The survivor

by White, Robb, 1909-1990

The band was playing again and the flags were flying.

  Nonsense. Suicide. Even if he could get into the plane, Adam decided, it wouldn't do much good

  He probably couldn't get the engines started before they would riddle the plane with gunfire.

  Even if he could get it off the ground without being fatally hit, what good would it do? The nine fighters in the revetments would swarm all over him before he could go twenty miles.

  There was no use dreaming.

  But the plane was there.

  *'If we could get our hands on that plane . . .** Adam said.

  They turned to look at him and the Rebel said, "Can you fly that thing, Adam?"

  "It's got wings," Adam said.

  "No. Honest. Can you fly it?"

  "If I could get in it, I could fly it."

  "Then let's go get it. You all," the Rebel said.

  "I'd forgotten you were an airedale," Cuns said. "You can really fly it?"

  Adam nodded, watching them pumping gas into the plane. "The only thing is, we wouldn't get far v^th the fighters on our tail." He turned and looked at them, "Without them, and in the air, we'd have a chance."

  "How much chance?" Guns asked.

  Adam shrugged.

  "Who cares?" Jason asked. "On the ground we haven't got any chance at all. So let's see what we can do."

  "The fighters first," Adam said.

  The marines and Adam had almost reached the first revetment when Jason, who was leading, slid like molasses down to the ground and disappeared

  into it. Silently and not moving fast, Guns and the Rebel dropped out of sight.

  Adam, seeing nothing, shd behind a tree tnmk and waited.

  But there at the end of the revetment, in plain sight, was the enemy hghting a cigarette. He was wearing one of the long-billed green caps, a rifle was slung over his bare shoulder, and his rather baggy pants were stuflfed into the tops of heavy gray socks. He had on tennis shoes.

  He Ht the cigarette, took a puff, and then, hitching the rifle into a more comfortable position, made a sloppy about-face and walked slowly out of sight behind the revetments.

  Guns, Jason, and the Rebel sifted back to Adam. "Now we know there's one. Maybe more," Jason said.

  "Let's go get him,'' Guns said.

  "Maybe Adam ought to get him," the Rebel said.

  Adam looked at him, wondering.

  "Maybe there's two or three of 'em, Adam. We ought to find out. You could go talk to him in his lingo and be looking around before you take him. Then we'll know what to do."

  Adam looked down at his uniform, the USMC stenciled black and clear on the jacket. He started unbuttoning the jacket. "I'll get shot in this," he said.

  "Yeah," Guns said, "you might."

  Adam stripped off the jacket and trousers and stood there in the faded green drawers, barefooted, bareheaded, wounded.

  "That'll surprise him," Jason said, looking at Adam critically.

  "Here," Guns said, pulling out of his pocket a still damp red bandanna. He knotted the comers and put it on Adam's head.

  "Not so regulation," the Rebel decided, tilting the bandanna over Adam's eye. "You look great."

  "It even surprises me," Jason said. "You look kind of silly. And that's good. You sure don't look dangerous."

  "Here's a knife," Guns said. "Hold it up along your arm."

  Jason must have read Adam's face. "You ever use R knife, Adam?" he asked. When Adam didn't answer, Jason gently took the knife out of his hand. "You don't hold it that way," he said. "You hold it with the blade pointing away from your thumb, not your little finger. You don't stab, you shove it, Adam." He put the knife back in Adam's hand.

  "It's hard to get it through the ribs," Guns told him, "so go up under 'em."

  "It's hard to kill a man vdth a knife," Jason said, "but itil make him bend over. Then clock him behind the ear. With the side of your hand. Not your fist."

  "AU right," Adam said, knowing that he was in a dream.

  "Make sure there's nobody else around," the Rebel said. "We don't want no musket firin'."

  "But take him out," Guns said. "Don't fool around with it."

  "All right," Adam said. He bent his wrist up

  until he felt the point of the knife against his skin below the elbow. Then he moved out toward the end of the revetment.

  Guns, the Rebel, and Jason watched him go. "I hope he does all right," Jason said.

  "He better," Guns said.

  "He's never been in a fight in his life," Jason said. "No kind of fight at all. Maybe we better help him."

  "We don't speak that lingo, Jason. How can we help him? We'd only mess up the whole thing."

  "I guess you're right," Jason said, watching Adam walking toward the revetment, the red bandanna on his head looking ridiculous.

  IT WAS THE LONGEST WALK Adam had ever taken. Somehow all the surface nerves of his body seemed now to be separate from him and from each other. Every nerve was feeling, all by itself, the sudden impact and pain and horror of a bullet striking it.

  It was hard to think as he walked through sunlight and shadow, walking slowly and (he hoped) nonchalantly. He didn't want to startle the man. To surprise him, yes. But not frighten him. He didn't want to appear suddenly in front of the man. Nor did he want the man to see him from a long way off and have that much time to study him before he spoke.

  From some memory, from some time in his youth in Tokyo, a song—complete with words and

  music—came into his mind. A song about the samurai with their two broad swords moving through the cherry orchard, always protecting the precious Hves of the daimios.

  Adam began to sing the song. Not loud. He stood at the end of the revetment, hidden by it still, and sang the song about the brave samurai and all their swords. He sang it slowly, listening between the words, until he heard the footsteps coming.

  It was good. The footsteps were purposeful but not hurried.

  It was like the last second when a monster of a wave is right there and you decide to take it. A little second of absolute weakness and then, when youVe committed yourself to the wave, a good feeHng.

  Adam sauntered out from behind the revetment, the bandanna at a jaunty angle.

  It was nicely timed. The sentry was three paces away from him, the gun still slung over his shoulder.

  From here Adam could look down the line of revetments, see the engine nacelles of the planes, the chocks at the wheels. He saw no other sentry, nor any sign of mechanics.

  "Oh, ho, you fortunate person. Good morning," Adam said to the sentry, using the dialect of the servant class. He could feel the knife sharp against the sldn of his underarm.

  The sentry bowed shghtly, puzzled, but poUte. "Good morning.*' He didn't come any closer, and now his hand moved up to the stock of the rifle.

  Not fast, but moving there. ''Fortunate?" the sentry asked, not understanding.

  "That we are not standing stiff as ramrods with our knees shaking Hke leaves in a high wind," Adam said. As the man looked down the runway, toward the white uniformed ranks, Adam looked along the revetments again. No one moved in the hot sunshine.

  Adam took a step closer. He knew he was close enough now. He could see where the man's rib cage stopped and the soft, faintly hollow belly began. The long knife could go in there and go up under the ribs. It could go a long way.

  "Who are you?" the sentry asked.

  The man, uncertain, was easing the rifle sling off his shoulder. Now he put both hands on it. A marine in that position could swing that rifle down and kill you in a fraction of a second.

  But Adam stood there, grinning, the knife now svung around behind his back. "I'm going for a swim in the Emperor's ocean," he said.

  "Who are you?" the sentry asked.

  Now the rifle was moving and he had to do something.

  Adam stepped forward, spun the man around, and then tried to clamp his arms to his sides. The small man was much stronger than he had thought, and very quick. For a second he w
as free, his arms free, as he turned back toward Adam, the gun sHng shp-ping down his arm.

  It did not feel at aU as Adam had thought it would feel. There was no great, terrifying pain;

  even the impact was not great. He felt a burning sensation and a hard tap against his skin and that was all. The sound of it was flat, small, and dull against the steady roar of the sea, the sound of the wind in the palms.

  He discovered that he had dropped the knife.

  The man was out of his hands now, out of reach, and Adam wondered why he felt a little dizzy.

  The man raised the rifle and pointed it straight into Adam's eyes and then, slowly, as though making a ceremonial bow, the man leaned forward. He kept on leaning, falling to the ground, and Adam could now see Jason moving toward him, stepping over the dead man on the ground. Jason took Adam by the arm, his hand strong on Adam's arm. "Any more?^ Jason whispered.

  "No. I don't think so."

  Jason pulled him into the revetment and hustled him along to the rear end of it "You better sit down," he said.

  Adam felt grateful to him for that, and grateful that Jason helped him down to the ground, or he might have fallen. He seemed now to have no strength at all.

  The Rebel and Guns came sliding around the open end of the revetment. With their rifles low and ready, they backed toward Adam. Jason said, **He doesn't think there's any more."

  Guns asked the Rebel, "Any sign they heard the shotr

  "Doesn't look like it. The band's playing."

  "Keep watching," Guns said and then turned to Adam. He looked down at him, squinted his eyes

  shut, shook his head hard for a second and opened his eyes. "See if there's any first aid in the plane,* he told Jason as he kneeled down beside Adam.

  "Lean over, Adam," Guns said, and helped him lean far forward. "Good thing that wasn't a Garand," he said, pushing Adam upright again. "Cough as deep as you can and spit."

  The cough sent a huge, tearing pain all through Adam, and as he spat on the ground he looked down at himself.

  It wasn't even dramatic. Nothing spectacular. Just a small round purple bruise on his skin with, in the center of it, a blackish dent, now oozing blood. "Went right through you," Guns said. "Didn't even make much of a hole coming out. You're not spitting any blood. How do you feel?"

  "Not bad."

  "Can you get up?"

  Adam pushed himself upward. Guns helped him. For a moment he was dizzy and the pain in his side was great.

  "Feel like anything tearing loose?"

  *'No." Adam took a few steps. "It just hurts."

  "You're lucky," Guns said. "I don't think it hit anything." Then he stood a moment looking at Adam. "You made a mistake, Adam."

  "Yes," Adam said.

  Guns handed him the knife he had dropped as Jason came back with a cheap tin box. Guns looked through the brownish bandages and packets of folded paj>er. "The best thing is just let him bleed out any dirt. This won't help him."

  Jason was looking at Adam. "You okay?*'

  "I think so," Adam said and walked over to the plane. He felt nauseous and weak, and there was pain where the bullet went in and came out, but otherwise he felt all right.

  Guns went to the mouth of the revetment, picked up the dead man and brought him back to the sandbags. He slit some of the bags above him and let the sand cover him.

  Adam, in pain, stood and watched him, feeling apart from Gims, and Jason, and the Rebel. They knew so well what they were doing, and did it so quickly and efficiently. And he, who had been told what to do, had not done it and now stood wounded watching.

  The Rebel came back into the revetment. *T)on't see a thing, and I don't think they heard the shot. But let's don't have any more. You don't look good with that hole in you, Adam."

  "It's better than one in the head," Adam said, walking over to the plane.

  The plane was sleek and apparently brand-new. He looked it over and then beckoned to the others. **See where this cable comes out," he said, pointing to the elevator control cable which came out of the fuselage through a streamHned housing and was attached to the elevator horn by a stainless-steel clevis with a screw pin and lock wire. Adam imtwisted the wire and unscrewed the pin. "There goes that Httle red wagon," he said, tossing the pin up on the revetment. "Do that to all of them."

  "What does it do?" Jason asked.

  "He won't have any up-and-down control of

  the tail, but he won't notice it until he's going too fast to do anything about it—except run oflE the runway."

  As they moved from plane to plane Adam knew that they were accompHshing something, but he wondered, in the end what will it amount to? The problem of getting into the Betty seemed insurmountable. And even if they got into it, how could they start the engines, wheel it around, get it to the end of the runway? It would be a long take-oflF run—he figured it would take most of the runway to get the big plane off. A long run right past every gun on the island. Past the AA batteries, past the control tower with the gun sHts, little black lines in the concrete, past the armed men still standing in ranks, past the tank, and artillery parked with their guns covering the runway.

  It all seemed far away and totally hopeless.

  And yet, Adam thought, they'd come this far and were still aHve. They had come a long, long way, and a hard way, and were aUve.

  They gathered in the last revetment, all the planes ruined for flight, and stood, concealed, and watched the grand parade.

  Adam looked at the marines, ragged and dirty and bearded, with sores oozing and the jungle rot eating away on them. They were wrecks of men, and yet they were big men; and their skin—after days in the submarine and more days and nights in the wet, dark jungle—was a pale, pasty white. They were, without a doubt. United States marines.

  And that was the trouble. If they had been small and yeUow and almost hairless, and could, as he

  could, speak the enemy's language, they could cross the runway in full view of the parade and perhaps get away with it. But four big white Americans. . . .

  "The problem now is to get over there," Adam said, thinking aloud. "If we weren't so white, so big, and so ornery-looking . . 7

  And then Adam remembered Jason capering around in the mask of the medicine man, remembered the mildewed and fusty cloaks of bird feathers. . . .

  It was ridiculous. Suicidal. And yet, Adam thought, what isn't? The second those httle men parading in the sun saw their faces, their eyes, they were dead.

  They wouldn't risk the long march across the runway. This thing must come suddenly to the enemy and surprise him, and then . . .

  By the time the surprise ended they would have to be moving toward the plane. Moving fast . . .

  With protection ...

  The tank.

  "Jason, can you drive that tank?" Adam asked.

  "I can drive anything with wheels, treads or tracks that's got an engine with spark and gas," Jason said modestly.

  When Adam told them what he had in mind, it made them laugh for the first time in many days. They stood in the revetment laughing, the idea appealing to them.

  THE MARINES and Adam crossed the runway at the seaward end—a rugged crossing, for the enemy bulldozers had shoved the fallen tree trunks right to the sea, where they lay in a huge tangle of rotting wood constantly battered by the high, furious surf. Carrying the carved box of the native medicine men, they fought their way over the logs, one of them always on the lookout for a sentry. But for once, there were none—all, apparendy, forced to parade around in the sun.

  On the enemy's side of the runway at last they found a well-concealed gun position with, behind it, a bunker of logs and sandbags.

  "That's one thing I don't like about 'em," Guns had said, as they crawled down into the bimker. 'They're not stand-up fighters. Always shooting at you out of holes in the ground or up in the trees."

  Adam remembered now the advice of one of the best class-skippers in the Pensacola Ground School. This guy could step out of ranks
right in front of the officer in charge and march off—to his sack. While the rest of the platoon went to class.

  "You've got to look like you just got a top-secret message from the President or, at least, the Chief of Naval Operations," this operator had explained to Adam. "If you look guilty or sneak aroimd or run—u>^m you're in trouble. March. Stand up straight, chin in, gut in, butt in, and march. Have the look of eagles, man, and stare straight at every officer you see. But salute real regulation. Be squared away—cap fore and aft, tie two-blocked, bloxise secured. It helps to have some sort of

  oflBcial-looking paper in your hand, too. And don't duck around the first comer. Keep going straight away, over the horizon and away."

  (This man, Adam remembered, had talent. He had flunked flight training and was a ground officer somewhere.)

  They got the masks and feathers out of the chest and spread them out around the bunker. The feathers were a Httle ragged, chewed by the bugs, but the colors were still brilliant.

  The masks were great. Made of balsa or some light wood they were hollow inside, with the feathers of the terrifying faces carved into the outside of the shell. To help the terror along they were painted in weird lines and spots, with human hair and stiff strands of the coconut bark glued to them.

  When Guns tried on one of the masks, it had an odd effect on Adam. This crude mask with its daubs of paint had a curious majesty about it—a stem dignity. It diminished Guns, whose pale, infected body stood below it.

  **Good," Adam said. *T^ow some feathers.**

  "And some tar and we ride him out of here on a rail," the Rebel decided.

  "Look at this one!" Jason said, holding up one of the masks.

  It was a fearful thing, the carved mouth pulled down in anger, the painted eyes staring and brooding, long slashes of briUiant paint ran down the cheeks, and there were gorgeous, taU feathers on the top of it.

  "Vooooo-do,** the Rebel said.

  "This is the head man's," Jason decided.

  "You wear that one, Adam," Guns said.