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Islands in the Pacific
Jeffrey White
It was raining that day. It was always raining in Guadalcanal.
The rain fell in sheets from the swollen grey clouds that hung low in the sky. The ground was a muddy quagmire that sucked at our boots and churned like molasses as we trudged through the jungle. Palm trees taller than my grandfather’s barn broke the rain on their broad-leaved canopy, where the water would collect and fall to the ground in streams, hosing us as we passed under. The raindrops plinked and plonked on the steel of our rifles and helmets. Our uniforms were drenched and ragged, scarred with months of service. We Marines wore our weathered uniforms, like the badges we had yet to receive. The beaten fabric was the stained glass windows of our cathedral; the patches, cuts and discolorations reminded us of our struggles against man and nature, of our triumphs, and of our losses.
A bird burst from the dense foliage, startling some of the jumpier men. It wheeled overhead, squawking in the way those exotic birds did. I imagined what it saw as it looked down on us from on high. A line of helmets, islands in a sea of mud, distinctly separate, but bound together in purpose and direction; an archipelago of men.
I ordered the patrol to a halt and let the men take a breather. They conversed over the pattering of the rain, their attitude easygoing and lax. Patrols used to be a tense trip when the whole island was enemy territory, but now the Japanese were cornered and were on their last leg. My squad was on a routine patrol, opposite of the front, so the men took it easy.
“Fucking rain,” Harper cursed as he sat on a flat rock. “Think I liked it better when we were starving. At least we were dry,” he said, his strong Boston accent coloring his speech. “Remember when we were dry, Whiskey?”
Whiskey spat through the gap in his teeth. “Way I recall it,” he replied with a Southerner’s twang. “You was pissin’ your pants since we landed here. So no, I don’t remember when you was dry.”
“Sarge,” Harper said, turning to me. “Tell this Aryan here it was water. God damn mortar round splashed me was all.” Where Harper had dark features, Whiskey had straw blond hair and the brightest blue eyes I’d ever seen, hence the nickname.
“It was water,” I replied, never taking my eyes from the jungle. While the men lounged, I circled around, keeping an eye out; I was very protective of my flock; and, easy route or not, I didn’t slack. “Of course,” I continued, “could be that he pissed himself immediately after; Harper’s always been a pussy.”
“Thanks for nothing, Sarge,” Harper said dryly.
“Any time, Private. Any time.” Dirty jokes and insults were all part of our daily interaction. Some of us, like Harper and Whiskey, had been together since boot camp, and we had cultivated an arsenal of offensive humor and a thick skin to accompany them.
Not all of the men in our squad had been with us for so long. We’d lost almost half of our men in the first couple of months on Guadalcanal, and replacements didn’t arrive until just recently. Some squads were merged to compensate for the holes in our ranks, but one fresh face joined us. He was the guy standing apart from everyone else. His clothes were pristine and new, his boots had yet to be broken in, and his face was clean shaven. If he was a car, he’d still have that intoxicating new scent about him. A heavy pack radio weighed down on his slender frame. He wore round eyeglasses that he wiped and adjusted constantly; coupled with his timid behavior, he seemed better suited to accounting than soldiering. The kid even managed to make standing an awkward affair. Back home he’d be described as smart and sharp looking, but out here he was untried, a boy not yet baptized in the horrors of war. His name was Michael Reed.
Private Harper’s gaze fell on the radioman, and I could read the contempt that lay there. Reed averted his skittish gaze from Harper’s glower, finding something interesting in the mud at his feet. It was Reed’s first day with the squad, but Harper had preemptively decided to dislike him. The Bostonian complained when he heard about our new addition. We didn’t need a radioman, he argued, but that wasn’t what Harper was upset about. It wasn’t about the way the new guy looked, or that he was so green. We’d been fighting for two months and we already lost so many men. The war was just getting started, and none of us expected to make it out alive, let alone the guy standing next to us; especially anyone as green as four-eyed Michael Reed. Harper didn’t want another friend to lose.
I didn’t subscribe to Private Harper’s jaded isolationist view. I couldn’t invest in the idea that none of my men would make it out alive. That, and I liked Reed. He reminded me of that shy kid in class whose name no one was sure of, possessed of a quiet intelligence, polite and non-confrontational. A nice guy, I thought. Reed just seemed like a nice guy.
“Um, Sergeant, sir?” Reed said to me. He had to repeat himself since his soft spoken words didn’t carry over the sound of the rain. “Sir, will our route be taking us near the Japanese line, sir?”
“Japs,” Harper corrected.
Reed blinked. “Excuse me?”
“They’re called Japs,” Harper repeated, annoyance creeping into his tone as though he were explaining something rudimentary to an obtuse individual. Japs, nips, yellow bellies, these were the names we gave to our foe. It was a label denoting the inherent evil and unredeeming qualities of the men we killed. It was better to dehumanize them. It made killing them easier. Shooting a uniform weighed lighter on the conscience than shooting a face.
“And no,” Harper continued. “We’re not going anywhere near them, Private.”
“Actually, it’s Corporal,” Reed corrected.
“I don’t see any chevrons,” Harper replied.
Reed adjusted his glasses. “I was promoted yesterday,” he said, not in a boasting manner, but spoken out of the wish to be technically correct.
Harper looked at the radioman in disbelief, then turned to me. “Bullshit.” And there it was. He was looking for a reason to hate the kid, and now he’d found it. “How the fuck did this desk jockey get promoted?” Harper asked, spurred from his rock by indignation. “He’s been here for two days. Two damn days! We’ve been here for two months with no reinforcements, no supplies, no food, no fucking toilet paper, and this asshole is the one that gets promoted?”
“Quiet, Harper,” I cautioned, but the man didn’t hear me or wasn’t listening.
“I suppose I should be saluting you and addressing you as ‘sir’, huh?” Harper continued, directing his attention to the corporal, who looked as if he hoped that the ground would swallow him up. “Well, I’ll be dead before I do any of that for some pencil pusher that brown-nosed his way to a promotion.”
“That’s enough, Harper!” I cut in. I grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to face me, and said in no uncertain terms, “You do not insult a non-com in my squad. Not in the field, and not openly. You got a problem, you talk to me in private. Understand?”
Harper’s jaw clenched. “Yes, sir,” he curtly replied. He looked over at Reed, who seemed embarrassed by the whole situation, and fixed him with a withering glower. It was easy to think ill of Harper in that moment, but you’d be wrong to think poorly of his character. He was always the first one to share his rations when we were low, and he was always pestering the guys about writing our wounded friends back home, or wherever they may be recovering. I imagined he grew up with a lot of younger siblings; he acted like an older brother to the guys all through boot camp. The emotional toll of losing the friends he looked after must have weighed heavily on his shoulders. I couldn’t blame him for pulling away.
An awkward silence fell over the group, broken only by the pouring rain, until Whiskey cleared his throat. “Y’all hear we invaded Africa?” the Southerner asked, changing the subject. “Looks like we’re takin’ the fight to Mussolini.”
Harper nodded, taking a seat on his lonely rock. “My kid brother’s shipping to England. Lucky bastard’s going to be dropping into Paris while we’re here drowning in Satan’s asshole. He keeps writing me, saying how he can’t wait to fight.” He shook his head at his young brother’s naivety. “The kid has no idea.”
“Dulce bellum inexpertis,” I said. Whiskey and Harper exchanged confused glances.
“Uh, Sarge,” Whiskey ventured, “did you just have a lapse of sanity, or somethin’?”
Corporal Reed smiled. “War is sweet to those who have never fought,” he translated. “Latin. From Desiderius Erasmus.”
“Pindar,” I corrected. “But that’s a common mistake.” Harper and Whiskey still looked confused, but Reed’s expression brightened, having found a subject of interest. “My father is a professor at Yale,” I explained. “He teaches Greek philosophy.” Reed looked impressed, while the others just shook their heads. “Did you ever study philosophy?” I asked him.
“No, sir,” the radioman replied. “I just like to read a lot, sir.”
Whiskey snorted. “Reed likes to read,” he chuckled, thinking himself quite clever. No one joined him in his mirth.
“Jesus Christ,” Harper lamented at his friend’s simple humor.
Reed wiped beads of rain from his glasses. “Sir, I’ve been reading Hemingway recently, sir,” he continued. “He came out with a book a couple of years ago, sir; For Whom The Bell Tolls.”
“Any good?” I asked.
“Has Hemingway ever disappointed, sir?” he asked rhetorically. We ended up discussing our favorite authors, novels, and poems while the others listened in. Harper looked like he was trying to ignore the whole conversation, but I noticed his attention drift in every now and then. Eventually, the subject shifted to films, and that’s when the other guys chimed in.
“Hey, Harper,” Whiskey called. “Rita Hayworth or Bette Davis?”
“Is that a serious fucking question?” Harper asked. “Rita-Fucking-Hayworth! Hands down.”
“Aw, no love for Bette?” Whiskey said with mock sadness.
The private shook his head. “Fuck Bette.”
“I most certainly would,” Whiskey smiled lecherously. “What about you, Sarge? Rita or Bette?”
“I’m a married man,” I replied neutrally, which earned me a few boo’s and jeers.
Whiskey turned his attention to the corporal. “What about you? Rita or Bette?” Harper shot the Southern boy a look that said he didn’t want the corporal in the conversation.
Reed shifted awkwardly, probably because he wasn’t used to these topics. “Um, wait, so you said you’re name is Whiskey, right?” he asked the Southern boy, changing the subject.
“It’s a nickname,” Whiskey corrected.
Harper smiled in spite of himself. “Go on,” he prompted.
Whiskey sighed. “My last name is Daniels.” Harper gestured for him to continue. Whiskey rolled his eyes as though he had to explain this many times and felt the novelty of it had worn off. “First name: Jack.”
“Jack Daniels!” hooted Harper. “Can you believe that? What kind of parent names their kid Jack Daniels? I’m guessing it was your daddy’s drink of choice when he was whipping you with his belt, huh?”
Whiskey splashed some mud on the private’s boots. “Anyone ever tell you you was an asshole?”
Harper laughed. “Anyone ever tell you you look like Hitler’s wet dream?” Even Reed cracked a smile at their banter.
“That’s enough, ladies,” I cut in; break time was over. The soldiers got to their feet and made ready to move out just as the rain stopped. A splash of sunlight broke through the clouds, the incessant rain disappeared, and the spirit of the place brightened up, as did the men. They prayed it would last throughout the day, but they all knew it wouldn’t. It was a blessing, one that we learned to appreciate, however brief.
I called Reed to the front as we set off. The radioman hustled, his boots squelching in the mud as he made his way to the head of the squad. As he passed Harper, the private gave him a mocking salute. “Sir,” Harper acknowledged as the corporal passed. Reed glanced back at him.
A thunderclap.
Reed’s helmet slipped forward over his glasses. Blood sprayed out from under the bowl of his helmet. The corporal fell face down in the mud with a wet smack. There was no heroism, no battle, no last words. He collapsed like a marionette that had its strings severed at once. That was how Corporal Michael Reed died.
It was a Japanese sniper that got him. The bastard was strapped into the palm tree directly above us. Why he was there and how long he had been waiting were questions we’d never have answered. It was just one of those things. We killed him before he got anyone else, but the damage had already been done. We’d lost another man, this time on a simple routine patrol.
We gathered around Reed’s body, shoulders and heads bowed by the weight of the moment. The blood spilled into the earth, drawing red rivulets in the mud that webbed out until it congealed beneath our boots, like a macabre map connecting points of weary men.
“I wonder who he would’ve picked,” Whiskey murmured.
Harper knelt down and removed Reed’s dog tags. “What the fuck does it matter?” he asked, an undercurrent of frustration in his voice. “He’s dead.”
A cloud crossed over the sun. It began to rain.
The sniper could have killed any one of us, but he shot Reed. No one said it then, but we all knew why he killed the corporal; Harper saluted him. The sniper thought Reed was the commanding officer and figured he’d take him down first. Instead, he’d killed some quiet kid, inexperienced in the ways of war, who just liked to read books. Harper couldn’t have known the sniper was there, but that guilt clung to him like a shadow.
I wouldn’t say any of us made it out of the war unscathed. There were those of us who never took a bullet, or a scratch from shrapnel, but we were scarred nonetheless. There was a piece of us we left in the jungles, on the sands of the beachheads, in the graves of our fallen, on the islands of the Pacific. For better and for worse, the war changed us.
Years after, I received a package from an old friend. It was a sunny day as I sat on the porch, overlooking my grandfather’s barn, the package held in my hands. The sender was Ryan Harper. Among the contents was a letter. “I checked out the book,” it read. “Not bad. I think you’ll like it.” It was a copy of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.
The spine was broken in, the cover was well worn, and the corners of the pages were creased from being dog-eared. The pages were yellow with age and the edges were stained with flecks of coffee, giving the book a warm and traveled character. There was a passage written in Harper’s hand on the inside of the cover. It was an excerpt of a poem by John Donne:
Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee1.
