Flying Blind

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Hayden, you may think you’re a romantic…but right now you’re looking at the biggest romantic sap in the South Pacific.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “Well, I’ll be with you tomorrow…and my pistol will be under a tarp at my feet.”

“Let’s hope you can keep it there.”

His eyebrows lifted as he cocked his head and grinned at me, and nodded in agreement. Then his eyes narrowed in good humor. “Say, uh…I see Betsy took a shine to you.”

“Yeah. Cute kid.”

“You always been this irresistible to women?”

“Just lately.” I stood; stretched. “Think I’ll go below. Wake me if a schooner of native girls stops by.”

“Okay…but I don’t think you have to worry about catching the creepin’ crud from Betsy.”

“Oh?”

“She’s a nice girl, but a tease. She’s got half the crew crazy over her and is the cause of more cases of blue balls than you can shake a stick at.”

“That’s an image I’d rather not linger over, kid. G’night.”

“G’night.”

As I was coming down the companionway, there she was, cute Betsy, waiting on the steps; she wasn’t in her nightclothes—still the shorts and a loose-fitting boy’s shirt that she bobbled under.

“Sit with me,” she whispered. “And talk.”

I was tired, but I sat, on the stairs; she snuggled next to me, wanting to be kissed. So I kissed her, all right. I put my tongue in her mouth and one hand on her soft full left breast and another on her rounded rump and she pulled away, wide-eyed, and said, “Well! I never…”

“That was my impression,” I said.

And she jumped to her feet and bolted down the stairs and disappeared into her cabin.

The next morning, after breakfast in the main cabin, I emerged from the bathroom in my dark suit with clerical collar and received bemused looks all around, particularly from Betsy. She sat before her plate of powdered eggs and fried potatoes with her eyes as wide as a pinup girl’s, and I leaned in and kissed her cheek, and whispered, “Bless you, my child.”

There was laughter ’round the table, but good-natured, though Betsy flushed and hunkered over her eggs. I thanked the crew for their hospitality and friendship, and kissed Exy on the cheek, too, and ruffled the hair on the two tykes’ heads.

From the deck of the Yankee, the island that was Saipan was a vague shape in the distance, but rising at its center, like a green peaked hat floating on the sea. Another island could be seen as well, off to the right, smaller, flatter.

“That’s Tinian,” Johnson said. He wore a navy blue, anchored skipper’s cap, white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, loose brown trousers and white deck shoes. He pointed toward Saipan. “That anthill in the center of things is Mount Tapotchau, fifteen hundred feet of her.” Then he traced the horizon with his hand. “The coastline here on the western side is almost completely fringed by reefs, except for the mouth of the bay. Few years ago the Japs dredged a deep-water channel to the shore, to improve the anchorage. You’ll see some good-size ships in that harbor.”

Hayden was on the other side of me, but his eyes searched not the horizon but the sky, which was as gray as cement. “I’ve seen prettier days,” he commented.

Tiny brown shapes were moving away from the island. Boats?

“Sampans,” Johnson said. “Okinawan fishermen. They’ll travel for days, looking for flocks of terns, meaning schools of sardine and herring are nearby. And that means bonito and tuna.”

“That’s a relief. I thought it was the Jap armada.”

“Not yet,” Johnson said with the faintest smile. “Not yet.”

Soon we had set off in the dinghy, Captain Johnson minding the motor, with Hayden on the middle seat and me up at the bow. My nine-millimeter Browning was in the travel bag, under several more changes of clerical wear; other than underwear and socks, my real clothing had been left behind. In my right hand were clutched two envelopes, and in my left a passport.

From where I sat as we putt-putted across choppy water, warm wind whipping our hair, I was watching the Yankee recede, and I felt a pang of regret out of proportion to my brief stay on Captain and Mrs. Johnson’s ship. It seemed to me I was leaving America, perhaps Western civilization itself, behind; and the faintly decadent sweetness of rich boys paying big bucks to play Popeye, and a rich girl who wanted a shipboard romance with a mysterious government agent (strictly above the waist, you understand), lent a bittersweet flavor to this lonely ride under a broodingly gray sky on rough gunmetal waters. Then the Yankee disappeared and I looked over my shoulder.

The shape of the island was no longer vague. A long undulating beast, with the central hump of Mount Tapotchau, crouched on the ocean’s surface, a study in brilliant greens and dull browns, myriad jungle shades. But we were not approaching a primitive world: the tiny boxes of buildings indicated a city, and toy boats that were massive freighters hugged a concrete pier. We were skirting a coral reef now, heading toward a much smaller island, just a glorified sandbar.

“Maniagawa Island,” Johnson said, with a nod. “That marks the entry to the harbor.”

As we drew closer, Saipan was dashing my expectations: the island seemed larger than I’d imagined, as did the surprisingly thriving town of Garapan that spread out upon the flatland beneath the hills. The little city had banished the tropics from its confines; but on either side, coconut palms swayed as per South Sea Island routine, and flame trees, with their dazzling scarlet flowers, dotted the coastline, exotic flourishes of flora.