Tales of the South Pacific (43 page)

By this time the milk trucks were running. The drivers were subjected to merciless ridicule, especially one who forgot to turn the spigots off and arrived with an empty truck. That day one of Pearlstein's drivers, coming down the hill at a great clip, overturned and was killed. The truck was ruined beyond repair. A SeaBee was then stationed at the dangerous spot to warn drivers to keep their speed down, but next day another truck went right on over. The driver merely broke both legs, but the truck was wrecked.

"I can't make them slow down!" Lieut. Pearlstein objected. "They know the schedule!"

The Japs knew the schedule, too, apparently, for they started sending large numbers of bombers over at night plus four or five solitary nuisance raiders. "We'll have to turn off the lights," Commander Hoag reluctantly decided. But when work lagged way behind schedule, he announced that the twenty-four hour shift would be resumed.

American night fighters were sent to help us. They knocked down two Jap bombers the first night we kept the lights on, and from then on not one SeaBee was killed by bombing. Men working on the strip could not praise our aviators enough. It was a good feeling, having Yank fighters upstairs.

On the morning of the fifteenth day Lieut. Pearlstein, gaunt, unshaven, and nervous, reported to Commander Hoag. "You can finish the airstrip, sir. The gully won't take any more coral." Hoag said nothing. Held out his hand and shook Pearlstein's warmly. As the lieutenant was about to leave, Hoag made a suggestion.

"Why don't you sleep on one of the ships tonight? You could use some rest."

That afternoon a strange incident occurred, one which I have thought about time and again. An SBD flying medium high cover tangled with a Jap intruder and shot it down. The Nip went flaming into the sea. They always tried to hit the runway, but this one failed. Before he took his last long fling, however, he did manage to pepper the SBD, and the pilot had a difficult choice to make. He could try a water landing, or he could head for the uncompleted airfield.

"Clear the middle of the strip!" he called to the tower. "I'm coming in."

When his intention was apparent, Commander Hoag became almost insane with fury. "Stop that plane!" he shouted to the operations officer, but the officer ignored him. Hoag had no right to give such an order. Trembling, he watched the SBD approach, swerve badly when the unfilled portion loomed ahead, and slide past on a thin strip that had been filled.

The enlisted men cheered wildly at the superb landing. They stormed around the plane. Brandishing his revolver, Commander Hoag shouted that everyone was to go back to work immediately. He was like a wild man.

From the cockpit of the SBD climbed Bus Adams. He grinned at me and reached for the commander's hand. "You had no right to land here!" Hoag stormed. "I expressly forbade it. Look at the mess you've made!"

Adams looked at me and tapped his forehead. "No, no!" I wigwagged.

"Get that plane off the strip at once. Shove it off if you have to!" Hoag shouted. He refused to speak further to Bus. When the plane had been pulled into a revetment by men who wondered how Bus had ever brought her in, Commander Hoag stormed from the field.

That night he came to see Bus and me. He was worn and haggard. He looked like an old man. He would not sit with us, nor would he permit us to interrupt his apology: "For six weeks I've done nothing but plan and fight to have this strip ready for bombers on the sixteenth day. We've had to fight rains, accidents, changes, and every damned thing else. Then this afternoon you land. I guess my nerves must have snapped. You see, sir," he said, addressing Bus, "we've lost a lot of men on this strip. Every foot has been paid for. It's not to be misused lightly."

He left us. I don't know whether he got any sleep that night for next morning, still haggard, he was up and waiting at 0700. It was the sixteenth day, and bombers were due from Guadalcanal and Munda. The gully was filled. On the seashore trucks were idle, and upon the hill the great shovel rested. On the legs of the island desperate Japs connived at ways to outwit Marines. And all over the Pacific tremendous preparations for taking Kuralei were in motion. It was a solemn day.

Then, from the east, specks appeared. They were! They were the bombers! In the radio tower orders were issued. The specks increased in size geometrically, fabulously. In grandeur they buzzed the field, finest in the Pacific. Then they formed a traffic circle and the first bomber to land on Konora roared in. The strip was springy, fine, borne up by living coral, and the determination of free men. At this precise moment three Japanese soldiers who had been lurking near the field in starving silence dashed from their cover and tried to charge the bomber.

Two were shot by Marines, but the third man plunged madly on. Screaming, wild, disheveled, his eyes popping from his horrible head, this primitive indecent thing surged on like his inscrutable ancestors. Clutching a grenade to his belly and shouting Banzai, he threw himself forward and knocked Commander Hoag to the ground.

The grenade exploded! It took the mad Jap to a heaven reserved for the hara-kiri boys. It took Commander Hoag, a free man, a man of thought and dignity, a man for whom other men would die... This horrible, indecent, meaningless act of madness took Hoag to his death. But above, the bombers wheeled and came in for their landings, whence they would proceed to Kuralei, to Manila, and to Tokyo.

THOSE WHO FRATERNIZE

"THE loneliness! The longing!" An aviator was throwing words into the cool night at Konora. We knew the landing on Kuralei was not far off. We were thinking of hungry things.

One of the words hit Bus Adams. "Damn!" he cried. "I tell you! Sometimes out here I've had a longing that almost broke my guts in two." Stars blazed over the silent lagoon. "To bomb a Jap ship! To see a football game in the snow. To kiss the Frenchman's daughter."

The last bottle of beer had been drained. It was time to go to bed, but we stayed on beneath the coconut trees. Bus watched Orion upside down in the topsy-turvy sky. "Have I ever told you about the Frenchman's daughter?" he asked. We leaned forward. A Frenchman! And his daughter! It sounded like a fine, sexy story. In many ways it was.

There were two houses at Luana Pori-Bus began. There was the Red House for enlisted men. In there the charge was five dollars, and you had to wait in line. At the Green House the charge was ten dollars, but business was conducted more or less on a higher tone. The Green House was for officers, of course.

From what I hear the Red House was a sordid affair. The girls were mostly Javanese or half-caste Melanesians. True, a couple of pretty French girls were kept as bait, but at the Red House you didn't bother much about looks. After all, it wasn't an art gallery.

The girls at the Green House were of a different sort. They could talk with you in English, play the tinny piano, and even serve tea in the society manner. With them it was a matter of professional pride to include in their operations some of the social refinements. Might be a dance, a bridge party, or a tea. Even a formal dinner. At the Green House you didn't just go up and knock on the door and ask for the girls. If you had done that a surprised elderly French lady would have appeared and shown real confusion. There were various ways of getting to visit the Green House. In time you discovered what they were. If you were interested.

Right here I want to make one point perfectly clear. The Frenchman's daughter had nothing to do with the two houses at Luana Pori. Of that I am convinced. I know that Lt. Col. Haricot thought he had proof that she owned them. I don't believe it. And as for her father-in-law's wild charge that his son met her in the Pink House, down in Noumea... well, he was a crazy old coot who would have said anything. You know that he finally beat his brains out against the wall of his prison cell. Actually.

The girl was part Javanese. She was about twenty-three, weighed less than a hundred pounds, and was five feet three. She was slim, wiry, and self-confident. She had wide shoulders and thin hips. Her fingers were very long. A Marine said that when she stroked an old man's cheek "it was like she was playing the violin."

She had a small head, but not a pinhead, you understand. She made it seem smaller by wearing her hair parted in the middle and drawn tightly over her ears. She had many variations of this hair-do. The one I liked best was when she tucked a frangipani behind her left ear. You know the frangipani? A white, waxy flower. Very sweet. Looks like the dogwood. But darker. The same way she looked like all the beautiful girls you've ever known. But darker.

Her old man was the planter I told you about. Quite a character. Lived up north. Her mother was a Javanese servant girl. It was hard to tell which of her parents she was like. She was an Oriental, that's true. She had the slant eyes. But she had French traits, too. Like her old man she was clever, witty, pensive, industrious, hot-tempered, and-well-pretty damned sexy. In a nice way, you understand. Nothing rough! At other times she was mystical and brooding, silent as a cat. She got these things from her Buddhist mother.

I met her, said Bus, in the damnedest way. Put into the airstrip at Luana Pori and borrowed a jeep. I drove up past the two houses to her plantation. You know, white picket fence and big flower garden. "Madame Barzan," I said. "Up north. A pilot was shot down. He died. Not in my arms exactly. But he told me..."

She smiled at me with her little head on one side. "I hear all about you, Mister Bus Adams. At the airport they say, 'He one good guy.' Knock off that stuff, Bus. You like to have dinner here tonight?"

I think, said Bus, everyone who dined with Latouche Barzan will agree that dinner with her was a memorable affair. On her plantation were many small houses. What they were all for I never knew. One was a marvelous salon. It was made of woven bamboo, floor, roofing and side panels. In it were twelve or fifteen chairs, four small tables, three long benches and a bar. Before dinner we gathered there for drinks.

You could find most of the officers on Luana Pori at Latouche's. Everyone was welcome. We all loved to watch her placid Oriental mask break into naughty French lights and shadows when she was teasing some elderly colonel for some tires for her Australian car or a truckload of oil for her generator. She would pout and suck in her high cheeks. And then, if you were a man standing near her, you had to fight hard to keep from kissing her. She knew this, for I've often seen her rub very close to some older officer and laugh at his dumb jokes until I'm sure the old fool's head was in a whirl. That was how she got so much of the equipment she needed.

"Ah, major!" she would pout. "I like to build one small house for butcher. How I gonna get some cement? You got some Portland Cement?"

Not that she was stingy with her money. As you'll see, she fed half the American Army on Luana Pori. But there wasn't anything to spend money on. If the Army had cement... Well, it was only sensible to invite the Army to dinner.

"Bus?" she asked me one night. "Where I get some Remington.22 shells?"

"What in the world do you want with.22 shells?" I asked.

"For shoot wild chicken! How you think we catch wild chicken we serve here all time? Salt on his tail?" She laughed softly at her joke.

No matter what you paid for her dinners, they were worth it. A door lock, an ice machine, new copper wiring, an aviation clock set in mahogany from a propeller. They were well spent.

About seven in the evening Noé, the Javanese servant, would announce dinner in a high voice. We would then pass from the salon to the dining house. This was severely plain, with one very long table made of jungle planks rubbed brown. Latouche sat at the head of the table. I sat beside her, at first. While we waited for the soup to be served there was a moment of great anticipation. Then Latouche's three sisters entered.

First was Josephine. She was nineteen. More Javanese than Latouche. Slim and with breasts you could sleep on forever. She was engaged to a Marine sergeant. He pulled the engagement gag so he could live with her while he was on Luana Pori. But when he almost got killed on Konora, he became like a wild man. His CO. let him hitch-hike back more than two thousand miles to marry her. She was like that.

Laurencin was seventeen. Beautiful like Latouche. Marthe was only fifteen when I saw her first. She was the queen of the group. Having lived among older men from the beginning of the war, she had acquired some damned cute little ways. She knew this and kept her soft almond eyes directed down toward her plate. Then once or twice each meal she would raise them at some young officer and knock him silly with her charm. There was a good deal of food spilt at Luana Pori, mostly by young men looking at Marthe.

Latouche served excellent meals. She butchered a beef at least twice a week, had her natives scour the woods for wild chicken and the shore for sea food. Occasionally, when American hunters bagged a deer up in the hills she would cook it for them. And whenever a food ship arrived from the States, someone would always manage to steal a truck-load of steaks and turkeys and corned beef and succotash and sneak it into Latouche's shed at night and whisper, "Our steward is a louse! He can't cook water. Uses no spices at all!"

"Ah, well!" Latouche would sympathize. "In the jungle! What you expect? I give this to Noé! We see what he can do with it."

When dinner was over Latouche led her guests back to the salon, where six or seven attractive French women of the islands were waiting. I never clearly understood who these girls were, where they ate their meals, or how they got to the plantation. They always went home in jeeps.

The introductions over, Latouche would slip back to the dining house, where I waited for her. "Who are those girls?" I asked one night as she curled up in a chair with me.

She smiled, a Javanese sort of smile. "I like men," she said. "American men I like very much. Is no good men by themselves all the time." I understand not less than six marriages resulted from Latouche's dinners.

But for me the best part came when Noé finished removing the dishes and took the pressure lamp back to the kitchen. Then Latouche and I sat in the shadowy darkness of the dining house and played records on the old Victrola her father had brought her from Australia. She loved American music. I had to laugh. I used to sit there in the dark and think of wives of colonels and majors back home telling their bridge clubs, "John gets so lonesome on the islands. The children and I sent him some records last week." And there they were, in Latouche's white dining house.