Bridges at Toko-Ri

by James A. Michener

  “Somebody’s got to stop this,” the mechanic said.

  “I’m going to,” Cag replied quietly and started for the admiral’s plot, but before he could get there Brubaker hauled him down and the two men watched the propeller planes gradually ease up and allow the Savo to inch into her berth as gently as a fragile egg being laid into a basket by an old farm wife.

  “Cut engines,” rasped the bull horn and the Cag said bitterly, “Burn those engines up now and next trip over Korea the pilot bails out. This lousy captain thinks he has a new toy to play with.”

  “Save it for the hotel,” Brubaker said. “Take it up with the admiral there.” So the Cag turned away and as he did so Brubaker looked down from the carrier deck onto the quay and there stood Nancy and the two girls, dressed in winter coats and huddling together to protect one another from the wind. A great lump came into his throat and for a moment he could not wave or call, so that Mike Forney, who was marching up and down, impatient to burst ashore, asked, “That your family, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s worth bein’ saved for them, sir.” The way Mike said sir made Brubaker look to see if the cocky Irishman were kidding him, but Forney was staring raptly at Nancy and the two girls. “Hey, Mrs. Brubaker!” he roared. “Here’s your hero.”

  Jumping up and down on her toes Nancy called excitedly to her daughters, “There’s Daddy!” And they all threw him kisses.

  Mike, watching with approval, said, “Right beyond that fence, sir, I got the same kind of reception waiting for me.”

  “You married?” Brubaker asked in astonishment. Somehow he had never thought of Mike as a family man.

  “Not yet, but I may be. This shore leave.”

  “Some girl who came out with the Occupation?”

  “Japanese girl,” Mike said, adjusting his green hat at a night-club angle, but a messenger from the ship’s executive officer arrived to inform Forney that the uniform of the day called for something more traditional and the insulted Irishman went below.

  Immediately Brubaker wished that Mike had stayed, for the pain of seeing his women on the quay below was too great. They had come too far, they loved him too much and they reminded him too soon of icy Korea’s waters clutching at him, trying to drag him down. For the first time in his life he became desperately afraid and wanted to leave the Savo right then, for he saw leading from the deck of the carrier, right above the bodies of his wife and daughters, four bridges stretching far out to sea and they were the bridges of Toko-ri and he was breathlessly afraid of them.

  “Nancy,” he whispered. “You should have stayed home.”

  But as soon as the ship’s lines were secured, he dashed down the gangplank to embrace his wife and as he did so his youngest daughter caught him by the leg and began to babble furiously and from the way he bent down and listened to the excited little girl—as if he actually wanted to know what she had to say—every married man on the deck of the Savo towering above knew that Brubaker really loved his kids.

  What the child said was, “I made a long airplane ride and now I know what you do on the ship.” But Brubaker remembered the icy water and thought, “Thank God you don’t know. And thank God your mummy doesn’t, either.” Then he laughed and caught the little girl in his arms and kissed her a lot and she said, “I like to fly airplanes like you, Daddy.”

  For Mike Forney reunions were somewhat less complicated, at first. Attended by silent Nestor Gamidge he strode to the gates of Yokosuka Naval Base, threw the marine on guard a nifty salute and stepped outside to freedom. He was a cocky figure, his fists jammed into his pea coat jacket, his uniform a trifle too tight, and it took him only a moment to find the girls. He stopped dead, thrust his big paw onto Gamidge’s chest and cried, “Look at her, Nestor! Best-dressed girl in Japan!” Then he gave a bellow, rushed forward and caught Kimiko in his arms and kissed her lovely little cap right off her head.

  “Hey, Kimiko! Fleet’s in!”

  To his astonishment she pushed him away, sedately picked up her cap and said, “Not so fast, big boy. We got to talk.” And she led him to a bar and started patiently to explain the radically new situation, the one which was to cause the two riots.

  For the officers of the Savo the Tokyo brass had reserved rest and recuperation rooms at the Fuji-san, a meandering Japanese hotel whose exquisite one-storied rooms and gardens hung on a mountain top which commanded a superb view of Fujiyama. In the old days this had been Japan’s leading hotel but for the first six years after the war it served Americans only. Now, in the transition period between occupation and sovereignty, it had become a symbol of the strange and satisfying relationship between Japan and America: the choice rooms were still reserved for Americans but Japanese were welcome to use the hotel as before; so its spacious gardens, bent with pine and cherry, held both Japanese families who were enjoying luxury after long years of austerity and American military men savoring the same luxury after long months in Korea.

  No one enjoyed the Fuji-san more than Admiral Tarrant. He arrived on the second day of liberty, changed into civilian clothes, gathered about him his younger staff officers and forgot the rigors of Task Force 77. Other admirals, when they reached Japan, were whisked into Tokyo for press conferences where they sat on the edges of their chairs trying to say exactly the right and innocuous thing. They must not, for example, admit that they were fighting Russians, nor must they even indicate that any of our men were being killed. In this special war there were special rules to keep the people back in America from becoming worried.

  Admiral Tarrant was not the man for such interviews. The navy tried it once and he had said bluntly, “We’re fighting Russian guns, Russian radar, Russian planes and Russian submarines. And a hell of a lot of our men are being killed by this Russian equipment, manned by Russian experts.” General Ridgway’s headquarters in Tokyo had blown a gasket and the entire interview was made top secret and the navy was advised that whereas Tarrant might be terrific as a task force commander, “Send him to some good hotel when he gets ashore ... and keep him there.”

  Now he lounged in the bar and watched a group of pilots pestering Beer Barrel. Ten minutes after the Savo docked, the landing-signal officer had grabbed for the bar stool and he had sat there for almost twenty-nine hours, lapping up the wonderful Japanese beer. “Look at him!” one Banshee pilot cried. “He’s goin’ crazy. Doesn’t know whether to claim Texas has the biggest midgets in the world or the smallest.”

  Four jet men, themselves pretty well hung over, formed a solemn circle about Beer Barrel and began to chant the carrier pilot’s version of the Twenty-third Psalm:

  The Beer Barrel is my shepherd

  I shall not crash.

  He maketh me to land on flat runways: he bringeth me in off the rough waters.

  He restoreth my confidence.

  Yea, though I come stalling into the groove at sixty knots, I shall fear no evil. for he is with me, his arm and his paddle, they comfort me.

  He prepareth a deck before me in the presence of mine enemies, he attacheth my hook to the wire; my deck space runneth over.

  Admiral Tarrant laughed at the nonsense. Since his big operation two years ago he drank only coffee, but he often growled, “Just because I’m a reformed drunk no reason why I should deny pleasure to others.” He poured himself some inky black coffee and looked into the gardens, where he saw Harry Brubaker’s wonderfully lovely wife and her two daughters and they reminded him of what wars were all about. “You don’t fight to protect warships or old men. Like the book says, you fight to save your civilization. And so often it seems that civilization is composed mainly of the things women and children want.”

  Then the admiral grew glum, for Mrs. Brubaker had told him at lunch, “If the government dared to ask women like me, this stupid war would end tomorrow.” There lay the confusion. These bright, lovely women, whose husbands had to do the fighting, wanted to end the war on any terms; but these same women, whose children would have to live th
rough servitude or despair should America ever be occupied, would be the precise ones who would goad their men into revitalization and freedom. So Admiral Tarrant never argued with women because in their own deep way they were invariably right. No more war ... but no humiliation. He hoped to see the day when this difficult program could be attained.

  But a more present problem was at hand, for the Cag stormed across the garden, his cigar jutting belligerently ahead like a mine sweeper. The tough airman was known throughout the navy as a fireball and this time Tarrant, himself an airman, knew the Cag was right. The Savo’s use of windmill had been intemperate, a perversion of aircraft engines, but a deeper concern was involved, so the admiral prepared to squelch the likeable hothead.

  For the navy high command had secretly asked Tarrant to send in a concurrent report upon this demon flier when his Korean duty ended. It was hinted that a bright and brash young man was needed for rapid promotion to a command of real authority and Tarrant guessed that the Cag was being weighed as an eventual task force commander. “It’s a big job,” the admiral mused.

  He could recall that day in 1945 when Admiral Halsey commanded a supreme force built of five components each twice as large as present Task Force 77. It was so vast it blackened the sea with more than twenty carriers. It stretched for miles and ultimately it sank the entire Japanese fleet. One brain had commanded that incredible force and it behooved the United States to have other men ready for the job, should such a task force ever again be needed.

  Long ago Tarrant had begun to argue that some new weapon—rockets perhaps or pilotless planes of vast speed—would inevitably constitute the task force of the future. He had seen so much change, indeed had spurred it on, that he could not rely perpetually on ships or airplanes or any one device. But until America was secure behind the protection of some new agency that could move about the earth with security and apply pressure wherever the enemy chose to assault us, it would be wise to have young officers trained to command a sea burdened with ships and speckled with the shadows of a thousand planes.

  Perhaps the Cag was such a man. A lot of navy people thought so but no one knew for sure whether he had those two ultimate requirements for vast command: had he a resolute spirit and had he due regard for human life?

  The Cag jammed his cigar through the door and asked, “May I speak with you, sir?”

  Tarrant liked the younger man’s brusque approach. “Sit down. Whisky?”

  “Please.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  The Cag sailed right in. Chomping his cigar he snorted, “These lazy carrier captains. They’re burning up our engines.”

  Tarrant thought he’d better let the fireball have it right between the eyes. Staring coldly he asked, “You think you could handle a carrier better?”

  This stunned the Cag and he fumbled for a moment. Then, fortunately, the bar boy arrived with his drink and he grabbed for it. “You not having one, sir?” he asked.

  “You know the doctor made me lay off,” the admiral explained coldly.

  Such treatment threw the Cag off balance, for he knew Tarrant’s power in the navy. The old man may have queered his own promotion but he was still known as the incorruptible and his judgment on the promotions of others was prized.

  In the embarrassing silence Tarrant asked grimly, “What’s your major complaint against the carrier captains?”

  The veins stood out on the Cag’s bullet head, but he stamped his cigar out and said firmly, “They shouldn’t burn up our propeller planes.”

  “How would you berth a big ship against the wind?”

  “In the old days I would have waited. But whatever I did I wouldn’t run a lashed-down engine at top speed.”

  Admiral Tarrant stared impersonally at Fujiyama, the wonderful mountain, and although he wanted to agree with Cag, he pondered precisely what question would most completely throw this young hothead off balance. Finally he settled on: “So you’d have a group of complaining F4U pilots dictate naval procedure?”

  Again the Cag was staggered. “Sir, I …” He fumbled for words and then blurted out with startling force, “Sir, an engine has only so many good hours. If you burn them up on deck. ...”

  He fumbled again and ended weakly, “Why can’t they use half-power?”

  The admiral turned slowly away from Fujiyama and asked bleakly, “Do you consider an F4U engine more valuable than a carrier?”

  The Cag retreated. “What I was trying to say. ...”

  “Another whisky?”

  The Cag needed something to restore his confidence but reasoned that if the old man was in an evil mood he’d better not accept two drinks, so he said lamely, “Thank you, sir, but I have a reservation for one of the sulphur baths.”

  “They’re fun,” the admiral said mournfully and when the Cag awkwardly excused himself, the old man sagged into a real depression, for he found it ugly to watch a promising young commander back away from what he knew was right. “Well,” Tarrant grumbled, “he’s popular. He’ll be able to wangle a desk job. But he’s no good for command. And I’ll have to say so when we get home.” Grieved, he decided to leave the bar.

  But before he could get away, young Brubaker and his pretty wife approached and it was apparent she had been crying. “She wants to talk to you,” Brubaker said with the air of a young husband who hopes somebody else can say the magic word which he has been unable to find.

  “My husband tells me you can explain why this war is necessary,” she said. “I sure wish somebody would.”

  “It isn’t necessary,” Tarant said. Then, seeing the Brubakers’ surprise he added, “You two have something to drink?”

  “May we join you?” Nancy asked.

  “Doctor won’t let me.” Then, seeing the young people frown, he added humorously, “I have no vices, no ambitions, no family and no home.”

  “That’s what I mean,” Nancy said. “I can understand why you get excited about war. But we do have a home and family.”

  “I’m not excited about war,” the admiral contradicted. “And I don’t think it’s necessary. That is, it wouldn’t be in a sensible world. But for the present it is inevitable.” He poured himself some coffee and waited.

  “If it’s inevitable, why should the burden fall on just a few of us?” Nancy pressed.

  “I don’t know. You take the other night when your husband. ...” Before he could tell of the ditching he saw Brubaker make an agonized sign indicating that Nancy knew nothing of the crash and the admiral thought, “Like the rest of America, she’s being protected.”

  He salvaged the sentence by concluding, “Your husband bombed a bridge. Because he’s one of the best pilots in the navy he knocked out two spans. He didn’t have to do it. He could have veered away from the bridge and no one would ever have known. But some men don’t veer away. They hammer on in, even though the weight of war has fallen unfairly on them. I always think of such men as the voluntary men.”

  Nancy fought back her tears and asked, “So until the last bridge is knocked out a few men have to do the fighting? The voluntary men.”

  “That’s right. The world has always depended upon the voluntary men.”

  Before Nancy could reply, the bar boy hurried up and asked, “Is Lieutenant Brubaker here?” The boy led Harry to a back door of the hotel where Nestor Gamidge stood, bloody and scarred.

  “I’m sure glad to see you, lieutenant,” he gasped. His blues were ripped and his face was heavily bruised.

  “What’s up?”

  “Mike’s been in a terrible fight, sir.”

  “Where?”

  “Tokyo. I came out in a cab.”

  “What happened?”

  “He’s in jail.”

  “A public riot?”

  “Yep. His girl’s marryin’ a bo’sun from the Essex.”

  “You mean his ... Japanese girl?”

  “Yes, and if you don’t come in he’ll be locked up permanent.”

  Tokyo was sixty miles away a
nd to rescue Forney in person would consume many hours of leave that he might otherwise spend with his family, so Brubaker said, “I’ll phone the M.P.’s.”

  “Callin’ won’t help, sir. Mike clobbered two M.P.’s as well as the gang from the Essex.”

  “You two take on the whole town?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Brubaker had to grin at the vision of these two tough kids on the loose and made up his mind abruptly. “I’ll help.”

  He hurried back to where Nancy and the admiral sat and said quickly, “Admiral Tarrant, will you please see that Nancy gets dinner? There’s been trouble in Tokyo and I …”

  “Oh, no!” Nancy protested.

  “Admiral, it’s Mike Forney.”

  “Drunken brawl?”

  “Girl threw him over.”

  Nancy pleaded, “On our second night, why do you have to get mixed up with drunken sailors?”

  Brubaker kissed his wife and said tenderly, “Darling, if Mike were in China I’d have to help.”

  “But, Harry. ...” It was no use. Already he was running down the long hallway.

  When Nancy realized that her husband actually was on his way to Tokyo, she looked beseechingly at Admiral Tarrant and pleaded, “Who’s this Mike Forney he thinks more of than his own children?” Her eyes filled with tears and she fumbled for a handkerchief.

  The admiral studied her closely and asked, “If you were freezing to death in the sea and a man brought his helicopter right over your head and rescued you, wouldn’t you help that man if he got into trouble?”

  Nancy stopped crying and asked, “Did Harry crash at sea?”

  “Yes.”

  She looked down at her white knuckles and unclasped her hands. Very quietly she said, “You know your husband’s at war. You know he’s brave. But somehow you can’t believe that he’ll fall into the sea.” Her voice trembled.

  When she regained control Admiral Tarrant asked, “Has Harry told you about the bridges? At Toko-ri?”

  “No. He never talks about the war.”