This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

These are not terms of endearment. The two groups—the kotonks and the Buddhaheads—genuinely dislike each other. One night, a week into basic training, Alex is walking back from the mess hall. He’s chatting with Teddy, the only other mainlander in his hutment.

A group of Buddhaheads is walking toward them. That’s another thing about these Hawaii boys. They’re always in packs. Never alone. And chatting away, loud, as usual.

The two groups pass each other. “God, the stink,” Teddy mutters under his breath.

“What you say?”

Alex and Teddy turn around. The group of Buddhaheads is facing them.

“I said you all stink. Go take a shower—”

The group descends on them. In a blink Alex and Teddy are leveled, left writhing on the ground. That’s another thing about these Buddhaheads. For all their laid-back and easygoing attitude, the Hawaiians have surprisingly thin skin. Even the smallest slight—a wrong look, a perceived insult—will set them off, and retaliation will come quickly in a flurry of kicks and punches. As it does now. And they don’t believe in a fair fight; they have absolutely no qualms about outnumbering the foe. Maybe that’s why they always travel in groups.

Alex and Teddy return to their hutment, scuffed up and bloodied. One of their hutment mates is squatting outside the door. A guy named Mutt Suzuki. “Howzit, braddahs,” Mutt says when he notices their bruised faces and disheveled hair. He laughs and follows them in. “Oy, oy brahs,” he says to the other Buddhaheads inside, “these two lolo kotonks like got their manini asses whupped!”

They all laugh like heck, as if it’s the funniest thing in the world.

44

AUGUST 13, 1943

CAMP SHELBY, MISSISSIPPI

A damp heat clings to them. They sit on their helmets, mosquitoes buzzing around their heads. The corporal’s voice drones on. This afternoon, as with most afternoons after lunch, the corporal will lecture them about how to set the howitzer cannon, how to get the gun emplacement, how to this, how to that. In an hour he will walk them over to an actual howitzer cannon sitting not twenty yards away, and they will all snap to and pay attention. But for now, sitting on their helmets under the blazing sun, this is all theoretical nonsense, and they nod not with attention but with sleep.

Twenty minutes in, a captain—Captain Ralph Ensminger, they will later learn—interrupts the lecture. Alex has never seen the man before but he has an innate air of authority about him. He is tall, with a face that is lean and almost ascetic. A pair of dark glasses sits perfectly perched on his high-bridged beak of a nose. His voice is surprisingly high-pitched, but unapologetically so. He speaks slowly, articulating every single word.

“Everyone walk over to Field Eighteen.”

They head over quickly. They are curious but quiet.

Field 18 is dotted with numerous red flags spread about, each with a different letter printed on it.

“Get into the trench.” The fifteen soldiers do so. Directly in front of the trench is a single blue flag, and instinctively they bunch behind it. They are beginning to understand. This is a test. An audition. For the front-observer position. A crucial position, one of the most highly sought-after roles in the artillery battalion. The front observer, unlike the rest of the team, is on the front lines. In the thick of it. There he scouts for enemy positions: machine-gun nests, tanks, encampments, hidden snipers. He judges the exact distance to these targets, then radios in the coordinates for the artilleries to strike them. A front observer must show grace under pressure, calm in chaos. And above all, the ability to judge distances insanely well. Everyone wants to be the front observer.

Captain Ensminger speaks from behind them. He doesn’t raise his voice, but his high-pitched, well-enunciated words cut through the humid air.

“I will give you a letter. Find the red flag with that letter written on it somewhere on the field. You are to write down your best guess for the distance between that red flag and the blue flag set before you.”

Papers are handed out; pencils, too. They barely have time to write down their names when the sergeant says, “W.”

Immediately, fifteen heads, peering over the ledge of the trench, swivel left and right. Like periscopes. Eyes squinting, trying to make out tiny letters on waving flags on this sun-blazed, blindingly bright field. Zack Okutsu’s head doesn’t clear the top of the trench, and he can’t even see the flags.

Then the captain: “B.”

Panic. Many haven’t even located the W flag yet. Random guesses are penciled in. Heads turn faster now, B, B, B, where is B?

“K.”

Somebody curses. Somebody looks over at his neighbor’s sheet. He is immediately yanked out, his paper torn up, and made to hold a push-up position for the duration of the test. No one cheats after that. They scratch in estimates. Thirty-five yards. No, thirty, twenty-five, twenty yards. The guesses are all over the map.

Alex, though. He jots his numbers down quickly but with certainty, never changing his answers. They are exact. Precise. Pretentious, some might say. 42 yards. 19 yards. 11 yards. 38 yards.

After seven more flags, the papers are collected. Three buck sergeants quickly go through the papers, scoring them. Everyone waits in the trenches, the humidity even thicker in that crowd of bodies. The sun unrelenting.

“When you hear your name, step out of the trench,” one of the buck sergeants announces.

One by one, the dejected soldiers leave the trench. Until only five remain. Four Buddhaheads and one mainlander: Alex Maki.

Another round of seven flags. The answers collected, scored. Captain Ensminger returns. His face is flushed. “Who is Alex Maki?”

Alex raises his hand.

The captain takes off his dark glasses. “Maki, stay in the trench. Everyone else out.” His voice even more high-pitched than usual.

Alex feels every eyeball focus on him. None sharper and hotter than the sergeant’s. “You’ve taken this test before, Maki?”

“No, sir.”

“You’ve seen the answer sheet? Memorized it?”

“No, sir.”

“You think you’re so smart?”

“No, sir.”

He stares at Alex for five long seconds, his cold eyes never once blinking. “We’ll see about that.” He nods to a buck sergeant, who runs out to the field. He grabs the nearest red flag, sprints to the far end. Stakes it into the ground.

“Now,” the sergeant says, “give me its distance.”

Alex scrunches his forehead, squints at the flag.

“Be as exact as possible, Maki.”

Sweat trails down into his eyes. He blinks. And in that brief blink, he is back on Bainbridge Island. In his bedroom gazing down at Frank out back throwing the football. The high-arching flight of the ball landing in a trash can set at ten-yard markers. Thirty yards. Fifty yards. Sixty yards.

“Fifty-six yards,” he says. He does not blurt it out, or shout with overbearing confidence. He simply says it matter-of-factly because it is, to him, a matter of fact.

“Fifty-six yards?” the captain repeats.

Alex is about to nod; then stops himself. Captain Ensminger’s words—Be as exact as possible—echo in his head. He stares at the flag again. “Fifty-six yards and two feet.”

Snorts from behind him.

The captain’s eyebrows shoot up over his glasses. “And two feet, did you say?”

“Yes, sir.”

The captain pauses; he has the look of a man wondering if he’s being played. “Fine, Maki, you want to be cute about this, go ahead. But tell you what, because I can be cute, too: if you’re more than a foot off, this whole unit does a ten-miler tonight.”

Groans from behind.

“And if I’m correct, sir?”

The captain’s eyes narrow. “If you’re right, within one foot, your unit gets special leave to Hattiesburg tonight.”

One of the buck corporals runs out to the flag, unspooling as he does a long tape measure. Everyone is qui

et. Most are glaring at Alex’s back, hating him, thinking about the blisters and aching feet that await them from the ten-mile hike.

The buck corporal slows down as he approaches the red flag. He pulls his face low to the tape. His head cants suddenly to the side like he’s just seen a snake. Slowly he stands up. Gets back down for another look. Stands again. “Fifty-six yards,” he shouts. A brief pause, everyone holding their breath. “Fifty-six yards and one foot, to be exact, sir.”

A moment of stunned disbelief. Then hoots and cheers break out from his unit. He turns to face them, and they’re all grinning ear to ear, and staring at him with a newfound respect. As if he’s just thrown a game-winning touchdown.

“Ho, brah,” Kash Kobayashi declares with a smile, “looks like this lolo be our front observer, braddahs. He a da kine moke, fo’ shua.”

Alex feels a grin crack his face. And as Kash and Mutt and the rest of the guys come over and pound his shoulder, Alex finds himself wishing—desperately—that Frank could be here to see this. Little Turtle Boy making front observer, proving himself in the company of tough men, in this band of mokes.

45

AUGUST 13, 1943, EVENING

HATTIESBURG, MISSISSIPPI