At the Midway

by J. Clayton Rogers

  "Pick up your feet, Beck! Stop moving like an elephant!"

  "Try and hit him, at least!"

  Beck tried, and received two jabs in the side of his head as Garrett whipped sideways like smoke in the wind.

  It hurt... but not as much as Beck had anticipated. Surprised by how lightly the blows fell, the midshipman realized he could go a number of rounds at this pace without serious harm to himself. Studying Garrett's jaw, he decided he needed only one good shot. Just give him enough time.

  It happened late in the second round. Garrett, unscathed, became cocky and tried trading some toe-to-toe with Beck. Practically a gift. The midshipman took full advantage of it.

  As a consequence, Garrett went sprawling on the deck. It took him two tries to make it back to his feet. Officers urged him on with wild shouts as he wobbled toward his opponent. The rest of the bluejackets fell uncommonly silent. They championed Beck, yet it was... odd... seeing Garrett flattened so succinctly. And their instincts raged. What would be the consequence?

  The ensign shook his head, then came on again. He now knew better than to test Beck on his own flat-footed terms. But when he tried returning to his previous style, he found the blow had robbed him of some of his speed.

  Flick... flick... flick.... He tagged Beck again and again. The spectators were impressed by his comeback. Beck himself was appalled. He'd never had an opponent get back up to fight after taking the kind of head shot he'd dealt Garrett. He felt a little queasy. What was happening here? Still, Garrett had slowed down some. The midshipman's chances of hitting his target had improved.

  "Go for his head, Beck!" the bluejackets yelled, swinging back into the mood.

  Beck discovered he was having difficulty seeing out his right eye. It was beginning to swell shut. He did not have as much time as he'd first estimated. If he didn't finish soon, he would be blinded, completely open to attack.

  "Ooo-wah!" the crew exulted as he led with a whistling right. Garrett managed to parry part of the blow, but there was a wicked crack. Some were sure a bone had been broken.

  Although he was awkward with his left, Beck tried to follow up.

  "Oh!" the sailors moaned as he missed by a mile, falling against the ropes when he lost his balance.

  "Phfft!" Captain Oates snorted at Beck's graceless maneuver. "If that boy fought old bulls, he'd do better." He thought he was talking to himself and was mortified when he heard a small cough at his shoulder.

  "Grissom...."

  The exec nodded, smiling. "If Garrett hadn't tried to match punches, this would be an even fight. He still might come back."

  "You think so?"

  "Drake against the Armada, sir. The lighter ships--"

  "Quite," Oates chuckled.

  The lookout phone rang and the exec lifted the receiver. He listened a moment, then looked up at Oates. "Sir, on the port quarter...."

  Ensign Garrett had once seen a boxer die. As a boy, his father had taken him to an old-fashioned and completely illegal bare knuckle fight in El Paso. No set limit to the number of rounds. A draw was not possible. By the twenty-sixth round, both fighters were semi-comatose. Garrett had prayed one of them would give up, not understanding that this was how they made their living, that the loser might not be allowed another match. With jobs so scarce in the Texas of the 90's, the loser might face starvation. The combatants heaved in the hot air. Dust drifted in and turned to mud on their skin.

  Garrett could guess which man would die. He could see it in his eyes: the energy of hell, yet not one ounce of it could be translated to his arms. From an unknown source the other man found enough strength to hit his opponent in the chest, over his heart. The man's sudden pain was out of all proportion to the punch. He dropped to his knees, gasping. Garrett heard his father murmur, "His heart."

  It was cold confirmation of a mystical event. No mistaking it. They were witnessing a man's death. Yet his opponent, every bit as hungry, could not pass up this opening. Even as the dying boxer suffered cardiac arrest, he was hit with full might in the face and not a single spectator faulted the winner for it.

  A lesson never to be forgotten, especially by someone as slight as Roger Garrett. Schoolmates joshed that he was the Runt Texan, resulting in innumerable playground fights. A feisty response was worth a thousand clever rejoinders.

  As Garrett entered manhood, he found if one was aggressive enough from the beginning, painful fights could be avoided. In short, being obnoxious effectively cowed potential adversaries.

  It was all coming back to him now. Just as the boxer could not surrender his livelihood, even at the risk of his life, so Garrett could not afford to lose face. If he did, his uniform would become no more than an empty cloth shell.

  Flick... flick... flick....

  Whap! Beck connected.

  Garrett did not lose consciousness. Instead, he became sickeningly aware of his body. He knew only vaguely that he was falling. What concerned him more was the dark trench that opened between his head and sphincter. It was the physical part of his will, hollowed out like a gutted deer. Oddly, even as his limbs disobeyed, his hearing improved to an unnatural degree. He heard whispers. The sharp snap of signal flags overhead sounded like gunshots.

  He searched desperately within himself for something to help him stand--and found it:

  Humiliation.

  Beck wanted to stand on Garrett's chest and force him to stay down. There could be no more doubt as to the outcome of the fight. The sight of the ensign's face, bloody as a fresh hock, filled him with a strange sorrow rather than any sense of victory--almost a nostalgia for something that would never be the same again. Something unfathomable would be replaced by something unknown. And Garrett, drooling blood as he staggered to his feet, reinforced that feeling by coming at him again. No one fought this hard when the reward was so paltry. There was no dance left in his feet. Beck couldn't miss.

  But he did. Several times. Garrett presented such a woefully static target that the onlookers were amazed when the midshipman's blows went wide. They assumed Beck did not want to hit the ensign again for fear of killing him. Actually, the sight of his opponent's blood was beginning to make Beck swoon. He could not bring himself to look directly at Garrett. He focused his eyes slightly above his head. The wide swings were the consequence.

  Finally, one landed.

  There was a loud whack! as Garrett was knocked down again. Beck was certain he would not rise for a long, long time.

  The flags snapped. And Garrett rose once more.

  Dazed, he stumbled into the ropes. Some of the sailors tried to hold him there. He pushed them off. There was a profound hush. The onlookers began looking for officers to stop the fight. The petty officer acting as referee ignored their murmured protests as he allowed them to continue.

  "Mr. Garrett..." Beck backed away as the ensign approached.

  "C'mon, Shit-shank," Garrett slurred, confusing him with Davis. "You sayin' you started somethin' you can't finish?"

  "Mr. Garrett...."

  Garrett did not listen, but took several feeble jabs at Beck's head. Beck, goaded on, mustered everything for one last shot and let go.

  When Garrett hit the mat it sounded as if he'd fallen from the fighting mast. If the spectators could not actually feel the deck shake, their imaginations quivered at the impact.

  "You saw him," Beck said plaintively, certain he'd killed the man. "You saw him. He wouldn't stop. It was a fair--"

  Marines flooded out of the hatchways, their bugles blaring.

  "Stand by to retrieve craft!"

  The bluejackets jumped as if a fire had broken out. They had been so intent on the match few had noticed the ship coming about. Running to the starboard rail, they saw a whaleboat not a hundred yards away. As the Florida drew alongside they could see someone on the thwarts. Long grappling hooks were thrust out and the boat hauled in.

  A sigh of horror whispered through the sailors as they viewed the man close up. One of his hands had been all but severed. Bl
ood had sprayed the planks. He looked like the victim of a one-man massacre.

  "What're you gawking at! Henderson! Lee! Get him out of there!" Barely able to keep his feet, Garrett struggled through the gathered men. "C'mon. I think I see him breathing."

  Looking from Garrett to the gory figure in the whaleboat was like switching from the living dead to the napping dead. A portion of the rail was lifted away and two sailors prepared to jump in. They hesitated upon getting a closer look inside. Dried splotches of blood were scattershot over the stern. Up the length lay oozing green masses of moldy duff bread that vented a nauseating stench.

  "In you go!" Garrett yelled. Someone had handed him a towel, which was now streaked bright red.

  Lieutenant Grissom had also just come forward, but Garrett did not see him. Rather than treat him like an usurper, Grissom took one glance at his mangled face and decided to keep his peace.

  The men shuddered. It was as if he'd thoroughly beaten Beck, rather than the other way around. Beck himself felt as if Garrett had risen from the grave, never to be buried again. By leaping into the boat, the two bluejackets notarized his authority.

  "He must be dead," one of them shouted. "He stinks so!"

  "Don't take the risk. Bring him up gentle."

  Turning up their noses, the two sailors raised the boy high enough for others to take him on board--a moment when the Florida's low freeboard proved convenient.

  "Watch it! He's slick...."

  "Careful!"

  "Has anyone notified the surgeon?"

  The funereal silence deepened as the boy was laid on the deck. Wobbling over, Garrett stared at him.

  To everyone's astonishment, the castaway's eyes suddenly opened. He studied Garrett's battered face a moment, then whispered through cracked lips, "They got you, too?"

  Then, slowly, his eyes closed.

  XIX

  June, 1908  28°20'N, 177°22'W

  0912 Hours

  Ziolkowski wasted little time burying Lieutenant Anthony and what remained of the two marines killed before him. No one on the island was particularly religious and no one protested when Ziolkowski limited the service to a doffed hat and a succinct, "He was all right, for a tiente. Ain't that right, Enderfall?"

  "Aye, Top."

  He glanced around. "Where the hell's the slopeheads?"

  "Over with Hart at the warehouse."

  "Goddamn heathens. But why ain't Hart here? He was a lieutenant himself, once."

  "But he was Army, Top."

  Crossing the dunes, he spotted some of the Japanese and Chinese carrying great swatches of material that looked similar to pongee. The segments flapped over their heads, making them look like farmers fighting off locusts. Hart stood amidst them, twirling the air with his arm and shouting commands. The rest of the Orientals were cross-legged on the sand, sewing.

  "Hart!"

  The civilian looked at him apprehensively. "Sergeant Ziolkowski. I'm sorry I couldn't attend your service. But time is short. Last time aloft I had a tear. I put the fishermen to work repairing it. It's not much different from working on a sail."

  Ziolkowski looked up, saw gulls gliding overhead. The fishermen were not sewing silk, but varnished muslin. "Your balloon."

  The sewers paused and raised their heads.

  "You were a lieutenant once. You ain't anymore. Don't take my men--and every man on this island is my man now--without coming to me first."

  All the fury rushing to Hart's head evaporated when Ziolkowski abruptly turned and walked away. It had been a necessary reprimand. But while Hart had said nothing to him about the wireless set he was building, the sergeant saw the sense of a reconnaissance balloon. As it stood now, the creatures could sneak up on the island in broad daylight, emerging at any moment at a place of their choosing. Looking down from a great height, an observer would be able to spot their dark shadows approach under the clear water surrounding Midway.

  1137 Hours

  If a rammed ship could feel, it would feel like Lieber the day after the exploding gasoline blew him a dozen yards backwards. Every joint seemed wrenched, every muscle was sore. Doing his best to ignore the pain, he joined the other marines making improvements in the compound defenses. By late morning, they had crisscrossed several layers of mast timbers over the roof of the bunker. They had high hopes it would be proof against the creatures.

  Ziolkowski came over and watched Lieber closely. In a sympathetic tone, he said, "You're dragging. Why don't you go check up on Depoy? We haven't heard from him all morning. If he's gone to sleep, kick him in the head for me."

  Depoy had been sent out to relieve Kitrell at daybreak. Muscle-sprained and exhausted, it took Lieber awhile to reach the northern post. If he found Depoy snoozing behind a dune, he was quite ready to obey the Top's injunction to give him a kick in the head.

  But there was no sign of the man. Keeping a wary eye on the ocean, Lieber made several trips up and down the beach near the outpost.

  He spotted the rifle propped against a piece of driftwood. The sand around it was churned up. But so was half the sand on the island, what with the creatures and now-extinct donkeys having raced back and forth endless times.

  "Depoy!"

  No response.

  "Turtleback!" he shouted again, employing the nickname Depoy so despised. If anything would get a rise out of the man, that would. But all was still.

  Dragging himself back to the compound, Lieber asked the others if any of them had seen him. No one had.

  He went to Ziolkowski and reported one more casualty. Then he staggered into the meager shade offered by some scraggly bushes, flopped down like a blanket, and fell fast asleep.

  1320 Hours

  In spite of the terror that had popped and sizzled at the back of his mind, Hart had never been so filled with a sense of useful occupation as he was now.

  Construction of a primitive wireless was not too difficult. He was able to adapt materials from the warehouse and telegraph station. A transmitting coil, key, coherer, and relay were available. The set would be powered using Planté batteries. Once those ran down after about a week, they could use a bicycle dynamo similar to the direct current dynamo invented by the Germans and used by the British in South Africa. Affixed to a bicycle frame directly in front of a "cyclist," the dynamo was connected by a belt to an aluminum disk that took the place of the front wheel--with a ratio of transmission designed to produce sparks four millimeters long in the induction coils and generating sixteen volts of electricity. The cyclist could send power directly to the wireless, or attach it to a portable accumulator battery; comprised of eight cells enclosed in an ebonite box, the battery could supply sixteen volts for five hours before recharging became necessary. Not much, but if the antenna and reflector could be raised several hundred feet in the air, the wireless might have a respectable range.

  Hart had become fascinated with balloons after seeing them tested at Fort Myers. It was there that he learned the basics of construction. When he boarded the company ship bound for Midway, he brought with him five thousand yards of cheap muslin, three large wood retorts, a twenty-gallon copper kettle, eighty gallons of pure linseed oil, some heavy wicker, and the sundry odds and ends that would be needed to make the finishing touches on the balloon. The entire homemade kit put him out three hundred dollars. Which meant he arrived on the island broke--but rich in time.

  And patience. An absolute necessity for what he had in mind. First, the muslin had to be varnished with the rubbery residue of heated linseed oil--three applications, all of which had to be brushed on thoroughly and evenly to avoid future leakage.

  Then the cloth had to be cut into gores. The pattern of the gores formed a sine, so that, when sewn together, the balloon shape formed naturally.

  All stitching was double, with particular care not to pucker the seams. Then the seams and stitches were varnished.

  Next came the most tedious chore: making the net. A fair amount of computation was involved to make certain the net
was the proper size. Made of cotton and seine twine, which was soft and elastic, Hart had to begin at the bottom of the equator and work outward, the mesh becoming smaller at the mouth.

  After this, the clapper valve was easy. All Hart needed was a couple of barrel heads, planed and sanded. He cut out their centers, fixed brass hinges on the clappers, lined the inside of each with leather, and attached them to the envelope.

  Five months earlier, the entire command turned out for the maiden voyage. Coal gas was allowed to cool some in the retorts, then piped through the feed valve. It was one of the rare occasions when Hart did not mind the presence of his fellow Americans. In fact, after closing off the valve, he gave a brief thank‑you speech and doffed his cap before releasing the first anchor line.

  One thing he did not dare, and that was to cut loose entirely from the ground. The winds of Midway tended to come up sharply‑‑one had only to watch the birds to see it. Once caught in an air current, that would be all she wrote for one Hamilton Hart, lost at sea while acting the fool in the air. Thus, two lines hung down from the car. The first was used once he'd reached the desired height. It dangled just above the island. When it touched the ground it took the weight off the balloon, preventing it from descending before the aeronaut wanted to. The other line was secured to a winch, giving him several hundred feet of play, but keeping him safely above the atoll. Hart might dream of the horizon, but he had no intention of going there.

  How tiny Midway seemed from on high! Tinier still, the men. What did God see when he looked down? Men on foot, or inconspicuous specks?

  Gooneys flew close to inspect this new bird, their wings shuddering ever so slightly as they paused in mid‑air. While watching Hart fight off a wave of nausea, they seemed to say: There. You mock us on land. But up here, who's the fool? And then they arced away with indescribable grace and ease.

  Over the period of a month Hart ascended four times. The car was big enough only for one man, but he politely offered others the opportunity to go aloft. A few of them voiced interest, including Lieutenant Anthony. But on his fourth trip an incautious frigate bird zipped into the balloon and got tangled in the netting. In its frantic attempt to escape it tore a hole in the varnished muslin. Hart was able to descend without mishap, but the incident put everyone else off.