The Eleventh Man - Ivan Doig [78]
Feeling like a tightrope walker about to launch into space between tall buildings, he nerved himself up and was testing the first footholds in the rock mass when a voice and a growl broke out in startling duet close behind him. The growl was universal, but whatever the voice was saying, it was in Japanese.
A nest of saboteurs: that was the first terrible thought flashing into his mind. Followed by the immediate one that this was prelude to an invasion, the follow-up on Pearl Harbor by the Empire of the Rising Sun. Whatever trick of war he had stumbled into on this alien coast, the enemy language numbed him like a bite by something poisonous. Spread-eagled upright, he could do nothing but cling motionless there while, ever so slowly, a man-size form and a lower one crept into the edge of his vision.
"Sonofagun, Lefty," Sig Prokosch spoke in English this time. "You aren't a Jap at all. Come on down."
Unsticking himself from the rock face, Ben dropped none too gracefully to the beach sand. He turned all the way around to a strapping gray-helmeted figure much more bulkily outfitted than when they had been in football uniform together. A radio pack rode high on Prokosch's back and above that waved the antenna like a giant insect feeler; his field jacket bulged with other military items, including a .45-calibre pistol holstered on one flank of a web belt around his sturdy waist. Hooked into the other side of the web belt was a leash, with a copper-red Irish setter at its end.
The dog ceased its steady growl when Sig dropped a hand to it. Recovering his voice, Ben could only blurt: "You're a tough pair to find."
"Supposed to be," came the modest reply. By now Sig had slung his tommy gun around into proximity with the radio pack and had a hand free to shake with Ben. "Been me, I'd've waited at the hut."
Ben did not go into reportorial reasoning, which was that his previous piece on this old teammate happened to occur during the Coast Guard's version of basic training and amounted to a look at a taciturn block of young male trudging a treadmill of routine; in short, snooze news. This time around, he had come determined to portray Sigmund Prokosch, seaman second class, true-blue Coastie, on an unknown foreshore of the war. First question: "How'd you get so fancy in Japanese?"
"All it means, 'Don't move or I'll shoot.'" Sig shrugged. "They give us these phrase books."
"Well, it sure as hell did the job on me." With the indiscretion of acquaintances who had not laid eyes on one another since their world changed, the two of them traded extended looks. Not that the practiced sentry could be matched at that. One of Sig's traits was a prairie gaze; he seemed to blink only half as much as other people. Those pale blue eyes under wheat-colored hair, in a meaty mess of a face; a fairly alarming combination staring out from a football helmet or a metal military one. Prokosch had played guard next to Animal Angelides at tackle on the right-hand side of the line. Ben would not have wanted to be on the other team opposite those two, one a marauder, the other a boulder. Mindful that he knew the habits more than the person, he unshouldered his pack and searched into it. "Before I forget, I brought you some Hershey's."
The box of candy bars produced a bashful acknowledging smile on the recipient. During football road trips he'd had the reputation of practically living on chocolate sundaes.
"Thanks a bunch, Lefty," Ben received in return. He was going to have to get used to this for the next few days. The nickname applied to him by