves in tandem across the white. Easley shields his eyes. He quickly rules out bears, goats, or any sizable four-legged beast because none exist on this island—other than tiny arctic fox. These are men, marching single file, several times more than any possible survivors of a flying boat crew. Easley watches the Japanese inch their way up the slope, then disappear into the cloud.
THE BOY CONSIDERS THIS NEWS like a riddle. He sets the bird aside and stares into the stones. Finally, he says, “And you didn’t come get me?”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Maybe I have better eyes than you.”
“Look. I hit the deck. I was trying to be inconspicuous. I didn’t want to give away our position.”
The boy sits back and folds his arms across his chest. “What if they were our guys? Maybe they’ve been hidin’ out like us and were makin’ their way ’cross the island.”
“To?”
“To what?”
“That’s my point. To do what? To find what? To eat what? If they’re alive, they know as well as we do that the Japs are just over there. They wouldn’t be traipsing through the snow, exposing themselves in the middle of the day unless they’ve lost their minds.”
The boy’s face turns pink. “Those guys’re my pals. You don’t know them . . . If there’re people wandrin’ around out there, I’ll decide whether they’re Jap or not. I hold rank.”
“Rank. What horseshit . . . They were Japs and I just hope to God they didn’t see us earlier on, jumping around like fools.”
The boy looks up at Easley with resolve, unwilling to break his gaze. Finally he gets up and stomps out of the cave.
Easley steps out into the ravine, watches the boy crawl up onto the grass, then lie still on his stomach. Easley follows. Together, they scan the empty hills and mountains. Although the enemy cannot be seen, they are surely there, just beyond the ridge.
“When you’re flyin’ near the mainland, you tell yourself it’s not really so bad, ’cause you could always find someplace to put down if things got too outta hand,” the boy explains. “Over the South Pacific? Guys get shot down there they can stay in the water for hours, sometimes a day or two and still hope someone’ll come by and save ’em. Out here? There’s no hope once you’re in the sea. It’s a matter of minutes. Your plane goes down here, you’re finished.”
Perhaps a few minutes longer in the English Channel, Easley thinks.
Forty-seven degrees. That was the water temperature recorded off Plymouth the day his brother’s plane went down. Surrounding Attu today, the water is more than ten degrees colder. Did Warren survive his crash? Get free of the plane and tread water? Easley has studied, imagined, obsessed, and grieved over these thoughts for some months now. But unless he explains that a part of himself, his own flesh and blood, has already met such a fate, how could the boy possibly know?
“Well,” Easley says, “seems you beat the odds. Let’s hope you haven’t played your last lucky card.”
The boy looks over with a blank expression, then backs up like a badger over the side of the ravine.
Easley rolls over and looks at the lowering clouds, conjuring visions of his previous life—a life that seems increasingly remote. He lies on the grass until a whiff of smoke reaches him from below. He feels a surge of panic and turns around to see. The fog is descending again and the wind is blowing down from the hills, the fire won’t give away their position.
Then, an impatient baritone. “Git down here and gimme a hand or I’ll eat the whole goddamned thing myself!”
* * *
TWO DAYS LATER, Easley is half a mile down the beach when it happens again. This time, there is no shadow of doubt. He has his trousers down around his ankles, squatting at the edge of the grass. He’s gotten past feeling ridiculous, even though the plovers observe him with sideways glances as they dutifully march along like businessmen late for a meeting. The cold air blowing between his legs reminds him just how vulnerable and unprepared he is to survive in their world.
The sound of a plane is upon him almost as soon as he’s in position. The moment before he had actually felt pleased with himself, pleased that he had found driftwood, that they have eluded capture another day, that he is at long last able to clear his troubled system. He cranes his neck around to see. When this proves insufficient, he hops around in a squatting position and searches the sky. And there, just past the volcano, he can see a floatplane heading more or less in his direction. He yanks his trousers up over his hips and dives to the ground all in one desperate maneuver. He is reminded of his ribs. The plane drops altitude and flies over the foothills toward the beach.
Easley makes himself as small as possible, tries to melt into the land. He holds his breath, as if the pilot can somehow hear him breathe. He slowly twists over on his back to watch the plane sail past. Single, big pontoon, pair of red-orange dots emblazoned on the wings. He flashes on stories out of the Philippines last year, how the Japanese were said to have starved, beat, bayonetted, and shot their prisoners of war. He searches for signs he’s been spotted—a change in direction, a tilt of the wings. He can detect nothing. He thinks of the boy, out hunting fo
r ptarmigan. He fears he did not find cover in time.
The plane flies low over the Pacific on an easterly heading, then makes a gradual bank to the south. It holds its course, then disappears from sight. When the drone gives way to tumbling surf, Easley gets up on his knees. He checks the vacant horizon, then reaches for a handful of sedge to wipe his freezing ass.
BACK AT THE CAVE, Easley dumps an armful of wood on the rocks, grateful to see the boy in one piece, relieved that he won’t have to face the future alone.
“Heard it before I saw anything,” the boy says. “Ran back before he broke through the cloud.”
Squeezing into crevices, crouching behind rocks, traveling in the low lay of the land. These methods hold out hope for avoiding detection by other men traveling on foot, but the view from a cockpit window can offer an unlimited perspective, the ability to double back, circle, and chase.
Easley bends down, empties the smaller chunks of driftwood from his pack, then sorts the pile according to size and dryness. It occurs to him that perhaps the Japanese know they are here. Maybe they’ve already placed bets on how long he and the boy will survive. He keeps this notion to himself. The one thing they have in abundance is time—time to fashion a thought or opinion from solid stuff, smooth out the edges before handing it over. This care is all very much in keeping with their code of honesty; it helps avoid potential conflict or confusion.
“Found a big log today,” Easley says. “Take the two of us to get it back but it’ll be well worth the effort.”
Not to be outdone, the boy reaches behind a rock, pulls out a fresh ptarmigan, tosses it at Easley’s feet. This bird is even bigger than the first. Next, he reaches behind his waist and brings his pack around. He pulls out a handful of small yellow bulbs that seem partially roused for spring. “Go ahead,” he says, offering some to Easley. “Tastes like some kinda celery.”
