Hawaii - James Michener [565]
Actually, one shipload of sailors passed right over it without knowing, for at seven-eighteen that morning a slight swell lifted a Japanese tanker some three inches higher than it had been a moment before, but no one noticed the event and it was not recorded in the log. But if the captain had been alert, and if he had known where the wave had originated only an hour before, he could have written: "Tsunami caused by an Alaskan submarine earthquake passed under our ship. Speed southward, 512 miles an hour." And if he had thought to flash a radio warning throughout the Pacific many lives would have been saved, but he neither saw nor thought, so the epic tsunami sped on unheralded at a speed approaching that of sound. If it encountered no stationary objects like islands, it would ultimately dissipate itself in the far Antarctic, but if it did come upon an island, its kinetic energy might pile waters more than seventy feet deep upon the land and then suck them back out to sea with demonic force. The coming in of the waters would destroy little, but their awful retreat would carry away all things.
While the tsunami was passing unnoticed under the Japanese tanker, Elinor Henderson was just rising to enjoy the last effects of dawn over the Pacific, and at nine she went down to the beach to watch the beachboys playing sakura. She was amused to hear them swearing in pidgin when the run of the black cards went against them, but this morning had a special attraction in that Florsheim appeared among the boys dressed in store clothes: polished tan shoes, a suit that was not quite big enough for his huge frame, a shirt that bound a little at the collar, a knitted tie that hung awry and a tropical straw hat. Beside him stood the rich girl from Kansas City, hardly able to keep her hands off him and crying to one group after another, "God, ain't he a hunk of man? We're gettin' married in St. Louis."
Florsheim grinned and handed his Chewy keys to Elinor: "You, seestah, tell blalah Kelly take care my jalopy." She said she would, and when she saw Kelly she asked, "How long do you think Florsheim'll stay married this time?"
"Seem like blalah Florsheim gonna look funny Kansas City da kine. So bimeby dis wahine gonna find he doan' talk so good and she gonna gi'e him lotta wahine pilikia. So come late October you gonna see blalah Florsheim back on de beach wid a Buick convertible."
"This time it'll be a Cadillac! Want to bet?" She laughed and then an idea came to her: "Kelly! As long as we have the car, why don't we go on a picnic?" She insisted upon buying all the food, and at ten o'clock, when the tsunami was less than six hundred miles from Oahu, she pointed to a snug little valley on the north shore of the island and cried, "They saved this sandy beach for us!” And Kelly spread their blankets under a palm tree.
They went swimming, and when they were drying in the sun, Elinor said, "I'm going to leave Hawaii, Kelly. Don't speak. I'm falling in love with you, and I'm not the kind of woman who goes around robbing cradles."
"I'm old enough to teach you a lot," Kelly protested.
"I would never marry you, Kelly . . . eight years younger than I am. And I will not contribute to your delinquency."
"We could have a wonderful time," he insisted, pulling her toward him.
"I think it's immoral when a girl gets involved with a man she has no possibility of marrying. It's disgraceful, the way girls use you, Kelly."
He fell silent, then started pitching pebbles at a nearby rock. Finally he said, "If you ever go to another island, Mrs. Henderson, don't ask so many deep questions. Take it as it is."
"I'll stay away from islands," she promised. "I wanted to see why my ancestors couldn't stomach this one."
"Did you find out?" he asked.
"Yes, and I can't stand it either."
"Why not?" he asked