If there weren’t any Japs on this island.
That was our immediate concern, so we hiked along, taking our time, looking and listening.
On the eastern end of the island the jungle petered out into an area of low scrub and sand dunes. It was getting along toward the middle of the day, so we sat to rest. After all I had been through, I could feel my own weakness, and I was sure the others could also. But sitting wasn’t getting us anyplace, so we dusted our fannies and walked on.
The squall line was almost upon us when we found the first skid mark on the top of a dune.
“Darn if that furrow doesn’t look like it was made by the keel of a seaplane,” Hoffman said.
I took a really good look, and I had to agree.
I took out my pistol and worked the action, jacked a shell into my hand. The gun was gritty, full of sand and sea salt.
“Going to rain soon,” Pottinger said, looking at the sky.
“Let’s see if we can find a dry place and sit it out,” I said, looking around. I spotted a clump of brush under a small stand of palms, and headed for it. The others were in no hurry, although the gray wall of rain from the storm was nearly upon us.
“Maybe it’s Joe Snyder’s crew, where he went down in Charity’s Sake.”
“Maybe,” I admitted.
“Let’s go look.” If Hoffman had had a tail, he would have wagged it.
“Later.”
“Hell, no matter where we hide, we’re going to get wet. If it’s them, they’ve got food, survival gear, all of that.”
“Could be Japs, you know.”
He was sure the Japanese didn’t leave a seaplane mark.
The first gust of rain splattered us.
“I’m going to sit this one out,” I said, and turned back toward the brush I had picked out. Pottinger was right behind.
Hoffman ran up beside me. “Please, sir. Let me go on ahead for a look.”
I looked at Pottinger. He was a lieutenant (junior grade), senior to me, but since I was the deputy plane commander, he hadn’t attempted to exert an ounce of authority. Nor did I think he wanted to.
“No,” I told Hoffman. “The risk is too great. The Japs won’t want to feed us if they get their hands on us.”
“They won’t get me.”
“No.”
“You’re just worried I’ll tell ‘em you’re here.”
“If they catch you, kid, it won’t matter what you tell ‘em. They’ll come looking for us.”
“Mr. Pottinger.” Hoffman turned to face the jay-gee. “I appeal to you. All our gear is out in the lagoon. You know the guys in Charity’s Sake as well as I do.”
Pottinger looked at me and he looked at Hoffman and he looked at the squall line racing toward us. He was tired and hungry and had never made a life-or-death decision in his life.
“Snyder could have made it this far,” he said to me.
“There’s a chance,” I admitted.
He bit his lip and made his decision. “Yes,” he told the kid. “But be careful, for Christ’s sake.”
Hoffman grinned at Pottinger and scampered away just as the rain hit. I jogged over to the brush I had seen and crawled in. It wasn’t much shelter. Pottinger joined me.
“It’s probably Snyder,” he said, more to himself than to me.
“Could be anybody.”
There was a little washout under the logs. We huddled there.
“Hoffman’s right about one thing,” I told Pottinger. “We won’t be much drier here than if we had stayed out in it.”
While it rained I field-stripped the Colt and cleaned the sand and grit out of it as best I could, then put it back together and reloaded it. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but it was something. I had a feeling we were going to need everything we had.
After the squall had passed, the fresh wind felt good. We sat on a log and let the wind dry us out.
We were alive, and the others were dead. So the wind played with our hair as we looked at the sea and sky with living eyes.
For how long?
I had seen much of death these last few months, had killed a few men myself … and oh, it was ugly. Ugly!
Anyone who thinks war is glorious has never seen a fresh corpse.
Yet we kill each other, ruthlessly, mercilessly, without qualm or remorse, all for the greater glory of our side.
Insanity. And this has been the human experience since the dawn of time.
Musing thus, I kept an eye out for Hoffman. He didn’t come back. After an hour I was worried.
Pottinger was worried, too. “This isn’t good,” he said.
We waited another hour, a long, slow hour as the rain squall moved on out over the lagoon, and the sun came boiling through the dissipating clouds. Extraordinary how hot the tropical sun can get on bare skin.
The minutes dragged. My head thumped and my stomach tied itself into a knot. I wanted water badly.
One thing was certain; we couldn’t stay put much longer. We needed to get about the business of finding drinkable water and something to eat.
“I guess I fucked that up,” Pottinger said.
“Let’s follow the keel mark,” I suggested.
We didn’t walk, we sneaked along, all bent over, even crawled through one place where the green stuff was thin. Hoffman’s tracks were still visible in places, only partially obliterated by the rain. And so were the scrapes of the flying boat’s keel, deep cuts in the sand where it touched, skipped, then touched again. The plane had torn the waist-high brush out of the ground everywhere it touched. Still, there was enough of it standing that it limited our visibility. And the visibility of the Japs, if there were Japs.
The thought had finally occured to Pottinger that if we could follow Hoffman, someone else could backtrack him. He was biting his lip so tightly that blood was leaking down his chin. His face was paper white.
The pistol felt good in my hand.
We had gone maybe a quarter of a mile when we saw the reflection of the sun off shiny metal. We got behind some brush and lay on the ground.
“That’s no black Catalina,” I whispered to Pottinger, who nodded.
Screwing up our courage, we crawled a few more yards on our hands and knees. Finally we came to the place where we could clearly see the metal, which turned out to be the twin tails of a large airplane. Japanese. The rest of the airplane appeared to be behind some trees and brush, partially out of sight.
“A Kawanishi flying boat,” Pottinger whispered into my ear. “A Mavis.” He was as scared as I was.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice quavering. “You were right, and I was wrong. Letting Hoffman go running off alone was a mistake.”
“Don’t beat yourself up over it,” I told him. “There aren’t many right or wrong decisions. You make the best choice you can because the military put you there and told you to decide, then we all get on with it.”
“Yeah.”
“You gotta remember that none of this matters very much.”
“Ahh …”
“You stay here. I’ll go see what Hoffman’s gotten himself into.”
I wasn’t going to go crawling over to that plane. Hoffman had probably done that. His tracks seemed to go that way. I set off at a ninety-degree angle, crawling on my belly, the pistol in my right hand.
When I’d gone at least a hundred yards, I turned to parallel the Mavis’s landing track. After another hundred yards I heard voices. I froze.
They were speaking Japanese.
I lay there a bit, trying to see. The voices were demanding, imperious.
Taking my time, staying on my stomach, I crawled closer.
I heard Hoffman pleading, begging. “Don’t hit me again, for Christ’s sake.” And a chunk of something heavy hitting flesh.