Beside a Burning Sea (12 page)

Akira stretched his wounded leg. “Would you like to hear an old Japanese saying?”

“Please.”

“It says that patience is the art of letting life carry you.”

Annie let the words echo in her mind. “That’s nice. Beautiful, really. But maybe easier to say than to do. For me, at least.”

“For most people, I think.”

She smiled. “Thank you, Akira, for teaching me about the poems. Maybe I’ll come to you tomorrow with another.”

He bowed slightly. “I would most enjoy that.”

Still buoyed by the thought of the new life within Isabelle, Annie reached out to gently touch his knee. “Sleep well tonight.”

Akira said good night and watched as she walked back toward her sister. Much to his surprise, he suddenly felt alone in her absence. It was as if a present had been stolen from him—something beautiful and wondrous and enchanting. Though he’d coveted this gift for so very long, and though now he could almost touch it, he felt as if it lay beyond his outstretched fingers and was impossibly outside his reach.

DAY FIVE

A silk flower seeks
To rise from a hardened ground.
Light falls on gold skin.

Uncertain of Tomorrow

The city smoldered about him. He had seen cities die before, but something was different about these torn streets and buildings. It was the screams, of course. They should have ended long ago. Usually the screams stopped a few hours after the fighting stopped. But here in Nanking, a city that should never have been defended, screams rose from gardens and temples, homes and public squares. These miserable, often inhuman sounds made him wince as if they were bullets striking his flesh—small pieces of hot steel that pierced him from all angles.

He carried some rank and was known as a man of war. Thus he tried to walk the streets as often as possible. On this walk he’d already saved a pregnant woman from being bayoneted, and had also shot a soldier who refused his orders to untie a dying boy. Of course, even with his rank and reputation, he stayed far from the large concentrations of soldiers and civilians, as most of the screams came from such gatherings and the bloodlust could not be stopped by one man alone.

At the edge of the city, where a few families still hid and were still found, he walked with his hands on his pistol and sword. He moved past many sights known to him—piles of ruined armaments and animals and people. Houses had collapsed atop the street, and he often climbed over these stony, dismembered skeletons to continue on. High above, unchallenged Zeros darted to and from distant battles.

He heard them laugh before he saw her, heard her cry from within a group of boisterous soldiers. A booted foot rose and fell, and a female voice pleaded. His heart suddenly skipping, he hurried forward. Eight men surrounded her. They must have just discovered her, for her clothes were somewhat intact, though her face was bloodied. She likely had not seen ten years come and go. Her delicate hands clung to a toy horse that she protected rather than herself.

Though two of the men bore higher rank than he, his horror at her looming fate propelled him onward. Speaking forcefully, he used lost words—ancient sentiments of the samurai—to try to shame these men. They paused, and he moved between them. The little girl looked up at him, pleading with terror-stricken eyes and a quivering mouth. Her face was already swelling from their beating, and through bleeding lips she begged him to help her. She was young and innocent and desperate, and he leaned forward, reaching for her.

A pistol pressed hard against his temple. The barrel was still hot. He froze. She continued to beg him as his flesh burned. His assailant ordered him to rise. She frantically shook her head at these words, her fingers clinging to his hand, her toy horse caught between them. The gun pushed violently against his skull and he was given a choice—to stand or die. He did not want to die, and so as his tears dropped on her leg, he rose. Someone then took his weapons and roughly pushed him away. The little girl screamed. He heard fabric tear and he hurried forward like a beaten dog. As he started to run, her screams grew louder—screams that ravaged him until he blindly stumbled into a deep bomb crater and was knocked unconscious.

Akira awoke from his dream with her screams still reverberating within him. Silent sobs wracked him, and he put his balled fists against his eyes. He saw her precious face and he started to crawl, as if he could flee his dream, as if this past could be expunged from his memory. He crawled until his tears mixed with the sea. His fingers dug into the sand and he squeezed fistfuls of this gritty wetness until his knuckles whitened and his hands shook. He wrung the sand with all his might—each granule a demon to be smothered, each ounce of the earth he held something upon which he could thrust his horror and grief and rage.

“I’m so . . . so . . . so very sorry,” he whispered in Japanese, bowing until his forehead touched the sea, his hands finally unfurling and clumps of compressed sand dropping. “I . . . I should have stopped . . . those beasts. They should not . . . I should not have let them touch you. Oh, how lovely and pure and good you were. How beautiful. And how . . . how terribly I failed you.”

Akira remained on his hands and knees for some time. When he finally ceased to tremble, he sat up. He remembered the girl’s fingers against his and, moaning, he looked to the stars for her. To his dismay, no trace of her was present. In fact, nothing of any solace existed at that moment. No girl. No peace. No religion. No hope. In this void he saw her pleading eyes, saw himself turn away. He cursed himself then, cursed his entire being. How he hated who he had become.

Gradually, Akira’s tears subsided and his heart slowed. His thoughts wandered. He realized that if he were alone on the island, he’d do the only honorable thing left to him and end his life. He’d read the death poems of samurai—haikus written just before noble men forced their own swords into their own bellies. Beauty dwelled in those words, and were he alone, he’d write a haiku in the sand for the little girl and then begin his journey toward rebirth.

But Akira was not alone. And though he cared nothing for the men nearby, he felt strangely linked to Annie. She had somehow briefly brought him back into his former life, into a place that once gave him the peace and religion and hope that he so lacked now. Without question, she reminded him of his past—when he helped people instead of hunted them—but she also kindled a part of him that he’d not known.

Akira had never believed in fate, but as gentle waves lapped at his flesh, he wondered if he was meant to be here. These nurses, who had saved so many, who had so compassionately taken care of him, could die soon. If his countrymen landed on this beach, they might well hurt these women. They might hurt Annie. She had told him that she’d always been afraid, and he couldn’t endure the thought of what evil might befall her.

Rising to his feet, Akira closed his eyes and imagined his homeland. He saw pagodas and water lilies and white-faced geishas. And he saw his fate as he suddenly imagined it. May my ancestors forgive me; I will betray my own people, he thought, wiping his face of sand and tears. I’ll hide her. I’ll hide her and pray that they will not find us. And if we are found, and if they seek to harm her, then I will fight them. I will be the warrior I was before Nanking, and I won’t fail her as I did the little girl. And if they are too many, then I’ll take her life and also end my own. And she won’t die alone.

Akira glanced toward camp, toward where Annie lay sleeping. I won’t let anyone hurt you, he promised. No matter what has to be done, or what may be done to me, I’ll never see such hurt again.

DAWN HAD RECENTLY unfolded when Joshua and Jake reached the top of one of the hills. Both men sweated heavily, and upon reaching the crest, removed their shirts. Though their camp was hidden by the thick foliage below, a tendril of smoke rose through the trees, dissipating into the heavy air. A trio of figures walked the beach—the women, perhaps. Beyond them, the sea looked like an endless sheet of gold. Past the confines of the harbor, this sheet shimmered with the movement of the bigger waves. No ships encroached upon the water—only a splattering of distant islands.

“Thanks for joining me,” Joshua said, still slightly winded from the climb.

“It was a mighty fine walk, Captain,” Jake replied, removing a leaf’s stem from his teeth. “And there sure ain’t no views like this back home.”

“Missouri, isn’t it?”

Jake smiled, pleased that the captain remembered. “Sure is, Captain. As the feathered friend flies, ain’t but two hundred miles from Chicago.”

Joshua nodded, liking Jake. “You must be wondering why I brought you here.”

“Oh, I expect you’ll tell me.”

“I brought you here because I trust you. You’ve served me on two ships, and from the beginning I’ve felt that you were a man I could count on. You’re an able, good man, Jake.”

“You can trust me, sir. But as far as being able . . . well, it ain’t easy to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Joshua shook his head. “You’re no sow’s ear, Jake. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have with us on this beach.”

“Thank you kindly, Captain.”

“I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to do as I ask.” Jake nodded but said nothing, and so Joshua continued, “Isabelle thinks she’s pregnant.”

Jake paused only for a moment before reaching out to grasp Joshua’s hand. “Congratulations, Captain. That’s mighty fine news.”

“Thank you, Jake. It really is something.” Joshua shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. “In seven months I’ll be a father. Imagine that.”

“A darn good thing to imagine, I reckon.”

“Yes, yes, it is.” Joshua thought he heard a distant drone and scanned the sky for planes. Seeing nothing, he said, “If something should happen to me, I want you to watch over the women.”

“Captain, ain’t nothing gonna—”

“I want you to watch over them as if they were your own blood. Do you understand that? Your own blood.”

Jake briefly closed his eyes. “Yes, sir. I do. But might you oblige me with a request?”

“That depends on the request.”

“If any job’s dodgy, I want it. I want that job, Captain.”

“I can’t do that. I can’t give every dangerous detail to you.”

“No offense, Captain, but I expect you can. You think of that sweet little baby and you give that darn detail to me.”

Joshua took a deep breath and let out an equally long exhale. “Help me find some places to hide, and hopefully none of us will have to do anything dangerous. We can simply hide and wait for the cavalry to arrive. That’s all I want. When it comes to this, I’m not afraid to be a coward.”

“Better to be the beak of a chicken than the tail of an elephant.”

Joshua smiled. “I believe you’re right.”

“Ain’t no doubt about it.”

A gust of wind buffeted them, and Joshua instinctively looked for signs of bad weather. His gaze drifted across the spot where
Benevolence
rested, and a sudden sense of loss surged within him. “I’m sorry, Jake,” he said, shaking his head, his fingers again twisting beads that didn’t exist.

“For what, Captain?”

Joshua gestured toward the sea. “For her being on the bottom. For you being stuck here.”

Jake absently placed the stem in the corner of his mouth. “Them people on
Benevolence
, they saved a lot of soldiers, Captain. As sure as rain’s wet they did. Better to have brought them all this way, to have saved as many as you did, than to have stayed home.”

Joshua nodded slowly. “You’re talking about . . . the greater good?”

“Yes, Captain. I suppose so.”

“But . . . does much feel good to you?”

The engineer pursed his lips. “Ain’t much that’s good, Captain. But maybe enough. Maybe . . . things can begin again.”

“If things . . . begin again, where will you go?”

“Home, I expect. To the farm.”

“Do you miss it?”

Jake smiled. “Parts of it. I don’t much miss manure. But I sure do miss my momma’s cooking. And my daddy’s pipe. And that soil. I reckon them’s enough reasons to go home.”

Joshua nodded, aware that Jake was one of those rare people who forever seemed content and happy. Even back on
Benevolence
, when he was covered in grease and nursing bloody fingers, he’d always seemed pleased. “Why, Jake, did you leave your momma’s cooking and your daddy’s pipe?” Joshua asked. “Why come to this war?”

“To do my part, Captain.”

“As simple as that?”

“I suspect so. I didn’t see how I could stay on the farm and shoo grasshoppers when the whole world was bleeding. I had to do something. They weren’t real eager to let me fight, so I started fixing engines. I’d done such work on the farm, so it came natural to me.”

Joshua looked at the man before him. Jake’s face was proud, defined by sculpted cheekbones, sharp eyes, and a strong jaw. His coffee-colored skin was smooth and, bearing a glaze of sweat, seemed almost polished. Jake was well over six feet tall, and his body looked as if it could lift a house. More important, Joshua knew that Jake was bright and quick-witted. How utterly foolish, Joshua thought, not to let this man fight. “The world is bleeding, isn’t it?” he finally replied.

“Yes, Captain. I do believe it is.”

“Will you look after the women if something should happen to me?”

“As if they were my own kin.”

Joshua extended his hand. “Thank you. I’ll sleep better knowing that.”

Jake glanced toward the jungle. “Let’s go find a cave, Captain. A hidden cave that will be just right for us chickens.”

“I like your thinking.”

Joshua followed Jake down the hill. After almost a year of war, Joshua had seen enough men to know who was truly a man. And though Jake was humble and often overlooked, he was without question a man who Joshua was glad to have beside him. Men like Jake would win the war.

ISABELLE AND ANNIE WALKED TOWARD SCARLET, who was in the process of tidying up camp. Aside from the flicker of the fire, Scarlet represented about the only nearby movement. Nathan and Ratu collected coconuts fifty feet down the beach, Roger was in the jungle, and Akira had sat by the sea’s edge all morning. Annie had been surprised to awaken and see him there, with his feet in the water and his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. She’d considered saying hello but decided that he must have wanted to be alone.

With some of the men gone, Annie had thought it would be a good time for a swim. She hadn’t bathed in several days and was certain that she’d have to scrape the grime from her. Isabelle had immediately welcomed the idea, and now the two sisters trudged through the deep sand until Scarlet finally looked up.

“We’re going swimming,” Annie said. “Want to join us?”

Scarlet’s gaze traveled up and down the beach. “Where?”

“A secluded spot not far from here. Near the big rocks where you caught the crabs.”

Scarlet rolled a depleted coconut toward the water. “Why not?”

The three women walked in the opposite direction of Ratu and Nathan. The tide had been high the previous night, and the beach was littered with shells, driftwood, jellyfish, and even a few more bottles from
Benevolence
. The patches of sand free of such debris seemed to glow in the morning sun. The harbor appeared to be an even deeper turquoise than usual and, looking forward to getting wet, Annie increased her pace. Before long, they came to the gathering of barnacle-encrusted boulders. Walking twenty paces beyond the boulders, she was pleased to see that their camp disappeared behind the rocks. The sea here was quiet and dominated by soft sand. It would be an ideal place to swim.