The Far Reaches

by Homer Hickam

  “Yes,” she said and, against her will, faintly smiled at the memory. She had been so tired then, so dirty, so abandoned…God, why hast thou forsaken me? She had cried her plea to the ceiling of her filthy cell again and again. Then,later, when she had been raped a dozen times, and beaten until her body was blue, Yoshu had come to her, and it was as if he were a different man, a soft, warm, loving man who needed her to teach him what life was really about. Then he brought the pipe with the opium and told her how good it would make her feel. She had longed to feel good, if only for a little while, and it had worked its magic. For the first and only time in her life, the opium released her from her awful Irish inhibitions. She felt free, sexually and expressively, and morality was only a set of strictures to be overcome with ever more of the pipe whenever Yoshu would let her have it. And she had craved it so. The pipe had become her purpose in life, along with the man who filled it for her.

  He seemed to sense the argument she was having with herself. “My first attempt at poetry,” he said, his expression one of quiet pride. “A woman in white, gentle sweetness, your touch soft as snow.” He tilted his chin. “You liked it, didn’t you? I began to call you Snow after that.”

  “It touched me,” she confessed. “I don’t know why. After the things ye did to me. Maybe it was the pipe.”

  “No. The pipe only helped you to blossom into a woman.” His smile broadened. “Then one day, one marvelous day, you wrote a poem for me.”

  “Strange man,” she whispered, recalling how she had craved the pipe, and him. “Strange man. Filled with rage. Gentle when I smile.”

  “Ah,” he breathed. “Yes-s-s-s.”

  “Ye said our love had changed ye forever. Ye said ye would work for peace. Then Nango told me what yer men had done to him, and the other fella boys. Yoshu, I discovered ye had sometimes joined in.”

  “I didn’t want to do it!” Yoshu whined. “But I was afraid not to, afraid they would murder me for a weakling. And I am weak. You know that, Snow. But I felt so strong when I was with you.”

  “That was because I let the pipe make me weak. I broke the pipe after Nango told me what ye had done. I made meself well and whole again.”

  “No, you made yourself into the fiction you had constructed around your terrible church.”

  She stepped to the side, to get Monessa out of the line of fire. “Ye carved me symbol on the cross at Burubu,” she said as if scolding a child. “Yoshu, I was disgusted.”

  His lips formed a pout. “It was the only way I had to talk to you. I did it so you would know how much I still loved you and wanted you to come home. Even though you abandoned me, I do love you so.”

  “That’s why I know ye would not harm Monessa. She is the two of us made one, after all.”

  “I am very afraid,” Yoshu suddenly said as she took another sideways step. “I am not ready to die. If you take another step, I will kill her.” He raised the dagger again. “Snow, this I swear I will do. Put the rifle down.”

  Kathleen had no choice. She crouched and placed the rifle on the floor, then stood and spread her arms wide, showing him her empty hands. “Ye see? Ye have nothing to fear. We can be a family again. I love ye, dear strange man.”

  Yoshu lowered the dagger. “Then come to me,” he said softly.

  She walked to him, first touching Monessa with a trailing finger, hesitating for just a moment while the child cooed at her touch. Then she slipped inside Yoshu’s familiar embrace. Sighing in submission, she kissed him, and her heart sang even as she made her calculations.

  55

  Ready finally reached Yoshu’s house. His memory of the sand map of the township had served him well. Tucker and Garcia were lounging on the porch and grinned when they saw him. “Hiya, Bosun!” Tucker called. “How’s the battle in town?”

  “I think we’ve won it,” Ready answered, relieved to see the two marines. “Where’s my wife?”

  Josh came out on the porch. “We came here to find Yoshu, but he isn’t here, and I don’t know where Kathleen is. She was behind us, but where she went, I don’t know.”

  Ready paled. “I’ve got to find her, Captain!”

  “And so we shall, Ready. I’ve been trying to figure out where to look.”

  “Maybe she went to church,” Garcia suggested. “I mean, even if she ain’t a nun anymore, she might still like to pray”

  Josh snapped his fingers. “Out of the mouths of babes! The chapel!”

  Ready didn’t wait for Josh and the marines. He started running.

  Though he still held the dagger, Yoshu lifted Kathleen’s shirt during their embrace and explored her bare back with his free hand. She involuntarily shuddered, remembering how tender had been his caresses. She turned within his arms to face her baby. She laid her head back against his chest, sighing. “Kiss my neck, Yoshu. You know I always loved it.”

  This he did, and while he was distracted, she knew she had a chance. If she was very quick, she could pull away from him, pick Monessa up, and run with her from the chapel. But as she tensed to move, Yoshu pulled her shirt loose and she felt the dagger against her stomach. Why he had done this made no sense until he pressed its edge against her, then slid it hard across her skin. She felt something wet dripping down her legs. She clutched her stomach, then raised her bloody hands to her eyes. Horrified, she reached for Monessa, to pick her up, to hold her. She touched her, but Yoshu pulled her back by her hair.

  “I’m sorry, Snow,” he said, “but I knew you were going to try to leave me again. Of course, I couldn’t allow that.”

  Kathleen was having difficulty standing, so Yoshu let go of her hair and gently lowered her to the floor. She stared up at him, still not quite believing what he had done. “Here we once made love after having our pipes,” he said. “Do you remember? And here I have decided we will end it. First you will die, and then our child. After that, I will kill myself as the Bushido ritual requires.”

  For a very brief moment, Kathleen reflected that Yoshu had never been one much for rituals, Bushido or otherwise. Then a terrible, excruciating pain in her stomach tore her thoughts apart. She tried to scream, but it came out a sigh. “Such love we had,” Yoshu crooned. “Such holy love. I wish only that we could have had one last pipe together.”

  Kathleen’s eyes floated upward, and she saw a child sitting on the altar. It was the girl in the golden robe, and her skinny white legs were swinging back and forth. It was only then that Kathleen finally recognized her. “Saint Monessa,” Kathleen said, though no words escaped her lips, “save my baby.”

  The child stopped swinging her legs and smiled.

  Ready finally found the town square. His recollection of the sand map had not been perfect, and he had gotten lost. Finally, he’d run across Mr. Spurlock and Gertie, who was carrying a head under her arm. While his wife grinned and looked about for more prey, Spurlock gave Ready proper directions. Ready ran across the grass of the square and up the steps of the chapel and through its open doors. Inside was a disorienting patchwork of light and dark, the scalding sunlight flowing through the windows terribly bright, all else brooding and somber. Then he saw the altar, and something bloody lying on it. To his horror, he realized it was a baby.

  “Kathleen?” Ready called and was answered by something rustling behind the altar. “Kathleen!”

  Ready ran into one of the blinding rectangles of light thrown down by the windows. Then he came out of it and into darkness, so sudden it rendered him temporarily blind. He waited for his eyes to adjust, and then the suffused light allowed him finally to see her. At first, he thought she was lying on a scarlet silk cloth, but then he saw it wasn’t cloth at all but shimmering blood. Then he saw a Japanese officer kneeling in one of the patches of sunlight on the other side of the chapel. A dagger lay beside him, and he was whining something in Japanese, something that sounded like begging for mercy.

  Ready ignored the Japanese officer and knelt beside Kathleen. Her eyes were staring at the ceiling and blinking in a s
low rhythm, as if they were counting seconds. He saw the terrible slash across her stomach. When he looked back at her face, he was startled to see that her eyes had focused and she was watching him. She slowly raised her trembling, bloody hands to him, except it wasn’t for him. He knew what she wanted, the baby on the altar.

  Ready felt as if his insides were turning to liquid. How could he hand her a dead child? But when he rose to look at the child, to decide, he saw she wasn’t dead at all, just covered with blood. He realized it must have been Kathleen’s blood. He lifted the child, her little hands clutching toward him, and handed her down to his wife.

  Kathleen was happy, so happy. She held Monessa tenderly, though it took all her remaining strength. Saint Monessa stood now beside Ready, her tiny hand on his shoulder. “I should confess to him,” Kathleen said to the little saint, though no real words passed her lips. “I should confess to my husband that I fell in love with Yoshu, against all reason. It is my greatest sin, the one that can never be forgiven.”

  “He knows,” Saint Monessa replied in her little girl’s voice. “He knows and forgives you.”

  “God forgives me?” Kathleen asked.

  She inclined her little head, as if Kathleen had asked a very foolish question. “Your husband forgives you. God forgives you, too, but that is not as important.”

  Then, as Ready touched Kathleen’s face, a touch she didn’t feel, she saw Saint Monessa put out her hand. Kathleen felt humble and serene. She realized at that moment she had become the perfect nun. It was Sister Mary Kathleen who took the little saint’s gentle hand and was lifted up.

  Josh had been delayed by crowds of Rukans come out to celebrate. As he entered the chapel, he was cautious at first, as the sunlight through the windows was so dazzling he could scarcely see. But then, as he moved through the patches of light and darkness, he saw Ready and Kathleen and the baby behind the altar. And then he saw Colonel Yoshu. A bloody dagger lay beside him, but there was no blood on Yoshu. He looked up at Josh with his girlish eyes. His face was tortured, and tears streamed down it. “I surrender,” he said in English. “I am prisoner.”

  Josh kicked the dagger away and took the colonel by his collar and pulled him to his feet. “Prisoner,” Yoshu said again with pleading eyes.

  “No prisoner,” Josh said in his face so that Yoshu could see his outrage.

  Yoshu whimpered as Josh dragged him out of the chapel and threw him down the steps into the square. There the Ruka fella boys, led by Nango, had gathered. Josh told them what Yoshu had done to Kathleen. Then he asked Nango to use what Japanese he knew to tell Yoshu what was about to happen. This was done, and then Josh turned away, closing his ears to Yoshu’s screams.

  56

  Josh walked aimlessly through the streets of Ruka Township. He did not know what else to do or where to go. He had helped Ready get to his feet, then gently taken the baby from Kathleen’s arms and handed her to the bosun. He had watched closely as Ready wrapped the little girl in the white silk cloth from the altar. “What will you do with her?” Josh asked.

  “What do you think, Captain?” Ready had replied. “This is my child. I will raise her—and cherish her forever.”

  In the face of such goodness, Josh had turned away and made his way through the streets filled with celebrating Rukans. Before long, he came across Montague Burr. Burr, shirtless, his torso bound in strips of white cloth like a partial mummy, was sitting nonchalantly in a chair outside of what was evidently a bar, though it had been thoroughly ransacked. There was an empty whiskey bottle lying on the table before him and a half-empty one standing up. “Yoshu is dead,” Josh told him. “So is Kathleen. Ready has her child. She is a pretty baby.”

  “I’ll miss that little Irish girl,” Burr said. “She had spunk.” He pulled a chair back from the table. “Sit down, Josh. Have a drink. I think you could use one.”

  “Thanks, but no. I don’t know what I need, but I’m sure it isn’t a drink.”

  Burr shrugged. “So what are you going to do now?”

  Josh gave the question some thought, then said, “The sea has always been an answer for me, no matter the question.”

  Burr knocked back his glass, then smacked his lips, island style. He poured himself another, then tossed the bottle over his shoulder, grinning when it shattered. “Will you go back to Tahila? You have a daughter there.”

  Josh nodded. “Yes. I will go back. After a short sail, I think.”

  Burr raised his glass. “Have fun, then, brother.”

  Josh walked away, and it wasn’t too long before he found himself on the beach where the outriggers had landed. He noticed Chief Kalapa’s fast little canoe among them and surmised it had carried Ready across the length and breadth of the Far Reaches.

  Josh had always loved small boats, especially fast ones. He recalled he had risked his life to go after one a long time ago. It had been off Killakeet. He had been but a boy, minding his baby brother while their father was off the island. To Josh’s joy, a pretty little red moth boat had gone drifting by. It had broken loose somewhere, and if Josh caught it, it would be his. Taking little Jacob with him, he’d sailed his father’s spare dory after the moth boat but found instead a terrible storm. He had survived, but Jacob had been lost.

  Josh pushed the canoe off the beach and hopped in. He used a paddle to maneuver it into deeper water and then set the sail. The breeze plumped the canvas, and very quickly the canoe was skimming across the water. An hour later, Josh thought to look over his shoulder. Ruka had disappeared. All he could see was the great circle where the ocean met the sky.

  He sailed on while above him clouds gathered, fluffy and white at first, then darkening. He saw flashes of lightning on the horizon and then great blue-white streaks that hummed as they struck the water. He smelled the ozone-saturated air and it was clean and pure, washing the stink of death from his nostrils.

  He longed for the cleansing rain to reach him, and reach him it did. He turned his face to it and let it flush away the dirt and grime of too many battles. The rainwater began to grow deep in the bottom of the canoe. He found half a coconut shell and bailed a little, though it was impossible to keep up with the sheets of rain. Finally, he tossed the shell away. He let the wind, howling now, blow him and the little canoe wherever it wished. Then the mast, not built to take the terrible energy of a vast storm on the open sea, cracked and fell. Huge waves pounded the canoe.

  Josh let the angry water wash over him. Then he found himself no longer in the canoe but in the embrace of the sea. He lifted his head, thinking to perhaps find the remains of the canoe, to swim to it, to hang on. He rode the next swell up and up, then slid down into the valley between it and the next great wave. Josh swam on with his powerful stroke. He swam all night, but the boat eluded him, or perhaps it had sunk. When the sun again made its appearance, with all its usual gaudiness, Josh heard what sounded like thunder. It was waves crashing on a beach, he was certain of it! Exhausted but undaunted, the Killakeet keeper’s son turned in the direction of what he hoped was an island, trusting the sea to help him on his way.

  A HISTORICAL FOOTNOTE AND A FEW REFERENCES

  Although the Far Reaches are islands that exist only in my imagination, there were many such islands occupied by the Japanese during World War II that were bypassed by the United States forces on their march to Tokyo. The Japanese often removed their troops when they could, but sometimes they were left to fend for themselves against time and the elements, and also the resentful people they had brutally conquered. What happened to some of these abandoned Japanese troops is simply lost to history. I think it can be assumed more than a few of them met violent ends.

  The battle of Tarawa as I recount it in this novel is accurate except, of course, for the participation of Josh Thurlow, Ready O’Neal, Colonel Montague Burr, the three marines Tucker, Sampson, and Garcia, and also Sister Mary Kathleen and her fella boys. Among the very real participants were Major Mike Ryan, Colonel David Shoup, Sergeant Bill Bordelon, C
olonel “Red Mike” Edson, and Lieutenant Alexander “Sandy” Bonnyman.

  The final American bill for Tarawa was 997 dead marines and 30 corpsmen, with 2,233 marines and 59 corpsmen grievously wounded and 88 marines missing. Another way of looking at it: Nearly 30 percent of the 12,000 Americans who participated in the landing were either killed or incapacitated by wounds. Ninety of their 125 landing craft were also sunk, wrecked, or battered into junk. The battle was three days of bloody mayhem. One wonders what the reaction of the United States public would be today after such a horrendous “victory.” World War II in the Pacific, however, just kept grinding on after Tarawa with hardly a murmur of unhappiness on the home front.

  The Japanese body count for the battle was 4,713 men dead. The rikusentai fought nearly to the last man. In 2004, the Japanese sent 600 troops to Iraq, principally to support a variety of humanitarian projects, including water purification. Japanese citizens instantly began to fret over the safety of their soldiers, demanding that everything possible be done to keep them out of actual combat and to bring them home as soon as possible.

  Obviously, there have been a few changes in the mindset of both Americans and Japanese since the 1940s.

  Two excellent resources for the battle of Tarawa are the aptly titled Utmost Savagery: The Three Days of Tarawa, by Colonel Joseph H. Alexander, USMC, and One Square Mile of Hell, by John Wukovits. Another excellent book with many photographs and maps is Tarawa 1943: The Turning of the Tide, written by Derrick Wright and illustrated by Howard Gerrard. A most remarkable book I discovered told me the story of what happened on Betio immediately after the battle. It is titled Tarawa: The Aftermath, written by Donald K. Allen. It is an astonishing history of men living literally atop the shallow graves of thousands. An interesting recent memoir about life on Tarawa is The Sex Lives of Cannibals: Adrift in the Equatorial Pacific, by J. Maarten Troost. Despite its lurid title, Mr. Troost’s amusing tale has nothing to do with cannibals or what they do in bed. It is, however, a good primer on how life has evolved in a most intriguing manner on those decaying little coral atolls.