The Eleventh Man

by Ivan Doig

  Just as he was at the point of describing the medical corps-men splashing to the rescue of the pair in Angelides' unit but having to give them up for dead, an explosion close behind the half-track flung him against the tailgate. Breath knocked out of him, he cringed there as metal debris sailed through the air, miraculously holding the microphone up enough to catch the sound of it striking the water around them. Leaning out over the tailgate, a white-faced Jones had hold of him with one arm. Not knowing if the recorder was still working, beyond caring, Ben in a raw voice spoke into the mike for their own posterity if no one else's:

  "That was the sound of a jeep blowing up in back of us, from a direct hit."

  Jones vanished into the well of the half-track then came up nodding, twirling a finger to indicate the reel remained running. Wiping salt water out of his eyes and ears and the corners of his mouth, Ben groggily mustered himself and swung around in the surf to take stock, checking on Angelides and his men—I owe you one, don't I, Animal, for stuffing us in the half-track instead of that jeep—as the line of them advanced like walkers with lead in their boots. Halfway to shore. He gave the distance out loud, words tumbling from somewhere. The next ones that reached the microphone did not come from him.

  "SARGE IS DOWN: CORPSMAN, CORPSMAN:"

  The cry—it was more of a wail—arose from a young Marine near the leading edge of Angelides' outfit. Where the stalking broad-shouldered shape had been a moment before, there now was a sodden form facedown, and Marines on either side struggling to hoist him up long enough for the raft to come.

  "Sergeant Angelides has been hit," Ben instinctively reported in a voice he would not have recognized as his own. "His men are bringing the rubber boat they use to carry their wounded." Even as he spoke that last word, he could tell this was no milliondollar wound, no ticket out of the war. He watched heartsick as the medics splashed their way to the big figure with a torso drenched darker than water would do, checked his vital signs, shook their heads at each other, and made the stark decision to leave his body to the tide. Numbly Ben told of this, finishing up:

  "The life raft is there, but passing him by."

  He choked up. One more time, death had won. Animal Angelides the indestructible, no more.

  "Lieutenant?" A hand from somewhere, grappling away the microphone. "Lieutenant, climb in!" Jones was frantically tugging at him, trying to wrestle him upward into the back of the half-track. "It's over, Lieutenant. We're out of reel."

  11

  I have to hand it to you, Ben. You made it back here in one piece. From the neck down, anyway.

  In the ice-blue twilight that passed for illumination in the roadhouse, Cass drank him in from across the table. His months out there under the ocean sun had tanned him to a light bronze. The ginger hair was briskly cut in a way he must have caught from being around Marines, a curt bristle her fingers wanted into whenever they weren't otherwise engaged in the cabin out back a half hour ago. His face in its weary extent held both more and less than she remembered. Whatever else the Pacific trip had done to him, it had honed him down almost to thin, his every feature accentuated as if all excess had been pared away, bone truth underneath. You were serious before, you're damn near drastic now. The loss of his buddy at Guam was still with him any given moment, echoing off the stars and every surface between, but that was not all. Even when he was joking with her about the skunk juice the roadhouse passed off as scotch, there was a steady intensity to Ben, like a lamp flame trimmed low, burning through the night.

  "Cass?" He spun his glass in the spot of condensation under it, as if studying the direction of the swirl. "Cass, how much longer do we have?"

  She could tell he did not mean from then to morning. Her tongue caught on the words a little as she spoke back. "You could have talked all night, soldier, and not asked that."

  "Just wanted to brush up on how things stand." He kept on watching the twirl of the glass as if it was going to do a new trick. "With us. The incurable ungodly galloping case of us, remember?"

  They'd both had too much to drink, which still was not nearly enough. Right away their reunion had all but gone through the roof of that cabin. They climbed all over one another in the beat-up bed, fast and furious in their need. Their first lovemaking since Seattle, both of them went about it as if it was the last ever. Afterward, a bit dazed and winded, they adjourned out here to take a look at the matter of themselves through the comparatively cool reflection of drinks.

  Carefully Cass steadied herself, both elbows on the table, chin up. Funny how a dive like this place was the one spot that didn't care how tangled you were, showed some mercy. The jukebox was turned low into a kindly monotony, "Deep Purple" swinging along invisibly for about the dozenth time. On down the long bar from their corner, the place was empty this far into the night except for the roadhouse bartender and a local codger idly taking turns at playing the punchboard. So at least we don't have to make fools of ourselves in front of anybody that counts. Yet. Braced, she looked Ben full in the face. "You're the one who's been out there in Tokyo's backyard, you tell me when the man I'm married to is likely to be told he doesn't have to invade any more islands."

  Ben thought about it, showing the effort to get past the effects of the so-called scotch. Everyone in the Pacific theater of combat was betting MacArthur would try for the Philippines pretty soon. That "I shall return" yap he let out in '42. As if he's going to come back to Manila and whip the asses of the Japs single-handed. Whenever the supreme general did try to retake the Philippine Islands, he would throw in all the troops he could find. Ben could not bring himself to tell Cass the overpowering likelihood, that jungle-veteran units such as her husband's would be used to mop up whatever MacArthur wanted mopped up. "It's anybody's guess what'll happen out there," he came out with, aware it was hardly worth it.

  Cass looked away. "Dan's got overseas points, up the gigi, but his whole National Guard bunch keeps getting extended. He's on some wreck of an island called Biak, they let them say that in a letter finally." She paused to do some thinking of her own. "He wrote me that it's supposed to be a recuperation area now, but it's sure as hell no Australia or Hawaii—his outfit figures they're being held there for one last shooting match." She broke off to take a hard sip of her drink.

  This was a moment Ben knew he should feel honorable remorse or worse for trespassing into Cass's life with another man. As far back as their first time as lovers, qualms of that sort were somewhere just beyond the edge of the bed. But stronger emotions would always push those away, if he and she had a hundred years at this. The nature of love is that it catches you off-guard, subjects you to rules you have never faced, some of them contradictory. All of the ones about fidelity of heart and life knotted him to Cass, and as far as he could tell, always would.

  He scrunched in his chair, not saying it until he could no longer stand to hold it in. "What happens then? When he does come home?"

  "I don't damn know. I do not know, Ben, how can I? I'm going to be faced with a man I haven't seen in two years, it'll have to decide itself from there." Watching her from across the table, he listened desperately, trying to determine if he was hearing ground rules of wingwalking again—Never leave hold of what you've got—or something more hopeful—until you've got hold of something else. Cass was gazing steadily at him as she finished up. "If you were him, you'd feel entitled to that much."

  "If I were him, I'd hate me."

  "Hey, don't get going in that direction." She shook her head in warning. "If anyone is going to be accused of messing up a marriage, start with me. Nobody held a gun on me and said, 'Go fall for that dishy war correspondent in the fleece jacket,' did they. I could have looked the other way and stayed in the rut I'm meant to for the rest of the war, one more pilot going nowhere."

  "Come off that, will you?" he appealed. "Since when doesn't having a squadron count? I sure to Christ don't have one. You aren't anybody's idea of a pilot going nowhere."

  "Not now. Wings on my brisket,
bars on my collar, I'm a pretty good imitation of a fighter plane jockey on these ferrying runs, you bet I am. But what happens the minute the boys come marching home? Is the good old Army Air Corps going to treat WASPs like guys? No sign of it so far." Cass jerked her glass up to her lips, found it empty, and set it down disconsolately. "I want the war over as much as anybody, but the war is what keeps me in that cockpit. There's a pisser, isn't it? And Ben?—us, chronic us? How do I know I could keep up with you after the war? If we did stay together? You're probably going to be famous—what am I saying, you're famous or next thing to it already—"

  "Only as long as bullets are flying."

  "—and all in the damn world I'm good for is handling one half-assed kind of fighter plane."

  He lurched his chair forward. "Cass, we can't put together life after the war until the sonofabitching thing shows us it's going to be over, but we can stick together until we can figure out—" Breaking off, he peered across at her and demanded, "Are you bawling? Because if you are, I'm afraid then I'll have to."

  "Damn you, Ben Reinking," she said, fierce but snuffling. "I haven't had a crying jag since I was eleven years old." She wiped her eyes, then her nose. "Until you."

  For some moments he gulped back moist emotions of his own. Why of all the people in this war did the two of them have to be on the receiving end of something like this? What was wrong with backing away from this and snapping up an Adrianna instead, sweetly available and nowhere near as troublous? What was wrong with him? "This is just crazy hopeless," he said at last, his expression pretty much fitting that description itself. "I'm stuck on you even when we're doing our double damnedest to have a fight."

  "Swell," Cass sniffled, "that's me, too." She straightened herself up so sharply it jarred the table. "There's another kink to this, you know," she went on, wiping the tears away with determination now. "Dan's not the only one they keep throwing out there to get shot at, is he. I don't pretend to know squat about what the types in Washington have you doing. I just herd airplanes. The wear is starting to show through on those stories about the team, though, isn't it? I don't need to tell you that's getting to be an awful lot of dead heroes. Your guys are catching hell. And you're always going to be plunked right out there with them, Ben, you and just a pencil and paper, brave as anything—"

  "I don't feel brave. I'm just doing it."

  "—while every fool on the other side tries to draw a bead on you. Look what just happened to your pal the Marine. It could have been you. I am never going to be in favor of that part of your Tepee Weepy doings, you'd better know."

  "Listen, they've got me under orders the same way you are, and I—"

  "It isn't quite the same." She slapped the table for emphasis. "You've got some clout, you've got the name you've made for yourself."

  "That works once in a while. And generally doesn't. I was about to say, if I ever get the chance to drop the supreme team stuff, I'll do it in the next breath. For right now, the worst thing I've got to do is cover Angelides' funeral." He tried to move along to a better face on things and did not quite get there. "Maybe it's just as well to have some practice at crying, hmm? Cass, the night's getting away from us. What would you think about seeing if the cabin is still standing?"

  Her try at a better face at least came out better than his. "You haven't lost any of that ginger, is what I'd think."

  He pretended a huff. "If you're not interested all of a sudden—"

  "Didn't say I wasn't interested, preacher," she sounded much more like herself. "Pay the man again."

  "Gladly. And just maybe I'll get us another drink along with it."

  He headed up to the cash register, digging a few silver dollars out of his pocket as he went. What a hell of a thing, that all we've got is sack time together. But at least it's something.

  The bartender, an older man bald as a peanut, was sitting there alone nursing a cigarette. He cut a squinty look at Cass, then back at Ben. "You and the little lady figure on playing a doubleheader?"

  Ben pushed the money toward him on the bar. "That's what these nice round silver things are about, yeah."

  The bartender still looked at him, one eyelid pulled down against the cigarette smoke perpetually drifting toward it. "Soldier, ain't you?"

  Oh, please. Now the citizenry of Vaughn Junction is going to get picky about who it rents out hot sheets to? Crossly Ben indicated to Cass. "The both of us. Why?"

  The man behind the bar plucked a shred of tobacco off his tongue, then asked: "Been overseas any?"

  "I was in on Guam."

  The bartender shoved the money back to him. "It's on the house."

  When Ben returned to the table with both drinks and dollars in hand, Cass had the immediate question, "What was that about?"

  "My guess is he lost a son in the Pacific."

  They drank silently for a bit. Then he peeked over in the dimness at her luminous wristwatch. "Is it tomorrow yet, Captain?"

  She checked. "Just past midnight. What's special about tomorrow?"

  He made a satisfied sound. "I have a VIP coming in, although he doesn't know it yet. I don't know who they're going to get to stand sentry over the rocks and sand, but I sprung him for a leave to come to Animal's funeral."

  Cass caught on. "The guy out on the Coast? The one you were afraid would shoot up everything in sight and himself with it?"

  "That's him. Prokosch the tommy gunner."

  "No crap?" Cass sat up in surprise and awe. "The guy isn't even kin and you hassled them into letting him come to the funeral? You must've had to pull strings the size of anchor ropes, all up and down the line."

  He nodded pious affirmation. "Right to the top." If Tepee Weepy constituted the apex of things military. "At least it gets him away from submarine games for a few days, and he can see his girl along with it."

  "Wake up, kid. Hey, hear me? Roust out, Coastie."

  The off-duty sentry rolled away from the hut wall and with a groan elbowed up in his bunk. Two men with beach packs bulking on them were standing over him. The skinny sour-looking one was the chief petty officer from the Coast Guard station down the coast, the other was a peach-fuzzed seaman second class much like himself. "What's happening? The war over?"

  "Dream some more, kid. Where's Prokosch?"

  The off-duty man rubbed sleep crust from his eyes. "Sig? Out on patrol like he's supposed to be."

  "Come on, I know that. Where the hell at?"

  "How am I supposed to know, Chief?" Squinting at the twenty-four-hour clock on the radio table, he made an effort to concentrate. "He took off out of here this morning like his tail was on fire, him and the pooch. Must be up the beach quite a patch by now."

  The other seaman was slinging belongings out of his pack onto Prokosch's bunk. "Hurry it up, Quince," said the chief petty officer. He glanced at the face of confusion trying to take this in from across the hut. "Quincy's his relief while he goes on leave, so get used to Quincy."

  "Sig don't have leave coming."

  "He does now. Something about a funeral. There's a plane waiting for him at Port Angeles." Waiting impatiently for Quincy to restow the pack, the chief petty officer ducked to the window facing the ocean and the rugged line of shore beyond, looked out, and rolled his shoulders. "Hell if I know what it's about, but I'm supposed to walk him out of here and put him on that plane. The way these orders smoked down the line, you'd think he was Jimmy Roosevelt."

  The man still in the bunk looked more bewildered than ever. "You got to go after him on foot? Can't you just call him in?"

  The chief petty officer turned from the window in final agitation. "Radio blackout. Jap sub sank a tanker, down off Oregon last night, the pricks. No transmissions that they might pick up until we get the all clear. Ready, Quincy?" He tromped toward the door whether or not Quincy was ready. "Let's go. Maybe we can catch him before he gets to hell and gone up the beach."

  The off-duty sentry rolled back into his bunk. "You don't know Prokosch."

  Far
thest out on the Pacific horizon from where Sig Prokosch happened to be patrolling, waves broke violently on a shelf of reef as if the edge of the world was flying apart.

  Scanning from the distant mix of spray and drab rumple of the ocean, the Coast Guardsman strived to find a low-lying streak of white out there, a chalk trace on the greater gray, that would be the wake disclosing a periscope. He was keyed up, convinced this might very well be the morning he nailed the Japanese submariners. If not him personally, then the plane carrying depth bombs after he radioed in, blasting away beneath the surface in a relentless search pattern that would crack open the hull of the sub and give the damn Japs all the water they wanted.

  Sig felt like winking at the oval moon, paling away as daylight approached. He was highly pleased at having figured it out, nights awake while waiting for sleep to catch up with him, gazing out the window of the hut at the moon furrow on the ocean—the enemy's evident pattern for those sneak raft trips to the creeks for their drinking water. The raft rats had to be using the lunar cycle. Not the round bright full moon, the obvious. Coast Guard headquarters had thought of that and orders from on high were for extreme vigilance along the coast during each such phase. But that had not produced anything except eyestrain among the nighttime sentries. No, the Japanese must be timing their shore excursions some number of nights either side of that, using the moon when it was just luminous enough to cast a skinny path to shore, Sig would have bet anything. That way the raft rats could paddle alongside the moonbeam glow on the water without having to use a torch and with less chance of being seen than during full shine. It made every kind of sense to him, and lately he had matched it up with times he found fresh crap at a creek mouth.

  He cradled the tommy gun. There was reassurance in the highly tooled grip of it that one of these times he would jump the raft rats, the odds could not stay in their favor forever. On this coast he was the constant, they were the variable, and all those accounting classes at TSU had taught him that the basic determinant was to be found in constancy. One of these times, the raft would get a late start from the submarine or be held up by choppy waves on the way in or happen into some other inconstant circumstance, and he would have them where he wanted them. Maybe this fresh morning.