‘What’s wrong?’ I asked frantically as I searched for my left boot, then hopped on one leg to pull it on.
‘Chidori didn’t return home,’ Tosh said. His voice was composed but his eyebrows creased together with acute concern for her well-being, and the implication made my body flinch, as if a bomb had dropped in front of me.
‘They want to know if she came here,’ my father said with a stern glare directed at me.
‘No. I haven’t seen her.’ Terror flooded through my veins. No matter how angry she had been with her father, she wouldn’t have stayed out past nightfall. The possibilities of what could have befallen her sent a chill across my skin. I didn’t even want to consider what might have kept her from making it home safely. ‘Did you check if her rowboat is gone?’ I asked Tosh.
He shook his head. ‘Not yet. Massey drove into town to search and we came here first after we realized she wasn’t in her bed.’
‘Send someone to check if she’s at Donna Mae’s.’ Without waiting for any deliberation, I took off running towards Bennett Bay. It was the most likely place she had gone. It was also the most likely setting for a catastrophic accident. Kenji and Patch were the only ones fast enough to keep up with me. Kenji ran with me to the beach with his lantern still in hand. I stumbled a few times in the dark as we scrambled across the rocks and climbed down to the spot where she kept her rowboat. It was gone. Huffing for air, we both stared at the empty spot on the beach, then gazed out along the inky water. My breath passed through the light of the lantern and the sliver of moonlight that peeked out from behind a cloud. Kenji had a coat on, but I didn’t. My teeth started to chatter from the cold and the dread.
‘What’s that?’ Kenji pointed out over the ocean to our right.
Something white floated offshore. I tugged someone else’s rowboat into the water to get a closer look. Patch hopped up on the bow to stand watch and Kenji held the lantern up over the ocean as I rowed. We approached the bobbing object – an empty rowboat. When the lantern illuminated the Chi Chi painted on the bow, the sight made my insides drop to my boots.
The water around us was black like oil. Even if I could see well enough to dive in and search, if she had gone overboard sometime in the afternoon, we were much too late to save her. Kenji called her name, then tracked the light of the lantern across the water, looking for something. Anything.
We floated, staring at the darkness, listening for a sign that by some miracle Chidori was alive and maybe treading water. The waves lapped against the bow and a mast bell rattled in the distance from a sailboat anchored in the next bay over. A gasp of breath broke the silence and Patch barked in the direction the sound had come from. Kenji spun around to angle the light towards what turned out to be only an otter popping his head up, curious as to what we were doing. Several golden orbs from lanterns gathered on the beach. The hairs stood up on my arms when someone from shore called her name. The eerie desperation in the voice floated through the chilled night air, then faded into nothingness.
My chest heaved to fight back the pain of the grief as I stared at her boat drifting next to us. The fishing net was missing. I snatched the oars and rowed feverishly. Shocked by my abruptness, Patch stumbled and leaned against Kenji’s leg for support as the boat lurched through the water. The wind worked against us and I struggled to make ground. Finally, I caught a current that pulled us up alongside Georgeson Island. I jumped out with the lantern and left a confused Kenji in the boat as Patch and I scrambled over the rocks towards where the seal pup had been weeks earlier. The stench hit my face and caused acid to rise in the back of my throat. An eagle or some other predator had pecked at the mother seal’s carcass and large chunks of rotted flesh hung off the exposed bones. The baby was gone, but Chidori’s fishing net lay on a rock nearby.
‘Chidori!’ I called, and the sound echoed across the water. ‘Chi!’
My voice bounced off the surrounding islands, rebounding back to me. Patch barked and the sound reverberated in the same way. I swung the lantern from left to right in case she had slipped on the rocks and hurt herself. Something made a sound in the forest behind me. The muscles in my spine tightened as I spun around and held the light up.
Shoeless and hugging herself, Chidori stepped out onto a boulder.
Relief swamped me like a tsunami and I nearly collapsed as Patch barked and wiggled excitedly. ‘Thank the Lord,’ I said as I scrambled over the rocks and up the embankment. I flung my arms around her and squeezed so tightly she could likely feel my heart throb. Choked up, I leaned back to hold her face and stared into her eyes with immense gratitude until I found my words. ‘When I saw the empty rowboat I thought the worst.’
She realized how shaken I truly was and her expression became more serious. ‘I’m sorry I gave you a fright. I’m fine. Only cold.’
I exhaled all the stress that had built up in my chest, then kissed her forehead. I couldn’t even bear the thought of what would have happened to me if she hadn’t been found alive. ‘How many times have I told you to secure the boat properly so you won’t get stranded?’
‘One million times, at least.’ She grinned and tapped my lips with her finger. ‘Does my father know you’re off searching for me?’
‘Yes. He came by my house with your brothers and woke me. Kenji is just on the other side of those rocks. I’m sure he’s eager to see you. He almost cried when we found your rowboat adrift in the bay.’
‘Truthfully?’ She kissed the tip of my nose. ‘Kenji never cries. Did you almost cry when you found my boat adrift in the bay?’
I pulled her tighter against my body and whispered into her ear, ‘The thought of you drowned at the bottom of the ocean tore a hole in my chest, ripped out my still-beating heart, and threw it into the salty water. I have never felt such pain. If I hadn’t noticed your fishing net was missing, I probably would have jumped in and let myself sink to a watery grave next to you forever.’
‘Gosh, I’m relieved that you didn’t do something so rash. That would have been a tragedy of Shakespearean proportion given that I’m safe and sound.’
‘Don’t joke, Chi. It was a terrifying thought. I don’t ever want to know what it would feel like to lose you.’
She nodded to agree and then dropped her gaze to the ground. ‘As much as I hate to admit this, we might lose each other because of the war. What if my father is right?’
‘We might be separated temporarily, but for as long as I live, you won’t lose me. And we don’t need your father’s permission to enjoy the time God grants us together.’
She sighed and leaned in to rest her head on my chest. ‘I want his approval.’
‘Then I’ll figure out a way to convince him. It might take some time, but he’ll eventually warm to the idea. I’m sure of it.’
She was quiet as my words sunk in. I could tell by the way she let her weight sink against mine that my speech had an impact and that she was considering the possibility that, with time, her father would agree. But she and I both knew there were outside forces much more concerning than her father’s approval.
‘We just can’t quit. Okay?’
Chidori stepped back from our embrace and nodded. I reached over to lace my fingers with hers and led the way back to where Kenji was searching on the other side of the island. He didn’t normally outwardly express emotions, so when he rushed over and embraced her with a quiet intensity, it choked me up again. He gave her his coat before we loaded into the boat. Patch took his post on the bow. Chidori slid closely beside me and her hand skimmed across my thigh as I wrapped my arms around her to keep her warm.
Kenji rowed us over to her boat and towed it in behind us. When we got close to the beach, men shouted, desperate to know if we’d found her. Kenji shouted back and jumped out of the rowboat once the water was knee deep. While he was pulling us up onto the shore, I bent my head down and whispered in Chidori’s ear, ‘I love you.’
Light from the lantern illuminated only the contours of her face, not he
r expression. My breathing stopped as I waited for her to respond. She was completely silent, then sat forward to break our embrace. She paused and inhaled deeply as she threw her legs over the edge of the boat, then finally she said, ‘I love you too, Hayden – with all my heart. Thank you for coming to find me. And for your promise to never quit.’ She glanced over her shoulder, blew me a kiss, and then turned to jump into the ankle-deep water with Patch leading the way.
She waded to her mother who stood on the shore with a blanket ready to wrap around her shoulders. Other women who had joined the search escorted her away towards the house. I leapt onto the beach. My father and Tosh helped Kenji pull the boats up onto the sand and Mr Setoguchi walked over to me. His solid, wide-stance frame was silhouetted by the glow from the lanterns of the men behind him. His breath rose in a silvery cloud around his head as he met my gaze with his chin held high.
‘Thank you for rescuing her, Hayden.’ He shook my hand and bowed his head subtly before turning to follow the crowd of people huddled around Chidori.
Chapter 19
‘Goon up,’ Harold hollered as the barrack door swung open. The guard stepped in and gestured with the barrel of his Gewehr to make us fall in line. He led us across the compound to the latrine and motioned for us to disrobe. The outfit Inga had given me hung off my frame like I was a boy dressed in my father’s clothes. I had no way to know how much weight I had lost because there was no scale or mirror, but I was definitely faring more poorly than the others. My bunkmates didn’t seem to mind the conditions all that much. They behaved as if it was no different than being at Boy Scout camp with a gang of friends. Most of them even preferred being a POW to fighting, and at first I did too, but the novelty wore off quickly for me because I had no purpose to wake up to in the morning. Laundry day was one thing I did look forward to, so I eagerly dropped my trousers and removed my shirt. Although they allowed us a short communal shower once a week, they only permitted us to wash our clothes once every month, and I detested being filthy like a beggar.
The guard shouted at us to hurry up, so I scrubbed my trousers, shirt and undergarments clean and wrung them out. Then I ran back through the foggy mist in the buff to hang them to dry from the rafter in the barrack.
It’s possible that another reason I struggled as a prisoner more than the other POWs was because, although I had made efforts to outgrow my adolescent petulance and stubbornness, I still hated being ordered around and told what I could and could not do by someone I didn’t respect. I hated not being in control of my own life. And not knowing anything was the worst. Would I ever see Chidori or my family again? There was a possibility they weren’t even aware I was alive. How was the war going? Would I suffer through all the hardships only to die of starvation or be killed by the Third Reich?
Not that anyone was, but I really wasn’t cut out for incarceration. I had to constantly remind myself that the conditions could have certainly been worse. I was alive, which meant one day I would be free to go home to Chidori. That’s all that mattered.
‘Come on, Hayden. Shake a leg! The Red Cross packages and the post finally arrived,’ Arnold hollered from outside.
My clothes were still damp so, naked except for my boots, I wrapped my blanket around my shoulders and followed him to an area in the yard where a bunch of fellows tore open wooden crates filled with milk powder, corned beef, sardines, prunes, salt, tea, clothing items for the cold weather, medical supplies and toiletries. The YMCA also sent packages that arrived at the same time. I flipped through a couple of new books. One was a book of poetry by Robert Frost. Chidori had raved on once about how much she loved his poems, so I placed that one to the side with an Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot mystery and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Hank blew on a trumpet and Roger joined him with a tambourine to play a Louis Armstrong song. It was like Christmas. Another crate, packed full with a phonograph, records and sports equipment, had also been delivered.
‘Pierce!’ Jacob shouted. He extended his arm towards me with an envelope clutched in his fist as he dug more letters out of the postbag with his other hand. The envelope had my name scrawled across the front. What a sight for sore eyes that was. I hustled over to snatch it from him and tore the seal open. My mother had written it, which I was glad for because she tended to go on and on – a welcome trait when starved for news from home. Pop wasn’t much for words, so his letters had always left me longing for more – or brutally shocked by his abruptness in at least one case. I could not have been more grateful to read about the mundane goings-on of Mayne Island. I sat on a stump and flipped open the box of a harmonica that I’d picked from the crate. The metal sunk into my palm in a familiar way as I unfolded the letter and started to read.
True to form, Ma wrote ten pages, double-sided, about everything that had been going on since we had last corresponded. She avoided the topic of my sister. There was also no mention of Chidori or the Setoguchis. I reread the entire thing again to check that I hadn’t skipped a page or a paragraph. Ma spent several pages talking about her relief that I was alive and despair that I had been taken prisoner. The church congregation was apparently praying for me. She discussed things she had been reading in the newspaper about the war – most of which had been blacked out by the censors. Then she went on a less serious tangent about how one of our goats had gotten into our neighbour’s house and chewed its way through the kitchen cupboards. She also felt it was important to update me on the news that her friend from bingo had come down with a dreadful cough but recovered. How could she forget to mention Chidori? I had specifically asked them to update me on her. It made me worry that her avoidance meant the news was bleak and that Ma had purposely omitted the topic because she knew I was in no state to receive more miserable news. No, I refused to believe that. I had to convince myself that Chidori was well and my parents simply had no new information to share with me. Chidori had to be well. She was fine. And happy. Safe. I needed that to be true or I’d have nothing to keep me hopeful, so I pretended that Ma had written all sorts of encouraging and inspiring things about Chidori in the letter.
‘Isn’t all this Red Cross equipment terrific?’ Luke asked me as he bounced a basketball on the frozen dirt.
I walked over to the crate and picked up a baseball, rotating it to feel the familiar texture of the leather and stitching against my fingertips. ‘I would be happier if it were an announcement that the war is over, but it’s definitely better than nothing.’
‘Damn right. Go long.’ Luke cocked his arm to throw a football, so I tossed my blanket, letter and harmonica on the picnic table next to the baseball and took off in my birthday suit to run a route. My legs wobbled and my breath almost instantly became raspy. I only made it halfway across the yard and turned to look for the pass. It hit me in the face and made my nose bleed.
Huffing for air, I walked back and tossed the football to him. ‘Looks like I’m going to need to work on my fitness.’
‘Spring training. We’ll make teams and play real games once the weather gets better.’
To recover from being winded, I propped my hands on my knees. ‘I was hoping we’d be going home before spring.’
He nodded and said with unconvincing conviction, ‘Sure. We’ll be going home before then. Now go put some clothes on before they shoot you for being crackers.’
I chuckled and shrugged. Running around in the buff was liberating at least.
F/O Pierce Duration as POW: 115 days.
A fellow named Billy lit his farts on fire today to entertain us. The gas turned the flame blue. We laughed off our chairs to watch him bend over, spread his cheeks, and hold a match up to his arse. It made us laugh even harder when he accidentally set his trousers on fire. I haven’t laughed that hard since I was still on Mayne Island and chumming around with my childhood friends. I wonder if Joey and Donna Mae got married. Ma never mentioned them either. Next time I write, I’ll send it to Joey. Maybe he’ll tell me the truth about Chidori. Unless I don’t want to know t
he truth.
28 November 1941
Dear Diary,
Hayden and I have secretly seen each other almost every day since the night of the rowboat incident. Although I will eventually confront my father with the truth, we have tried to hide each rendezvous so my father won’t be cross. In mid-November, Kenji and Michiko happened to drive by us while Hayden was walking me home along the road, hand in hand. And Tosh caught us kissing behind the greenhouses one afternoon. They either haven’t mentioned it to Father or he knows and is choosing to accept it. I am not sure which. In case it is the first option, I think it is best for now if we continue to be discreet. It is my greatest wish that the war will simply end one day out of the blue and nobody will care any more whether Hayden and I are together. I realize that is magical thinking and I will need to come up with a more practical solution sooner rather than later, but I need more time to think about the right course of action.
It is my sense that Hayden’s mother has not warmed to the idea of us going steady either. Truthfully, she has never been overly genial towards me. Once, when Hayden and I were children, we were playing Tarzan on a rope strung from the rafters in their barn, and I fell from the ladder. I scraped my knee, elbow and chin very badly. Hayden rushed me into the house as blood dripped, shouting for his mother. Instead of cleaning my wound and applying bandages, she shooed me home. Hayden walked hurriedly with me to my house and stayed with me as my mother administered first aid. I’m not sure he ever realized how oddly cold his own mother’s reaction had been. I would venture to say that she is not a nurturing person by nature, but I have witnessed her be very gentle and caring towards Hayden and Rosalyn, so she is capable of it.
Hayden insisted on inviting me to his birthday dinner. Initially, his mother made excuses for why it would be better if it were only a family affair, since his sister was coming home from Vancouver for the weekend. He informed his mother if I wasn’t there they wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday at all. She finally conceded and made a roasted turkey and birthday cake. We all enjoyed a few rounds of cards after dinner and then Hayden played the harmonica that I had given him as a gift, while Rose and I danced. We had a very pleasant evening, even his mother could not deny that.
All We Left Behind Page 13