Day of the Bomb (4 page)

While in the water, Jason
had mostly prayed for the first twelve hours. When the
hallucinations set in he talked more than he prayed. Now he was no
longer in danger of drowning, being eaten by sharks or barracudas
or getting stung by jellyfish or devil rays but still had to be
careful not to walk barefoot in the water because stepping on a
stonefish could be fatal. That went for walking barefoot on the
coral on dry land or in the water as well because the infections
from the cuts would kill him also, only a lot more slowly than
sharks, barracudas, or stonefish. His feet still protected by his
boots, he reverted to thinking. As usual, he searched for a cause
to his problem.
How did I get into this
mess in the first place?

Maybe it was the Professor’s
fault, him and his method of remembering which cards had been dealt
from the deck of fifty-two. “If it sounds too good to be true, it
probably is,”
Mom had always said. But
getting to keep two of every three dollars won at blackjack and
only paying the Professor one out of three dollars was a dream come
true. Besides, he even fronted the initial gambling money from his
bigger paycheck.

Oh, their relationship had all started out
innocently enough. At first they just talked about the war. The
Professor figured it would take “at least 500,000 and maybe as many
as a million men to invade Japan. Look at how many it took to
invade Normandy,” he had said. “And that was just to finish off
Hitler’s armies. But these Japs are different. They don’t care if
they live or die. I figure at least a twenty to fifty percent
casualty rate for us when we go ashore in Japan. They even got
two-man mini-subs that are nothing more than oversized torpedoes.
Lord only knows how many of those they’ll throw at our ships when
we get close to Japan.”

Mini-subs? Ha? You Navy swabbies got it easy.
Try coming ashore with us instead of sitting offshore in your nice
warm boats with your warm chow. As usual, you Navy boys will be
safe and happy as a clam watching all the action from what you call
your battle stations. Oh, all right, I forgot. You take your lumps,
too, I guess. Some of you poor saps have to drive the LSTs to take
us and the tanks and the trucks ashore. Then there’s your crazy
pilots that fly off of the carriers. Those guys are nuts! Who ever
heard of landing a plane on a flattop that’s bouncing up and down
and side and side, much less taking off from one? And don’t forget
the Seabees. Man, can those guys build things. I ought to know
because my old man works construction. He wouldn’t believe his eyes
the way they throw up buildings and scratch out airfields on chunks
of coral that don’t look big enough for any plane to land or take
off from. Invade Japan? It’ll be the marines who go in first, as
usual. Semper fi, first to die. Make the folks back home start to
cry. Then us grunts will go in next singing:

Over hill,

Over dale,

The Japs hit us without fail

As the dogfaces go rolling along.

With a hi, hi, hee,

They kill us with glee

And banzai their way to glory!

Think this thing through. You were right,
Pop. The more I think about it the less I like the sounds of it.
Don’t forget I enlisted the day after Pearl Harbor got blown to
hell. We got guys back on that boat who’ve only been GIs for less
than a year. ‘Cruits is what we call them, short for recruits.
There’s got to be at least one of them willing to die in my place
when we invade Japan.

Come to think about it, what
about the Professor and those other college boys? They told him to
finish up college first. That way he didn’t have to put on his
uniform until the summer of 1942. Me? I was on a ship headed across
the Pacific by that time. Lord, have mercy; I can’t even remember
the names of all the islands we took away from the Japs. The worst
of all was the Philippines. Too many damn civilians and prisoners
of war that you had to be careful not to kill. How are you supposed
to liberate an island as big as Leyte or Mindanao or Luzon when
it’s crawling with civilians?
Oh, sure.
They were sure glad to see us. “Hey, Joe! Hey, Joe!” That’s all we
heard for months and months. But the worst of it was seeing the
dead prisoners there in Manila. No, I take that back. Even worse
than that was the big POW camp north of Manila where they held all
the American troops that survived after the Japs invaded the
Philippines. The ones that survived? They looked to be more dead
than alive to me. God, I still hate thinking about their stories
about that death march from Bataan. If any of them fell down or
lagged behind they stuck them with their bayonets or cut off
their
heads probably just to save bullets!
From what I saw at that POW camp, there were more graves than
survivors. You’re right. Thanks, Pop. You told me life is all about
being a survivor.

One of Mom’s admonitions surfaced: “If you
get in a fix, Jason, pray.”

He prayed aloud, certain God
was more likely to hear him. “Our Father, Who art in Heaven…” By
the time he had prayed “Thy will be done…” he stopped.
Wait a minute, is it God’s will I die in this
stinking war or that I survive it somehow?

A day and night of thinking
slowly convinced Jason that any rescue of him would only serve to
make him part of the invasion of Japan, which in turn might make
him a part of a telegram sent back home informing his family that
“We regret to inform you…”
Or maybe
they’ll send out one or two guys in their Class-A dress uniforms to
tell Mom and Pop in person. All that’s left to do after that is to
switch the blue star flag in the window to a red star flag. That
way anybody passing by the house will know I’m not coming
back.

No thanks, President Truman
and Uncle Samuel. I think I’ll sit the big one out. Let’s see now.
The Professor said it would probably take another year for the war
to finally end.
He turned and etched the
date into the trunk of an eighty-foot tall breadfruit tree: 8/7/45.
Tomorrow he would make a notch, followed by one for each succeeding
day. When he reached four notches, on the fifth day he planned to
scratch a diagonal line through the first four. On and on the
notches would continue until…
Let’s see,
what’s 365 divided by five…
He did the math
by using the sand as a tablet and his finger as a pencil.
Okay, seventy-three groups of five days and then
I’ll build the bonfire so they can come and finally rescue my sorry
butt. Until then, it’s me and Kong against the world. I’ve had a
bellyful of killing Japs while they try to kill me back. I wonder
if they ever get to feeling the same way about us?

He looked up at the cloudless sky. “Sorry,
God. Guess I’m too afraid to really find out what Your will
is.”

“…
kechenoiah!”

Glossolalia, speaking in tongues. Mrs. Sally
Rhinehardt was okay with it, as long as it was confined to the
first century Christians uttering an unknown language. But today
was September 1, 1945, for goodness sakes. And this was a memorial
service for dearly departed PFC Jason Dalrumple, lost at sea in the
Pacific sometime during the first weeks of August. No one was
certain of the exact date back here at home because the military
could be pretty tight-lipped about details that might endanger
strategies, missions, and troops. “Loose lips sink ships,” the
poster downtown at the theater had read. The fact that Jason was
dead and gone would have to suffice. Sally had heard stories about
holy rollers, Pentecostals who supposedly swung from the light
fixtures, rolled on the ground, and spoke in tongues, languages
unknown to both speaker and hearer alike. The strange words just
spoken unnerved her. Not only because they were unknown but also
because she was unknown in this strange church.

I knew I shouldn’t have come. I only did because
Fred wrote that I should go and represent him. No one ever told me
that they speak in tongues even at their memorial services.

Growing up in Kentucky, she had been exposed to
Catholics, Hard Shell Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and even
snake-handling churches where one’s faith was proven by the number
of rattlesnakes one picked up during the services. But
Pentecostals? “No thank you,” had always been Sally’s refrain.
“They’re just so boastful about their being filled with the Holy
Ghost. They make the rest of us Christians sound like second-class
believers in Jesus,” she had said whenever the subject was
discussed.

Sally scanned the pews for a familiar face and
counted two she knew from the factory where all three worked. She
stopped counting when the lady in front of her popped up like a
clown released from a jack in the box. Sally’s breath caught in her
throat as she leaned as far back in her pew as possible to distance
herself from the one to her front.

“Do not grieve for your son. Even now he lives.” The
jack in the box lady settled back into her pew.

A kind-looking woman who sat next to Sally reached
over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry, honey. That’s the
interpretation, dear,” she whispered. “First the utterance in
tongues, followed by the interpretation. Everything done decently
and in order, just like the Bible says it ought to be.”

Sally mouthed a “thank you” to her as the pastor
continued his homage.

“Thank you, Lord. Yes, Jason
Dalrumple lives on in heaven above where he dwells forever and ever
in the presence of his Lord Jesus Christ.” He paused. “Sister
Gonzalez will now lead us in a final hymn.” He nodded to the
organist, who hit the first notes of
What
a Friend We Have in Jesus
.

Sally waited in the pew for a few
moments so she would be the last one to shake the hands of the
family who stood by the door.
At least
that way I won’t have to hang around very long and make small
talk.
Down the line she went, meeting
Jason’s parents, two brothers, and two sisters. Outside in the
parking lot, she met Thelma Pollack, until now only a face from
work.

“Don’t you work at the factory, too?” Thelma
asked.

“Yes. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. So
did you know Jason?”

“Yeah. We were engaged.” She shrugged and held up her
unadorned left hand. “He never even got around to getting me a ring
before he shipped out. Typical Jason. Where’d you know him
from?”

“I didn’t. But he was a real good friend of my
husband, Fred Rhinehardt. They met on Fred’s boat.”

“The Professor? Yeah, Jason wrote me all about him.
You had any lunch yet?”

“No.”

“The Dalrumples invited me to the reception but I
made up an excuse to get out of it.” She sighed. “They even wanted
me to stand in line with them and shake everybody’s hand but I
talked my way out of that too. Don’t you hate funerals? They’re too
depressing.”

“Why don’t we go over to Tom’s Diner? The food’s not
too bad.”

“Okay. Mind if I catch a ride with you? Jason’s
brother brought me to the service but he’s already trying to move
in on me now that Jason’s gone.”

“Sure. Let’s go.”

Sally pointed at her 1933 Chevy sedan. A gift from
her father, it was dented from a lot miles traveled on rough roads
but reliable enough to survive parts shortages caused by war
rationing. Thelma appreciated her deliverance from the Dalrumple
clan so she offered to buy Sally’s lunch. They ordered a basket of
fried shrimp, a chocolate malted milk, and a soft drink from one of
Thelma’s pals she had met in high school.

“Sorry to hear about Jason, Thelma.” The waitress
shoved her pencil through her hair and onto her ear. “I was going
to come to the service today but my boss wouldn’t let me have the
day off.”

“That’s okay, Wanda.”

“Be right back with your order.”

***

Thelma ate her shrimp plain; Sally drenched hers in
catsup.

“You’re not from around here, huh?” Thelma drained
the last of her soda.

“No. I’m from Kentucky originally. I just moved out
here because a cousin told me there was work at the factory.”

“Yeah. We got a lot of folks moving here for work
once the factory got orders to supply the military. I sort of could
tell by the way you talk that you weren’t from around here. You
going to be moving back home to Kentucky after Fred gets back from
the war?”

“I don’t want to. There’s not much in the way of work
there. Daddy’s just a dirt farmer. Most of the boys in those parts
work in the mines or the sawmills. At least they did before they
all went off to the war.”

“So, how’d you meet Fred?”

“I took a trip up to Ohio with my mom to see her
folks. Fred was back home there on vacation from college. I met him
at a dance. We started writing each other and got married before he
left for San Francisco to ship out.”

Thelma sighed. “Well, at least he’s romantic. You’re
lucky. All the Dalrumple boys are sticks in the mud. I only dated
Jason because he’s a really hard worker. His brothers like to
honky-tonk and fight too much. You like working at the
factory?”

“Yes. All except for…”

“Darryl.”

Sally laughed. “How’d you know?”

“He flirts with me too. Just like he does with most
women. He’s a jerk. He thinks he’s God’s gift to women. He’s been
that way ever since high school.”

“Just between you and me, I complained to Mr. Monroe
about Darryl and guess what?”

“What?”

“Darryl’s left me alone ever since. He gives me the
cold shoulder now, which is fine with me.”

“You’re kidding! I think I’ll have a talk with Mr.
Monroe during my next shift. Well, we best get going. I promised my
mother I’d be home to help her fix supper. You like stew and
biscuits?” Thelma placed a dollar on top of the bill.