Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [112]
"You'll enjoy it more than I will," he told Benny.
"You'd be surprised how much beer I drink!" the druggist said. "I got a special deal where I get it by the case. Not bad, eh?" He laughed to himself as Cable disappeared into the night.
The next morning at 0400 Benny and Cable climbed into the Atabrine Special and set out across the sea. They were well out of the lee of their own island when sunrise started.
There were dark clouds across the entire sky, lying in thick layers upon one another. At five o'clock streaks of an infinitely delicate pastel yellow began to shoot among these clouds. Then, dramatically, a fiery streak of golden yellow pranced clear across the sky and stayed aloft for several minutes. Other pastel shades of blue and gray and lovely purple flickered in the sky, while great shafts of orange and gold radiated from the intense point at which the sun would later rise. These mighty shafts circled the sky, like golden arrows, and wherever they touched, clouds were swept with light. Cable thought it was like a hundred aurora borealis's smashed into one.
But even as the orange and gold shafts bored vertically through the sky, the limb of the sun appeared at an opening in the clouds where sky and water met. Suddenly the pastel colors disappeared. The golden barbs were turned aside. Now the flaming red of the sun itself took control, and this sovereign color filled sky and ocean. It was not merely red. It was a vivid, swirling, violent color of blood; and it touched every cloud that hung above the water. It filled the boat, and men's hands looked red for the moment. Hills on distant islands were red, and waves that sped away from the prow of the boat were red, too.
As the sun crept higher into the heavens, the unearthly glow started to subside. Again single shafts of light appeared, piercing the remotest clouds like arrows seeking even the wounded. Then the pastel shades of yellow and gold and red and purple took over, and finally, across the entire seascape, the rare and peaceful blue of steel-gray clouds appeared. It was now day. The majestic sun was risen.
Cable gasped as the violence of the scene subsided. Atabrine Benny whistled to one of the boat crew. "You'd think the world would be worn out after a show like that!"
Onward reaching through calm and lovely blue, the small craft sped toward Bali-ha'i. As it rounded the headland and entered the splendid channel Cable had the sensation of one who comes home after a long voyage. Eagerly his eyes sought out the old familiar landmarks. From the hills of Vanicoro to the red and white hut of the Tonks this was rare and sacred land. Nourishing these thoughts, the young man sat lumped in the boat as it crept along the channel to the ringing of bells that Poe would have loved.
At the pier every face seemed like the face of one he loved, and each face smiled at him as if he were an old friend returned from hazards abroad. He was dismayed, therefore, when Sister Marie Clement stopped him at the shoreline.
"I thought you would come!" she said quietly. "We had word of your leaving yesterday."
"How fast bad news travel," he thought. "I suppose even the Japs on Kuralei know it by now." To Sister Clement he said, "Yes. With your permission I came to say goodbye."
"It will be a strange goodbye," Sister Clement replied. "Liat left the island last evening." The good sister was not pleased to convey this news. She took no pleasure in the obvious shock Cable experienced.
"Gone?" he said, not attempting to dissemble his true feelings. "Where could she have gone?" Little boys and girls, black and not knowing what he was suffering, clustered about his knees.
"Go away!" the sister said in Pidgin. Then she turned to Cable. "Liat went home last night. She is going to marry Monsieur Benoit."
"But Sister!" Cable could not speak further. He mumbled something.
"Shall we sit over here?" she suggested.