Tales of the South Pacific (35 page)

Mechanically, Dr. Benoway started to read the first page. Without wishing to do so-and with considerable feeling of guilt-he read the entire pulsating letter: My only Beloved Lenore, My darling, I have just returned from a trip which took me almost to the vale of death, and from which I returned loving you more than ever I did before in this life. There is so much to tell you that I hardly know where to begin. I know that all of it will worry you, but I can only say that terrible as it must seem to you, it brought me nearer to you than all the happy days of the past.

We were on a difficult mission toward the Japs. (Dr. Benoway grew a little resentful. The trip was an ordinary, routine one down to Noumea to pick up some fresh vegetables. Harbison had gone along to sleep with one of the French girls at Luana Pori.) Our flying boat was only moderately armed, but our skipper was about as resolute a man as I have ever known. I thought when we left that if a flying boat were to tangle with a bunch of Japs, I couldn't think of a better man than Joe to do the dirty work. My reliance in him was proved.

We were flying at about 3,000 feet near the island of... (Here Harbison had cut out a section of his letter to simulate the censor's relentless vigil.) I must admit that I was half dozing off when I heard our rear gunner cry, "Zeroes at seven o'clock!" And there they were, two of them! They had the advantage of the ceiling on us, too. Everyone in the flying boat prepared for the battle, but before I could even get to a gun, the first bullets were smashing at us. They hit one gunner in the leg.

Fortunately, we had a doctor with us. You remember my remarking about Dr. Benoway. Well, he fixed the lad up in no time. By now the Japs were on their way back, and we were impotent to stop them. Again their slugs tore through the cumbersome plane. They made four more passes at us, and even though our gunners did their best, we never touched the yellow devils.

On their sixth pass, the second Jap knocked out both of our motors and we started to plunge toward the sea. This threw the Japs off us for a few precious minutes.

Down we plunged, and in that terrible time I could think only of you. My heart beat like a mammoth drum, always booming out, "Lenore! Lenore!" It was a horrible fantasy which ended only when our magnificent pilot pulled us up at the last moment and skidded the plane along the tips of the waves and finally into a trough that stopped our flight. ("Heavens," Benoway thought. "We glided in perfectly from 1,500 feet, just the way it's done in a clear bay. There were no waves, thank God, and there wasn't a Jap in sight. Some damned fool mechanic had left two large pieces of sandpaper in the oil tank. Don't ask me why!")

As we perched for a precious half minute on the water, the dastardly Japs came at us again! But after one violent burst of firing which killed the wounded gunner, we saw two American planes on the horizon. The Japs saw them too, and off they went. There was a long dogfight. Three of the planes went into the ocean, all of them in flames. One American fighter limped away into the growing darkness. We don't know whether he reached shore or not, but wherever that boy is tonight, you can pray for him as a great hero who saved a raft-ful of defenseless men.

There were eight of us on the raft, and I shall not tell you of the misery and the suffering. If it had not been for the iron will of our skipper and the skill of Dr. Benoway, few of us would be alive to write to our loved ones. The days were scorching. The nights were cold. We were fevered, and we had little to eat or drinks- The doctor was in charge of the food and...

My beloved darling, I'll tell you about those fifteen days when 1 am once more safe in your cool arms. Suffice it to say that we were rescued. What is important is that all through the terrible days and lonely nights you were with me. I saw your face in the stars, and when the hot sun beat down upon our wretched raft, you were there to shade me. I cried aloud for you, and wherever hope dawned, you were there. A seagull followed us for a day, hoping for scraps that never came, for we, too, were hoping for scraps. All of the men saw in that gull some omen of good, but I saw only you. The soft whiteness was you. The constancy was you. The lovely dip of the wing was your lovely walk, and when the night shadows closed over the white gull, it was the darkness of our love closing over you. ("It was two brown birds," Benoway muttered to himself. "No gulls in sight.")

If I live to be a thousand, my beloved wife, you will never be nearer to me than you were that night. I realized then what I had only half realized before: that you were all the good I know in this world and all the good I shall ever know. My body, my heart, and my immortal soul cried for you, and when we were rescued, it was not the rough arms of the sailors that carried me to safety, but your own dear, cherishing hands.

When I see you again I may not be able to tell you all of these things, but sleep tightly tonight, my beloved darling, for my love wings its way across the boundless ocean to you, wherever you are. You are mine tonight, mine forever and forever until my heart is still and time no longer beats for us. I love you, I love you, Oh my darling.

Paul Benoway wiped his forehead and listened to the mighty ocean pounding on the coral reefs. He knew, and every officer in camp knew, that Bill Harbison was having serious girl trouble in the South Pacific. He knew of Bill's escapades at Luana Pori and with the blonde nurse. But he also knew that Harbison had touched a throbbing core of life unknown to many men, unknown particularly to Paul Benoway.

What did it matter how Harbison came to know about this side of life? What did it matter which key the man had used to unlock his heart, so long as it was open, so long as it was a heart to share, a heart that could give freely? What matter were morals and old sayings if they kept you tied up like a burlap bag while other men unfolded their secrets and grew in the way God meant to have men grow?

Dr. Benoway looked at the dulcet words again. They were his words! That was the way he felt! What is important is that through all the terrible days and lonely nights you were with me... the lovely dip of the wing was your lovely walk... my body, my heart, my immortal soul cried for you... That's what he, Paul Benoway, meant to say to his wife. That's what he had been trying to write.

Suddenly, he took up his own unfinished letter to his wife, went with his finger to the part that read, When I think of what the others have gone through, I'm a little bit ashamed, but I must admit that 1 am somewhat proud to say that I stood up as well as most. Only once was I really beaten down. He struck out the last sentence and got a fresh piece of paper. What business was it of anyone's that he was beaten down when he thought of an Aztec sacrifice to the sun god? That was a mighty silly thing to say in a letter when you compared it with what Bill Harbison was able to write.

Furtively, he laid Bill's letter on the table before him and began to copy rapidly. My beloved darling, I'll tell you about it when I am once more safe in your cool arms. Feverishly, as if this were the ultimate expression of what he had been storing up in his heart, he copied the last two pages of Bill's letter. His pen scrawled on, I love you, I love you, Oh my darling.

He dropped his pen and looked at the last line. In his letter it didn't look right. Never in his life had he said anything even remotely like Oh my darling. It sounded utterly silly when you said it that way: Oh my darling, Oh my darling, Oh my darling Clementine! You are lost and gone forever, Drefful sorry, Clementine!

The words sounded good! He started to sing the whole song, and as he did so, he began to laugh within himself and to feel very happy. With dancing motions he stuffed Bill Harbison's letter back into its envelope. He sealed the letter and stamped it. Then, with the same mincing, half dancing gestures he neatly tore up the last half of his own letter. Laughing loudly by this time, he signed the part that he had first written. He signed it, All my love, Paul.

A BOAR'S TOOTH

LUTHER BILLIS and Tony Fry were a pair! Luther was what we call in the Navy a "big dealer." Ten minutes after he arrived at a station he knew where to buy illicit beer, how to finagle extra desserts, what would be playing at the movies three weeks hence, and how to avoid night duty.

Luther was one of the best. When his unit was staging in the Hebrides before they built the airstrip at Konora he took one fleeting glance at the officers near by and selected Tony Fry. "That's my man!" he said. Big dealers knew that the best way for an enlisted man to get ahead was to leech on to an officer. Do things for him. Butter him up. Kid him along. Because then you had a friend at court. Maybe you could even borrow his jeep!

Tony was aware of what was happening. The trick had been pulled on him before. But he liked Billis. The fat SeaBee was energetic and imaginative. He looked like something out of Treasure Island. He had a sagging belly that ran over his belt by three flabby inches. He rarely wore a shirt and was tanned a dark brown. His hair was long, and in his left ear he wore a thin golden ring. The custom was prevalent in the South Pacific and was a throwback to pirate days.

He was liberally tattooed. On each breast was a fine dove, flying toward his heart. His left arm contained a python curled around his muscles and biting savagely at his thumb. His right arm had two designs: Death Rather Than Dishonor and Thinking of Home and Mother. Like the natives, Luther wore a sprig of frangipani in his hair.

It was Luther's jewelry, however, that surprised Tony. On his left arm Billis wore an aluminum watch band, a heavy silver slave bracelet with his name engraved, and a superb wire circlet made of woven airplane wire welded and hammered flat. On his right wrist he had a shining copper bracelet on which his social security and service numbers were engraved. And he wore a fine boar's tusk.

"What's that?" Tony asked him one day.

"A boar's tusk," Billis replied.

"What in the world is a boar's tusk?" Fry asked.

"You got a jeep, Mr. Fry?"

"Yes."

"Then why don't we go see the old chief?" Billis leaned his fat belly forward and sort of hunched up the two doves on his breast.

"Put a shirt on," Tony said. "We'll take a spin."

In the jeep Billis sat back, his right foot on the dash, and gave directions. "Out past the farm, down the hill, past 105 Hospital-say, Mr. Fry, have you seen them new nurses out there-down to Tonk village, and I'll take over from there."

Tony followed the instructions. When he reached the two séchoirs where copra and cacao were drying, Billis said, "Drive down that grass road." Tony did so, and soon he was at the seaside. Before him, around the edges of a little bay, a host of native canoes and small trading vessels lay beached. Beside the prows of the ships colored men from all the Hebridean islands had pitched their tents. This was the native market of Espiritu Santo.

Most of the natives knew Billis. "'Allo, Billis!" they cried.

"Got any cigarettes, Mr. Fry?"

"No, I don't."

"Shouldn't ever come down here without cigarettes." Billis spoke to the men in Beche-le-Mer. Explained to them that this time he had no smokes.

"That's OK, Billis!" an old man said.

"Got any boar's tusks?" Billis inquired.

"We got some," the old trader replied.

"Let's see."

"In ship."

"Well, go get from ship!" Billis cried, slapping the old man on the back. The natives laughed. The old fellow went to the shore, waded in and started swimming toward a ship anchored in the bay. Tony surveyed the market. Chickens were selling at two dollars each. Eggs were a dollar a dozen, and plentiful. Grass skirts were two dollars, shells were a dollar a handful. Watermelons, grown from American seed, were abundant. Eight kinds of bananas were on sale, war clubs, lava-lavas, toy canoes, papayas, and the fragrant pineapples which grew on Vanicoro.

Soldiers and sailors moved about among the native tents. From time to time thin native men and boys would stagger into camp under mammoth loads of junk. By an island order natives were permitted to strip any junk pile before it was set afire. So they came to Santo from miles around in every kind of canoe. They took home with them old tables, rusty knives, bits of tin, ends of copper wire, and all the refuse of a modern army.

"Looks like he's got a pretty good one, Mr. Fry," Billis said as the old man swam back to shore, holding in his teeth a boar's tusk. The trader came ashore, shook himself like a dog and sat on his haunches before a small fire on the beach.

"All same too good!" he said, offering Billis the tusk.

Luther handed it to Fry, who twirled the ugly thing in his hands. "Grim looking thing, isn't it?" he asked. The tusk was rude, ugly, just as it had been ripped from the under-jaw of a sacrificial wild pig It was dirty white in color and formed an almost perfect circle about five inches across. At its widest the tusk itself was about a quarter of an inch thick, so that it formed a natural bracelet. Tony slipped it over his right hand. It hung dull and heavy from his wrist.

"You got one cleaned up?" Billis asked the old man.

"He got," the trader replied, pointing to a native friend.

"Let's see," Billis suggested.

"You buy? You look? You look?" the doubtful Melanesian asked.

"I look, I look, I knock your block off," Billis shouted.

This delighted the Negro, who produced a tusk slightly smaller than the first and beautifully polished. Whereas the first was dirty and crude, this one was a pale golden ivory, soft to the eye and lustrous. It curled in a circle and seemed one of the finest bracelets Tony had ever seen. It was solid ivory.

"This comes from this?" Tony asked, indicating the two tusks, "That's right. The dirty one has the enamel on yet. The ivory is all hidden on that one. Them natives has a secret way of getting the enamel off. I figured out a way of knocking it off with an emery wheel. I do it for them at a buck a tusk. They finish up the polishing."

Tony surveyed the tusks. They were like something from Greek legend. The shimmering, golden jewel and the rude barbaric thing from which it sprang. "What's a tusk like this one worth?" Tony asked, indicating the polished bracelet.