Boat

by Michael Baughman

  We heard a whistling sound, distant at first, then louder and louder, and suddenly shrill, and then the earth shook and the window shattered.

  My ears rang after the explosion.

  Stones and dirt thudded against the roof over our heads.

  A thick cloud of gray smoke obscured our view.

  As we heard screams and the smoke thinned we saw that the bivouac tent was gone, and then we were out the door running.

  We were the first to reach the scene.

  We found body parts—arms, legs, hands, heads— smeared with blood; we smelled smoke, blood, and shit; we saw writhing bodies, and glassy-eyed corpses in what was left of tattered sleeping bags; there were scattered helmets, canteens, and combat boots; we heard screams, moans, and prayers.

  All we could do was help the medics who soon arrived to move the wounded into two-and-a-half-ton trucks.

  Toward the end I came upon a dead boy underneath a remnant of canvas tent. Pale, slim, and naked, with half his torso blown away, his brown eyes wide open, he lay face up in a pool of blood. Beside him was a pair of gleaming spit-shined combat boots, looking as if they had been set out on display for a Saturday-morning inspection.

  An eight-inch artillery round mistakenly loaded by the gun crew with too many powder bags had sailed far beyond the intended target area and hit the tent squarely. Sixteen men were killed and twenty-six more wounded.

  Hearings would be held, and reports would be written, but no one was ever punished.

  “Boat here. Who you?”

  “Mike.”

  “Mike! Where the hell are you now, bruddah? You sound far away.”

  “Germany.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “I heard the army got you, bruddah. Germany?”

  “They sent me here. I’ll tell you one thing. The beer here’s a hell of a lot better than Primo.”

  “You like it? You like Germany? Where you calling from? An army place? What time is it in Germany?”

  “It’s nighttime here. I’m about halfway around the world from Waikiki. My army boss told me I could call. He says I can talk as long as I want. He’s a good guy. They call him the Bull. He sort of reminds me of you, Boat.”

  “So you like it okay there in Germany?”

  “I do. In some ways. I still miss Hawaii. I miss Hawaii wherever I am. I always will.”

  “You be back, bruddah.”

  “I will be. Sooner or later.”

  “Yesterday I talked story with your old friend.”

  “Which friend?”

  “Samuel.”

  “How is he? What’s he doing?”

  “He’s fighting now, bruddah. He’s in with the wrestling.”

  “Wrestling?”

  “The pro wrestling. It’s getting big here in Honolulu. Bigger all the time. They pack the Civic Auditorium every week. Samuel’s big. Samuel’s a star. He started off as a bad guy, but here he’s a good guy because he’s Hawaiian.”

  “The last I heard he was playing pro football.”

  “He said he got tired of people blowing whistles in his ear. I’ll tell you what I think, Mike. He likes the wrestling more because he can let out his bad feelings every week. He can do it every week all year long. He told me about the haole old man who paid him not to stay with his wahine. I think Samuel’s still mad and he gets it out that way. I know he’s still plenty mad. You got time to talk some story?”

  “Hell yes.”

  “I tell you what happened when Samuel started in the wrestling, when the promoters sent him to the mainland to see how he did in some small towns there. So the promoters, they sent him to a small town in—I think it was in Oregon. He was the bad guy and he had to wrestle some cowboy who was the good guy, but in the small town there were plenty Indians came to see the match. Samuel said that place was crowded with Indians. When the match started Samuel came across the ring and kicked the cowboy in the nuts and smashed him over the head with a water bucket because he was the bad guy, but all those Indians screamed and clapped and cheered when he did it. Hawaiians look like Indians, so the Indians cheered and Samuel loved it. Those Indians cheered the whole time for Samuel. The script said the cowboy had to win the match and he did, and right after he won the Indians got after him. They came right up in the ring. They sent that cowboy to the hospital and they took Samuel out after they beat the cowboy up and bought him beer all that night, and now he’s back here and he loves it when all the people cheer for him no matter what the hell he does.”

  “Tell him I said hello. Tell him I miss him.”

  “I tell him today. He hits Waikiki to surf every day, even the days he wrestles. Every morning before the crowds show up, here comes Samuel. You talk some story now. It’s great hearing your voice, Mike. I can’t hear it too good but it’s you.”

  “I can hear you, Boat.”

  “Talk some story, bruddah.”

  “Okay. Here’s mostly why I called. I walked into a place a while back, a club for students, and I was sitting there and a German girl walked in to where I was, a fraulein is what they call wahines here, and I want to marry her. I knew I wanted to before I ever talked to her, before we ever met. I knew it right when she walked through the door. It was just like you told me.”

  “Does this fraulein want to marry you?”

  “I think she does. I’m pretty sure.”

  “You’re a lucky man, bruddah. You got the feelings for the good things. I always thought you had the feelings and now I know. It’s just like the feelings for when you know the waves going to get big. Like when you know what wave to catch in a set. Like where the kumu and aweoweo

  are in the reef and you just know. Did the feeling inside you, inside your gut, change right when you first saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “What you call the wahines there?”

  “Frauleins.”

  “Did you feel almost sick inside your gut when you saw this fraulein walk through that door?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re a lucky man!”

  “You believe that?”

  “I know it. For sure I know. Always follow your gut, bruddah. I know about that. In my time I had it too. I know some people who had it. Most people never get it but some do. The lucky ones do. I can’t hear you too good but I hear you good enough to hear you’re happy. I heard it when you first started talking. Marry that fraulein if she wants it too.”

  “I will.”

  “I got to tell you some bad things now. I’m glad for the good things but I think I got to tell you the bad. Do you know about your friend Doug?”

  “No. What about him?”

  “The bad comes too. Sometimes. This is the truth I have to tell you. Your friend Doug killed himself. Two months ago he did it. I think you should hear it from me instead of somebody else. I’m sorry he did it, but he did. I read it in the Advertiser and then I talked to people and found out more.”

  “What the hell did he do? What happened?”

  “I know what happened. Maybe I know why. What happened was, he hung himself at their big house in Nuuanu in a closet, and his mother found him there. Nobody can know why for sure, but maybe I do. Listen to this now. Big new hotels going up, one after another, all up and down Waikiki. Since they made us a state the haole money’s pouring in. I voted no but they made us a state. Lots of us voted no but more voted yes. So now they moved the Outrigger Club way out by Diamond Head. They tore down the old club to make room for the big new hotels and Waikiki looks different now and all those things made Doug mad. I talked to him. I tried. I told him you got to look out at the waves, the reefs, the iwa flying circles over the deep blue water. He looked too long at the hotels and all the people and it made him mad. The same things make me mad but you can’t fight the money. You fight what you have to fight as long as you can fight it. Then you quit. When you have to quit you quit. Doug never knew that. He didn’t do it that way. When you come back you be mad too. Every time you get mad loo
k out over the deep blue water. If you lucky maybe the iwa be flying there. The haoles took away Hawaii from us. They never gave us anything back. I know on the mainland the Indians got their reservations, but they never even gave us Hawaiians anything. But nobody can steal the ocean. I look out there and see the iwas flying and then I’m good. I’m okay.”

  “I understand, Boat. I do. What did it say in the paper about Doug?”

  “The Advertiser only said he was dead. It said he was a suicide and told how old he was. All the rest I learned on the beach. The coconut wireless right on Waikiki.”

  “Did you go to the funeral?”

  “No. How could I go? It was all haoles at the funeral. Rich ones. His friends from Punahou. He was your friend, Mike. I liked Doug too, but I always saw how he was fighting inside himself. Didn’t I tell you that? Long time ago? They had the funeral and then they buried him inside a box under the ground. They put all that young power into some wooden box under the ground. No Hawaiian I know would do that. Maybe some Hawaiians would, but no beachboy would. Bear passed since the last time we talked. He’s out there at Castles right now. On his funeral day I paddled out with his beer right at sunset. With his Primo. The waves are good right now, Mike. Not at Castles, but nice smooth curls more inside. The left slide at Canoes and the right slide at Queens, both good today. Me and Blue going out together today. I wish you could be here. When you coming back, bruddah?”

  “It’s more than a year before I come back from here and then get out of the army. I’m mostly playing basketball, and now I’ve met Hilde—she’s the fraulein—and I hope I’m married before I get back. But I pretty much like it here.”

  “Listen to me, Mike. This fraulein, this Hilde, you sure she wants to marry you?”

  “No. But I’m pretty sure.”

  “How far is it to the ocean from where you are in Germany?”

  “There’s a cold ocean up north and then down south, in France and Spain and Italy, there’s warm water. Nice beaches. At least they look nice in pictures.”

  “You take that fraulein Hilde there. Do it.”

  “To the beach?”

  “To the beach, to the warm ocean. Whatever ocean it is, you take her there. You take her there, she marry you. I promise you that.”

  “You guarantee it, Boat?”

  “I guarantee it. I know some things. We all know some things for sure. I know that for sure.”

  “I guess I have two weeks of leave saved up. I have some money saved.”

  “They got waves in those oceans over there? They got clean water and fish?”

  “As far as I know, every ocean does.”

  “You go there.”

  “I will. That reminds me. I saw the movie—The Old Man and the Sea. I saw you in it, Boat. You looked damn good.”

  “I never saw it. I got the real ocean every day. I got no reason to see the ocean at the Waikiki Theater in a movie. Anytime I want to see myself I got a mirror.”

  “I can’t believe what Doug did, Boat.”

  “He needed help. I feel bad I didn’t give him the help but I never knew how. I knew he had too much fighting inside him, but I never knew he had so much.”

  “Did you hear about the accident over here? The soldiers getting killed?”

  “The dead boys? I did. I remember. I read it one morning in the Advertiser.”

  “I was right there when it happened.”

  “At the place it happened?”

  “I saw it. The boys who got killed were sleeping in a big tent. Another guy and I ran over right after the artillery round exploded. We found the dead soldiers all over the place. Dead and wounded. Bloody. Blown all apart. Mutilated. I remembered what you told me about Pearl Harbor after the attack.”

  “Dead boys is the worst, bruddah. Those old men make the wars happen and the boys who got to fight do the dying. Everybody knows that. Even the boys know it and they still go kill other boys and they get killed. What about you? You’re in the army. What if a war comes? A war comes every few years. What if one comes now?”

  “I don’t know. What should I do? What would you do?”

  “All I know for sure is what I’d do. I’d fight like a crazy son of a bitch if I had to. If I had the real reason to. If the war made sense I’d fight. Your friend Samuel’s a wrestler now and he got a friend they call the Lord. This friend is the kind of lord they got over in England. He’s a wrestler now too. That’s where he’s from, England, and he was in their navy on a big ship in the big war. The ship got torpedoed by the Japanese and plenty English sailors died when their ship sank, but the Lord and some of his buddies stayed alive in the water and they got captured by the Japanese. The Japanese took those English sailors out from the water and made them prisoners in their submarine. You want to hear this war story, Mike?”

  “Sure I do.”

  “The Japanese kept those English sailors locked inside a room in the submarine. Every once in a while they took one English sailor out and the ones they took never came back, so the Lord somehow got out of that room and snuck around the submarine and he saw what was happening. The Japanese were cutting off the English sailors’ heads. The Lord saw inside a room where the dead bodies and the heads were, and he saw those Japanese cutting off a head with a big sword and laughing about it, and the Lord snuck back to the room where his buddies were. I heard the Lord tell about this on the beach, right out in front of the Moana. The Lord and his buddies took that submarine over. They killed some Japanese and they captured the rest and they sailed that submarine all the way back to England. They saw what they had to do and they did it. The Lord and his buddies were damn good men. What they did made sense. The war they were in made sense. But if the war didn’t make any sense I’d never fight. Who wants to die in a war that doesn’t make sense? The war in Korea never made sense. Who wants to kill some poor boy on the other side in a war that doesn’t make sense? Not me. Who wants to fight in a war while the old men sit back and count up the dead bodies? That’s what they do. They drive around in their big cars and drink their champagne and eat their juicy steaks and count up their money and count up the dead bodies. You better think about what to do if a war comes. You better marry that wahine. What they call them there?”

  “Frauleins.”

  “You better go marry that fraulein. Take her to the ocean, Mike. She’ll marry you then. I’m damn sorry about your friend Doug. I’m damn sorry I didn’t help him, but I didn’t know enough. I didn’t know how.”

  “Listen, Boat, I’m sorry they’re messing up Waikiki.”

  “It’s still got the magic, Mike. The club is gone so I got a stand by the Moana now. Right on the beach out front of the banyan tree. I surf and spear and take the haoles out in canoes. I look out to sea, watch the iwas flying high. I go over the Pali to Laie and get the big lobsters and drink the Primo. Not so many lobsters now as there used to be, and not as big, but still plenty. Plenty Primo. When you come back we can go to Laie together.”

  “I’ll take my fraulein to the ocean, Boat. Maybe Italy. I’ll talk to her about it and we’ll decide. Say hello for me to anybody I know.”

  “You got to hang up?”

  “Not yet. Maybe pretty soon though.”

  “You remember Kealoha? He was in Korea. One time he was pinned down, him and all his squad, behind some hill. This happened when it was freezing cold in the wintertime. Kealoha saw plenty frozen dead boys there. American boys, Chinee boys, Korean boys. Who cares where dead boys come from? They’re dead is all. So Kealoha and his men had to make it across an open field to another hill and the Chinee soldiers shot everybody who tried, but they had to keep trying. They had to run. They did it one at a time. They tried different ways across. The Chinese had hundreds of their soldier boys hiding behind their own hill. Kealoha had about twenty boys with him, and after a few got across the field and a few got shot the rest started betting on every boy who ran across that field. Some boys died out on that cold field, and some were screaming after they got sho
t. Kealoha and the ones waiting to run across laid bets on who would make it all the way across and who wouldn’t make it, and after it was over the men that made it figured out all those bets and the ones who lost paid the ones who won. Kealoha won eighty-two dollars on that day and he got those dollars in a frame in his house. Two twenty-dollar bills. Two ten-dollar bills. Four five-dollar bills. Two one-dollar bills. Every day Kealoha thinks about it. Damn near every night he dreams about it. He’s a good Hawaiian man who never wanted to kill anybody. Never wanted to fight unless he had to. But he had to kill boys in Korea and they tried to kill him. You think about what to do if a war comes, Mike. Don’t end up dead. Don’t end up like Kealoha.”

  “I’ll think about it. I will. It’s always good to talk to you. Aloha, Boat.”

  “You marry that fraulein fast as you can. Aloha, Bruddah Mike.”

  Capri

  Hilde and I decided on Italy. We would travel south through Switzerland and Italy by train and then take the boat from Naples to Capri. After ten days on Capri would come two nights in Rome before the train ride back to Bamberg.

  Our tickets were second-class, and even before we reached Munich the train was nearly full.

  Switzerland looked exactly like the pictures I’d seen in books and on postcards.

  The Italian towns and villages were bright white under the summer sun. The train was packed, and passengers shared their bread and wine with us. Hilde spoke some Italian as well as English and French. Because she was blonde and lovely, the farther south we traveled, the more attention she attracted. We had time to walk the streets of Naples before the boat was scheduled to sail, and near a large cathedral an approaching priest stared so hard at her breasts that he ran head-on into a lamppost.

  On Capri we stayed at a pension high on a hill, and in the early mornings we walked down a steep, lonely path to the beach. We alternated swimming in the warm, clear water with diving masks and lying on towels in the sun.

  Though the fish weren’t the ones I knew from Hawaii, they were similar enough so that I felt entirely at home, utterly happy. Hilde had never swum in an ocean before and enjoyed it all at least as much as I did.