The Far Reaches (38 page)

It was the saddest marriage ceremony Josh reckoned he had ever seen, or ever would see. The former nun was lovely, as always, though shrouded from neck to ankle in her terrible loose gown. Kathleen, as she called herself now, was not radiant. She was downcast throughout, and Josh's heart went out to her, almost as much as it did to Ready, who stood there in his old, ragged utilities. He looked stricken, as if possessed by some terrible spirit.

Chief Kalapa presided over the ritual, placing their hands together and knotting them with hemp twine, signifying that they were forever joined. Mr. Bucknell then read from the Bible and, as a representative of His Majesty's government, asked the couple if they agreed to follow the traditional Anglican formalities.

“Aye,” she answered. “ 'Tis near enough to me own.”

“Yes. All right,” Ready answered miserably.

Their heads bowed, they made their vows.

“Who gives this woman to be married to this man?” Bucknell asked in a quiet voice.

“I do,” Josh answered, stepping up beside her. He was wearing his fresh khakis from the submarine.

Bucknell adjusted his half-glasses on the tip of his nose, scanned the Anglican text, and then said, “I see no reason to continue reading the ceremony. Chief Kalapa has already properly married you according to the beliefs of this island, and your hands are tied with the hemp. You've answered my ‘wilt thous' with your T wills.' Certainly, you take one another for better and for worse. As far as His Majesty's government is concerned, I pronounce you man and wife.”

She raised her head and said, in a small voice, “I have a ring.”

Mr. Bucknell did not hear her clearly “What did you say, dear?”

She opened her left hand, revealing a simple silver ring lying in her palm. “I have a ring,” she said again. Bucknell recognized it as the one she had worn as a nun.

“Help us, Josh,” Ready said, the first time he'd ever called his captain by his first name.

Josh untied the hemp twine from their hands, allowing Ready to take the ring. Wearing a crooked smile, Ready looked into her eyes and said, “I love you.”

“Thank ye,” she answered as he slipped the ring on her finger. She turned to the assembly, which was everyone in the village. “Thank ye all for coming.”

Chief Kalapa smiled, though not broadly, and announced a feast. It would prove to be a pathetic one. No pigs were roasted, although several chickens were grilled. No kava was drunk, and only a little mangojack. People stood about listlessly and ate the meager fare, then wandered home or to dig in their gardens or wherever the evening took them. For their part, Ready and Kathleen proposed a few toasts with the marines and Colonel Burr, who, oddly enough, had shed a few tears during the ceremony. Then they walked down the path to the treehouse.

Josh went to sit in his chair in front of his house, and there he sat, drinking mangojack, wishing he might get drunk and swearing to himself not to. Rose came and sat alongside him. “You are sad, husband.”

“I am sad for Ready and I am sad for Sister. Kathleen, I mean. I am also frightened for them.”

“You? Frightened?” She smiled and touched his hand. “I cannot imagine such a thing.”

“Do you know she asked me to take her in a canoe to Ruka and give her to Colonel Yoshu?”

“Yes. She also asked Nango, Mr. Bucknell, and Chief Kalapa. I also have no doubt that she asked Bosun O'Neal, and perhaps he has agreed. That is why she married him. If so, it is a good thing. I wish you and the others would have done it.”

Josh was astonished. “You would have me turn her over to a monster?” “Before anything else, I wish for the safety of my family.”

Josh nodded agreement but said, “Nothing, not even Kathleen killing herself, would stop Colonel Yoshu from coming here. The colonel has had
a long time to get thoroughly annoyed with this island. You can bet the coconut telegraph let him know early on she was here. And he'll come, no matter what, to teach us a lesson for sheltering her.”

“Perhaps you are right. I will change my mind to match your opinion.”

“I have never known a finer woman than you,” Josh swore, taking Rose's hand. Then he said, from a part of his heart he scarcely knew was there, “Will you marry me?”

She laughed. “We are already married.”

“So we are.” And Josh Thurlow was content, at least as much as any man whose family was in terrible danger.

She burned her candles, three brave flickering lights against the darkness. Ready sat in the breadfruit chair, a cup of mangojack in his fist. He was staring at nothing. Kathleen sat on the bed, fearful of the intimacy to come. She steeled herself for it and tried to act as any bride might on her wedding night. “Ready,” she said and patted the mattress, just once, and lightly. “Are ye not tired? Come to bed.”

He looked at her, then put the cup down and took off his boots and then stripped off his utilities. Tossing them aside, not bothering to hide his nakedness and therefore his clear lack of excitement, he heavily sat down beside her. She touched his shoulder. “Why are ye troubled?”

“It is because I don't know who or what I am. I haven't known it since the moment I met you.”

“What can I do to help?”

His tone was petulant. “You can turn back the clock. You can stay in Ireland. You can marry that boy who wanted you to marry him before you became a nun.”

“God would not allow it,” she answered. “I am sorry that I have become a burden to ye.”

“You're not. It's me. It's what I see in my mind.”

Her heart pounding, her fear of his touch increasing, she climbed fully on the bed, laid herself down, and tugged on his arm. She was a bride and she would act like one, no matter how much she dreaded the act of intimacy. “Come. Lie beside me. Tell me what ye see in yer mind that troubles ye so.”

Feeling childish, he lay on his back beside her, staring at the roof he had built for her with such joy. “I see you with him. A man wants his wife… He shook his head.

“Pure? Unsullied? Virginal?” she retorted angrily, taking her hand away.
“Is it not enough I come to ye with me sins as cleansed as I could get them? I confessed to that priest, accomplished my penance with nearly unending prayers on the voyage here. And when ye expressed yer love to me, was I any different than I am now? Ye are being most unfair, Ready O'Neal!”

Ready was into his misery and couldn't stop himself from saying it all. “I married you under false pretenses. I cannot turn you over to that fiend.” He sat up. “I can't stay here. I have to go.”

She pulled him back, held him. Continuing to act as she imagined a bride would, she kissed him until at last he seemed to melt. She pulled off her gown and then, trembling, let him feel the length of her body. “Ready, I am yer wife.” She waited but nothing happened. Then she asked brazenly, “Will ye not make ficky-ficky with me, boyo?”

“I can't”

Angry now, and feeling rejected, she climbed out of bed and stood with her hands on her hips. “Do ye want me to put the habit on? Is that it? Is that the fantasy ye have in yer twisted mind?”

He looked at her in the glow of her little candles, and what he saw in the flickering light and shadows was a girl, a young Irish girl, who was beautiful. “I would love you even if you wore nothing at all,” he said.

Relieved, she laughed and spread her arms wide. “Well, yer in luck, Ready O'Neal!”

He stared at her for a long second, then, because he felt ridiculous, also laughed. “Come on then, me Irish lass. I have need of ye!”

She hopped on the bed and took him into her arms. Somehow, all her fear had been set aside. She felt, for the first time, like a bride and, better, was even glorying in the sensations it brought her. “Kathleen O'Neal, Irish lass at yer service, sor!” she cried and released herself from all care.

Kapura, a Ruka fella boy, placed on guard by Nango near the tree, heard the laughter coming from above and then the other noises that meant the marriage night was successful. Then he heard the school bell knocked off its table. It fell with a clang and rolled ringing across the floor. Kapura grinned and allowed himself a long pull of mangojack. “You fella boy Ready ring fella sister bell plenty too much,” he whispered to himself, then moved to a tree farther away to give the happy couple a little privacy.

The story Kathleen told of the child she bore after being raped by the cruel Colonel Yoshu quickly became common knowledge. Everyone, especially the women, was sympathetic toward the former nun and thought she was very brave. The men thought she was brave, too, and understood now why the colonel wanted her back. Josh Thurlow once more tried to convince one and all to pack up and leave, but no one was amenable to it, including Rose. So Josh shut up about it and accepted the certain battle to come. If they were able to repel it, he rationalized, then perhaps he could convince one and all to run.

The marines, during this time, suffered. Colonel Burr gathered them at the boathouse, harangued them concerning their unauthorized departure from Tarawa, then yelled at them about their lack of discipline, their ragged utilities, and their women. “You have gone Turk!” he bellowed. “Drill, that's what you need, and that's what you're going to get!”

Burr lined up Tucker, Garcia, and even Sampson on his crutch and made them march with him calling cadence. “Hup-hup!” he bellowed. “Get in step there, Sampson. You think because you only got one foot, you ain't a marine? Once a marine, always a marine, son, don't matter how many body parts you might lose.”

He marched them, even ran them, demanding that they sing cadence as they trotted along with Sampson held up between Tucker and Garcia. And so they did, with the villagers watching in astonishment as the marines struggled by, singing:

Ain't no use ingoing home.
Jody's got your girl and gone.
Ain't no use in feeling blue.
Jody's got your sister, too.
Ain't no use in lookin' back.
Jody's got your Cadillac…

“Sir, let's be honest,” Tucker said to Burr during a short break. “None of us give a shit about Jody no more, nor Cadillacs. We got all we need right here.”

“Don't say that!” Burr shouted. “You're in these latitudes courtesy of Uncle Sam, and it's your duty to miss back home and all its creature comforts, including Hershey bars, Coca-Cola, and American women, even if Jody, the rat bastard draft dodger, has stolen them all away.”

Sampson was brazen in his reply. “Don't need no Cokes or Hersheys, sir, and I never met no American woman like the ones right here. You just wouldn't believe how sweet they are. Maybe you ought to get yourself one.”

“Shut up!” Burr roared. “If I needed a woman, the Corps would've made her issue! Now, we're gonna run, boys, run like we're chasing Tojo himself. Now, up! Up, I say, and on your feet! Foot for you, Sampson! You're marines, and I'm not gonna let you forget it!”

So the sun rose, and the heat increased, and Burr and the marines marched and sweated and ran up and down the road and the beach. The villagers watched in awe while trying to imagine the purpose of such relentless exercise. The marines' women even went to Chief Kalapa to complain about Curbur, as the colonel was called. The chief in turn went to Josh, whom he found making a new batch of charcoal.

Josh inclined his head, listened to the cadence calls for a long second, then laughed. “Listen, Chief. It is good that the marines are being reminded who they are. We will need them to be marines if Colonel Yoshu comes, which could be any day. As for their women, sometimes I know something, though I don't know how I know it. If you let the colonel and his marines get through the day, and maybe tomorrow, I think things will settle down. This island takes hold of a man. I think it might even take hold of Montague Singleton Burr.”

To the relief of the chief, Josh's speculation proved to be entirely correct. On the third night of his self-exile on Tahila, Burr retreated to his quarters, which had been Ready's house, now already known as Curbur's House. There he lay on a palm frond mat and stared up at the high-pitched roof. Although he didn't mean to, meant only to sleep, Burr began to contemplate his life. He rose in the dark and went outside and felt the wafting
breeze against his face and sniffed the fragrance of the frangipani and the riotous scent of the gardenia. He heard the scrambling of lizards, the distant call of the Forridges
kukaboo
bird, and the sound of lovemaking in the various houses of the village. He thought about all that he'd done with his life, and why, and what it all meant, and then he was very sad. He was sad be-cause of his ambition to receive a star on his collar, which he finally accepted was never going to be realized. He was also sad for the men whose careers he had destroyed through one stratagem or another in his quest for that star, and for the women he'd loved and lost for the same reason. By morning, he required conversation, a first for a man who liked to talk but seldom listened. He therefore visited Josh Thurlow, his ancient nemesis, who bade him to sit and have a cup of joe.

“Well, Montague, what's on tap for the Marine Corps today?” Josh asked as the man sat down in a driftwood chair and took the offered cup. “A fifty-mile hike with full packs? Or how about running up and down yon mountain a few times through the devil vine?”

Burr didn't answer directly. Instead, he took a moment to savor the delightful aroma of the wonderful coffee in his cup, rather than tossing it scalding down his throat as he did in ordinary times. “I think I have fallen ill, Josh,” he said finally, then sipped delicately at the rim of the cup. “I seem to have heightened sensibilities. Last night, I considered my life. This morning, I feel as if every nerve in my body has been stripped bare. Do you think perhaps I have been drugged?”

Josh gave the question some honest thought. “There is something about this island that makes a man think. It's dangerous that way.”