The church bells were ringing when Marlon woke, caught up in his sheets and head thumping. He wished they would shut the hell up. Slim was groaning and Marlon joined him as he sat slowly and began to get dressed, wishing he could sleep in like Joe, who was passed out like a starfish, coconuts on the ground next to his bunk.
‘Ready to fly, monkey?’
Slim groaned again but sat up too, pulling his undershirt off and finding a fresh one. ‘Don’t know how I’m gonna fly. Can’t even see,’ he mumbled.
It was even harder to do so when they walked outside into the dazzling morning sunshine. They both reeled from the glare.
‘Sweet mother of God,’ Slim said, clutching the side of the building and finding his sunglasses in his pocket. Marlon cursed the fact he’d lost his a few days ago; it was physically painful waiting for his eyes to grow accustomed to the brilliance of the day.
They walked to the hangars, each lighting a cigarette. Despite his hangover, a familiar excitement began to build in Marlon, the same feeling that had arrived the first day he’d ever felt wheels leave tarmac. That cruel sun was relaxing and settling into morning, dazzling in a sky that was clear Hawaiian blue, and it was calling to them to find wings and rise too. Suddenly Marlon couldn’t wait to get up there and he began to sing.
‘One more line about that goddam wizard and I may have to kill you, buddy. Man, I definitely need a coffee. Want one?’ Slim asked, looking over at the mess.
A few officers and their wives were on their way to church and Marlon and Slim paused to salute them.
‘God, we must look a sight,’ Marlon muttered as they passed, feeling shabby in his crushed gear against the crisp shirts and dresses on parade. He kept an especially wary eye out for a tall blonde on a major’s arm.
‘Coffee?’ Slim repeated.
Marlon went to reply in the affirmative but was stopped by something he heard.
‘Hello? Marlon?’ Slim asked, waiting.
‘Yeah, I just…hold on,’ he said, searching the skies as the distant humming increased. He wondered if some new Flying Fortresses were arriving today – rumour had it they were due.
Then he heard it, a sudden rumble.
‘Look,’ said Slim, pointing to a trail of black smoke rising into the air from the harbour. ‘Boy, somebody sure fouled up.’
They stood and watched and a few of the churchgoers did the same.
‘Could be a gas explosion,’ Marlon said. But the humming was getting louder.
‘There they are,’ said Slim, pointing at black dots in the sky. ‘Maybe it’s the Japs,’ he joked. ‘Say, they’re really going places.’
The black dots were fast emerging in plane form. Marlon was about to reply when he noticed something that ran his blood cold: they were diving. Fast.
‘Say, slow down, buddy,’ Slim said, confused as one approached, low. ‘Holy shit! Is that…?’
‘Meatballs!’ someone yelled nearby, pointing.
Marlon stared in shock at the red dot on the wing, realising it was, unbelievably, a Japanese dive bomber. They ran and pressed themselves against the hangar wall as the enemy plane powered over the ground, seeing clearly that it was a two seater with a gun in the rear cockpit. Both pilot and gunner were goggled and helmeted, and Marlon had a second of mad wonder that they were real people, this mystery half-enemy. Then any delusion of non-reality was blasted into a million pieces as gunfire began to hail down on them and glass shattered from the windows.
Large numbers of planes were now heading to the harbour and they watched the stubby, pencil-like bombs sail down, that glorious sun reflecting off them in innocent Hawaiian welcome. Explosions shook the earth and Marlon watched the rising plumes of black clouds in disbelief. Japan had awoken the sleeping American navy by introducing them to hell.
But before they could really comprehend what horrors were unfolding on the water, the pencils were coming towards them and Slim yelled ‘Cover!’ grabbing Marlon’s shirt as they hauled themselves towards the sandbags.
This time the earth didn’t just shake, it bucked like a giant mule, kicking the wind out of them as they landed. The deafening roar of bomb blasts and gunfire was all around and Marlon saw hell first-hand as the hangars exploded and the planes were fired upon like ducks in a row. Flashes of how he’d thought their neat arrangement almost childlike last night interrupted his panic momentarily before they burst in masses of splinters, falling against each other, consumed by flame.
Noise – the rat-a-tat, crashing, whirring cacophony of war – assailed him for the first time in his life, a terrifying soundtrack to the scene playing out before them as they crouched in horrified audience, helpless to stop it. The planes kept coming, like vicious dogs; attack, attack, attack. Menacing and relentless, they dropped their bombs and sent America’s air force back into the sacred Hawaiian soil in a deranged mass of twisting fire, too fast for anyone to comprehend. Then one bomb fell on the mess hall, where Marlon and Slim knew so many of their buddies would be. There were screams in the cacophony now as the pride of the US military, the million-dollar Hickam Hotel, ignited in a series of massive, mighty fireballs.
Joe.
Marlon stood to find him but Slim held his arm fast as a soldier fell right in front of them, red pock marks lining his torso. Rat-a-tat.
Marlon had never seen a man die before.
The smoke came in thick choking waves then, and the death planes seemed to leave but explosions continued as oil found fire. Marlon and Slim grabbed the opportunity to run to the barracks and mess hall, now a scene of apocalyptic destruction, destroyed buildings shedding into the heat. All was chaos and confusion: men covered in blood trying to lift others out; torn, maimed bodies. A severed leg lay near a book in the rubble. Of Mice and Men. Marlon would never forget the title for the rest of his life.
‘Marlon!’ he heard Slim yell over the cries of pain and roaring fires. Joe was in his arms, eyes closed and chest stained a deep claret. Marlon ran, helping Slim to drag him over to where the wounded were being gathered, placing Joe on the ground and searching for a pulse. He found one and took a shaking breath.
‘Alive.’
Slim nodded, pale and shaking too. They could see many weren’t so lucky. The dead and dying were being lain in a sickening line and Marlon wished the fire could burn the images from his mind.
‘You men,’ he heard Major Hamlin shout at some mechanics. ‘Get over to the flight line! Get some goddam planes ready!’
Marlon stared at the major, vaguely registering something about his tall, blonde wife in the back of his cluttered mind.
The major pointed. ‘Stone, get yourself up there.’
‘Yes, sir,’ he said. He took one last look at Joe and ran off, Slim following.
Finding a plane that wasn’t on fire or damaged took some time, and all Marlon could think was that it was like playing blind man’s bluff with all that smoke – they couldn’t see a damn thing. The mechanics managed to find a B-17D but had to get it combat ready, and Marlon and Slim helped them carry a machine gun on board and set it in place.
‘Need some more ammo. Oh shit, look out!’ Slim shouted as the whirring returned. Marlon decided this time he wasn’t going to sit idly by.
‘Come on!’ he yelled at Slim as he lifted the machine gun back out.
‘You gotta be kidding!’ But Slim helped him all the same and they hauled the gun across the road just as a Japanese pilot rounded in and fired, hitting the dirt behind them and finding the B-17D. The tail was obliterated and the right side crashed into the ground as it caught fire. One of the mechanics caught fire too and the sight enraged Marlon, prompting him to ram the ammo into the gun and begin firing with a mighty roar.
This time the rat-a-tat was from him as he hurled death back at the enemy. He missed. But then another plane came, and another. He and Slim fed that gun as hard as they could until they caught one of those meatballs right in the heart.
‘Yeah! Cop that from Milwaukee!’ shouted Slim, punching the air. Then a bullet flew through his chest and Slim looked at Marlon, his eyes filled with surprise before emptying as he fell, lifeless, to the ground.
‘Slim! No – oh God…’ Marlon dropped to the ground too, blinded by tears.
Eventually he found the gun again, and fed it with ammo until every plane was gone. But nothing would ever erase the fact that Slim’s life had been ripped away and, no matter how many meatballs he found, Marlon couldn’t shoot down the moment that stole it.
Marlon would later hear many things about that day. How the Japanese had never declared war, just snuck up like thieves to snatch their prize, one sunny morning in paradise. The American President would call it an act of infamy. Overnight the nation would rally and declare war themselves and the whole country would seek revenge for the loss of 2,403 American lives, and for the 1,178 wounded. Half their air force planes had been destroyed and all eight battleships in the harbour were hit. The Arizona would never be raised again, nor the thousand souls who perished, some days later, trapped forever in an iron coffin under the waters of Pearl Harbor.
The Hawaiian gods never came as the iron Japanese sharks sent their torpedoes into Wai Momi. They never came as the might of America’s fleet sank into her sandy depths. But they did protect the grandson of Liwa, whose tribal name means water. He who was Miwok, with the tide running in his veins.
Only they couldn’t protect him from the new dreams that came in the black of night, where dots in the sky turned into sharks too, circling their prey with blood on their fins. Sinking their teeth through Slim’s white-man heart.
And where Joe writhed in the nets, caught and beached, only to die a slow death as the claret ran dry.
And part of Marlon’s soul that had never known death perished too, sinking into the sand to wash away, abandoned. Lost forever as it blended with the remains of his countrymen, left now to flow in Hawaii’s blood-soaked sea.