Beside a Burning Sea

by John Shors

  The Japanese soldier watched Annie study the stitches in his thigh. Though most of the Japanese patients were uncomfortable in her presence, this soldier took interest in her work. In fact, the sight of her diminutive frame and soft, almost girlish face intrigued him greatly. To him, her features and movements resembled those of a young deer—a gentle forest creature that was more intent on its immediate surroundings than the world around it. Her wide eyes, unblemished skin, and full lips seemed ill suited for the harsh, artificial light of the cramped room.

  Annie started to tenderly clean the soldier’s wound, surprised that a passing bullet could tear out so much flesh. This man may always limp, she thought, redressing the wound. Of course, a limp was a much better outcome than could be expected for most of the men she saw.

  “When is Joshua off duty?” Annie asked, finishing up with her patient. She thought the foreigner might have nodded in appreciation but wasn’t sure, as Benevolence incessantly swayed.

  “Is he ever off duty?” Isabelle replied, methodically scanning a series of charts before her.

  “I’d say that’s the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “You would?”

  “How many patients, Izzy, have you seen today? Forty? Fifty?”

  “Oh, not that many. I should have seen more.”

  “Really? Did you eat lunch?”

  “No, but I—”

  “Will you eat dinner? Or faint like you did last week?”

  “Enough,” Isabelle replied. “You’re beginning to sound an awful lot like Mother.”

  Annie paused from tidying the patient’s bedding. “Don’t say that,” she replied, rolling her eyes.

  “Well, it’s true.”

  “Well, maybe she’s right.”

  The patient heard the noise first. Annie saw him cock his head toward the hatch. He squinted, as if improved eyesight could somehow help his ears. Annie soon recognized the hum as the distant drone of an airplane. She was used to such noises and didn’t think anything of it. “You never answered my question,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “About Joshua.”

  “I don’t know when he’s off duty,” Isabelle replied, making rapid notations on the charts. “For all we see each other, we might as well be on different continents.”

  “I’m not sure about that. At least you know where to find him.”

  Isabelle started to respond, but stopped herself and nodded. She understood that Annie was thinking of her fiancé—who fought Germans somewhere in Europe—and she put her hand on Annie’s slender shoulder. “He’ll make it through this,” she said. “We all will.”

  Annie shifted on her aching feet, wondering where Ted was, why she didn’t miss him more, why she hadn’t called his name when the delirium of malaria had recently gripped her. Shouldn’t she be writing him love letters and gazing longingly at his photo each night? Weren’t such things what lovers did? What was wrong with her?

  As the silence between the sisters lingered, the drone of the airplane strengthened. It soon grew from the hum of a motorboat to a metallic, violent roar that assaulted their ears. Annie was about to speak again when the Japanese soldier abruptly sat up, shaking his head in bewilderment. “Nakajima . . . Nakajima bomber,” he said, his English surprising both nurses.

  Isabelle was the first to comprehend his words. “It’s . . . a Japanese bomber?”

  The plane must have passed very low over the ship, for the deafening wail of its engine seemed to penetrate their skulls. For a heartbeat or two, the wail diminished. Then an incomprehensibly loud and powerful explosion knocked Annie and Isabelle off their feet. Both nurses were hurled so high that they struck the ceiling. Along with charts and instruments and patients, Annie and Isabelle fell to the floor. Landing awkwardly on bedding and steel, they were too stunned to cry out. They simply grunted with the impact and tried to draw breath into their throbbing lungs. Somehow time froze and rushed forward all at once.

  Annie thought she saw Izzy’s mouth move, but the younger sister couldn’t hear anything. Her ears hummed as if they housed scores of mosquitoes. Her mind didn’t work properly. She felt as if she’d drunk a bottle of wine, and found it impossible to comprehend what had happened. The world spun and tilted and swayed. It groaned and boomed. The lights had gone out. Water covered the floor. Where was she? Why did fires rage and why were so many bodies unmoving about her?

  Annie spat through her bloodied lips as Isabelle reached for her hand. The strength of Isabelle’s grip slowly shook such questions from her mind. She smelled smoke, heard distant screams, and saw that the room was slanting and filling with water. She still didn’t fully understand the scene before her, but Isabelle seemed unhurt, and Annie could make enough sense of the situation to take solace in that fact. She started to hug her sister, but Isabelle turned and crawled toward the bodies around them. Annie did likewise, instinctively checking pulses as she had ten thousand times before. She felt the beat of several hearts, but seeing the gaping wounds before her, knew these hearts would soon quiet.

  Suddenly, the Japanese soldier with the leg wound gripped her arm and tried to pull her to her feet. Failing to do that, he shouted something and dragged her toward the hatch. Annie screamed—certain he was bent on harming her. However, the soldier let go of her arm and pointed at her waist. Though the water was almost to her stomach, Annie’s mind still reeled and she didn’t realize that Benevolence was sinking. She desperately pushed her patient away and started to attend to the injured again, wading to where Isabelle tried to save a dying doctor.

  The soldier, whose name was Akira but who hadn’t been called that name for several years, glanced at the hatch, which was already halfway underwater. Whoever stayed any longer in the room would die. Grabbing the small, brown-haired nurse, Akira dragged her toward the hatch. She tried to fight him, but she wasn’t strong and he hurriedly pushed her through the opening. The older and larger nurse must have heard her sister’s screams, for abruptly she left the doctor and struggled through the now chest-deep water toward the hatch. She shouted something at Akira, but secondary explosions ripped through the ship, obscuring her words. He gestured frantically toward the hatch. Water poured through it, and he had to use his shoulder to push the nurse beyond the opening. It took all of his strength to drag himself through the violent water and into the emptiness beyond the steel.

  Outside, the two nurses shrieked and held onto the ship’s side. Above them, Benevolence burned and boomed as additional explosions gutted her innards. The center of the ship was unrecognizable. Fire billowed from an immense fissure that was partly underwater. “Swim!” Akira shouted at them in English. “Swim or you will drown!”

  Remembering Joshua, Isabelle frantically spun in the water, looking for him, repeatedly screaming his name. Benevolence was quickly dying beside her, and she felt the sea try to suck her down with the ship. Despite her overwhelming fear for her husband, she didn’t want to get yanked into the blackness below, didn’t want to drown in that blackness. And so she kicked away from the steel.

  “Good!” Akira shouted. “You both follow me! You understand, yes? Now please follow me!”

  Isabelle wept as she swam after the soldier. Though the nearby fires dominated much of her world, she saw the brilliance of the stars and, prompted by this sight, she began to pray for her beloved. She begged God as she had never begged him—for she knew Joshua well and understood that he’d be the last to leave his ship.

  WITHIN THE BURNING INFERNO that had once been Benevolence, the assistant engineer struggled up the tilting deck. By pressing his bare feet against either side of the narrow passageway, he was able to propel himself upward. Though he heard many screams and many voices needed saving, he ignored these pleas for help—for he desperately needed to rescue the boy.

  Though Jake had only known the young Fijian for two weeks, he treated Ratu almost as if he were the son he’d never had. Jake had found the stowaway hidden deep within the engine room. And Jak
e had listened to his pleas, seen him holding back his tears, and decided that the boy should be looked after. Why Jake had subsequently related so powerfully to Ratu was somewhat of a mystery to the big engineer. Perhaps this attachment initially formed because Ratu’s face was almost the same color as Jake’s—a shade of mahogany that seemed so out of place aboard a ship where almost everything and everyone was white. Moreover, Ratu had left Fiji to search for his father, who led American forces as they battled Japanese from island to island across the South Pacific. And seeing how Ratu so yearned for his father, Jake had decided to help and comfort him during his ill-conceived journey.

  As Jake propelled himself up the passageway, he shouted Ratu’s name. The boy liked to watch sunsets from the bow, and if Ratu had been on the bow when the torpedo struck, he’d likely be alive. Jake knew that the ship would float only for another minute or two. He could tell by the ever-increasing angle of his climb that Benevolence would soon go under. Most of her already had.

  Shouts emerged from far below him, and Jake saw that people were struggling to climb up the passageway. He looked for a rope to throw to them but, seeing nothing, screamed at them to climb as he was. They pleaded with him to help, but the rising sea quickly silenced them. Jake cursed, redoubling his efforts to reach the bow. Finally arriving at a door that led to the deck, he pulled himself through the opening. Objects of every sort slid down the deck toward where he clung. “Ratu!” he shouted. “Ratu, where you at?”

  A stranger’s voice answered, and Jake yelled at the man to leave the ship. He then tried to climb higher, but Benevolence was almost vertical in the water. “If you hear me, Ratu, slide down to me!” he yelled, his voice smooth and deep and possessing a slight drawl. “There ain’t time for nothing else!”

  A wooden crate tumbled down the deck and struck a steel girder not far from Jake, splintering into scores of jagged pieces. He grabbed a long plank as it slid past. Screaming with effort, he threw the plank into the nearby water. “Come, Ratu! Come!” he shouted frantically.

  Jake wanted to remain on board longer, but such inaction would swiftly bring his death. Dragging himself to the railing, he managed to leap a few feet into the swirling water. He was immediately sucked under, twisting and spinning in the blackness. The fires above painted the surface orange, and Jake kicked and clawed toward this glow. His shirt snagged on a railing, and for a terrifying moment he was yanked deeper as Benevolence sank. Mercifully, his shirt ripped and once again he swam upward, desperate to exhale.

  When Jake finally met the surface he burst through it as if he were leaping for the stars. He breathed in the night with vast shudders, trying to swim from Benevolence. “Ratu!” he shouted. “I’m here!”

  Just as Jake began to lose hope, two men and a boy leapt off the side of Benevolence. They were sucked under as well. Jake filled his lungs and dove toward where Ratu had disappeared. He saw him tumbling in the darkness, and he wrapped his arm around Ratu’s slender waist and kicked upward with all his might. The pressure to breathe soon became unbearable, and Jake sucked in seawater just before they reached the surface. He choked on the water, fighting to draw in air. He coughed and retched until his aching lungs finally emptied of the sea.

  “Can you . . . can you breathe?” Ratu asked, his faint British accent obscured by nearby explosions. He shuddered as sobs wracked his small frame. “Please breathe, Big Jake! Please!”

  Before Jake could nod, a man broke the water’s surface. His uniform bore stripes, and Jake reached for him. “Cap-Captain?” he sputtered, somewhat incredulously.

  Joshua didn’t reply. “Isabelle!” he screamed, spinning in the water, peering into the flames and darkness. “Where are you? Please tell me where you are!”

  When Joshua started to swim toward what remained of Benevolence, Jake was forced to grab his leg. “We gotta swim away, Captain!”

  “No!” Joshua shouted, kicking fiercely.

  “We—”

  “Isabelle!”

  “There ain’t time!”

  “Let go of me, damn you! Let go—”

  “I spied two nurses! Swimming!”

  Joshua stopped trying to free his leg and turned to Jake. “My wife?”

  “I don’t rightly know, Captain. Maybe.”

  “Maybe?”

  “Captain, we gotta leave here. If we don’t, we’ll be sucked under like apples in a river. And then you ain’t ever gonna know if she lived.”

  Joshua turned toward Benevolence, which burned like a funeral pyre and swiftly dropped under the surface. “God help anyone aboard her,” he said miserably, making the sign of the cross. “God help us all.”

  Jake put his face into the water, looking for the other man who’d leapt alongside Ratu. Peering into the gloom and twisting all the way around, he saw no one. After wiping the sea from his eyes, he spied the plank that he’d thrown overboard and swam toward it. Ratu and Joshua followed his lead.

  Soon the three survivors held the plank against their chests and swam backward, toward an island, their eyes still searching Benevolence for signs of life. Each survivor mourned the night in his own way. Jake often looked above to spare himself from the hideous sight before him. Ratu wept and shuddered, moving as close to his big friend as possible. And Joshua continued to scream Isabelle’s name. He was besieged with grief and terror, for he was responsible for everyone aboard Benevolence. He had failed them. He had failed his wife. And the thought of her in pain or dying at that very moment caused him to tumble within himself. He plunged into a black abyss the likes of which he’d never known. Its walls closed around him, drowning him as he envisioned the horrors that she could be enduring. The suffocating blackness engulfed him, and even when he opened his eyes and saw the figures beside him, he was still entombed within this abyss. Sobs wracked him. “Isabelle!” he screamed, his world spinning, his lungs struggling to draw in air. “Where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll come to you! Please!”

  After Benevolence disappeared, only the sound of Joshua weeping permeated the night.

  A QUARTER MILE FROM JOSHUA, a trio of other survivors swam toward the same island. Knowing that they still had a long way to go, Akira worriedly watched the two women beside him. Though she cried and often shouted a man’s name, the older nurse seemed to be doing as well as could be expected. Akira had seen enough strength and weakness to know that she was strong. She would make it to the island. Unfortunately, he wasn’t so sure about the younger nurse. Her breaths were too quick and desperate, her pace too slow, her movements too erratic.

  Though he had killed many during the war, and though parts of him were hardened to sorrow, Akira didn’t want this woman to drown. For three days she’d treated him with kindness, and for three days he’d listened to her chatter with her sister. During the past five years, Akira had seen very little kindness and had listened to almost no such friendly banter. He’d fought from country to country, island to island, and he’d heard little but explosions and screams and misery, and was weary of such sounds.

  “Are you tired?” he asked the nurse in English. When she made no response, he swam closer to her. “So sorry, but, Annie, are you tired?”

  Isabelle stopped calling Joshua’s name and moved protectively to her sister’s side. “How do you . . . how do you know her name?” she asked, a wave rolling into her mouth as she spoke.

  Akira turned toward the older sister. “I can speak English. And I listened to you.”

  “But how . . . how can you speak English?”

  Akira glanced toward the island, worried that they weren’t swimming directly toward it. He adjusted his course, lifting his head above the sea so that he could speak. “A long, long time ago, I was a university professor,” he replied, even though that man was dead. “I taught advanced English and Western history.”

  “Western history?”

  He spat out a mouthful of water. “Yes. It is true.”

  An unusually large wave lifted and dropped them fast enough that they
went underwater. “It’s so . . . so far,” Annie said miserably after resurfacing. “It’s too far. I can’t . . . I just won’t make it!”

  “You’ll make it, Annie,” Isabelle replied, trying to stay calm for her sister’s sake.

  “I won’t!”

  “You will! I promise that you will.”

  “I’m so tired.”

  “You’ve always been tested, Annie, and you’ve always made it. Tonight won’t be any different.”

  “But I’m still weak. I feel so weak!”

  Reeling with worry over her loved ones, Isabelle prayed for Joshua and Annie, all too aware that her sister hadn’t completely recovered from her bout with malaria. The island was still far away, and despite her best efforts to stay calm, Isabelle felt a mounting sense of panic grip her. “Look for some kind of debris!” she said desperately. “There must be . . . something has to be floating out here,” she added between gulps of air. “Please, dear God, let there be something floating out here!”

  Akira moved farther away from them. “You should take off your dress,” he said, turning his back to them. “It will be easier, yes, to swim in your . . . undergarments?”

  Isabelle started to protest but quickly changed her mind. “He’s right, Annie. Let’s get that off you.” Before Annie could say anything, Isabelle helped unbutton and remove her long and cumbersome outfit. Isabelle undressed as well, immediately feeling more buoyant in her undergarments. “Don’t you hurt my sister,” she said, glaring at Akira. “When we’re ashore, you will not touch my sister. You hear me? You won’t touch her. You won’t so much as look at her. Not if you want help with your leg.”

  Akira nodded, not blaming her for the hostility. He was sure that the nurses had heard rumors—stories of atrocities against women by Japanese soldiers. To his profound shame, Akira knew that many of the rumors were true. In fact, he’d been in Nanking, and for six weeks witnessed sights that he wouldn’t have thought possible. How many Chinese girls and women had he seen raped and killed? A hundred? A thousand?