Tales of the South Pacific - James A. Michener [155]
When his intention was apparent, Commander Hoag became almost insane with fury. "Stop that plane!" he shouted to the operations officer, but the officer ignored him. Hoag had no right to give such an order. Trembling, he watched the SBD approach, swerve badly when the unfilled portion loomed ahead, and slide past on a thin strip that had been filled.
The enlisted men cheered wildly at the superb landing. They stormed around the plane. Brandishing his revolver, Commander Hoag shouted that everyone was to go back to work immediately. He was like a wild man.
From the cockpit of the SBD climbed Bus Adams. He grinned at me and reached for the commander's hand. "You had no right to land here!" Hoag stormed. "I expressly forbade it. Look at the mess you've made!"
Adams looked at me and tapped his forehead. "No, no!" I wigwagged.
"Get that plane off the strip at once. Shove it off if you have to!" Hoag shouted. He refused to speak further to Bus. When the plane had been pulled into a revetment by men who wondered how Bus had ever brought her in, Commander Hoag stormed from the field.
That night he came to see Bus and me. He was worn and haggard. He looked like an old man. He would not sit with us, nor would he permit us to interrupt his apology: "For six weeks I've done nothing but plan and fight to have this strip ready for bombers on the sixteenth day. We've had to fight rains, accidents, changes, and every damned thing else. Then this afternoon you land. I guess my nerves must have snapped. You see, sir," he said, addressing Bus, "we've lost a lot of men on this strip. Every foot has been paid for. It's not to be misused lightly."
He left us. I don't know whether he got any sleep that night for next morning, still haggard, he was up and waiting at 0700. It was the sixteenth day, and bombers were due from Guadalcanal and Munda. The gully was filled. On the seashore trucks were idle, and upon the hill the great shovel rested. On the legs of the island desperate Japs connived at ways to outwit Marines. And all over the Pacific tremendous preparations for taking Kuralei were in motion. It was a solemn day.
Then, from the east, specks appeared. They were! They were the bombers! In the radio tower orders were issued. The specks increased in size geometrically, fabulously. In grandeur they buzzed the field, finest in the Pacific. Then they formed a traffic circle and the first bomber to land on Konora roared in. The strip was springy, fine, borne up by living coral, and the determination of free men. At this precise moment three Japanese soldiers who had been lurking near the field in starving silence dashed from their cover and tried to charge the bomber.
Two were shot by Marines, but the third man plunged madly on. Screaming, wild, disheveled, his eyes popping from his horrible head, this primitive indecent thing surged on like his inscrutable ancestors. Clutching a grenade to his belly and shouting Banzai, he threw himself forward and knocked Commander Hoag to the ground.
The grenade exploded! It took the mad Jap to a heaven reserved for the hara-kiri boys. It took Commander Hoag, a free man, a man of thought and dignity, a man for whom other men would die... This horrible, indecent, meaningless act of madness took Hoag to his death. But above, the bombers wheeled and came in for their landings, whence they would proceed to Kuralei, to Manila, and to Tokyo.
THOSE WHO FRATERNIZE
"THE loneliness! The longing!" An aviator was throwing words into the cool night at Konora. We knew the landing on Kuralei was not far off. We were thinking of hungry things.
One of the words hit Bus Adams. "Damn!" he cried. "I tell you! Sometimes out here I've had a longing that almost broke my guts in two." Stars blazed over the silent lagoon. "To bomb a Jap ship! To see a football game in the snow. To kiss the Frenchman's daughter."
The last bottle of beer had been drained. It was time to go to bed, but we stayed on beneath the coconut trees. Bus watched Orion upside down in the topsy-turvy sky. "Have