Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto Page A

the sky was full of buzzing Japanese Zero airplanes, a nest of hornets swooping in and out of the ocean-blown clouds. They were strafing Shamshuipo and the Gin Drinker’s line. Ralph stood with the other men. A grave silence befell them. All they could do was watch and listen to the horrific first sounds of war, a wave of explosions that struck fear into their souls. This fear was to become their constant companion.
    Ralph looked at his watch: 6 a.m. Time to move. He and his companions set out for Sheko, a town he’d never heard of on an island he only knew by the lines of the map he held in his hand. They caught a ride for part of the journey and then walked south for fifteen hours straight.
    Sheko was not so much a town as a few houses on the southern cliffs of Hong Kong. By the end of the day, the four men had traversed the entire island. They had not stopped once. Their feet were on fire with blisters the likes of which they’ve never felt before. The final three hours they had had to cut their way through heavy brush as the road had been washed out. One of the chaps had had the foresight to bring a machete. Without it, they might never have reached their objective.
    For the next five days, these men experienced the war in slow-motion. They saw nothing of the fighting. They heard only the loudest of explosions off in the distance, like the thunder claps that rang off the cliffs of Pleasant Bay. This was the army’s standard of hurry-up-and-wait at its most agonizing.
    The angels were smiling on Ralph and the other three men during those 120 hours. In that time, the Gin Drinker’s Line had been completely overrun. It took the Japanese only two hours. The men who survived the heavy aerial assault and fierce ground attacks were pulled back onto the island. With the mainland completely in their control, the Japanese army set up their heavy artillery and began to shell the island. The Canadians could only take cover and wait for the impending ground assault.
    The bombing was intense throughout the day. The thunderous roar sounded like hell had opened up on the north side of the island. Ralph took the watch as the other men caught a bit of sleep.
    The Japanese artillery pounded the island. They were systematically blasting away at all the fortified positions along the coastline, one after another. It seemed to the Canadians that they were waiting in line for their destruction. When they would take up a new position, the artillery would find them with unfailing accuracy. Artillery shells fell like rain. Everything within range was left in rubble. Troops’ movements were pinpointed and targeted. It took the defenders two days to realize that their communication system had been compromised.
    Ralph and the three men with him were cut off. They had no idea what was happening except that their friends were taking a heavy beating. The sound of falling bombs had them all on edge. Sammy Shane, an American with a Thompson submachine gun, was the jumpiest. He heard a twig snap and unloaded his entire clip into a bush. The culprit, a small brown rabbit, escaped unscathed.
    At dusk, after a shared can of bully beef, Ralph took watch again. The others tried to catch a few moments of sleep. They were atop a small hill overlooking a few houses and the shoreline. The wind had begun to pick up, blowing in low-lying clouds, ensuring a dark night without stars. Ralph had just given one of the guys lying beside him a little shove to keep him from snoring. Sitting on hiscot, wrapped in his blanket, he saw a flash of light. Or at least he thought he did. Your mind plays tricks on you after days of fear and nothingness. He grabbed his rifle and chambered a round with the bolt action. Standing, he raised and pointed the rifle in the direction of that flicker of light. He had yet to fire a gun in anger. He heard the CO’s voice running through his mind:
if you see a light, shoot it to hell.
    There it was, the same light. It looked to be coming