Tales of the South Pacific

by James A. Michener

  The freighter was slow and dirty. It had a roll that kept him seasick. Harbison hated every minute of his trip to Efate. He was even more disgusted when he found that he was stationed, not at Vila, the capital town of the New Hebrides, but miles away. He was stuck off in a remote corner of a remote island with a useless job to do. Ensign Bill Harbison, USNR, had found his Navy niche. And he did not like it.

  He could do his work with one hand tied behind his back. He had some enlisted men to keep happy. He had two assistants to help him. In addition he did some censoring and once a month he had to audit the accounts of the Wine Mess. After he got his job organized, he found that he had to work about half an hour a day and censor letters for about twenty minutes. The rest of the time was his own.

  Landbased Aircraft Repair Unit Eight, his unit was called. In Navy style it was LARU-8. Enlisted men knew it as URIN-8. It had no clear-cut duties, no job. It was waiting. One of Bill's friends ran a crash boat, in case an airplane should go down at sea. Another sat for hours each day in a tower, in case an airplane should need to establish radio communication. Another officer with eighty men waited in case certain types of planes should land and need overhaul. A friend waited with another eighty men to service another kind of plane, in case it should land. A doctor was present in case sickness should break out. A skipper and his exec kept things on an even keel and filled out reports that everything was in readiness, in case...

  At the end of three weeks Harbison applied for transfer. "To what?" his skipper, a fat, bald, easy-going duck hunter from Louisiana asked.

  "Some activity that needs a man like me," Harbison said frankly.

  "What can you do?" the skipper asked.

  "Small boats. Landing craft. Anything."

  The skipper looked at the handsome young man before him. "Better relax, son!" he said. "You're doing a fine job here. Boys all like you. Better relax!"

  "But I came out here to fight a war, sir!" Bill insisted. He wasn't afraid to press a point with the Old Man. The skipper was mighty easygoing.

  "You'll never get anywhere in the Navy that way, son," the Old Man said quietly. "Most young men find you get along much better taking things as they come. If they want you to pilot a battleship into Truk, they'll come and get you!" The Old Man chuckled to himself. "They'll know right where you are! As a matter of fact, Bill, you'll be right here on Efate! Taking care of LARU-8."

  Such manner of doing business appalled Harbison. Again in five weeks he applied for transfer, and again he was advised to take it easy. "You can write out the letter if you wish," the Old Man suggested, "But I'll tell you frankly what I'll do. I'll write at the bottom, 'First Endorsement: Forwarded but not approved.' Don't you see that we can't have every young feller deciding what he can do and can't do? You're needed where you are. You're a good influence in LARU-8. Everything's going along smoothly. Now don't upset the apple cart By the way, you ought to come hunting with me one of these days. We're going up to Vanicoro!"

  But Bill had no taste for hunting. And especially he had no taste for the Old Man. As a matter of fact in all the complement of his unit, officers and enlisted men alike, he found no one with whom he could be truly congenial. Day after day he read the stupid letters of his men and listened to the stupid conversations of his fellow officers. He got so that he dreaded the pile of letters that appeared on his desk each morning: Dear Bessie, Just like you said your getting fat but I dont mind because if your fat there will be more of you to love. Goodness nos somebody must be getting the food god nos we aint.

  He could shuffle through a dozen of them and not find one intelligent letter. Of course, when he did find one, he ignored it and refused to think, "Here is a human being like me. He thinks and feels and hates to be here. He reacts the way I do. Strange, he must be a lot like me."

  Bill never saw human dignity in the letters he read. They all fell into the slightly ridiculous, largely naive classification: Dear Mom, You tell Joe that if he wants to go through with it and join the Navy he had better get used to handling his temper cause the first time he lets go at a chief or an officer he's going to learn what for and it aint going to be like flying off the handle at me because in this mans Navy they play for keeps. You tell Joe that and it will save him a lot of trouble.

  The officers were no better. The crash boat skipper was a moron. Thank heavens no pilot lost at sea had to depend on him! The operations officer came from some hick town in Kentucky, and the engineering officer was an apple-knocker from upstate New York. Only Dr. Benoway was of any interest, and he was largely ineffectual. Harbison thought of Benoway as a mild-mannered, unsuccessful small town doctor who had joined the Navy as the easy way out of financial difficulties. "Probably makes more now than he ever did before!" Bill reasoned.

  If it were not for sports Bill might have lost his sanity. But on the diamond or basketball court he was superb. Enlisted men loved to watch him play or to play with him. They put two men on him in basketball, and still he scored almost at will. They played on an open concrete court which Bill helped them to build. Even on its rough surface Bill could dribble and pivot so easily that he got away for one basket after another. In a way, it pleased the men to see him score against their own team mates. "Boy," they would write home. "Have we got a smoothie on our staff? He was All-American and set Long Island U on its ear last year in the Garden!"

  Unlike most naval officers in the South Pacific, Bill kept in fine condition. There was no fat on his stomach muscles. He kicked a football half an hour a day, played an hour of basketball, went swimming for two hours in the morning, and usually found time for some badminton in the afternoon. But it was volleyball that captured his enthusiasm!

  At first Harbison ridiculed the game. Wouldn't play it. But that was before he was inveigled into a match against the old hands. He played on a green team. Against him were the Old Man and Benoway plus four other officers. Bill smashed the round ball furiously, but he found to his surprise that the fat Old Man usually popped it into the air right where Dr. Benoway could tap it out of reach. This went on all afternoon, and Bill said to himself, "Say, there's something to this game!"

  From then on he studied it in earnest. He found a place on the Old Man's team. He played on one side of the skipper and Benoway played on the other. Patiently and with great skill the Old Man would push the ball high and near the net. Bill would smash it for a point. He thought he was getting pretty good until one day the Old Man couldn't play. A stranger took his place, and that afternoon Bill missed most of his shots. He thought at first he was off his game. Then he realized with astonishment that the Old Man was unbelievably good as a "setter-upper." >From then on he, Benoway, and the Old Man formed an invincible team. "Have we got a fine volleyball team?" the men wrote home. "Usually we play the officers, and mostly they win. But when we get a game with some other team, we have a mixed team. We haven't lost yet!"

  Shortly after Bill learned to play volleyball, he made junior grade lieutenant, automatically. He was chagrined at the promotion, especially when he read in a letter from home that Lenore's brother Eddie, who had joined the Army, was already a captain! The news made Bill restless. He wanted to be doing something. There was great activity in the air. Things were happening in the world, and he was sitting on Efate, sunning himself, becoming a volleyball champion.

  Tormented by the inchoate drives of a healthy young man who has left a beautiful wife at home, Bill went impatiently to the Old Man. "Won't you reconsider now?" he asked. "I'd like to get farther north."

  "But Bill, we need you here," the skipper replied. "If you went, we'd only have to find somebody else. Our unit specifies a recreation officer. We'd have to have a replacement, and where would we find one as good? Don't you see, Bill? You want to break up a smooth team. And what better job would you get? We leave you to yourself. You're your own boss. And you have everybody's respect. I can't let you go. It would only mess us up!"

  From then on Bill Harbison started to relax in earnest. He missed bre
akfast because he wanted to stay slim. Appearing at his recreation shack about nine o'clock he would eat a papaya with a bit of lime juice. His admiring assistants supplied them from the near-by jungle. By ten he was through with censoring and ordinary routine. He would then have a catch with any men who might be around. At ten-thirty he would head for the beach four miles away, and there he would lie in the sun, perhaps swim a while, perhaps dive with the deep-sea mask his men had made him. At eleven-thirty he would return to his hut, shower, rub his feet with talcum, and lie on his sack until twelve-thirty. After lunch he would sleep until two, when he might play some badminton or read. At four sharp he would appear at the volley-, ball court and warm up for the afternoon game. In the evenings he would attend the movies and after that have a beer in the Officers' Club. He usually went to bed at ten o'clock.

  Each week he read Time, Life, the Denver Post, and at least two good books. He listened to news broadcasts four times a day from Australia on a radio set his men had built for him, and once or twice a week he tried to get Tokyo Rose, whom he found most amusing. He wrote a long letter to his wife every other day, and received one from her every day.

  Bill's main contributions to LARU-8 were his splendid personal appearance, which everyone envied and some tried to copy, his neatness and bearing as an officer, and the fact that he found a French plantation owner who would butcher steers at regular intervals. Thanks to Bill, his fellow officers ate some of the finest food in the South Pacific. They had fresh papaya, those excellent pepsin melons, fresh limes and lemons, fresh oranges, fresh pineapple, fresh corn on the cob, and steak at least once a week. As a matter of principle Bill insisted that the Officers' Mess must never have steak more than twice before the enlisted men had it once. They got the tougher cuts, it was true, but a steer gave only so many filets.

  In nine more months Bill would be a full lieutenant. In ten more months he would be eligible to return to the States. Everything would have turned out all right for Bill if a slight accident hadn't intervened. Nurses came to Efate!

  They came late one afternoon, on the other side of the island. They were Navy nurses and were attached to a hospital that was temporarily established on Efate. They arrived with inadequate provisions and among the would-be gallants on the island a great rush developed as to who would help them first and most. An Army unit provided cots and blankets. One of the airfields found a refrigerator. Eight electric fans, valuable as rubies, were given the nurses outright as a gift. But Bill Harbison topped them all. He got a small truck, butchered a steer, got twelve bushels of fresh vegetables and set out for the hospital.

  He drove up to the locked gate of the nurses' quarters and started to shout. "Here's the butcher boy! Come and get it!" From their windows the nurses looked down at the strange sight below. "Isn't he cute?" several of them whispered to one another.

  "Here it is, girls!" Bill shouted, and soon his truck was surrounded by the nurses. They were hungry. Their stores had not yet been unpacked. They had been living on meager rations.

  "Where's the kitchen?" he cried. Suddenly, after all the indifferent months on Efate, he felt good. He was smiling and almost excited. The girls led him off to a big, empty wooden structure that would one day be the mess hall.

  "Light up the stoves!" he cried merrily. "We'll have a steak fry right here. See if you have any salt." The nurses made a quick survey and provided salt, a few onions, some bread, some potatoes and a surly mess attendant.

  "You can't fool around in here," he whined.

  "The lieutenant brought us some food!" one of the older nurses said.

  "He ain't got no right in here," the attendant replied.

  "Look, Oscar!" Harbison said. Some girls giggled. "How do you suppose I could start that fire? 'Cause listen, Oscar. If I get it started, you get a steak!"

  The attendant snarled something. He was a thin, small man and disliked everybody. "Mess hall won't be opened for two more days," he said. "And you better quit fooling around here, too." He stood defiantly by the stoves as he spoke.

  "All right, Oscar!" Harbison cried. "You keep the stoves! We'll keep the steaks. Grab some of this stuff, girls!" With that he started throwing pots and pans to nurses who caught them. "We'll have a barbecue outside!" he announced.

  "You'll get into trouble for this," the attendant said dolefully.

  "It's our funeral!" Harbison replied. All his lethargy was gone. Here was something to do, and it was fun! He led the nurses out of the forbidden mess hall and into the edge of the jungle beneath some large trees. Acting as general manager, he directed them to build a fire and cut long sticks. Then, with some rocks, he built several grills, and before long steaks and onions and dehydrated potatoes were cooking. Bill showed the girls where to find papayas and how to select the ripe ones. Soon the smell of sizzling steaks, expertly cut by Harbison, filled the air. A fat doctor, catching a whiff of the delectable odor, waddled out to see what was going on. Pretty soon another followed, and before long a collection of doctors and nurses stood around the four fires.

  Harbison acted as toastmaster, chef, and fireman. He was a delight-pi man for such an affair, and he bore himself with distinction. The steaks were good. One doctor had three. Bill ate sparingly of one choice let. A young nurse prepared it for him, and he thanked her graciously. There were, among the nurses, several attractive girls. They looked lovelier, perhaps, than they were, for Bill had seen no white women for some time. They were witty and neat, two wonderful attributes for any girl; and they were exotic, standing as they did at the very edge of the jungle. Bill watched them as they ate. Some wore slacks becomingly; others wore seersucker dresses, and one or two wore mixed clothes. Three were in white uniform, for they had official duties. Bill particularly liked the manner in which many of the girls wore bandanas to control their hair. They looked doubly colorful against the dull green of the jungle.

  It is probable that several of the young nurses would have enjoyed knowing Bill Harbison. But Bill was already married and had no wish to set up illicit amours of any kind on the side. He smiled at the girls, showed courtesies to the women, and was the very spirit of a naval officer to all. When the party was over, he helped pack the remaining steaks in the ice box. As he drove off, the nurses clustered about his truck and thanked him again. Bill smiled at everyone, waved his hand out the side and started back over the hill to his camp. "He was nice," one of the nurses said to another. "Not like those Army men. They bring you a fan or something and think it's an introduction to spend the night."

  When the hospital was established Bill became a frequent visitor. He would bring the nurses things, take them swimming in large groups, show them how to build equipment they needed, and introduce them to his circle of acquaintances. He became a familiar sight on the hospital grounds, but never in the manner of other officers who came, gaped at the pretty nurses, and started a flirtation immediately. Harbison, it might be said, flirted with the entire hospital staff. He never told any of the girls that he was married, but he conducted himself as if he were. That made him doubly intriguing.

  In time Bill naturally gravitated toward two or three nurses in particular, and after the first month of mass gallantry he had selected for himself one nurse to whom he paid special attention. It was she who first ate at Bill's mess; it was she who accompanied him on the boat trip to Vanicoro.

  She was, it might have seemed, the least likely of all candidates for the honor. Her name was Dinah Culbert, a woman about 42 years old, from some nondescript place in Indiana. She was taller than the average nurse, quiet, not good looking. She had minor intellectual pretensions, and she worshipped Bill. Thus, in one deft maneuver, Bill accomplished what would have eluded many a lesser man. He had a feminine cheering section without danger of emotional complications.

  No one can say what the precise arrangement was between Bill Harbison and Dinah Culbert. Two good looking young nurses who would have enjoyed going places with Bill were sure it meant he was a pansy. Three shrewd gals on Wing Th
ree got half the diagnosis correct: He's got a mother-complex and will probably never get married. One little fluff who was soon sent back to the States said, "I don't care what's wrong with him. I think he's cute!"

  There was much for an officer and a nurse to do on Efate. There were boat trips to near-by islands, trips inland toward the volcanoes of Vanicoro, pig roasts, fishing for tuna and barracuda, visits to native villages, work in carpentry shops, and swimming. Sometimes in the evening there were informal dances, and every night there was some officers' club to visit for light conversation and cokes, or beer, or whiskey. But most of all, over your entire life there hung the great Pacific tropics. At night you would be aimlessly driving home and suddenly, around a bend you would come upon a vista of the ocean, framed in palm trees, under a moon so large and brilliant that the night seemed day! Or again, driving along the shore your jeep would reach a point where ocean spray spumed across the road and engulfed you in a million rainbows. Or hiking into the jungles for ivory nuts you might meet a naked native with his naked wives and children, walking somewhere, going to do some unimportant thing. The tropics never left you, and in time you accustomed yourself to them. They were a vast relaxation, nature growing free and wild. An officer and a nurse in such surroundings usually fell in love.

  There was one nurse, for example, who was escorted everywhere by a weak-chinned naval ensign. She did not like him, but he was a kindly young man. One night driving home from a dance he unexpectedly turned a bend in the road and there before them, across the ocean, the volcanoes on Vanicoro were in eruption! Great lights played from the jagged cones, and pillars of ashen cloud spiraled into the darkness. The nurse had never seen anything so magnificent, and on he impulse of the moment put her head on the ensign's shoulder. He kissed her. "It was strange," she said afterward. "No chin. That's a funny kiss." She never went with the young ensign again.