Forgiveness by Mark Sakamoto Page B

from one of the houses of Sheko. It was impossible to tell for sure. The light went off and on twice. Was it a message? Again, impossible to tell. Nor did it matter: Ralph had his orders. He lined the light up in his sights and squeezed the trigger, then chambered another round and fired again. The three sleeping lads leaped out of their blankets. They were standing beside him with their rifles drawn by the time he chambered a third round.
    “A light, just to our three o’clock,” Ralph whispered.
    The light flickered again.
    All four men opened up. They heard one bullet ricochet off something tin or metal. The light went out. It did not come back on.
    Ralph’s shift was up. He had taken no pleasure in his first piece of action. He unrolled his blanket and tried his best to fall asleep.
    He awoke to the sound of heavy footsteps. It was a runner sent from headquarters. He came with water and another few cans of bully beef.
    “How are you guys doing? See anything?” he asked.
    “Shot at a few lights last night. Other than that, nothing,” Ralph reported.
    “Well, consider yourselves lucky. We are taking a beating on the north end. The shells just won’t stop. They’ve already taken half our pillboxes out along the coast. It’s only a matter of time before they’re all gone. We’ll only have the forest as cover by the time the Japs land,” the runner predicted.
    “Any other news?” one of the guys asked.
    “A good hundred guys are dead. Bodies are washing up everywhere. Wish I had better news for you. I gotta get back. Take care,guys.” And with that, the runner disappeared into the thick brush along the path that Ralph had cut a few days before.
    The following three days brought the same constant drone of artillery explosions in the distance. And then the same runner, looking liked he’d aged a decade, popped out from the bush. He was the first human being Ralph and the others had seen in six days.
    The runner led them to Palm Villa, which had been a vacation resort before the war. Now Japanese forces were everywhere. The runner waved his arm and they all crouched down behind some thick brush, then he pulled a pair of binoculars from his pack and found an opening in the shrubs. He searched back and forth, up and down.
    “Okay, looks like it hasn’t been overrun yet. Let’s go.”
    Yet?
Ralph thought as he followed, crouching as low as he could. As they ran alongside the edge of the once-manicured garden, Ralph took in the level of devastation. The building, a turn-of-the-century seaside luxury retreat, had been heavily shelled. Bullet holes riddled the front door and most of the windows had been shot out. The runner hit the side door and it opened to a scene of total chaos. Ralph saw Major MacAuley, his arm bloodied and heavily bandaged, screaming into a phone in order to be heard over the explosions at the other end of the line. A report of relative calm came in from the northwest sector, immediately followed by a report that the northwest sector was being overrun.
    “I need five men to head down to the road. I can’t find our goddamn Bren carrier!” the CO said. The Bren gun carrier was one of the few to have made it to the island. The truck was crucial for moving the only heavy guns the Canadians had. Without it, they had only their .303 Lee-Enfield rifles.
    Everybody knew how important this mission was. Twenty men stood up immediately. The CO counted them off: you, you, you, you, and you. The five chosen dashed out the door that Ralph just entered. Within minutes, they were all back, with one drunken addition.
    “The Bren gun carrier is smashed to hell 150 yards down the road, sir,” a man reported. The scent of whisky filled the lobby.The CO became enraged; he knew the driver was drunk. Throwing down the map he’d been poring over, he took the driver by the collar and punched him in the face three times, then threw him to the floor. Standing over him, he demanded, “Do you know what you’ve