The Far Reaches (11 page)

Then a marine who'd been watching the Corsair accidentally pulled the pin on a Japanese grenade he had plucked off a body and it detonated, with him going one way, his hand and a good part of his arm the other. His buddies ran out to him, picked him up, and brought him to the crater. Mistaking Ready for a corpsman, one of them said, “Fix him up, Doc,” then left. Since all the real corpsmen had gone elsewhere and there was no one else to do it, Ready grabbed a bandage out of an abandoned medical bag and wrapped it tight around the man's bloody stump, stabbed a syrette of morphine into his shoulder, pinned the empty needle to his chest, and then watched and waited until he quieted down. Eyes open but apparently uncomprehending, Josh blinked up at the crystal-clear sky and occasionally groaned.

Ready took a moment to cast up a prayer that the stretcher-bearers would come, and no sooner had he said “Amen” than four men appeared, native men from the looks of them, with brown muscular bodies covered with various tattoos, red lava-lava breechcloths about their waists, and necklaces of
cowrie shells and shark's teeth hanging in deep arcs across their hairless chests. They also bore stretchers. “We take,” one of them said in a deep voice.

Ready didn't know what to make of that. He draped his shirt over Josh's privates and climbed out of the crater. “Take where?”

“We take,” the man replied. “We say we help. Marine all say OK. We take.”

Then Ready was roughly gripped on his shoulder and spun around, whereupon he found himself looking at a short gunnery sergeant with a stubby cigar stuck between his teeth. “Corpsman, you are now under my command,” he said. “Get your stuff and come with me.”

“I ain't no corpsman, Gunny,” Ready replied, irritated at the presumptuousness of the little man. “I'm a Coast Guard bosun, and I probably out-rank you. That's Captain Thurlow, my skipper, down in that crater. I'm looking after him. Now get away from me.”

The gunny was unimpressed by Ready's explanation. “Stow it, Doc. My God, some of you boys will say or do anything to get out of a little work! Them ain't Coast Guard utilities you're wearin', and they ain't Coast Guard boots you got on, neither. Now load up your gear and come along like a good little corpsman. I got a detail and you're part of it whether you like it or not.”

“I told you I ain't no corpsman!” Ready snapped, which so impressed the gunny that he slammed the butt of his rifle into Ready's stomach. Astonished more than hurt, though his breath was knocked clean away, Ready fell to his knees.

“I told you to get your stuff, Doc. I won't say it again.”

As Ready struggled to breathe, a white cloth passed before his eyes. When he looked up, he realized it was the habit of the nun. She had stepped between him and the gunny. “Ye won't hit him again,” the nun said.

The gunny was startled by her sudden appearance. “This ain't none of your business, ma'am,” he said nervously.

“Nay, ‘tisn't,” she agreed, “but I could hardly stand by and watch ye whomp yer own man, now, could I?”

The gunny looked at his boots. “No, ma'am.”

“I hope you're properly ashamed, then.”

“Oh, yes, ma'am,” the gunny said, looking out of the tops of his eyes at her. “I am. I surely am.”

“Well, then get on with ye!” she demanded.

The gunny kept his head down. “I'm just going to walk over there beside
that pile of dead Japs,” he told her contritely. “You send Doc along to me next couple of minutes, it'll be good.”

The nun glanced at the mound of rotting Japanese the gunny had mentioned, took on a wistful expression, then turned to Ready, who had man-aged to climb stiffly to his feet. “Are ye all right now, boyo?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Ready answered, smiling crookedly at her pretty face peeking through her cowl, as pretty as any he'd ever seen. He especially ad-mired her eyes, as blue as the Gulf Stream off Killakeet, and he liked the freckles sprinkled across her pert little nose, though he also read in her expression a certain steady resolve. Ready wished at that moment that he was a handsome man, even if the Irish girl was a nun, and surely uninterested in any man, handsome or not. He stepped down in the crater, picked up the corpsman's bag, inspected its contents, and climbed out.

Guessing his intentions, the nun was astonished. “Surely you're not going with that man!”

Ready shrugged. “I have to. That's a Marine Corps gunny, ma'am, and they don't know how to take no for an answer. Anyway, I'll go until I figure out how to get away In the meantime, would you take care of my skipper? His name's Josh Thurlow, Captain Josh Thurlow. That's him, the big lug with nothing but my shirt across his privates. I'm sorry he's otherwise buck naked, but I guess he got tired of wearing his clothes. He needs to get out to a hospital ship. He's lost a bit of blood, you see, and he's real worn out. He's got fever, too, which he caught on Guadalcanal. Just see to him the best you can, that's all I'm asking.”

“I will be pleased to take care of yer captain,” the nun answered. “This is the second time today I have seen him. One of my fella boys even gave up his life for him.”

“He told me a native man with tattoos died to save him!” Ready exclaimed.

“His name was Tomoru. He was a very good man, though a bit reckless. I shall miss him, but I know he is in heaven and will never know sorrow again.”

“That's a good philosophy in these parts, for sartain,” Ready allowed. “Captain Thurlow is a good man, too, except, well, he's got a few faults, I suppose … “ Ready realized he was rambling and interrupted himself. “Well, that's neither here nor there, is it? When the captain comes awake, would you tell him I'll catch up soon as I can?” He hesitated, then asked, “And will I see you again, I wonder? I hope I will.” When she frowned, Ready quickly added, “I'm sorry, ma'am. I don't mean to be familiar or nothing.”

Her frown turned into a smile that warmed Ready's heart. “Nay, ‘tis
fine, Bosun. I was just thinking how to frame my answer, y'see.” Then, after a moment's thought, she nodded. “I believe we will meet again. In the meantime I will pray for ye, if ye'll but tell me yer name.”

“My name's Ready, ma'am,” he answered eagerly. “Bosun Ready O'Neal of the Coast Guard.”

A part of his answer clearly delighted her. “O'Neal! Ye don't mean it! The O'Neals are a fine family, as fine as ever walked an Irish road or plowed an Irish field. I am Sister Mary Kathleen, but once I was naught but Kathleen Shaughnessy, the tenth child of Liam and Maureen Shaughnessy of Ballysaggart in the county Tyrone. We Shaughnessys have always been partial to yer O'Neals.” She looked at him carefully. “Are ye all right, Bosun? Ye look a bit unsteady. Are ye faint?”

“I am,” he confessed. “It's been a few days since I got much sleep.”

“Do ye need to sit down?”

“I wish I could,” Ready answered and then impulsively stretched his hand out to her. After a moment's hesitation, she grasped it with both her hands, and he was surprised not only at their strength but at their roughness. A woman with such hands had not spent a life with them clasped in prayer. He released her hands and watched with regret as they disappeared within the shrouds of her deep sleeves. He ached to feel them again.

He was surprised when she asked, “Will ye help me now, Bosun O'Neal?”

“If I can, ma'am.”

“I need to see a big man.”

“A big man, ma'am?”

“Aye. A man who can order other men around.”

“You mean like the gunny over there?”

She shifted her eyes suspiciously toward the little gunny, then shook her head. “Nay, someone much bigger, someone who could gather many men and put them in big boats and sail away with me and me fella boys to an-other place.”

“What place would that be, ma'am?”

“To the Far Reaches. There are Japanese there. I want them to surrender, y'see.”

Ready was allowing her odd pronouncement to sink in—the days and nights of combat had dulled his ability to think clearly—when the gunny started yelling at him, telling him to get his butt in gear. Ready said, “Look, Sister, when he wakes up, maybe Captain Thurlow can help you. He's got some clout. He even knows the secretary of the navy like a brother.”

“Now that would be the first hopeful thing I've heard in a terrible long
time,” she answered, producing her wonderful smile once more. “Thanks be to God. Ye are a kind man, Bosun O'Neal. I knew that the first time I laid me eyes on ye.”

“I'm glad I've said a hopeful thing,” Ready answered, though he doubted it was much more than a thin hope, considering Josh's present condition.

“God go with ye, then,” she said.

“God go with you, too, ma'am, for sartain, although I guess that happens, anyway, you being …well, who you are and all.”

Her smile turned small and embarrassed. “Aye, Bosun O'Neal. God does look after me, though in His own mysterious way.”

Ready broke away from the nun and trudged disconsolately to the gunny, who then waved him over to a knot of four sullen marines standing beside a palm tree. The arm of a dead Japanese sniper could be seen hanging from the tattered fronds of the tree, and the marines were standing so as to avoid the dripping blood slowly pattering off the sniper's fingers.

Ready was surprised to see Tucker the Hatteras boy, and beside him Sampson from New Jersey, and Garcia from Texas, the marines he'd led a century or more ago when he'd been Major Reed. The fourth marine introduced himself as Private Roger Harland. Tucker gave Ready the once-over. “You look familiar,” he said, finally.

Ready answered, “I don't see how. I hardly know who I am myself.”

“You got a corpsman's bag,” Garcia said in an attempt to be helpful. “So you're a corpsman.”

“That don't mean much,” Ready replied. “Say a man has an ax, that don't make him a lumberjack.”

“Don't make him not one, neither,” Garcia answered, looking put out. Ready looked over his shoulder and saw that the native men, the ones the nun had called her fella boys, had placed Captain Thurlow and the marine who'd lost most of his arm aboard stretchers and were toiling with them down a path toward the beach. She was following, looking small and vulnerable beneath the folds of her habit. She stumbled once, and his heart actually hurt to see it. He longed to rush to her and help her along, to hold her hands again and talk to her and hear her lilting voice and maybe find himself in her eyes.

“Hey, it's that nun,” Tucker said, noticing where Ready was looking, though not noticing the longing with which he looked.

Garcia said, “I knelt down beside her while she was praying and got a good whiff of her. She smelled clean.
Dios miol
I think I'm in love.”

“That's about the sickest thing I've yet heard you say, Garcia,” Sampson accused. “And that's going some.”

“Knock it off,” Ready snapped at the marines. With a sudden burst of clarity, he added, “You can't love a nun because she can't love you back.”

Ready's statement puzzled Tucker. “Hell, I've loved women all my life who ain't loved me back. That's the usual case, ain't it?”

All the marines agreed with Tucker's assessment, and the conversation turned to women in general and how hard it was to find a good one. This degenerated inevitably to a discussion of the hourly price of love in Hawaii. Ten bucks seemed to be the average for enlisted marines, although the discussion included ways to get that knocked down a bit, mainly by begging, and then the gunny brayed for silence in the ranks. He went down on one knee and began to draw an outline of the atoll in the sand with his K-bar.

“Now, listen up! Battalion says there's still some Japs holding out on t'other end of this shi thole. I been ordered to take a patrol up there, see what's what and kill the whole bunch of 'em if we can. You got five minutes to get your shit together. Make sure you got a full ammo load. Savvy?”

“Why us, Gunny?” Sampson demanded. “We already done our share. How about one of them newbies just got off the boat?”

“What's the Corps motto, son?”

“I got mine. How'd you make out?” Sampson answered.

The gunny stared bullets at him. “I'm gonna keep my eye on you. You try to slip off, I'll shoot you, don't think I won't.”

“I ain't slipping off, Gunny,” Sampson replied tiredly. “All I'm saying is it just ain't fair.”

“Fair ain't got a thing to do with this lashup. You ought to have that much figgered out by now. Semper Fi, boy. Semper Fi. And don't you forget it.”

“Christ on a crutch,” Sampson groaned, then shut up.

“You better carry a rifle,” Tucker said to Ready. “You might want to wear a shirt, too.”

“I used my shirt to cover the skipper,” Ready answered.

“Who's the skipper?”

“Captain Thurlow. We're both Killakeet boys like you're a Hatterasser.” Tucker was astonished. “How do you know I'm from Hatteras?”

Not wanting to let on that he'd once been Major Reed, Ready said, “I can hear it in your voice. You ever been on Killakeet?”

“Oncet. But I was just putting some barrels of mullet ashore at the fish plant.”

“I might have seen you there,” Ready lied. “I worked in the plant some.” “Let's go, ladies,” the gunny barked, saving Ready further explanations and fibs.

The marines went, their training and discipline kicking in, and Ready slogged along with them, the corpsman's bag bumping against his hip. Though there was plenty else to occupy his thoughts, they kept returning to the little Irish nun. He wondered what she was doing, whether she and her “fella boys” had gotten the skipper and the wounded marine to the beach, and what they would find once they got there. He also wondered if Captain Thurlow would help her go to her faraway place, wherever it was, and send armed men along to make the Japanese surrender. He doubted it, seeing how poorly the skipper was doing, and also because the Japanese never surrendered anyway. Maybe there might be somebody who would explain all that to her. He hadn't the heart to do it. He felt a pang, a rather large pang, of regret that he might never see her again.