Ziolkowski crawled out of the pit, sand caked thickly on his skin.
"Sergeant, Mr. Hart thinks he can bring Western Union to Midway. I want you to take these men here and help him out. Follow his instructions... no matter how crackpot they may sound."
"Lieutenant‑‑" Hart began.
"My men's lives are going to depend on this."
Ziolkowski looked dubiously from Hart to the spoons and forks in his hand. "Sir…." he began uncertainly.
"I need you to cover the detail with your machine gun. You'll be going out to the beach.
The sergeant nodded. He was in excellent shape for a man in his mid‑forties, but he was almost prostrate from the day's exertions. Any other time he would have seen the need to conserve his energy. But as more and more Leathernecks dropped out, Ziolkowski had no choice but to join in. Not only was the extra manpower needed, but the honor of the Corps had to be upheld. Couldn't let the Chinks do all the work‑‑not when their lives were at stake. But he was worn out. However harebrained the civilian's scheme, it came as a welcome relief from all the digging and shoring.
"Marines!" he shouted at the men lying down. "I see you all found your ass. Now let's see if we can find the rest of you! Enderfall! Get your ass over here!"
"You can't mean it, Top. Did you hear what he wants us to do?"
"Oh. Did I hear an opinion, or did a gooney shit on your head?"
"But‑‑"
"OK, Hart. Show me how this is done," Ziolkowski demanded impatiently. He grabbed a spoon and a fork and held them threateningly in front of Enderfall's face. "Pretend you're eating turkey."
"What about the spoon?"
"Cranberry sauce."
Last light was fading. The lines to the outposts had been laid out earlier. Hart briefed the men on a succinct, peculiar code, invented even as he spoke.
1931 Hours
To many men in the Corps, a broken arm was a golden arm--a virtual license to goldbrick. But Private Kitrell's broken arm could not have been more useless. Before the arrival of the creatures, there had been no need for him to shirk duty. His prowess at chess put him in constant demand. Anthony was chary of assigning him arduous duties after the enlisted man thrashed him on the squares. It might be seen as spite. Kittrell might take to losing on purpose if he thought he would be punished for winning. And then the keen mental challenge, about the only thing that alleviated boredom around here, would be removed. Thus, his chores rarely amounted to more than a bit of raking on the proposed golf course, or‑‑distasteful enough to the natty Kittrell‑‑scrubbing bird shit out of the cistern.
All in all, a pretty leisurely life for a private. When the Japanese fisherman he had decided to test his jiu jitsu powers on turned the tables and threw him over his shoulder, he bemoaned his stupidity even as his arm crumpled sickeningly. What a waste! A broken arm was useful for evading labor, but there had been no labor to speak of.
It was all coming back on him. With the extinction of Man on Midway in the offing, chess was the furthest thing from his mind. Intellectual games, smugness, neatness‑‑all were supplanted by the burning edge of terror.
He was manning the most dangerous post on the atoll.
He wondered if Ziolkowski had put him out here out of spite. "You might not be able to do much with that arm, but you can sure as hell put a fork and spoon in your mouth," panted the veteran, sweating from exhaustion after another day's digging at a system of trenches around the bunker. Problem was Kitrell did need both hands to work Hamilton Hart's odd device.
In his mouth were two spoons, one silver and one aluminum. Each was attached via a stripped cable wire to a man in the bunker, who also had one aluminum and one silver utensil in his mouth. Aluminum connected to silver and vice versa. Hart had reiterated that the metal objects should not be allowed to touch each other while in their mouths.
"Don't we need batteries?" Kitrell had asked.
"The human body is quite capable of an effective E.M.F." Hart was busy knotting a wire around a fork. Only when he glanced up and saw the bemused expressions of the men he was instructing did he realize the marines had no idea what he was talking about. "Uh... E.M.F. Electromotive Force. The alkaline saliva in the mouth acts on the aluminum, creating electricity. We are the batteries."
One of the connecting wires was intentionally broken. In order to transmit, Kitrell had to bring the two ends together. On the other end, the signal would be received as a peculiar taste. Short contact would be a dot, long contact a dash. Per Hart's code, two dots meant a sighting, three meant they were moving inland, three dots and a dash meant it was moving east, and so on. The three other mouth-telegraph teams were similarly set up, with minor variations in code due to their positions.
With one arm in a sling, Kitrell found it difficult holding the wire. He finally devised a way of looping one of the broken ends around his index finger. An occasional adjustment with his good hand kept it in place.
The white line of the shore unraveled as the last light faded. Hunched in his hiding place, Kitrell found being alone unnerving. He had grown up in Indianapolis, accosted by constant city sounds. The clop‑clop of horses, the shouts of boys in the streets. "Hey, sissy‑boy! Come on out, sissy‑boy!" This was the boyhood insult that had planted the desire to become a man. A marine. There was the clank of cars coupling in the railway yards. Distant factory sounds, the outpour of men from the flour mills and meat‑packing plants, and the whoosh of the White River. He'd never thought that, by enlisting in the Corps, his worst problem might not be the harsh training or the irrelevant banana wars or the bug‑infested backwaters he found himself assigned to. No, it was the silence pervading solitary outposts that wore on his nerves. The awareness that the regular, reliable Main Street ruckus was not the form civilization took everywhere in the world bothered him. Home boys yelled. Natives screeched. Either of which was preferable to‑‑nothing.
Which described Midway perfectly. During the day, of course, the sound of birds was continuous, making up for the absence of civilized traffic. But night brought a death‑like silence to the atoll. Of course, there was the comforting chug of the telegraph and distillery generators and the eternal sough of the Pacific‑‑though, oddly, when not stormy, less impressive than the White River.
But there was so little to grab hold of here and say, without doubt, "This is America."
In fact, it was nothing less than a primeval wasteland. Looking out over the ocean, he saw it as not only the vast barrier between here and home, but the savage watery terrain of the ages. Everyone accepted there were mysteries in the world. Yet it was a facile belief. With so many things known, there were not enough unknowns to throw them off balance.
And now came all unknowns, packaged in three tremendous carnivores who found the stage far too small to include man.
It was a night like the previous one, with the thin clouds obscuring the moon just enough to turn the ocean into an enormous black pit. The sand spit was distinguishable from it, but only tantalizingly so. You could stare at still water for the longest time before realizing it was land.
Clicking the fork and spoon together, Kittrell fidgeted in his hole. God, let me see tomorrow, I'll pray to you every day. He turned his silent prayer into a hum. The hum grew louder as the evening progressed. While the horizon rolled over on itself in front of him, he worked himself into a fine baritone.
Suddenly--a rich soprano squeak. He gaped at the tenebrous outline that approached the shore. He forgot all about the fork and spoon, the code Hart had taught them, his reason for being there. On the verge of screaming, he abruptly realized he was looking at a cloud. High up, at a distance, but huge and close‑looking with the bright stars behind it.
He fought back a sob of relief and crossed himself‑‑good Protestant though he was. Sitting back, something stabbed him in the ass. Yelping, he hit the top of the tiny bunker as he leapt.
He'd sat on the fork.
Pulling it out from under his body, he held up bo
th fork and spoon to make sure the connections were still firm. He took plenty of deep breaths, then set himself to the task of relearning everything he had just forgotten.
2006 Hours
The men who were supposed to sleep could not fall asleep, while the guards could barely keep their eyes open. Lieutenant Anthony had noted the phenomena the night before. But when he reversed the duty roster, the wrong men sprang awake and the rest nearly toppled at their posts.
Near the door of the bunker, Hamilton Hart sat with three other men. Each had a fork and a spoon in his mouth, the wires attached to them extending to the different outposts. Every so often the lieutenant or Ziolkowski would come by with a battle lantern to check up on them. Like boys wearing dunce caps, they avoided looking at each other. Yet for all their embarrassment at the sight they presented, none of them let up. They had not removed the utensils to spit, even when they tried to talk and ended up drooling over themselves. It was fascinating, this little contrivance of Hart's. News of horror would not be transmitted to their eyes or their ears, but to their mouths, an idea stranger than their mangled words could convey.
The long hours of inactivity gave the former signalman time to plan ahead. Going through the debris of the relay station, Hart had discovered much of its equipment reparable to one degree or another. He was sure he could construct a wireless set. Alone, it would have a signal radius of only a few hundred miles. But the range would be increased dramatically if he attached an antenna several hundred feet long to his balloon. A volunteer would have to be found to go up with the balloon, since he would have to stay on the ground and operate the wireless. And that was a problem. A captive balloon was difficult to manage, especially in high winds. A novice might easily make a mistake and crash.
It had taken him months to construct the balloon. Most of that time had been spent cadging canvas and generator parts from Lieutenant Anthony--time well spent, if what he was planning came to fruition.
Hart's mind drifted away like the balloon he was contemplating. His thoughts traveled to the Eskimo village he and his men had spent the night in during their trip up the Kiltik. It was a Nunamiut village. Nunamiut was not the name of the people, but of their way of life. They lived off the land, as opposed to the Tareumiut, people of the sea. Neither style was exclusive. The first group of Numanuits Hart's men encountered was headed for Sheshalik, on the coast, taking advantage of the July thaw to fish. But they wore clothing and mukluks made from caribou hide, and caribou was their main source of meat. The soldiers met another group of Naupaktomiut about fifty miles up the river, netting ptarmigan near the shore. They were friendlier than the sea‑faring Eskimos; they had not been antagonized by whalers. They invited the white men to sleep over at their village. Hart accepted.
That night the men of the village and the U.S. Army signalmen came together in a large spruce‑walled meeting house, a sod‑covered karigi. It had a large central fireplace. Long benches lined each wall. Hart and his men found their circumstances quite amenable, though the the Naupaktomiut were unquestionably savages. They wore it on their faces. The women were tattooed on their chins‑‑the design not etched like sailors' tatoos but sewn into the skin, using sinews covered with soot, when they were children. The men's chief adornment was equally barbaric. As boys, they had holes cut through each cheek, just below the mouth, cleaning the blood out by taking a mouthful of urine and blowing it through the wounds. Following this labrets, plugs of ivory, were inserted.
Hart learned this through a native interpreter, a man who had spent much of his youth at Kivalina, where white men carried on trade with the white whalers. He was kept busy the rest of the night as the Eskimos and soldiers swapped tales.
The natives laughed when the signalmen told them of the vast deserts they had traversed while stringing wire. Wastelands they understood. Anyone who'd hunted in the Chukchi Sea knew about the eternal ice and snow further north. And there was their own land, in winter. But a desert of sand? Hart found out that the Eskimos' laughter was their way of calling someone a liar.
But they seemed amused, nonetheless. So he went on to tell them about the Bering Sea tunnel that had been proposed by an American consortium. The Americans had been holding concession negotiations with the Czar, who was very keen on the idea. The tunnel, and the road connecting it to the Siberian Railway, would run three thousand miles, from East Cape to Kansk. The tunnel itself would run forty miles, at a depth of one hundred and seventy feet, and cost around one hundred million dollars.
His story was greeted with amazed silence. For no reason Hart could readily discern, they believed every word. It was, in fact, true. But so were the deserts. Either they were convinced of the possibility of the tunnel, or the translator had couched it in language that made the idea more plausible. Then again, perhaps they were simply stunned by a race of men who would even dream up such a scheme.
In the middle of his recital a woman had entered, causing a momentary stir among the men. Not that women were excluded from the karigi. A number of them had come in to listen to and observe the strangers. This one was different, though. Hart had paused, but she lifted her hand, indicating he should continue. When he was done, several native men turned to her, seeking her opinion.
"She is the anatquq," said the translator in a tone that needed no translation. She was a witch doctor, a medicine woman. Also, something of an elder and village advisor. The English‑speaking native went on to explain that this was a rare occasion indeed. Their anatquq was a cantankerous soul who usually shunned gatherings. But she needed to know the motives of the strangers, and what they portended. After listening to Hart she nodded, said nothing, yet peered closely with hard eyes.
"You aren't the first white men she's seen. There are the Friends."
Hart understood. The California Yearly Meeting Friends Church had been operating a mission downriver for over ten years, doing their best to combat the influence of tobacco, rifles and‑‑above all‑‑liquor among the natives. White Man had introduced these demons to the area, and the Friends believed only the White Man's God could save the Eskimos from them. Several Naupaktomiut, including the medicine woman, had visited the Friends' church at Kotzebue. She was impressed by their words, in particular their sermons against demon rum. She remembered when it was first brought in by whalers, in 1860. She had been a small girl then, yet vividly recalled how hunting parties left the village to find food, only to fall in with traders and get drunk instead. As a result, famine had struck the river villages for many seasons. Still, the fact that the Friends were every bit as white as the traders who poisoned the hunters bothered her. She had been brooding on this for some time, now. The arrival of the Signal Corps had, apparently, signaled the moment to speak out.
Her tone was low, unemotional. Almost a monotone. Although she was highly respected, even revered, the men saw no disrespect in talking while she talked. They were commenting on what she was saying long before she finished. And the English‑speaking native maintained a running translation throughout, for the benefit of the signalmen.
And then she said something that brought a profound hush across the room: "I had a vision of a tirichiki. It was upriver, where the white men are bound."
By the natives' reaction, Hart suspected she was speaking of huge snowdrifts or fierce rapids. Obviously, something extremely dangerous.
"What's a turkey... well, what's that she said?"
But the translator shrugged helplessly, unable to think of the correct word in English. "It's a monster, but not a monster. It's a demon. Or a pet."
Before Hart could press further, the old woman shifted the flap on her caribou‑skin parka and continued. "It was a true dream. We who live here know the old story. How the young man Kultuk killed a boy and stole his food. When the boy's father came home, Kultuk broke the shaft of a spear and stabbed him as he came through the door. He committed evil, bringing evil on himself‑‑but in a way he could not guess.
"He went home to his wife and she told
him of a fat village near the sea. He said he would go there and see what he could take. His wife tried to stop him. 'No one has ever come back from that village,' she said. But he ignored her.
"He found the village. In the karigi of the village there was a pet‑‑a huge monster with scaly skin and tentacles. A tirichiki. Kultuk found a soft spot in its skin and killed it with a spear while it slept. Then he set out to rob the village.
"The men of the village found that their pet had been killed and began searching for Kultuk. They had just trapped him when from out of nowhere the tirichiki appeared. Kultuk grabbed each villager in turn and threw him into the monster's mouth. But Kultuk soon ran out of enemies, and was swallowed himself.
"The stomach of the tirichiki was bright red. It was lined with the faces of its victims. Kultuk struck the faces, and suddenly everything went dark. After many days, he saw a light. It was a hole. Using his spear, he widened the hole and escaped.
"He found he had killed the tirichiki again while cutting his way out. He looked close to make sure it was dead, then set out again to rob the village.
"But the monster came back, and swallowed him again."
The anatquq closed the folds of her robe.
"Kultuk had entered upon an eternal battle. That was his punishment for killing the boy and his father. Whenever he thought he had slain the tirichiki, it attacked him again. Yet the tirichiki itself was also fooled, for whenever it felt it had killed the man, Kultuk found a way of escaping. Neither beast nor man could ever be certain. The people of this village know this story well. But I had a true dream."
The translator was still relaying the story when the old woman got up and left. Whatever conclusions the white men wanted to draw from her story would be their own. Had the Naupaktomiut incurred eternal enmity from a tirichiki by allowing the whites into their village? Or was the story directed at the white men, a warning to go no farther? Hart was interested by the variation on the Sisyphus theme. He wondered how many more stories the anatquq had in her. Seeing the rapid accumulation of the products of civilization in their camps and villages, it was apparent the Eskimo way of life was being drastically altered. Someone should put the woman's stories in writing, so that the old ways and tales would not be forgotten.
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