This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II

Captain Ensminger stares at them for a long time. He seems to be considering his words.

“Gentlemen,” Ensminger begins, and this in itself is odd because he has never addressed them as such. “Lieutenant Marquis Jackson paid me a visit this morning. He told me of the incident involving a local bus and three of his men.”

He walks down the row slowly, taking his time to stare at Shig Hayashi, at Snap Nakai, at Kash Kobayashi, at Alex. Then at Teddy Ikoma who can’t stop shaking, who woke up this morning fearing a dishonorable discharge, or even worse, getting arrested. Ensminger walks past all these men, then stops directly in front of Mutt.

“I have to say, I’m highly disappointed. After all these hard months of training, I expected more out of you.” The corners of his mouth twitch into the faintest suggestion of amusement. “Next time,” he says, looking at Mutt, “have the sense to beat the driver out of sight.”

“Sir?” Mutt says.

“You heard me. Next time, do it in an alleyway or behind some building, for crying out loud.” A wry grin cracks his lips. “You’ve left me some mess to clean up.”

All the men are staring at Captain Ensminger in confusion.

“Now I believe time’s a-wastin’. I can smell the hangover stink even from here. And there’s no better way to flush out the alcohol from your system than to sweat it out of your pores. So grab your gear, men, and let’s do the obstacle course double time.”

Nobody responds. Everyone’s still in shock, trying to absorb his words.

“Did you hear me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” they shout back, Mutt the first and loudest to respond.

“Well, what are you louses waiting for? Get a move on!”

The men break formation, grinning, and sprint for their gear. For the first time ever, lazy Teddy, incompetent Teddy, slow Teddy, is the first to reach them.

47

APRIL 11, 1944

CAMP SHELBY, MISSISSIPPI

Explosions. Bright flashes followed milliseconds later by an eardrum-ripping blast. A rumble felt through the ground, throttling the bodies pressed flat atop it. Alex fights the instinct to clamp shut his eyes and tuck his face into the frozen dirt. He keeps his eyes wide open. That’s his job as front observer. Be on the front line and observe. Ignore all distraction. Ignore the rat-a-tat of machine guns shrieking over his head.

Mutt, his radioman next to him, shouts, “Marker incoming. Five seconds to impact.” This is the initial blast, just a blank position marker. Alex’s job is to watch where it detonates, note how far off the target it is, then send in the adjusted distances. Then they’ll launch the real bombs. Easier said than done: in this sea of enemy and friendly flashes, the trick is spotting the marker blast.

Another blast, this one closer than any other. Dirt and debris fling toward him, spraying over his face. Still he keeps his eyes peeled, maintains the running countdown in his head … three … two … one … Where’s the marker blast?

There. A small flash among a constellation of other blasts.

He estimates the distance and degree the marker is off, then yells the corrected data to Mutt. Who transmits them to headquarters. The team stationed there with maps, protractors, and coordinate sheets calculate corrected coordinates; seconds later, they relay the updated coordinates to the team at the howitzer. A few tweaks to the aiming turntables. They’re ready, they com Mutt.

“Fire for effect!” Alex shouts.

And six seconds later, the bomb explodes right over the marker. Shrapnel screams down, a cone of destruction. The flag is decimated. A direct hit.

After so many months of training, of being put through the paces in chigger-filled trenches of Hattiesburg, or in the soaking-wet training fields of western Louisiana, they’ve become renowned around Camp Shelby for their skill and precision. They’ve been waiting forever to get the call up.

“Whoo hoo! Da kine flag is pau!” Kash shouts, running up to him. Alex grins right back and gestures a Hawaiian shaka—a closed fist with thumb and pinkie finger extended, then waggled. Kash laughs, then takes the radio from Mutt. “Mahalo for your kokua, braddahs.”

The deafening blasts suddenly cease. “What’s happening?” Alex says.

Kash shrugs. They look to the headquarters tent. A gunnery corporal from a different company is speaking to Captain Ensminger with urgency.

They walk over. The other squad members gather around Mutt. “What da kine this about?” Shig asks.

“No idea.”

“Maybe they sending us to Louisiana again,” Alex says. “Another training camp.”

Teddy groans. “Not again.” He barely made it out alive the last time.

After a minute, Captain Ensminger calls the men to gather around.

“I have some news to give you,” he says. “I’ve just been notified that we—the whole Four Hundred Forty-Second, that is—we got the official call up.”

Everyone is too stunned to speak.

“Did you hear me, men? We’re finally leaving this dump to go to Europe and fight Nazis.”

The men look at each other. Realization sinks in; grins and smiles spread on their faces.

“Boom kanani,” Kash yells out, his eyes wide with joy and disbelief. “Dat bumboocha news, l’dat!”

“Yup,” Ensminger says, laughing. “Whatever that means!”

The men start hooting and slapping one another on the back. Alex is all smiles, and says to Ensminger, “How about a celebration feast tonight, Cap?”

“Great idea,” Ensminger says. “But can we pull it off so quickly?”

Kash pounds his chest, smiling. “Leave it to me, boss! Somebody helps me poach a pig, and tonight we have a real Hawaiian luau! That pig be roasting over hot coals, I can grind um all or what to break your mouth, guranz!”

Everyone laughs, even those who have no idea what he just said.

* * *

On April 22, 1944, the men of the 442nd ride past the gates of Camp Shelby for the last time. Their hearts are near bursting, their smiles broad. Their enthusiasm lasts the duration of the train trip to Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia, their port of embarkation. There: final inoculations against smallpox and typhus, gas-mask training. Every piece of clothing and equipment is marked with an identifying number: belts, helmets, canteen pouches, service caps, haversacks, everything gets rubber-stamped with a number.

And of course, there’s a final dance at the USO. Competition is stiff for the scarce women. Mutt Suzuki, drunk and brazen, asks a few USO hostesses to dance. The white GIs get pissed. A Jap dancing with a white girl! A fight breaks out. The whole dance floor turns into a drunken brawl. A hundred on each side, knuckles flying, a stalemate. Until, of course, the black soldiers get involved. Once they side with the 442nd, the fight is effectively over.

* * *

On May 1, 1944, the men finally leave America.

They walk down the dock toward their Liberty ship, the Johns Hopkins. Like everyone else, Alex is weighed down by his duffel, canteen, ditty bag, gas mask, helmet, and rifle. But at least his stomach is full with doughnuts and coffee handed out by the Red Cross ladies. “You da prettiest one here,” Mutt says to one of the girls. He grabs a doughnut from the next girl, does an exaggerated double take. “But you—it’s you I be thinking all the way to Europe.” He winks at her with his black eye, swollen from the previous night’s brawl.

They head up the gangplank. Alex’s head is suddenly full of thoughts of Bainbridge Island, the last time he was on a dock walking onto a boat. An army band plays them a farewell song from the dock, “Over There,” as their boots thump along the gangplank, and it undulates beneath them, strangely in time with the song. At the top of the gangplank, he is handed a form letter from President Roosevelt. You bear with you, it says, the hope, the confidence, the gratitude, and the prayers of your family, your fellow-citizens, and your President. The same president who sent them to internment camps. Who keeps their parents and brothers and sisters behind barbed-wire fences.

Few bother to read the letter. Some slip it into their jacket, the blank side to later be used to tally card scores or gambling debts, or, when toilet paper runs out, other uses. Most toss the paper into the foaming waters below.

At noon the Johns Hopkins, bloated with men crammed into its holds, sets off for an undisclosed location in Europe. Or perhaps Algeria, though they hope not. Italy, many wish for. France, others hope. Only one person on the entire ship intones the name not of a country, but a person. Charlie Lévy.

48

MAY 10, 1944

SOMEWHERE IN THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

Alex wakes up. The dark air is foul, the dank heat stifling. A raw stink of vomit overhangs everything. His quarters are deep in the bowels of the Johns Hopkins, and heat from the ship’s engine below has turned this small room into a furnace. Most in this hold have stripped down to almost nothing. Still they sweat, still they toss and turn in their bunks, stacked five tiers high.

From within the gray ooze of darkness, Alex hears snores, snuffles, the snap of cards, someone throwing up that night’s kidney stew. Teddy sleeps in the bunk over him, and his body sags into Alex’s headroom mere inches from his nose. He needs something to distract him from this hell.

He reaches into his knapsack hanging off the post, his hand squeezing deep into the bag. There. His fingers grasp the bundle of letters—Charlie’s—that he’d brought with him like a good-luck charm. He removes the rubber band wrapped around them and randomly withdraws an envelope. He pulls out the letter, but it’s impossible to make out the words in the dim ambient light.