by Harry Mazer
Yours,
Helen
It was a great letter. I read it five or six times, read it till I had it memorized. Then I folded it and put it in my wallet. I read it a couple more times again before I went to sleep that night. My head was spinning, and it took me a long time to fall asleep. Toward morning I had a wonderful dream about Helen. As soon as I got up, I wrote to her.
Dear Helen,
I dreamed about you last night. I think about the time we had together. I go over every second of it, and I know it wasn’t an accident that we met. Even if I never see you again, I want you to know that meeting you was the best thing that ever happened in my life.
Truly and forever yours,
Adam Pelko
Company P, Second Battalion, 28th Marines
I went to see if I could find out anything about Ben and Roy and Andy. Roy was there, sitting outside, like he’d been waiting for me. He’d lost weight, but he was still smiling. “Dear Jesus,” I said, when I saw him. I was so glad to see him. We hugged each other. “Where’s Andy?” I said. “You guys are supposed to be together.”
“You know Andy. He always lands on his feet, except this time his feet got him out of everything.” He said they’d been attached to Headquarters Company, carrying messages back and forth to the line. “We did a lot of running. But then Andy got a bad infection in his foot from all the wet, and he couldn’t even walk. He wasn’t good for anything. The doctors sent him back. He could be in Hawaii now, for all I know, with all those beautiful girls, strumming a ukulele. The worst I got was this.” He showed me where the tip of his ear was gone. “You think it’ll get me a Purple Heart? What about you?”
“Me? I’m okay. I got dinged a few times, but nothing much. Just luck,” I said.
“We’re both lucky. So, where’s Ben?”
“I thought maybe you would know.”
“I saw him a few times with a tank company,” Roy said.
At headquarters we asked about Ben. “Ben Bright,” I said.
“He’s our buddy,” Roy said, leaning over me. “We’ve got to have a reunion.”
The clerk, shuffling papers and running his finger down the lists, said, “Benjamin Brody?”
“No. Bright,” I said. “Benjamin Bright.”
More shuffling. “All right, all right, all right.”
“Come on,” Roy said. “That the best you can do? Shake it, man.”
The clerk looked up. “What’s he to you?”
“We told you, he’s our buddy.”
“He’s gone.”
“Gone?” I said, and for a moment I thought, Hey, lucky Ben! He’d been sent back too. “In Hawaii?” I said, turning to Roy and starting to grin.
“Hawaii!” the clerk said. “Sure, the one that’s up in the sky.”
“Ben Bright?” I said.
“Gone,” he repeated. “Finished. Kaput. He’s right here on the list from three days ago. Sorry, guys.”
Roy and I walked out. Roy was cursing, and then he cried. “I can’t take this. Ben. Ben! He was such a great guy.”
I sat down on the ground. I couldn’t move. I wanted to cry and I couldn’t do that, either. I just sat there, thinking about Ben, thinking a million things. The first time we met on the train going to boot camp. How quiet he’d been. The way he’d always have some sly and funny remark to make. How he wouldn’t stay with Bessie to be an instructor, even though it would have kept him out of combat. And then I was remembering what he told me on the train to Bakers-field about his mother. And how he’d brought Mom and Ben presents. Ben … Ben … Why’d you have to do that? Why’d you have to get yourself killed?
“You all right?”
I looked up. I’d forgotten Roy was there. I nodded. “Sure,” I said, getting up. “I just have to be alone for a while.”
We went back to the front with a bunch of replacements. You could spot them easy—they looked so fresh and neat, and they treated us with a lot of respect. I didn’t feel like talking to anybody. If I had to say something, it was “Hey, Mac, give me a hand.” Or if a guy got too nervous or started talking too much, I’d tell him, “Take it easy, pal. You’ll be all right.”
We went back to the same holes, the same hills, the same stubborn resistance. We all knew the outcome—the Japanese were going to lose, but they fought us for every inch of ground. They were fierce. They were fanatical. They were dug in everywhere, in caves and tunnels.
We never went into the caves. We’d throw grenades, blow them up, seal them shut. But sometimes they’d pull a banzai and come charging out, half naked, with swords and spears. And we had to kill them. We had to kill every one of them.
There were too many bodies. So many shattered bodies. So many bodies without arms or legs.
I got through it. I did it. Days and nights blurred into each other, into one red fog. I did what I had to do. I moved when I had to move. I shot when I had to shoot. I was convinced that I was going to die. The sun must have shone sometimes, but I don’t remember. I wasn’t afraid. I wasn’t anything. I thought I was becoming one of those men who couldn’t fight anymore, the ones with the blank thousand-mile stares.
Rosie, Dudley, and I were in a shell hole so deep we could stand up in it. Rosie had Dudley and me throwing dirt up on the bank, and I must have stuck my head up too high, because Rosie grabbed me by the leg and pulled me down. “What are you trying to do, Pelko, get yourself killed?”
“He wants to die a hero,” Dudley said.
“Hero!” I spat. “I’m no hero. I’m not brave. I’m scared all the time.”
“Stop babbling,” Rosie said. “You’re a marine. You’re here. That makes you a hero.”
“No.”
“Hey, I’m telling you something. Every man who’s here, on this line, in these hell holes, is a hero in my book.”
“Plus crazy,” Dudley added.
“That’s a given,” Rosie said, giving me a grin. “Am I right, Adam?”
I shrugged. “Sure,” I said.
“What are you going to do when this is all over?”
“I’m not thinking about it.” What difference did it make?
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do. You’re going to school,” he said. “Promise me.”
“Okay.”
“Say it like you mean it. Say you promise.”
I was just starting to say I promise, when a mortar shell exploded on top of us. There was a moment, maybe less than a second, when I saw it coming and shouted, “Rosie!”
“Mac, Mac, how’re you doing, Mac? Mac! Do you hear me?”
“Rosie. Where’s Rosie?”
“Yeah, Mac, I hear you. Come on, open your eyes. Let me see those baby blues. I’m gonna give you a shot, make you feel better. Okay, soldier? You hear me?”
My arm was lifted. “How’re you doing? Is that better?”
Hands on my chest.
“You okay? Let’s see what these dog tags say. Pelko! How’re you doing, Pelko? I’m Victor, and my buddy here is Gerstein. We’re going to move you, pal. Okay? We’ll try not to hurt you. Just hang on. We’re taking you down.”
The sky swung up and down. And the pain—up and down.
“Hang on, Pelko. Hang on, guy, you’re doing great.”
Part Three
Going Home, Summer
1945
Dudley lit a cigarette and held it for me. “How’re you doing, Adam?” He raised my head up, so I could take a puff. “You know where you are?”
“Regimental—” My tongue was thick.
Dudley nodded. “Regimental Aid Station, right. You’re going to be okay. You’re going out to the hospital ship. Maybe Hawaii. Maybe the States. Maybe home! How’d you like that?”
“Good,” I said. “You too?”
“No such luck. I got peppered a little bit, but I’m okay. I’m walking wounded. I’ll be back up there in a week.”
“Rosie?”
He shook his head. After a moment he said, “He landed on you, pr
obably saved you. Saved us both. He took it all.”
In Honolulu, at the Aiea Naval Hospital, the doctors said the blast had blown fragments of rock and dirt, all kinds of junk, into my body, even bits of bone. Rosie’s bones.
They did a bunch of operations, cleaning out a lot of stuff, but not everything. They left some bits of metal that were too close to my heart to move. They did the best they could with my leg, which was all torn up. They were doping me up for pain, and I was doing a lot of sleeping. A lot of dreaming about Ben and Rosie. I was in and out of consciousness. Here, and then back there, with them.
I’d wake up muzzy and thirsty, and then I’d remember. Rosie … Ben. Sometimes I’d come awake shouting Rosie’s name. Sometimes I woke up crying.
One afternoon a nice Red Cross lady came into the ward to write letters home for the guys. In the bed next to me was a marine named Bob Travis, who’d lost both legs. He still didn’t know it. He dictated a letter to his father asking him if his car was ready, because he was coming home.
When the Red Cross lady was done with him, she came to my bed. “Adam? Would you like to dictate a letter?”
“My mom,” I said. My voice came out funny. I was still getting doped for pain.
“What should I say?”
“Dear Mom.” I stopped, imagining my mother holding a letter and looking at a stranger’s handwriting. It would scare the life out of her. I shook my head. “Not today.”
By the time I finally wrote my mother, I was sitting up, but my leg was still encased in plaster, lying there like a white dog that wouldn’t leave my side.
Dear Mom,
I’m in Aiea Naval Hospital Remember? It’s right by Pearl Harbor. Don’t worry, I’ve just got a little wound in my right leg, but I’m okay, I’m going to be coming home real soon. They’re taking great care of me. The doctors here are the best, so don’t worry! That’s an order. I’ll write you and Bea again when I have some more news.
Your loving son,
Adam
A couple days after I wrote that letter, I got a bunch of mail from home that had bounced all over the place. I read Helen’s letter first.
Dear Adam,
I got your beautiful letters. Thank you for all the things you said. Well, about myself—here goes: I live at home with my mother, my father, my grandmother, and two little brothers. Well, my brother Charlie isn’t so little anymore, he just turned thirteen and thinks he knows everything now! My littlest brother, Billy, is only five, and so cute. We all love him to pieces. I think you know I work in a naval commissary. I love working here because I feel like I’m doing something for the war effort. But having that paycheck is great too! I give most of it to my mother, but it’s still a great feeling. Once a week I go to a tap dance lesson—are you laughing? I started in junior high, and I just love it so much I hope I never have to give it up, even when I’m old and home with a bunch of little kids. My dream is to have six or maybe seven. Well, now you know all about me. Adam, I hope you stay safe. The other day I was talking to a marine who’d been at Iwo Jima. He said if I had a friend in the marines anywhere in the Pacific, I should pray for him. And I am.
Helen
I thought when the cast came off, I’d just get up and go, good as new, but my leg looked like hell, and I was on crutches and weak as a baby. Even my good leg had about as much strength as a bowl of corn flakes.
“What do you expect,” the lieutenant nurse said. “You’ve been lying around in bed. You’re going to have to work to get those muscles in shape.”
“Yes, ma’am.” I gave her a really snappy salute.
“You’ve got to challenge yourself. That shouldn’t be hard for a tough marine like you. I want to see you working hard.”
“You remind me of my drill sergeant back in boot camp, sir.”
“He probably told you the same thing. No whining. No slacking.”
“Yes, plus a punch in the gut.”
She laughed. “I don’t do that part.”
Putting my leg back in shape was hard. I went to the gym every day for physical therapy, but besides being weak, I was still pretty jumpy. Loud noises or sudden movements set my heart racing. Without even noticing I was doing it, wherever I was, I scouted out places to take cover—in a corner, under a desk, along a wall.
Gradually I got stronger. I could really move on the crutches and spent more and more time out of my room. I ran errands for the men who couldn’t get around. After a while I had the whole hospital figured out. My favorite place was the waiting room near the main entrance, where there were plants and places to sit, and I could watch people coming and going. I saluted the officers and smiled at the civilians, especially the girls in their summer dresses.
I was down there one day when a huge booming noise sent me diving for cover. I ended up on the floor with my crutches out of reach. A marine in a wheelchair scooped them up. “Here you go, pal. Those B-Seventeens make a hell of a racket.”
“Yeah, I guess I thought I was back on Okinawa,” I said. I lit a cigarette. “You smoke?”
“Do I breathe? Did you hear the news? It’s over in Okinawa. They surrendered. It was on the radio. I heard it from President Truman, himself.”
“Over,” I said, leaning on the crutches.
I went over to a window, where I could look out toward Okinawa. Rosie. What a loss. What a big man. He loved us. He took care of us. When Tex’s feet were so blistered he could barely walk, Rosie carried his rifle for him. He never seemed afraid. It wasn’t as if he had a disregard for life—the opposite—he cared for life. But, he said, sometimes you had to do things you didn’t want to do, but it was right to do them, so you did them. I didn’t want to ever forget that.
I’d been meaning to call Martin Kahahawai ever since I’d come to Honolulu. I found his number in the phone book. His mother answered. “Mrs. Kahahawai,” I said. “You probably don’t remember me, but this is Adam Pelko. We met a long time ago. I’m an old friend of Martin’s—”
“Oh, yes. You, I remember,” she interrupted. “You with my Martin and Davi Mori in that rowboat when Pearl Harbor happened. I remember you came to the hospital to see Martin. How are you? You okay?”
“I’m okay now. I’m here in the naval hospital. How is Martin?”
“Martin? Good. He has a good job at the navy shipyards. I’m going tell him you called. Okay, Adam?”
Martin called me back later that day, and he said he’d come on Saturday, his day off. That morning I waited in the lobby for him. I was in my uniform, except I still had to wear a slipper on my right foot.
I was looking at the tropical fish tank when he tapped me on the shoulder. “Martin!” I’d forgotten what a big guy he was. I wanted to hug him, but the crutches got in the way.
“What happened to you?” he said. “Can you walk?”
“What does it look like?”
“Okay, come on then. I got one big surprise for you.” Outside, he pointed across the parking lot. “There,” he said. “That Chevy truck. It’s in there. That as fast as you can go?”
“This is high gear,” I said, hopping after him.
He looked back at me. “Still one big funny haole. Go look and see your surprise, Adam.”
A soldier was sitting in front. It was Davi Mori.
When he saw me, he sprang out of the car, a grin all over his face, and started pounding me.
“What’s with the crutches?”
“Where the heck did you come from, Mori?”
“You like my surprise?”
The three of us were all talking at once.
Davi was home on furlough visiting his family and friends.
We got in the truck. Davi was at the wheel, Martin in the middle, and I sat on the outside because of my leg. Martin put his arms around us.
“You two guys—you are my big heroes,” he said.
“The two of us together aren’t as big as you, Kahahawai,” Davi said.
“How’d you stay out?” I said.
“I tried to enlist. I don’t want you guys to think I’m a slacker. I tried the army, the navy I even tried the marines. Nobody wanted me. Why?” He pointed to his ear. “I don’t hear too good, compliments of the Japanese at Pearl Harbor. Remember how low those bombers came? And those bombs, and the one that flipped us? They say that’s what did it.”
“The Japanese were lucky they didn’t have to fight you,” Davi said. “If you were in, K, the war would be over by now.”
It was almost the way it used to be, the three of us, going at one another nonstop.
“Hey, Adam, you know what the Japanese said about you marines?” Davi started the truck. “They said you guys weren’t human beings. They knew you were devils recruited from jails and lunatic asylums.”
Martin laughed. “Good story.”
“No, I mean it,” Davi said. “I interrogated enough prisoners.”
“They were the crazy ones,” I said. “The way they never gave up.”
In the heights over Pearl Harbor we got out of the truck and stood at the fence, the same place where we’d stood four years earlier. That morning we’d stashed our bikes, slipped under the fence, and slid down the hill to the shore. Three kids poking around, picking up rocks and looking for stuff. We’d found a rowboat.
“Remember?” Davi said. “That day, it was just like this, the same blue sky.”
Martin was nodding and smiling. Of the three of us, I thought he was the least changed, the same big and enthusiastic guy he’d always been. But Davi was different, older—there was something thick in him now, solid, like a tree.
“Let’s go down the hill, maybe find a boat,” Martin said, “and go for a row.”
“What, and start World War Three?” Davi said.
The two of them went down the hill, laughing and poking each other. I stayed by the fence, looking out over the water, to Ford Island, where my father’s ship lay, where he lay. A breeze had sprung up. I miss you, Dad.