Whispers of a New Dawn (39 page)

Shirley squeezed her hand. “Ram thought a lot of you. You were like a daughter.” She dabbed absently at a patch of grease under Becky’s right eye. “How many…how many others were killed?”

“Two or three on the ground. I’m not sure. I…uh…”

“Students and instructors?”

Becky bit her lip. “Quite a few.”

Ruth turned and left the room.

Shirley’s eyes followed her. “Wasn’t your aunt close to one of the instructors?”

“Yes.”

“Did he make it?”

Becky shook her head. “She knows. I told her after they pulled me out of the plane.”

“How’s she doing?”

“I think it’s just starting to sink in.”

Shirley nodded and blew her nose. “Like it is with me…Go to her. Your family’s here with me but she’s all alone.”

Becky found her aunt outside on the patio, which was ringed by tall palm trees. She had one hand against a trunk and was leaning toward it. Becky wrapped her arms around her from behind.

“This house must be close to the harbor.” Ruth gripped one of Becky’s hands. “I can smell the smoke.”

“He was never in pain.”

“You told me that in the jeep.”

“He couldn’t have been, Ruth. It all happened too fast. In an instant.”

Ruth put her head against the palm tree. “I’ve had so little time to think since you told me. Part of me says I should never have left Pennsylvania. That I should never have followed the four of you to Hawaii.”

“Then you never would have met him.”

“Wouldn’t that have been best?”

“Do you really think so? Knowing none of his words? None of his affection for you? No flying? No dancing? No
love
?”

“Will you say that if they tell you Christian has been shot down?”

Ice seized Becky’s spine. “Is that what you’ve heard?”

Ruth turned around, her eyes dark and swollen. “Of course not. I would never keep something like that from you.”

“I know he’ll be up and flying. Flying as much as he can. Nate told me he saw two American fighters over the Peterson airfield when they arrived in the jeeps. One of them shot down the Japanese Zero that attacked me.”

“The phone lines are jammed,” Ruth said. “We have heard nothing
from Billy Skipp. Jude has been trying all morning. He tried to get over there before we went looking for you, but the way in was blocked.” She dropped her eyes. “There was a lot of smoke. The smell of rubber burning.”

“I flew over the field. The Japanese destroyed most of the planes on the ground.”

Ruth rubbed a spot of oil off Becky’s cheek with her thumb. “If I hiked up there would I find him? By the Ko’olaus?”

“No, you won’t find him.”

“Or his plane? The one we flew in?”

“No.”

“Why not? Your plane made it down.”

“But I landed. Even if it was a bad landing. Manuku never had that chance. He was shot down. He was killed in his cockpit.”

Ruth wiped away another smudge. “Just shot down?”

“Yes.”

“Then there will be wreckage. I will find it.”

Becky held Ruth’s arms. “You can’t go up there. There could be Japanese soldiers on Oahu by nightfall. They’d do to you what they did to the women in China.”

“Right now, I wouldn’t mind being bayoneted. God forgive me for saying so. It would end my suffering quickly.”

“Aunt Ruth—”

She held up her hand. “I won’t do anything rash. But you must tell me the truth and not spare me any longer. What really happened up there? What happened to Manuku?”

Becky stalled. “It happened so fast, I told you. I was in one place, he was in another, both of us were trying to shake a Zero loose, I couldn’t keep my eyes on him the whole time.”

“You saw exactly what occurred. Be honest with me, Rebecca.”

Becky closed her eyes. “The plane exploded.”

“What?”

“It blew up and it was gone. Manuku and his student were gone…He couldn’t have felt a thing…He was there and then he wasn’t there.” She opened her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

Ruth face had lost its color. “I…I think I want to be alone for now.”

They hugged each other. Becky walked to the far side of the house. She hadn’t gone far before she heard Ruth’s sobs. She swiped at her cheeks with the back of her hand. A bench was tucked in among banana plants and she sat down on it, having no desire to take another step.

Could we have outrun them? No. Could we have outmaneuvered them? Outwitted them? Not a Piper Cub against a Zero
.

Her mind spun and churned as she relived the morning and Kalino’s and Manuku’s deaths. Images of green mountains and blue sky clashed with breaking glass and streams of smoke and the hard flash of tracer bullets. She could smell the burning of her plane and taste the blood when she had bitten her tongue, and she could feel the shock when the Piper crash landed on the runway. She let her head sink into her hands.

Oh, Lord, I don’t have words. Help Ruth. Bring people who can help her better than I can. Help Kalino’s mother and father. And what about Lockjaw? What can I say to him? He acts like he is so strong but this will crush him inside like a fist crumpling paper
.

An arm went around her shoulder.

She looked up. “Nate.”

“I came looking for you. How are you doing?”

“Not so good…Everything keeps coming back to me.”

“I know. Yes, I know. It always comes back and cuts you up. I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been worried about you, Nate. I…uh…I thought you would be in a panic—the Japanese bombings—just like China.”

“A lot of things are boiling up in me. But I’m not falling apart.”

“They could land troops any time, Nate.”

“I’m aware of that. I run it through my mind and the only thing I feel is that I want to do something. Just do something. So if they come, let them come. If we lose on the beaches we’ll make them fight us in the jungle and on the mountains.”

She couldn’t keep the small smile from coming to her lips. “You sound like Winston Churchill when you talk like that. How did you change so much? How did you get rid of all that fear?”

“It’s not all gone. There’s a good chunk of it still inside me. It’s like a cold, black rock. I know what war does, I know how ugly it is. But somehow I’ve reached a point where I can say to the fear,
You don’t rule—you don’t decide who I am or what I do with my life
.” He hugged her. “I’m going to enlist. Just so you know. I’ll be one of those people Bishop Zook spoke about in his letter. The ones God calls to fight and defend while he calls the Amish to pray and do no harm.”

“Enlist? Can you do that? What—”

“I don’t know how the day is going to end. But what’s happened today isn’t something like the sinking of the
Lusitania
. Washington tried to ignore that. This is like a hundred
Lusitanias
. Roosevelt will ask Congress to declare war on Japan. He’ll have to.”

“And you feel all right with this?”

“Being an army or navy pilot? Yes, I do.”

“What about Mom and Dad?”

He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I told them when we drove over to Peterson’s to find you. They just nodded. I think they realized what I was going to say the moment we watched the smoke rolling up out of the harbor and the planes attacking. I’ll talk to Billy Skipp.”

“I can’t believe you feel up to this.”

Nate’s face became grim, his mouth tightening. “I was in the shadows long enough. For years I had so little to fight the bullies with. Now God has brought me back into the light. And I can fly, Becky. I can fly.”

Her eyes glimmering, she hugged him back.

He patted her on the shoulder. “And speaking of Billy Skipp, Dad got through to the folks at Wheeler. We’re heading out there. We’ll be cleared through any roadblocks.”

“Did Dad talk to him?”

“No. Skipp was up. It was someone else.”

Becky rubbed her hand over her eyes. “Did he…did he ask about Christian?”

“It was just a quick call.”

“Did he or didn’t he? It wouldn’t be like Dad not to ask.”

Nate let out his breath in a gust. “Okay—yeah, he did. The guy didn’t know where he was or wasn’t.”

“Is that all?”

Nate hesitated. “No, that’s not all. They’ve taken casualties. On the ground and in the air.”

“What kind of casualties?”

“Ground crew and pilots were strafed. Just like Flapjack. And they have a plane down.”

“What kind?”

“Look, we don’t know who was in it—”

“What kind?”

“Thunderbird’s kind. A P-36.”

“Oh.” Becky felt a sharp pain stab her deep in the stomach.

“Becky, any pilot could have been in it—how could this guy know what’s what? He’s been firefighting and ducking bombs and—”

Becky got to her feet. “We can go there now?”

“Yeah. Mom’s going to stay with Shirley and Aunt Ruth.”

“I’m not sure what to say to Lockjaw. About Kalino.”

“He’s an army pilot. Give it to him straight. He’ll thank you for that. Don’t beat around the bush.”

“All right.”

Nate stood. “Hey. The fighting’s over. There hasn’t been an attack on Wheeler for—” he checked his watch “—well over an hour and a half. If Raven’s alive he’s going to stay that way.”

Becky folded her arms over her chest, over the flight jacket whose oil spatters matched her face and hands. Her voice was quiet. “And if he’s not, he’s going to stay that way too, Nate. Just like Moses.”

T
HIRTY
-T
HREE

B
illy Skipp stood with hands on hips and counted the aircraft as they approached from the north. All four of them were there. The P-36 was trailing smoke but Thunderbird was keeping it rock-steady as he came in for a landing. The others followed. He watched them as they climbed out and walked in a group toward him. Whistler and Batman were wearing flight jackets over their pajamas. Smoke from the burning planes and hangars drifted over them.

“Sir.” The men saluted as they stopped in front of him.

“Gentlemen.” Skipp returned the salute. “You have the honor of giving America its first victories in this war. Antiaircraft on the ships brought down some enemy aircraft and a soldier at Schofield brought down a plane with his Browning automatic, if you can believe that. But you have given us our first victories in the air. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Skipp looked at Thunderbird’s unshaven face. “I was up when you were tangling with that Zero over our airfield.”

“Yes, sir. I saw you, sir.”

Skipp grinned. “I never saw such combat flying in my life. The Zero is faster and far better at dogfighting than the P-36. But you turned that pilot inside out before you brought him down. Someone taught you stunt flying pretty darn well, Lieutenant.”

Raven’s eyes went flat. “Yes, sir.” He put on his aviator glasses. “We were hoping to see Wiz and the others up there with us. Where’d they go?”

Skipp’s smile left his face. “Wizard got up in a P-36. It was all he
could get his hands on. He flew it well but three Zeros jumped him. He crashed in the jungle north of here. We’ve found the wreckage and brought back the body.”

Skipp could see the arms and shoulders of all four pilots tighten.

“Where…” Lockjaw stopped and started again. “And Juggler and Shooter?”

“They ran for some undamaged P-40s not long after you left. Juggler had been brushing his teeth and left his toothbrush on the runway. The enemy came in again. Juggler and Shooter were strafed as they tried to climb into their craft. They’re both dead.”

The pilots stared at Skipp as if they thought he was making things up.

Lockjaw spoke again, very quietly. “Where are they?”

“In the hangar behind me. On the table under a tarp.”

The four men walked slowly into the dark of the hangar. The table was off in a corner. They stood beside it but did nothing until Raven finally reached out a hand and drew the canvas away from their faces.

“Wizard,” Batman said.

The faces and heads seemed all wrong. Color was gone. Shooter’s eyes were partly open. Raven reached out again and closed them gently with his fingers.

Lord. I don’t know what to say to you. I don’t know what to pray
.

After a few minutes Raven was the only one still standing at the table in the hangar. The others had walked back outside. He covered his friends’ faces again. No thoughts came to him except that he had lost Becky and now these three men. The lines from the hymn Jude Whetstone loved worked through his mind.

Save all who dare the eagle’s flight
,

And keep them by thy watchful care

From every peril in the air
.

He wandered away from the table and came to an area full of engine parts. He put his hands in his pockets and stared at them. Someone stepped into the entrance to the hangar. But right now he didn’t care.