The enemy ship was mortally wounded, its deck approaching the waterline. The remaining sailors had clearly decided it was time to abandon ship – three men in white uniforms emerged from the cabin and leaped into the water. The Captain quickly sighted them, and began dispatching them with bursts from his gun as they cried out, though Marek understood nothing. Soon the cries were silent, and all that could be heard above the breeze was the soft gurgle of the boat as it continued to sink under the surface. The Captain stood impassively, holding his gun casually while its barrel snaked off trails of thin smoke into the sky. Beads of sweat were running down his face.
Keresi had disappeared from his turret and soon emerged from the cabin, clutching at his shoulder. “Son of a bitch! Sorry, Captain.” He slid a crimson streak down the cabin wall as he sat down heavily.
Beck looked distraught, still lying on the deck. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled.
The Captain helped her up and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “These things will happen, Beck. We’ll just need to do some more training. You did do a lot of damage to the other ship.”
Beck wiped at her eyes. “I know, it’s just… just a stupid mistake. And Keresi…”
“Ah, I’ve handled worse,” Keresi piped up with a groan. “Just took me by surprise, is all.”
The Captain nodded slowly. “The other ship’s gone, all of its crew are gone – and we’re still here.” He lifted Beck’s chin to look her in the eyes. “All’s well that ends well, as they say,” he said, giving a little expectant nod as he did so.
Beck nodded back slowly. “I suppose.”
The Captain stepped back, satisfied that the situation was suitably resolved for the time being. “Alright, let’s continue on. Keresi, up, up, up, and let’s get a bandage on that wound.”
While the other three were talking, Marek had noticed an alarming movement in the Iron Sparrow. Beck’s errant grenade must have done some nasty damage towards the back of the ship – the deck was slowly tilting as they were also starting to sink. “Captain,” he began, but was cut off.
“Good eye, Marek.” The Captain interjected quickly. “We’re beginning to sink.” He motioned toward the cabin. “Inside, everyone.”
They made their way inside the cabin, where the Captain threw a bundle of cloth bandaging to Beck before unrolling a large map over the central table. “We’re right near Utupua,” he began, thinking out loud, “With luck, we should be able to make it to shore. I don’t know what we will do there, but at least we can try and avoid a swim.” He ran a finger over an area of the map. “And with some more luck, we may land near enough to one of these villages.”
They set off immediately, with Beck quickly finishing bandaging Keresi’s shoulder. It took no more than a few minutes for them to reach the island, but by then the Iron Sparrow’s deck was already perilously close to the waterline, despite Marek and Beck’s frenzied efforts at the bilge pumps belowdecks. Reaching the shore in the nick of time, the Captain gave the Sparrow a final full throttle, and it beached itself on the soft white sands with a rough lurch. Without ceremony, the Captain leaped down, sinking into the beach. Almost as soon as he had landed, he began trudging up towards the palm trees that lined the top of the shore. They all followed suit, with Keresi giving Beck and then Marek a hand before Marek helped him down gingerly, taking care not to trouble his shoulder.
Once they had regrouped under the shelter of the trees, the Captain glanced at the steadily descending sun. “Marek, Beck – why don’t you source some firewood, and let’s get a fire going for tonight. Though God knows what we shall eat. Keresi, take a rest and let me look at your shoulder.”
Dutifully, Marek and Beck set off into the trees to find some wood. Marek was all too aware that he hadn’t really been alone with Beck – in fact, hadn’t even talked to her yet – and had no idea what to say to break the increasingly awkward silence between them. So lost in thought was he that it was Beck who ended up taking the initiative.
“You fought quite well today,” she said softly.
Marek looked across at her. “Thanks.” Her bob of straight black hair was flicking against her face in the wind.
“I was the same, at first.” Beck continued. “The first fight we were in, I didn’t even kill anyone, and I still froze the whole time.”
Marek’s mind filled with images of the Japanese sailor’s head exploding. “How long – when did you join the crew?” he asked, as much to distract himself as to keep the conversation going.
“Only a couple of months ago. But Keresi and the Captain have been together for longer.”
Marek nodded. “Why did you join?”
Beck looked down. “I’m not ready to tell you that yet. But, I wanted to do my part to fight Japan. And the army and navy wouldn’t let me join. So, this is the best I can do.”
Marek felt embarrassed. He hadn’t meant to pry, although Beck had deflected his question kindly enough. He didn’t know what to say.
“The Captain seems… understanding,” he said eventually. They both knew he was talking about Beck’s incident earlier.
The beginnings of a demure smile flashed across Beck’s face. “He is. And don’t worry that he’s aloof to you, he’ll get more friendly. He’s just not very open at first.”
Marek nodded. “I can understand that.”
“Ah!” Beck said suddenly. She was pointing down at a scattering of small branches. “These might do.”
They returned with their haul to the pleased Captain, who placed the assortment of branches just so, then set upon the resulting arrangement with Keresi’s lighter, and within a few minutes had succeeded in getting a healthy fire going. The four of them immediately drew inwards towards it, eager for its warmth against the cooling evening.
“I’m sorry about your ship.” Beck said to the Captain awkwardly, once they had all settled down on the sand.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The Captain waved his hand dismissively. “Ah, don’t worry.” A sly expression stole over his face. “I’ve been wanting a new ship anyway.”
The fire crackled in their midst, sending embers dancing skyward.
“First time?” Keresi said to Marek.
Marek glanced up from the fire. “What?”
“Killing.”
“Ah.” Marek looked back down. “Yes.”
Keresi nodded slowly. “It’s not easy, the first time. But, it was us or them. Life or death. You did what you had to, and we’re all thankful.” Keresi offered a reassuring, poignant smile. “This world we find ourselves in doesn’t have time for sentimentality, Marek. One day, everything will go back to normal, or close to it. But before it does, a lot more people have to die.” He put a hand on Marek’s shoulder. “Let’s not count ourselves among them.”
Marek nodded. Of course, what Keresi said made sense, but it did little to settle his racing mind, and the tight pit in his stomach. He wondered who the Japanese sailors had been, and what journeys had led them to their violent end. He sighed, and thought of Peter and Amy… even Clint. His former life seemed so long ago, though he knew it could only have been a couple of days. He wondered what his parents were thinking. No doubt they were worried.
He paused that line of thinking and narrowed his brow. Up to now, he had assumed that he (and his friends, most likely) had simply disappeared, and his ‘old’ world had continued as normal, somewhere. But had he disappeared to this place? Or had the whole world changed around him instead? Or had he simply gone back in time somehow, or even to another reality or dimension entirely?
Superficially, the world around him seemed a close match to the 1942 he’d read about in history books and seen in documentaries, but there were also some differences. For one, the names seemed strange. ‘Keresi’ didn’t scream ‘typical American name’. Neither did ‘Captain Horrendous’, though Marek was almost positive that had to be an alias of some kind. Or maybe his first name was Hank. Marek smiled to himself. Hell, Keresi could be an alias or something too. Nevertheless, the general atmosphere seemed off somehow, though Marek had admittedly never been alive in ‘his’ 1942 to make an accurate comparison.
He decided to ask Keresi (who he thought would prove to be the most talkative in this regard) some baseline questions in order to try and work out if he was in his 1942, or another one. Though whatever the ‘what’ or ‘where’ ended up being, it would probably do little to explain the ‘how’ or ‘why’… if indeed there even was a ‘why’.
Marek launched into his questioning. “Keresi?”
Keresi looked up, roused from a daydream, and grunted. “Mm?”
“Who’s the President?”
“Roosevelt.” Check.
“And the Japanese Emperor?”
Keresi shrugged.
“Hirohito.” The Captain shot in from across the fire. Check.
Marek thought for a moment.
“When was Pearl Harbour?”
Keresi’s face darkened. “December 7th.” Check.
The main touchpoints seemed congruous, so Marek went for something slightly more obscure. “And Japan invaded China in 1937? After the Marco Polo bridge?”
“Yes,” said the Captain, “but after Pearl they pulled all their forces back to Manchuria. In fact, rumours are they might be going even further back, to Korea maybe. They’re really shifting to focus on the US, after we got involved.” He smiled. “Smart.”
Shit, Marek thought. The first difference. In ‘his’ 1942, and onwards, Japan had stayed bogged down in China with a huge force right up to 1945. That was a fairly large discrepancy in this world, then. But what did it mean? And what other differences were there that he wouldn’t think to ask about? No doubt, they would reveal themselves in time, but the fact that they existed made him anxious. There were differences. And that meant his knowledge of the future’s history, as it were, or its particular events anyway, would become increasingly useless as things inevitably diverged.
The Captain gave Marek a curious look. “Little odd for you to be doing the questioning.”
Marek nodded slightly. “Just trying to get my bearings.”
The Captain said nothing, but continued to study him.
They must have been near a village, as Marek noticed a crowd gradually appearing at the peripheries of their makeshift camp – mainly women who were accompanied by a number of children, and a few men. They were probably trying to see what the four strange people were doing on their island. After a time, the Captain waved at them warmly, gesturing for them to come over and join in. A few of the children laughed and cheered, before running over towards the fire and beginning to dance eagerly around it. Some stopped near Beck, talking at her in their language. The words were a mystery, but their intention seemed clear – they wanted her to dance with them. She shook her head shyly, but the children persisted, putting out their hands and continuing to talk at Beck in their unfamiliar language. Eventually, Beck reluctantly obliged, and allowed the children to lift her to her feet. Slowly she began to dance with them, half-heartedly at first, but gradually she began to smile more, and laugh with the children as they whirled around. There didn’t appear to be any particular moves that Marek could see, but it didn’t seem to matter. Keresi and the Captain watched on, smiling through the flickering campfire. Soon, Marek was smiling too. The women brought over some meat and set about cooking it over the fire, while the men sat and gladly accepted sips of whisky from the Captain and Keresi.
The rest of the night passed by in a haze of radiant heat and food and thick, rich smoke as Marek and his companions danced, drank, and laughed with the villagers. They had no real way of communicating with each other, apart from in the vaguest sense, but they were connected by some common human thread that made language largely unnecessary anyway. Marek felt at ease, as though he could have been right back at home before everything happened.
It was well after midnight when he passed into a deep, dreamless sleep that took him through the rest of the night and into a clear morning.
When he awoke, he saw that the Captain, Keresi, and Beck were already up, and gazing at an approaching ship. It looked similar in type to the Iron Sparrow, though slightly larger. By the lack of commotion, Marek assumed the boat was friendly, or likely to be. As it slowly powered closer to shore, about a dozen men appeared on the deck, a ragtag group all dressed in US Navy blues. One man in sunglasses stood prominently in front of the rest, evidently the captain.
“Looks like you boys could use a hand,” the newcomer captain said cheerfully, once the boat had driven as shallow as it dared, before he noticed Beck and smiled. “Apologies, ma’am.” Beck said nothing.
“You look a bit worse for wear,” the man in sunglasses continued. “May I ask what happened?”
“A Japanese scout ambushed us,” the Captain said curtly.
The other man nodded slowly, contemplating. “We ran into a couple of Jap scouts a while back too, gave them a good hiding. I don’t know what they were doing so far from Guadalcanal, and without any support. Anyhow, we managed to sink one, but the other got away.” He glanced over his sunglasses at the hulk of the Iron Sparrow in the distance, beached and lifeless. “Though, it looks like you may have run into them.”
The Captain nodded. “It seems we continued your hiding. They won’t be troubling anyone else.”
“Good, good,” the other man replied, nodding in approval.
“Although, they did manage to critically damage us as well,” the Captain continued, shooting a glance at Beck, who quickly dropped her head. “Our ship is derelict, and we also have an injury. We would certainly appreciate any supplies you could spare.”
The other man stroked his chin, thinking. “Well, we’re all in this together, I say. Where were you headed?”
“Nouméa.”
“Oh, well! As it happens, so are we. Why don’t we just take you there as well? It’s only a few days away.”
The Captain looked embarrassed. “Well, if it’s not too much trouble…”
The other man waved his arm flippantly. “No, no, no trouble at all. We could use some new faces.” He extended a hand. “Come on aboard.”
The Captain began to move forward, then paused. “Might I ask your name, friend?”
The man in sunglasses smiled warmly. “The name’s Jack, Jack Kennedy,” he replied, giving a hand to each of the Sparrow’s crew as he helped hoist them aboard. “Welcome to our patrol boat, PT-109.”
As the patrol boat set off for the open sea and their next destination, Marek made his way to the side of the boat to look out at the ocean, and saw the water strewn with pieces of wreckage from the previous day’s battle. The Iron Sparrow lay as a silent monument on the shore behind them, already a relic of some other life. And every so often, the ruined body of a Japanese sailor would drift slowly past him, being carried gently on the waves.