The Far Reaches

by Homer Hickam

  Josh followed the path until he reached the beach, and then he walked to his wife and his son. They were lying as if asleep, their heads resting on the wet sand, the sea washing gently at their feet. Nearby was the remnant of their canoe. The scars on it showed clearly the marks of the barge’s propeller blades. Josh wept now and struck himself in the forehead with the flat of his hand, for this was the way of these islands. He looked for a shell with a sharp edge and used it to cut his forehead along his hairline, then felt the hot trickle of blood flow down his face. Then he sat down beside them and put his arms around his knees and drew them up and lowered his head, not to pray but to seek the strength within himself to do what needed next to be done.

  After a while, he raised his head, sensing he and his wife and his son were no longer alone. It was her. He knew without looking, though it proved not to be Ready O’Neal’s wife, as he first thought, but Sister Mary Kathleen, her white habit flowing like a flag of surrender in the wind, her pretty Irish face framed by her wimple, corona, and veil. She knelt between Rose and Turu, her knees in the wet sand, her lips atremble in prayer. She touched them, then made the sign of the cross. Then, rising effortlessly, she began to take off her clothing. First came the headdress, then the cowl, the cincture, the scapular, and finally the habit. Underneath, she wore Marine Corps utilities and Marine Corps boots, brought with her from Tarawa. She tore a strip from her habit and tied it around her forehead. All the rest of her nun’s clothing she threw into the sea. “Let me tell you something of me family,” she said. “Me old pap, to start.”

  “You told me once he was a farmer,” he replied as if they were in a dream.

  “Aye, he was,” she acknowledged, “but he was also in the army that crawled through the Irish night, murdering the filthy occupiers. And a meaner, crueler man did not exist when he was at war.”

  She blinked into the salty air. “He would come home with his pistols stinking of burnt powder, and we kids would know he had been out killing the Black and Tans. Me mum, she would cry, but she never told him to quit, no. She believed in what he did, y’see, though it were a mortal sin according to the priest. All of the priests.

  “There was the local constabulary,” she went on. “Pap hated them the most, for these were his countrymen and they kept the British heel on our necks. He planned many a day for what he finally did to them. He and his fellows waited in the forest’s edge near the chapel while the constab boys were at mass. When they came out, Pap alone stepped from the trees and confronted them, called them traitors, then shot one of them down. Then the others of his army stepped out and finished off the rest. When the priest came out of the chapel, Pap killed him, too, saying he had no right to give the Blessed Sacrament to such creatures as the constabs.”

  A windblown tear streamed across her rosy cheek. “The Black and Tans came for him a day later. Before our eyes, they shot him in the back of his head, then carried him off to be hung from the tree outside the chapel. When they cut him down, no priest would say a mass for him. We buried him, knowing he was bound for hell. Yet I have little doubt he preferred hell rather than the heaven of a God he had come to distrust.”

  She shook her head. “His blood, it runs through me veins.”

  “Yet you became a nun,” Josh said.

  “Yes, in the hope that God would provide me old man some comfort, even in hell. But then I came to love being a nun. There was no deceit in my heart when I wore the Church’s cloth. It was my vocation, that which I believed was meant for me, that which made me happier than anything in life. Yet it was taken from me. God took it.”

  Josh looked out to sea, studying the distant line that marked the meeting of water and sky, then said, “Let me tell you something of my family. My father is the lighthouse keeper on Killakeet Island. He is a peaceful, gentle man, and he raised me to be the same as he. But, since it is a very small is-land, and everyone gossips, he could not hide the truth of my family. The Thurlows, from the beginning of the settlement on the Outer Banks, were wreckers who lived off the flotsam and jetsam of wrecked ships. Sometimes, they couldn’t wait for the weather and the awful shoals to do their dirty work. The Thurlow family, all of them, men, women, and children, would go out into the dark and carry lanterns and walk back and forth on the beach. To a passing ship, it looked as if the lanterns were aboard boats safe in the stream. Unsuspecting captains would come near, only to strike Killakeet Shoals. Whether the sailors aboard drowned or not, few of them lived to see the new sun.”

  Josh continued: “The worst of the old wreckers was Josiah Thurlow, my great-grandfather. He was ruthless in his quest for treasure, even if it only meant a pair of ill-fitting shoes taken off a dead sailor. To stop the wreckers, especially the terrible Thurlows, the government built a great lighthouse on Killakeet and offered old Josiah the lightkeeper’s job. He took it, though some say he never gave up his murderous ways.” Josh paused and then said, “His blood runs through my veins.”

  “Did you try to be a good man like your father?”

  Josh smiled. “No man could hope to be like my father. He’s no saint, loves the girls too much for that, yet he is as good a man as there is. I do my best, that’s all I will say.”

  All that could be heard was the keening of the gulls and the grumble of the sea. Finally, she asked, “Where shall they rest?”

  He gestured toward the towering cliff. “Up there. Rose loved the view of this bay.”

  “I will say prayers over their graves, if you wish it.”

  “I do not wish it.”

  “Then may I say good-bye to them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I should like the honor of carrying your son to his last resting place.” Josh studied her, then nodded his approval.

  Josh tamped the dirt on Rose’s grave with the back of the shovel, then leaned on its handle and was quiet until the lump in his throat subsided enough to allow him to speak. “Good-bye, Rose,” he said. “You were a good wife. Good-bye, Turu. You were a good son, none better. I will miss you both forever.” He tossed the shovel down and looked at Kathleen. “Why are you dressed that way?” he asked, as if noticing for the first time the combat utilities she wore and the rifle she carried.

  “Because I have seen the light,” she answered. “I finally understand that God loves war. I don’t know why. Maybe without war, peace has no value. No matter. I am acceding to His wishes, which He has kept making plain, though I have for so long refused to listen.” She looked across the sea, toward the pink and golden clouds that drifted so prettily and peacefully there. For just a moment, there was something of hesitation in her expression, a softening of her eyes; then she seemed to settle herself, to prepare. “For all the weeks after I escaped, I kept trying to get someone to chase the colonel away so I could have me little Monessa. But no one would do it. So I decided to go back to Yoshu, to give in to his demands, at least until I could find a way to escape with me child. It was why I married Ready, to use his love to get what I wanted. I am filled with deceit, Captain, and so very wicked.”

  “You shanghaied me, which was wicked, and perhaps so was your marriage to a man you didn’t love. But what happened on Ruka, all that was forced on you by a cruel man.”

  “Thank ye, but ye are wrong. I sinned beyond measure on that island. And now, Captain, I will tell it to ye. My greatest sin.”

  So Kathleen told him her story, of her sin beyond sins, and when she was finished, Josh stood silent and shocked for a long time. Finally, he asked, “Who else knows this?”

  “The marine priest. I told Mori and Rose early on about me baby, but the rest of it? Nay, Captain, only a priest could hear such a wicked thing. And now ye know.”

  “Why did you tell me?”

  “Because I wanted you to know that I am dirt, and unworthy of yer concern. I am a grand sinner, Captain, but I can fight.”

  “Fight?” Josh shook his head. “When the submarine returns, Colonel Burr will go to Australia. He will request bombers to smash Ruka.�
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  “Aye, and their bombs will murder the people there and me baby. Nay, Captain. I beg ye. Think what God has done. He has killed yer wife and yer son. He has allowed me to sink into depravity. He is telling us what He wants if we will but listen. Let us go to Ruka and kill the Japanese, or be killed. Maybe we’ll win, and maybe I’ll get me baby back. Or maybe we will die. I doubt that God cares. He only wishes us to fight. Finally, I understand this is His way”

  Josh looked at the twin graves and something broke inside him, something that had never been real, something he realized he had invented to hide the awful truth of the kind of man he was. He steadied himself and allowed his dreams to fade until they disappeared altogether. “I don’t know much about what God wants, Kathleen,” he said, “but I do know this. Ever since I came to this island, I have tried to run away from Colonel Yoshu. I forgot the lesson Captain Falcon taught me so well on the ice. You do not run from evil. To hesitate allows it to grow. You go full throttle right at it, and when you get close enough, you reach inside its rotten breast and tear its heart out.” He picked up his rifle. “It’s time to go,” he said roughly.

  She shouldered her rifle. “Where are we going?”

  Josh looked at her, then past her, to all that he had done, and all that he would have to do. “To war, Kathleen. We go to war.”

  52

  In the darkness, the deep darkness of what seemed an endless night, Josh sat beside his daughter inside his sister-in-law’s house. Manda’s cousins were beside her, all asleep. Josh pulled the cotton quilt over Manda’s bare shoulders, then leaned over and kissed her cheek. The evening before, after the other raiders had gone to rest prior to disembarkation, Josh had talked to Manda of many things, but mostly his reasons for going to Ruka. He’d explained that the bad men who had killed her mother and brother had to be punished.

  Manda had looked up at him with her big luminous eyes, and the longing expression that reminded him so much of Rose, and had asked, in her innocence, “Will hurting these men let Mama and Turu come home?”

  “No,” he answered honestly. “Nothing can do that.”

  “Then I want you to stay,” she said flatly.

  Josh explained why he couldn’t do that, as much as he wanted to. If he did, he told her, perhaps the bad men would come back and hurt other people in the village. “Evil cannot be allowed to win,” he told her. “It must be destroyed by good men, else it grows.”

  Then, sensing that he could not convince her, he said simply, “I love you. I will always love you. I will always take care of you, too, even if I don’t come back. You have to trust me on this.”

  Hearing these words, she did not cry, though Josh had supposed she might. He realized Manda was like most of the children on Tahila. She had a sure grip on reality and understood that things did not always go well in life. She also knew she was in the embrace of a loving village. Manda did not need him. It was he who needed her.

  Still gazing at his daughter, Josh sat back. What had he become? Where was Josh Thurlow, the son of Keeper Jack of Killakeet? Where was that boy of the dunes and the sea, that gentle boy who’d risked getting a finger bitten off just to save an old mud turtle? How was it that this boy had become an efficient killer of men in the South Seas?

  Josh didn’t know, nor did he have time to think on it. Not now, he told himself. The time for such thoughts, or regrets, was past. The raid on Ruka was on. He would have to kill again.

  Colonel Burr had organized the raid. There were to be thirty men and one woman in the party. Burr himself, of course, and his two marines would go, with Sampson remaining behind to help guard Tahila with the women’s militia. Josh Thurlow, Ready O’Neal, and the eleven Ruka fella boys were also going, plus fourteen Tahila fella boys. The entire village was furious because of the attempted attack by the two Japanese barges and the deaths of Rose and Turu. It was necessary for Burr to turn away volunteers, including Chief Kalapa. The chief was too fat, but Burr told him he couldn’t go because he was indispensable to Tahila, which would suffer mightily without his leadership. One woman in the party was allowed and that was Kathleen.

  To prepare for the raid, Burr asked Nango to build a model of Ruka Township. He had done so from memory with contoured sand and shells and mangos for the structures in the town. Burr had carefully studied it; then he had instructed each of his squads on the route they were to take after landing in the harbor, and the Japanese positions that were to be destroyed. Rehearsals were accomplished. “Toot sweet!” Burr bellowed again and again to the fella boys when they became confused or tired. “Speed is required! All same run-run, you savvy?”

  The Tahila fella boys savvied, and they savvied something else, too. It would be a desperate fight. That was when they threw down the rifles Burr had pressed on them and picked up their spears and machetes. This was the way they fought, the old way, closing on the enemy until his dying breath was in their face. Burr accepted it, made his adjustments, and kept training. For five days, they had rehearsed, and now midnight had come, and the raid was on. They would sail in the outriggers northwestward and then curve around to Ruka. This would take a day. At night they would rest, and land on the beach at Ruka Township an hour before dawn.

  All was prepared. Nothing else left to do but go. Josh rose and, after kissing a sleeping Manda, walked through the dark to the lagoon, where the raiding party was gathering. Josh looked over the assembly. The marines were dressed in their Tarawa utilities with freshly honed K-bars strapped aboard their hips. Tucker carried a machine gun on his shoulder. Garcia was draped with bandoliers of ammunition. The marines’ women wept silently beside them.

  Nango and the Ruka fella boys held their Japanese rifles, and the Tahila volunteers gripped their spears and machetes. Behind them was the Tahila women’s militia. Sampson, with a crutch under one arm and his hand on the holster of a forty-five pistol, stood in front of them. He nodded to Josh. If the raid failed, the Japanese would surely come again. Sampson and the women would somehow have to stop them. Behind the women warriors were the rest of the villagers, including Mr. Bucknell and Chief Kalapa, both registering deep sadness.

  Pushing through the crowd came Carl Spurlock, a long-barreled pistol strapped to his belt, and beside him Gertie and Tilly. “The old girl wouldn’t leave me alone about it, you see,” Spurlock explained, nodding toward Gertie. “She’s after some action.”

  Gertie, grinning, the whites of her eyes flashing in the torchlight, fondly patted a gleaming machete.

  “Tilly will stay behind, to guard our house,” Spurlock went on while the plump little woman wiped away her tears.

  Burr nodded to Spurlock and Gertie. “You and Gertie are welcome, Mr. Spurlock. You’ll be with the Ruka fella boys. Talk to Nango. He’ll fill you in on the plan.”

  Kathleen bade all to bow their heads. “Go ahead, Captain,” she said to Josh.

  Josh said, “I’m no preacher, but my old skipper in the Bering Sea, Captain Falcon, prayed a special prayer before he went into battle. I don’t know if it’s a righteous prayer or not, but I never knew a man headed into combat who didn’t like it said. Here it is, and bless me for a fool if God don’t like it:

  The Lord is my Captain. I shall not question Him!

  His will takes me across the great waters.

  He fills my sails and makes my heart strong.

  He leads me to war in His Name’s sake!

  Yea, though I sail through the sea of death, I do not fear evil!

  For He is with me! His powder and shot, they comfort me.

  He makes me invincible before mine enemies.

  His spirit is like rum; and my cup runneth over!

  This much I know!

  I fight for the right, the good, and the Holy.

  I will therefore prevail and God’s mercy will be mine.

  For I sail in the gunboat of the Lord forever!

  At Josh’s “Amen!” the raiders lifted their heads. Burr walked up beside Josh. “Time to go,” he said.


  And go they did.

  The raiding party surged forward and climbed into the outriggers while their women and the men left behind sang a low, ancient song, begging them to return safely from their long and dangerous journey. Paddles dug into the water as the boats flowed across the lagoon. The sails were raised, billowing and popping in the wind. The Tahila people continued to sing and then the outriggers disappeared, swallowed up inside a strange, cold mist.

  Ready woke to stare at the interior roof of the treehouse. He blinked once, his eyes ahead of his mind, and began to sort through the odd dreams that had visited him as he slept. Somewhere nearby, there were voices raised in song. He sat up slowly, with both hands holding his head, which seemed thick and wooly. He pressed his eyes closed and tried to think more clearly. Then he felt beside him for Kathleen. She was not there.

  A pale blue light flowed through the windows. Ready climbed from the bed, knocking a cup from the bedside table. It bounced on the bamboo floor and Ready stared at it, a dull memory returning. It was the cup Kathleen had given him. It was also the last thing he recalled. She had said it contained something the widows had prepared, something that would help him to sleep before the raid.

  Ready walked quickly to the windows. The blue light was the rising sun, weakly permeating through a strange, dense fog that had rolled into the lagoon. He realized now what Kathleen had done.

  He quickly pulled on his utilities, then his socks and boots, and picked up his rifle. Though his head was pounding, he ran down the spiral staircase and took the path to the beach. A few villagers watched him approach. Shockingly, the outriggers were gone.

  Ready saw Chief Kalapa. “Why did no one wake me?” he demanded.

  “Kathleen say you stay,” Chief Kalapa quietly replied. “She say husband no die for her sin.”

  Ready’s eyes landed on a canoe. It belonged to Chief Kalapa and it was very fast. “Chief, I need your canoe,” he said urgently, and didn’t wait for permission. He ran to it and pushed it into the lagoon and climbed aboard. He brought out the paddle and dipped its blade into the water and felt it bite.