The Lonely War (35 page)

The feast had the entire crew dizzy with anticipation. Men who hadn’t smiled in years were unable to contain their excitement.

Andrew fabricated a present for Mitchell. He had Do-Han scrambling to scrounge the materials: paper, string, cloth, thin bamboo sticks, and glue. Andrew also wrapped Clifford’s silk sarong with the same colorful paper. At eleven hundred hours, he hustled to Hut Twenty-nine to help prepare the feast.

Cocoa set two stew pots on hotplates. He half filled one with water and added four pounds of
katchang idju
beans along with heaping spoonfuls of salt, pepper, and sugar. He planned to let the beans simmer for an hour before adding the two pounds of pork. As Cocoa unwrapped the banana-leaf sheath and brought out the roasted pork, a hush fell over the hut. Even the drone of flies seemed to fade into silence.

“Somebody pinch me,” Ogden mumbled. “I’ve got to be dreamin’.”

Cocoa cut the meat into half-inch cubes and, his face beaming, covered it with the banana leaves and set it close to the stew pot. “That’s right, boys. This will be the best damn celebration this camp has ever seen. Today we eat like men.”

In the other stew pot, Andrew brought the water to a boil and dumped in three cut-up chickens, innards and all. He added the grated meat from six green papayas, milk from four coconuts, salt, and pepper, and brought it to a boil. The air filled with a delightful fragrance. He covered it and took it off the heat. After an hour it would be ready to add the rice. That done, it was time to wait.

The Americans were on the second lunch schedule that day, so they hustled out of the hut at 1300 hours to stand in line for their rations of watery fish soup and steamed rice. To a man, they downed their soup to keep their stomach juices at bay but saved the rice for the feast to come. They ran to the hut like schoolboys playing a game.

The other prisoners took notice. Mouthwatering aromas drifted over the entire eastern end of the camp. It grabbed control of their minds and twisted their stomachs into knots.      

“Bloody hell,” said a stocky British corporal to his chums. “What’s that brilliant smell?”

“Goddamned Jappos are cooking something bloody marvelous to drive us batty.”

“It’s meat! The Jappos are cooking meat.”

“No mate, it’s coming from inside the camp. It’s got to be the Yanks. The Jappos don’t eat meat, only fish heads and shit like that.”

“Five long hours to dinner and those scum bastards are cooking meat. May they rot in hell.”

“Dead on target, mate. Those bloody swine don’t have the right to be living so high and mighty while we’re starving. Why don’t our officers bring them down a peg or two?”

At Hut Twenty-nine, the preparations were all but done when Stokes led Mitchell, Fisher, and Moyer up the hut steps. The men gathered loosely around the stew pots. Some tried to take their mind off the food by playing bridge, but nobody’s mind was on the game, and nobody bothered to play the torturous food game while real food was cooking.

“Sweet Jesus, what’s that glorious aroma,” Mitchell exclaimed as he stepped into the hut. “You’re going to cause a riot if you don’t tone that down.”

“We’ve got the perfect way to tone it down, sir,” Hudson said with a gleeful smirk. “In about fifteen minutes we’re going to suck up every last drop of this feast and get drunk as skunks on rice wine.”

The officers all trooped over to the stew pots and inspected the mounds of food: a huge basket of eggs serenely awaiting the frying pan, shrimps soaking in a bowl of rainwater, and pork-and-bean stew bubbling on the hotplate. There was also a spicy green papaya salad with sardines, chicken and rice soup, and bananas and coconut meat for dessert.

Clifford sauntered up the steps to Hut Twenty-nine. As he stood in the doorway, Hudson rushed over to take his hand.

“Thank you for coming. You’re my guest of honor.”

Clifford leaned into Hudson and kissed his cheek. “H-h-how could I possibly pass up such a gracious invitation?”

Hudson led Clifford to where Andrew was stirring the soup. Andrew took him into his arms for a tender hug. Their cheeks pressed together so intimately that the men around them blushed with befuddled embarrassment.

“What’s this celebration about?” Fisher asked in an overly loud voice, as if to break the sudden awkward silence.

“Good God, I’m surrounded by heathens,” Moyer said, with a merry chuckle that made everyone laugh. “It’s Christmas!”

“Wow, I had no idea,” Fisher said. “I didn’t even know it was December.”

Skeeter Banks stepped forward. “Give us a prayer, Mr. Moyer.”

Moyer beamed. “You betcha. Let’s all bow our heads.”

The men huddled around Moyer, silently staring at the floorboards. Moyer said a prayer of thanks in a solemn voice that reverberated through every heart. He told how the disciples who loved Jesus gathered around him at the Last Supper and showered him with tender love. The men gazed up to the rafters, spellbound, as if they could see their Savior floating there.

As Moyer’s voice swelled with feeling, Hudson held Clifford’s hand and occasionally said, “Amen.”

Andrew took the lid off the chicken soup as he listened to the timbre of Moyer’s voice. A cloud of fragrant steam drifted up, drowning the hut with richness. Little pools of fat globules floated on the simmering liquid. Andrew tossed in a handful of turmeric and
huan
and stirred the fat into the broth. He poured ten mess-cans of steamed rice into the broth, covered it, and took it off the heat.
Give it ten minutes
, he thought, placing a frying pan on the hotplate.

As Moyer spoke of Jesus, Andrew envisioned the Savior’s body spread against the rough wooden cross, those sculpted arms, smooth chest, blood trickling down his face like tears. Andrew felt sweat sliding down his own face and wiped it away.

Like Andrew, all the men were drenched in sweat. It ran down their faces and chests and arms, dripping onto the floorboards. No one noticed the sweat, the heat, or the flies droning overhead. They were only aware of Moyer’s reverberating voice and the magnificent fragrance of cooking meat. Occasionally they glanced at the stew pots to assure themselves this was no dream. A few carried a tinge of fear that they had died and this incredible smell was actually heaven. Either way, they knew that soon, very soon, they would eat meat.

Andrew lifted the lid off the pork stew, dipped a spoon into the bubbling liquid, and tasted. He added a pinch more turmeric, a dash of salt, and re-covered the pot.

Moyer’s quavering voice told how, during the Last Supper, Jesus showed divine love for all of his disciples, even the ones who would betray and deny him, and how he symbolically shared his body and his blood with each man equally. Moyer’s voice surged in volume as he ended the prayer. The room went quiet for half a minute. The men finished by singing two hymns: “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Just as I Am.” With each hymn Grady’s voice rose above the others. He added a jazzy intonation to the songs, like gospel singers in the southern churches.

As soon as the second hymn ended, Andrew broke eggs over the frying pan while Cocoa chopped shrimps. The men grabbed tin plates, billycans, and spoons, and lined up, inching their way down the chow line. Grady dished up papaya salad with sardines. Andrew scrambled eggs with chopped shrimp. Stokes ladled chicken and rice soup into each billycan. Hudson laid down a bed of rice on each plate and spread pork-and-bean stew over it.

It was more food than anyone had seen in one place since leaving the
Pilgrim
. Each man downed two or three quick mouthfuls to alleviate the pain in his gut and chewed slowly to relish each additional bite. This was not simply a meal; it became an emotional feast. They made love with their mouths to every spoonful.

The officers were served last, and Andrew divided what little was left with his unit. Before he served himself, he glanced around the room. Most of the others were still eating. Some had finished and were licking their plates. He saw all the sweating, smiling faces, and he felt a glow of brotherhood in his heart, that feeling between men who were up against something horrible, and had nothing but each other.

As he scanned the faces, his vision fell on Mitchell’s vivid green eyes staring at him. The glow in Andrew’s heart blossomed into something scorching, something painfully exquisite. He hurried to fill his plate and sit next to Mitchell.

The eggs were fluffy without being dry. The pork stew was thick and meaty; the beans had absorbed the savory tang of the pork and the juice oozed onto the bed of rice. The chicken soup was equally delicious, with chunks of meat and yellow globules of fat blanketing the surface.

Silence descended on the hut, as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting for a verdict.

Mitchell took a voluptuous bite of pork stew and moaned. “Superb!”

“I’ve died and gone to heaven,” Fisher said.

Contented laughter and satisfied belches peppered the hut as the men ate.

“Ensign Moyer,” Mitchell said, “that was a beautiful prayer. You certainly have developed a feeling for God’s word. It’s remarkable how you’ve ripened under this hardship.”

Andrew added. “You are certainly no longer that man who talked about the Phenomenon of Darkness.”

Moyer nodded. “I spent my life looking for God in the faces of people who didn’t really care, and I never saw a trace of what I was searching for. But I came here and saw God shining in every pair of eyes. When I’m with these boys, holding their hands and praying for them to live another day, it’s as if I’m not here at all. It’s like I’ve died and all I feel is warmth flowing into them, as if the hand of God were reaching through me.” Moyer chuckled and wagged his head. “It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I had to come here to find it. This is the true house of God, not those clean, antiseptic, white-shingled churches at home.”

Andrew said, “It was always inside you. You had to step aside, to die, as you called it, to experience God. My favorite line in the
Shoyo Roku
said,
‘
On the withered tree, a flower blooms.’”

Moyer nodded. “The Bible said, ‘Lest ye die, ye shall not be born again.’”

“Seems we’re not so different after all. I’m happy that you’ve found what you wanted.”

Moyer laughed, “Guess I’m the only one in this whole damned camp who’s glad to be here.”

Clifford stammered, “A-A-A-Andy is happy. He has everything he wants.” He nudged closer to Hudson. “I-I-I’m happy too.”

Andrew and Clifford traded smiles.

Cocoa hobbled to the cooking pots and placed the big frying pan on a hotplate. “Ho Ho Ho! I hope you bums saved room for dessert, fried bananas and coconut meat.”

The men lined up as Cocoa browned the bananas. Andrew split coconuts with the machete and Grady scooped out the flesh, pouring the sweet nectar over the meat.

This time joyful banter passed between the men as they waited their turn. After everyone was served, Andrew gathered helpings for himself and Mitchell and sat beside the officer again.

Mitchell took Andrew’s hand. “I had a dream about you last night. I dreamed that you were a bird caught in a net. I set you free and you flew away.”

The knowledge that Mitchell dreamed about him threw Andrew into a tizzy. He leaned into Mitchell and kissed his lips, cheek, and neck. They kissed lovingly, with everybody watching; in all the excitement, they’d forgotten their circumstances.

Andrew murmured that he had begun loving Mitchell that first day, when the officer had confiscated his Yeats.

For a moment, Mitchell could not speak. He whispered that he’d thought Andrew was going to quote a scene from
Romeo and Juliet
, and that he was always amazed at how Andrew could remember such long passages.

“I can only quote
Henry V
.”

“Why is that?”

“At my master’s monastery, while Clifford and I were in the garden reading, he had
Henry V
and I had the Confucian Canon. The other boys burned all our other books in the cooking fires. We were stuck there all summer with only those two books. I must have read them fifty times. We read them aloud to each other until we hardly needed the books at all.”

Hudson cleared his throat, motioning his head toward the rear of the hut. Andrew kissed Mitchell once more and jumped to his feet. He followed Hudson and Stokes to the back corner. Grady stood and sang “Jingle Bells.” Others around him joined in and soon the hut shook with everybody’s joyous voice.

As the men sang, Hudson, Stokes, and Andrew marched down the aisle, each wearing a gold-colored paper crown and each bearing a gift.

Stokes handed Cocoa five cigars tied together with a red ribbon. Cocoa bowed his head, shaking it from side to side, and said that he was embarrassed that he didn’t have something to give in return.

“Are you kidding?” Stokes said. “You’ve cooked us the finest meal we’ve ever eaten.”

Cocoa nodded.

Hudson handed a package wrapped in yellow paper to Clifford, who sat dumbfounded.

“For you, Kitten. Hope you like it.”

Clifford ripped open the paper and found the embroidered silk sarong.

“Oh, Hud!” Clifford leaped into Hudson’s arms and hugged him. Strangely enough, it was Hudson and not Clifford with tears running down his cheeks.

Andrew gave Mitchell a paper kite with a long cloth tail and a ball of string. The paper was bright yellow, golden, with red letters painted on the front. Mitchell read the words aloud: “I soar on the wind when a man creates tension by holding the string.”

Mitchell smiled with his eyes. Andrew knelt beside him and their lips brushed lovingly.

An embarrassed silence formed around them until Andrew said, “The Chinese invented kites.”

“I’ll drink to that!” Hudson shouted. “Where are those bottles of hooch?”

Hudson passed three bottles of rice wine to the crew, saving the stronger island hooch for his unit and the officers. He poured his cup three fingers full and passed the bottle to Fisher. As the bottle made its way around the group, Grady ran to Andrew’s bunk and brought back Andrew’s flute.

Cocoa passed a cigar to each officer, which Mitchell declined. Cocoa also gave one to Hudson and one to Stokes, keeping one for himself. Hudson took out his lighter, and they all lit up and blew huge plumes of smoke toward the rafters.