This Light Between Us

by Andrew Fukuda

  He is fading. Disappearing into the night the same way she faded on him in the past.

  “Charlie!” He tugs on his uniform, points to his 442nd patch. “Charlie, I’m coming. I’m on my way to Europe! Tell me where you are!”

  And she is fighting back the tears; they are running down her hollowed-out cheek, cutting through her grime-caked face.

  He reaches for her arm, the numbers 14873 tattooed on her arm, a triangle tattooed below those numbers—

  She is gone. No gradual fade-out. Just gone. The brick barracks, the icy ground, the black snowflakes. All gone. In their place: the rumble of the Johns Hopkins under him, the glittering skies overhead, the endless, bottomless ocean surrounding him.

  49

  JUNE 1, 1944

  ITALY: BARI, NAPLES, CIVITAVECCHIA

  The Johns Hopkins, more than four weeks after leaving Hampton Roads, Virginia, finally arrives in the port city of Bari, Italy. The soldiers, many filthy after refusing to shower in the disgusting salt-water stalls, are elated to be on dry land again.

  “Buon pomeriggio!” Mutt shouts to local residents on the dock. He bends over the army’s Pocket Guide to Italian Cities. “Mi chiamo Mutt Suzuki, Monsieur Mutt Suzuki. Fammi un prezzaccio!”

  “Yo, Mutt, you sure you’re reading that right?” Alex asks.

  He peers closer. “Oh, dog it. Wrong line. I mean, Piacere di conoscerti!” he shouts, arms raised high in greeting.

  But the Bari residents don’t wave back. They glance with idle curiosity at all these Asian faces in military uniforms, perhaps thinking they are Japanese prisoners of war.

  “Heck, could these people be any colder?” Teddy says. “Crikey, we’re here to liberate them. They couldn’t fake being more excited?”

  “Like every girl you’ve ever slept with?” Zack says.

  “Shut up, Zack,” Teddy snaps back.

  Shig pipes in. “Yeah, shut up, Zack. Teddy’s never even slept with a girl.”

  They soon learn the reason for the cold reception. Back in December, Allied ships had docked here. One of them—the SS John Harvey—was secretly carrying two thousand mustard-gas bombs as part of a contingency plan in case Germans initiated chemical warfare. But when the Germans struck the port in a devastating air raid, seventeen Allied ships went down, including the John Harvey in a huge explosion. It released mustard gas over the defenseless city and surrounding countryside. Military and civilian casualties numbered over a thousand, with close to a hundred, likely more, dead. The German air raid was so devastating, it was dubbed Little Pearl Harbor.

  “Great,” Teddy says on learning this. “Pearl Harbor happens and America hates us. Now Little Pearl Harbor happens, and all Italy hates us. Man, us Japanese Americans, we can’t catch a break, can we?”

  They’re not in Bari for long. They load up into forty-and-eight boxcar trains—so named for the forty people or eight horses that can fit in each carriage—and ride westward across the boot of Italy. Through the open doors, they see farmlands and towns passing by with names that mean nothing to them. Barletta. Tressanti. Buonalbergo. Sant’Agata Dé Goti.

  The picturesque Italian countryside offers little evidence—except for the occasional overturned mule cart or car or burned-down farmhouse—that the world is actually at war, or that an evil enemy lurks. They play cards. They talk until they’re sick of the same regurgitated jokes, the same stale stories of sexual conquests. They cradle their rifles, tap fingers on their helmets. They wonder if they will ever actually fight, if war is actually a real thing.

  * * *

  At dawn they arrive in Naples. And here, in this crowded city of slopes and narrow stone stairs, the first signs of war. Bombed-out buildings reduced to empty husks. Upturned cars, tires gone, the metal frames blackened and twisted by some explosion. Building walls pitted with bullet holes, entire sections charred black. An air of desperation everywhere.

  But it’s the squalor that’s most telling. Only men wear shoes; the women walk around barefoot, their blackened, calloused soles looking hard as black leather. And the children, God, the children. Scrawny, desperate, dirty. Constantly flitting about, asking the soldiers for handouts. For candy, for gum, cigarettes, anything. Joe, Joe, chocolate? Cigarette? Joe? Joe? Their darting, gnatty hands everywhere, pulling on cartridge belts, tugging on jackets, digging into pockets. If one raggedy kid gets something, a whole crowd comes swarming.

  “Buzz off, maggots!” Zack Okutsu finally shouts. He’s barely taller than most of the kids.

  No Life magazine photo op here, of beaming GIs surrounded by friendly, smiling children, arms around each other.

  In the afternoon, a general stink rises above the city, of rotting fish, stray dogs, raw sewage flooding the street gutters. The locals jostle in the city plaza, selling their wares to foreign soldiers: American, British, New Zealanders, even French Algerians. A potato for fifty cents. A loaf of bread for one dollar. A pen for fifty cents, which Teddy buys after bargaining it down to twenty cents. He still writes to his mother every day. An egg for three dollars. A signorina for two dollars, a very nice girl, they are promised.

  Alex walks to the outer edge of the plaza where it’s less crowded. Here, tortoiseshells and cameos and other pilfered jewelry are being sold. A young boy is displaying broken crockery on a slab of fallen concrete. The items—cups, bowls, plates—have been glued together with mortar. They remind Alex of Japanese kintsugi pieces that his mother loved to make and collect: broken ceramic bowls sealed back together not with mortar but a gold-dusted lacquer. The result is a bowl whose delicate cracks are highlighted, not concealed, with gold. Beauty in all the broken places.

  When they return from town, the GIs get doused with some kind of insecticide. Because of the lice in town, they are told, because of the disease, because of the filth of war. That night, when Alex opens his rucksack, he finds the small bowl he bought shattered into five pieces.

  After Naples, Rome. Then, in a caravan of jeeps and trucks, they head to Civitavecchia. Next a little Tuscany village of Belvedere. Where, at last: war. In all its senseless, unspeakable, insatiable brutality.

  50

  JUNE 26, 1944

  BELVEDERE, ITALY

  In the hour before dawn, a few soldiers walk through the bivouacked camp, quietly waking up the battalion.

  There are no grumbles this morning, no mouthing off at the assigned soldiers tasked with this thankless job. Everyone rises efficiently, quietly, lips pressed into thin white lines. Boots thrown on, bladders emptied.

  Alex, like many of his fellow soldiers, is already awake. Has been for hours, his sleep fitful through the night, grabbed in brief, fractured snatches. But he is not tired. He is more alert than he has ever been. Is this the last day of my life? Are these my final hours?

  A quick breakfast. K rations opened up. Everyone is forced to eat two packs. “You don’t know when you’ll eat again,” Captain Ralph Ensminger says. To Alex, it sounds like: You don’t know if you’ll eat again. They eat sitting against tree trunks. Squatting on the ground. By the ridgeline, staring off into the distance, chewing somberly on gummy pork loaf and stale crackers, thinking of first kisses and last letters.

  After breakfast, Captain Ensminger gathers E Company along with Alex’s artillery team. Alex, as front observer, will be on the frontlines with the E Company infantry team.

  “Listen up.” This morning there’s no need to shout to get their attention. Ensminger has their eyes, their ears, their undivided attention. “The Nazis are beating a retreat northward up Italy. And they’ve established a southern line of defense, starting with the town of Belvedere just over that hill. They’ve set up an SS battalion command post there. It’s well fortified, and the Krauts will fight to the death to protect it.” He taps on an X scrawled on the large map. “It’s on an elevated position. Which puts them at a distinct advantage over us. Also in their advantage: they’ve got more troops, more weapons, more equipment, more vehicles, more tanks.”

  He paus
es; everyone’s heart is beating, faster, faster, fasterfaster.

  “They will not give in. They will fight to the death to protect it.” He gazes at them, his pale blue eyes staring evenly at their brown ones. Now is the time to give the rah-rah speech, the And we will fight them to the death, too! speech. But he doesn’t. He has never been that way, never really raised his voice even back at Camp Shelby in all their months of training together. He treats them as comrades, with respect. That’s a big reason why they are so loyal to him, why many will fall on the sword for him. He only says, “Remember everything we learned together back at Camp Shelby. We do that, and we do it well, and we will prevail today, gentlemen.”

  The soldiers have a few minutes before they set off. They check their weapons and supplies. Some scribble hurried last letters, which they put not in their jackets but leave behind in their tents. In case they are blown apart.

  Alex is staring over a ridge, into the distance. He takes out his drawing of Charlie. The paper is now smeared and in danger of crumbling away; but her face, her eyes—they seem as alive as ever.

  He hears someone approaching. He slides the drawing into his pocket.

  It’s Mutt. He saunters up next to him.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  “Doing good?”

  Alex nods.

  They stare at the Tuscan countryside.

  “They don’t ease us into war, do they?” Alex says.

  Mutt cocks a grin. “Baptism by fire, baby. The only way to do it.”

  Alex hesitates. “Yo, Mutt, I’m afraid.”

  Mutt turns to look at him. “Hey, we’re all scared, braddah. I puked twice already.”

  Alex lowers his head, speaks quieter. “All my life I’ve been this skinny quiet kid. Who stayed home reading comics. Even after Camp Shelby, I don’t know if I’ve got it in me. This war stuff.”

  Mutt elbows him softly. “You stick with me, brah. I got your back.”

  They fall quiet.

  “My older brother, Frank. He said that I wasn’t cut out for war, that I’ll die in seconds.” Alex hangs the binoculars around his neck. “That’s what I’m most scared of. Not the dying part, not really. But when the bullets start flying, I’m afraid I’ll … you know, freeze up.”

  “That happens, I’ll kick you forward.” Mutt gives him a sideways glance. “Besides, your brother can shut up about you. The last I checked, there’s only one Maki brother fighting in this war. You’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. But just in case you do die, hey, can I have your cigs?”

  Alex smiles. “You’re an idiot, you know that, Mutt?”

  He laughs.

  * * *

  E Company heads out at 6:30 A.M. No more talking. At a half crouch, their steps slower, their bodies tensing as they near Belvedere.

  They hunker down before a short hill, weapons laid flat before them. On the other side, a dip leads down to a flatland that rises up to the final hill upon which Belvedere sits. They’ll be fully exposed in that flatland, target practice for the blind.

  Captain Ensminger looks at Alex, points two fingers forward. Alex nods. Crawling forward, he eases up the hill, Mutt, carrying the SCR-300 field radio, right next to him. He pokes his head over the top. Never has his forehead seemed so massive, his helmet like a shining lighthouse. After a few minutes, he crawls back down.

  “Nothing,” he tells Ensminger. “No Kraut in sight.”

  Captain Ensminger doesn’t show any emotion. “Call in again,” he says to Mutt.

  “C Battery, report in,” Mutt says into the radio.

  Garbled static comes back. Then Teddy on the line with bad news: All artillery units still on the move. Howitzers stuck in mud because of heavy rain. The order is for E Company to move in on Belvedere ASAP. F and G companies already on the move. Coordinated timing is crucial. Do not delay, move in ASAP.

  Captain Ensminger curses. Moving in without artillery cover is sheer lunacy. But he’s a military man through and through; obeying orders is his knee jerk. And plus there are F and G companies to consider. Can’t leave them out to dry. “On my order, we go. Half speed.” The order is whispered down the line on either side of him to the ends. Every head turns toward Captain Ensminger, who raises his hand. Then drops it.

  Everyone rises. They move down the exposed side of the hill. Boots quietly thumping down, pants swishing, too loud, too loud. Weapons half raised, fingers near triggers, bodies half bent. All eyes nervously scanning the Belvedere hill, the surrounding high elevation hiding spots. Skin prickling now, arm hairs standing tall. Alex feels a burning sensation on his chest—a phantom target mark, the false feeling that a sniper has just put a target on you.

  They reach the middle of the open field. If the Krauts have their number, now’s the time they’ll strike. Everyone knows this. An electric charge runs through them, tension like they’ve never felt before. But nothing happens. Maybe the intel is bad. Maybe the Krauts aren’t in Belvedere—

  Gunshots crack the air. Right on cue. Coming from the Belvedere hill. German nine-millimeter MP 40 submachines. Burp. Burp-burp. The sound almost comical, the impact anything but. Bullets striking everywhere, kicking up spouts of dust and dirt, like fat raindrops falling on a pond.

  It does not register. Not at first. At Camp Shelby the simulated gunfire was harmless white noise. Every bullet blank, every grenade a dummy. The rat-a-tat meant only to scare, to distract. Not to cut down, not to kill.

  But now. The soldiers are paralyzed, in a daze. The burp-burp-burp coming in faster, puffs of dirt lining in toward them.

  On Alex’s left, a soldier falls to the ground. No cry or shout. Simply collapses, arms splayed, with a muted thud. Death, so routine and anticlimactic in the end, all the more horrific because of it.

  Then the soldier in front of Alex. A dink as bullet strikes helmet, whipping it off. The next second, the soldier’s bared head explodes, and pieces of skull go flying amidst flung viscera. Blood sprays across Alex’s face. He blinks, gasping, feels the nauseating slick warmth—

  “Take cover!” Captain Ensminger shouts.

  But there is no cover, no trees, no ditches. They’ve fallen right into the Germans’ trap. Walked in stupidly. The Krauts must be laughing.

  They drop to the ground. All except Alex, who is still standing. His mind going blank, his worst fears being realized, that he is a coward, that he is a child in the end. Hands grab him from behind, Mutt’s, throwing him to the ground.

  Gunfire echoing off other hills. And now the screaming starts.

  Alex thinks, So this is war.

  Then right next to him. A different kind of gunfire, a crackling spitfire. Mutt half kneeling, firing off return fire with his machine gun. The sound glorious, an announcement, a declaration.

  It sets off a chain reaction. Other soldiers let loose from the ground, squeezing triggers. Not controlled; everyone is panicking. A year of training lost in the fog of war, in the panic of adrenaline.

  “Retreat!” a solider shouts, “back to the woods—” A bullet into his cheek, through his tongue, neck, carotid artery, and cleanly out. He goes spinning, his arms a whirling dervish, a geyser of blood ribboning out.

  Alex whips his head side to side. They need to retreat. But they’re cut off, the woods too distant.

  “Follow me!” Captain Ensminger shouts. “This way!” He’s hoisting a fallen soldier on his shoulders, beckoning his troops to follow. Not back to the woods, but forward. Into a nearby wheat field.

  “Keep moving in!” Captain Ensminger shouts even as they plow into the tall wheat stalks. “Deeper!” The wheat stalks snap against their faces as they run through them, shifting and swaying like corrugated ripples, and giving their positions away. Captain Ensminger orders his men to freeze.

  They do. No one moves.

  Gunfire ceases. An eerie quiet settles over the land.

  Through stalks smeared with blood, they gaze back at the open field. Dozens of bo
dies on the ground. Some are screaming, some moving slightly, groaning lowly. Others completely stock-still.

  “We go get them, Captain? That’s Stan out there, and Magnet—”

  “We get ’em later,” Ensminger answers through clenched teeth. “Right now we need to spread out, we’re too clumped together. Disperse on the next wind, men.”

  They wait. Then comes a wind, blowing the sun-washed stalks this way and that, waves of buttery yellow. Using that as cover for their own movement, the men fan out, spreading deeper into the field until the wind dies. Gunfire comes again, but this time more sporadic.

  Crouched low, the men wait.

  So do the Germans. A stalk of wheat so much as flinches, and it’s met with a hail of bullets.

  Mutt speaks into the radio in a low voice. “Teddy, we’re pinned here. We try to make a break for it, they’ll pick us off one at a time. We need the howitzers. Like, now.”

  “Working on it, Mutt. Will have it set up in a half hour, tops.”

  “Make it fifteen minutes. Serious, Teddy.”

  No response. Just the sound of Teddy yelling at someone. Then static. Mutt shuts off the com. They wait. Try to block out the sound of their fallen comrades’ pained moans.

  Then, out of nowhere, a different sound. A high-pitched whistling. Up above, coming from the skies, getting louder.

  Alex doesn’t need to look up to know what it is. Artillery shells. German. A far-off artillery makes a whistling sound, an almost gleeful whoom-whee! Hear that whistling sound and you’re fine. For now. The deadly rounds are the ones you don’t hear, not until a second before they strike, when they make a swish sound. And the next second, you’re dead.

  Whoom-whee!

  The earth shudders beneath them. Wheat stalks and dirt are sent up into the air. More shells fall, over and over with bone-rattling force. Casualties mount in the wheat field, no telling how many exactly.

  Captain Ensminger crawls over to Alex and Mutt. Sweat pours down his face, mixing in with blood and dirt. He grabs Alex’s shoulder, squeezing so hard Alex will find bruise marks there the next day. “We stay here any longer, and they’re going to shell us out. But soon as we leave, those machine guns will cut us down. We need our artillery to take out their machine-gun nests, and we need to do it now!” His voice hoarse, barely audible through the shelling. “So get eyes on them, Maki. Give us coordinates for those machine-gun nests now!”