Warriors in the Crossfire Read online

  Copyright © 2016, 2010 by Nancy Bo Flood

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, please contact [email protected].

  Cover illustration copyright © 2016, 2013 by Spooky Pooka at Début Art

  Cover designed by Barbara Grzeslo

  Printed in the United States of America

  First edition, 2010

  First e-book edition, 2016

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Warriors in the crossfire / Nancy Bo Flood. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Twelve-year-old Joseph helps his family to survive when the natives of Saipan are caught in the crossfire between the Japanese soldiers and the American troops at the end of World War II.

  ISBN: 978-1-59078-661-1 (hc) . ISBN: 978-1-62091-026-9 (pb) ISBN: 978-1-62979-597-3 (e-book)

  1. Chamorro (Micronesian people)—Northern Mariana Islands—Saipan—History—20th century—Juvenile fiction. 2. Saipan—History—20th century—Juvenile fiction. 3. Saipan, Battle of, Northern Mariana Islands, 1944—Juvenile fiction. 4. World War, 1939-1945—Northern Mariana Islands—Saipan—Juvenile fiction.

  [1. Chamorro (Micronesian people)—Fiction. 2. Saipan—History—20th century—Fiction. 3. Saipan, Battle of, Northern Mariana Islands, 1944—Fiction. 4. World War, 1939-1945—Northern Mariana Islands—Saipan—Fiction. 5. Survival—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.F6618War 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2010007095

  Boyds Mills Press, Inc.

  An Imprint of Highlights

  815 Church Street

  Honesdale, Pennsylvania 18431

  P1.1

  For Felipe I Ruak, Reilighman, Keeper of the Dance, his wife and family, and for Bill, with whom I dance

  CONTENTS

  With Gratitude

  Young Warriors in Training

  Turtle and Shark

  Teacher

  Friends

  Forbidden

  Friend

  Sister

  Journey

  Dance!

  Courage

  Father

  War

  Hope

  To See, Peace

  Historical Note

  Further Reading

  About the Author

  WITH GRATITUDE

  “I fell to my knees and wept.” Frank J. Bohac, Lieutenant, 4th Marine Division, World War II.

  My father fell to his knees and wept along with hundreds of his comrades on a tiny beach on Maui, Hawaii. In a few days his military orders would have taken him to the shores of Japan. His predicted survival time? 36 seconds. His orders? Kill everything that moved—man, woman, or child.

  He fell to his knees when he heard the announcement: the war was over. Japan had surrendered. August 14, 1945.

  I thank the universe that the invasion of Japan did not happen.

  I thank the people who lived through those horrific times and continued to hope, rebuild and forgive. To all the people who shared their stories, the Carolinians, Repagúnúworh (Rapaganor) and Refaluwasch (Rafalawash), the Chamorro of Saipan and Guam, the veterans from both the American and Japanese armies, thank you. And the people who loved them, their wives and children, who hoped for their safe return. May your stories light a candle for peace.

  I thank those who helped me create a story of peace out of war: Nancy Weil; Kim Stephens; my family (each of you!); Veni Folta (kanji consultant); Vermont College of Fine Arts faculty Marion Dane Bauer and Julie Larios; and all you Whirligigs, Cookies, and Plateau Authors. And thanks to Carolyn Coman and Jane Resh Thomas from the Highlights Whole Novel Retreat—you asked the hard questions and encouraged me to continue. I thank my editors at Front Street–Boyds Mills Press—Erin Garrow and Joy Neaves—and Kent Brown, publisher, for believing in this story.

  Thank you.

  Nancy Bo Flood

  Chinle, AZ

  YOUNG WARRIORS IN TRAINING

  I did not know

  My people’s blood would turn the ocean red.

  I did not know

  Night’s quiet would become my enemy.

  I did not know

  “They’re coming. Get down. Now!” I stared into the darkness at the black curved beach. Soldiers should not have been patrolling so early. The last group usually finished their round at midnight. Waves lapped against the wet sand. Palm fronds clattered. I heard the sounds of hard leather military boots stomping across loose coral and rock.

  “I don’t see anything, Joseph.” Kento stepped closer. He studied the dark stretch of sand. Then he squeezed my arm as I pointed to four distant silhouettes.

  I used the silent hand signals we had practiced. Kento nodded and stepped backwards, crouching low beneath branches of young coconut palms, then scooting his legs into the tangled bush and vines. We lay motionless in the sand.

  Voices. They were early. The patrol usually made its first round of the day long after dawn … after we would have been far out at sea. But the dark sky above us showed no sign of the first morning light. This must be a new night patrol.

  Stay facedown! Don’t move! I signaled.

  “But the rats, Joseph.”

  “Rats bite, Kento. Bullets kill. Stay down.”

  Already I could hear a man speaking—gruff Japanese words that I could barely understand. The soldiers laughed. Kento would understand. His father spoke only Japanese to him. But I didn’t dare ask him what the soldier had said. My heart pounded so loud I thought they’d hear it, look down, and see us—two boys hiding in the shadows—one a villager, and one the son of a Japanese official.

  I hid my face in the sand and clenched my jaw. I don’t exist, son of a Saipan chief, hiding in the sand. The soldiers walked past and continued to the far end of the beach. Their voices faded. Finally the only sounds remaining were the splashing waves and the clattering palm fronds.

  I looked up. Kento still lay facedown in the sand. I touched his arm, and he turned to face me. We exchanged glances—a quick rise and fall of the eyebrows.

  Ready?

  Yes. I am ready.

  Soon, I signaled. Today’s hunt would be our test. As warriors we could help our families survive—if war comes—the words we often thought but never spoke out loud.

  A ghost crab scuttled past my nose and tiptoed sideways, its stilt legs barely touching the sand. I turned my head. Startled, the crab darted back into its hole. Sand fleas bit my ankles. Others feasted on the line of sweat across my neck. We didn’t move or make a sound. The Japanese patrol would walk to the end of this beach, past the end of our village, and shine their searchlights across the tumble of volcanic boulders until, satisfied that no enemy soldiers—no Americans—were in sight, they would turn and walk back. One last time past us.

  We waited. The smell of cigarette smoke drifted our way. They, too, were breaking the rules. More guffaws. The new night patrol was almost over.

  When the soldiers were a dozen strides past us, I pushed myself up to see more clearly. A branch snapped. The soldiers jumped like frightened minnows. Searchlights blinked on. Silver beams sliced across the shore and pierced the tangle of branches. A dark shape burst from underneath a nearby bush and dashed across the sand. A shout. Crack! A gunshot shattered the quiet. Light beams stretched and stopped. A dead rat lay in the pool of silver light. One man grunted; another laughed. Then silence.

  Search beams again crisscrossed over the beach. More laughter. Nervous and brief. The lights clicked off. The soldiers walked back up the beach. Gone.

  “Joseph, that was so stupid.” Kento hissed the last word, almost spitting in my face.

  I looked up and down the empty bea
ch. “We’d better go.”

  Kento stood glaring, shaking his head.

  I looked away and then again scanned the beach. “We leave when you are ready.”

  “I am ready,” he said. “A samurai warrior is always ready.”

  “Good. Let’s begin.”

  TURTLE AND SHARK

  Avert your gaze,

  Do not see

  Fear.

  We retrieved my outrigger from its hiding place in the bushes and carried it to the water’s edge. Kento and I waded on opposite sides, guiding the craft away from jutting rocks and chunks of coral. Once afloat, the canoe glided silently across the surface. When the water reached our chests, I nodded to Kento. He hoisted himself in while I steadied the canoe. Too much weight on one side and the outrigger would flip. Kento had tipped many times, learning how to land low and centered. I had tried to be a patient teacher, as my father had been for me, righting the outrigger again and again, until he could board without causing a ripple.

  “Good. Lie flat along the bottom. Remember, stay out of sight. An island warrior stays invisible.”

  Kento’s eyebrows arched. “Invisible? What about silent?” He slid flat into the bottom of the canoe.

  One last look down the beach. The soldiers’ lights were gone. I gave the outrigger a shove, rolled in, and paddled hard for the ava, the narrow cut in the reef where the sea rushed out of the lagoon as high tide changed to low.

  I guided the outrigger between coral heads, waited for a big wave to lift us, and then paddled hard, working with the outflowing current. We flew up, over the outer edge of the reef, and were free. Free of the rules, the restrictions, the always watching, patrolling soldiers. The Japanese may have taken our stores, our schools, even our lands, but they could not take this. Not the ocean.

  Outside the lagoon, the ocean deepened. Below us, shifting shadows of indigo and black disappeared into the depths. Knowing that this rippling surface continued deeper and darker into the western edge of the sky made me shiver. What lay beyond that straight-line horizon? When would I sail that far, like my uncle, one of the greatest navigators of the Pacific?

  “Is this where we hunt?”

  I had forgotten about Kento. He still lay flat in the canoe, his face pale. “No, not here, Kento. The turtles sleep in undersea coral caves on a shelf off to the south.” I breathed in the cool, salty air. “It’s safe to sit up now. The warships are way north. We can’t be seen by soldiers patrolling on shore … or by my father.” I grinned.

  The island lay far behind us, and the eastern sky was already streaked with blushes of early dawn. “We need to finish the hunt and return before anyone notices. Remember, if anyone asks, we spent the morning hunting octopus, not out here past the reef in the forbidden sea.”

  Kento still lay stretched out flat along the canoe’s bottom. I lifted my paddle, paused, then slapped it against the next wave. Whoosh! A shower of cold water splashed over the canoe.

  Kento sat up, sputtering. “Joseph!” The canoe wobbled. He gripped the sides. “When we get back to shore—” We both broke out laughing.

  I raised my paddle, threatened another splash but stopped. “Kento, this is important: as soon as you spear the turtle, I’ll help you pull it up into the canoe because sharks will smell its blood.” I circled my hands closer and closer toward Kento. “If that happens—bam! Grab a paddle and smack it in the nose.”

  “But Joseph—”

  “What?”

  “I am not a strong swimmer, and …”

  “And what?”

  Kento looked down. “I hate deep water.”

  “You will be in the canoe, not in the sea.” I rested the paddle across my knees. “Kento, you don’t have to do this.” He looked scared. “You are the only one who knows if you are ready.”

  Kento’s hands shook. “I must become a warrior, Joseph, an island warrior as well as a samurai. For my family, if they need food.”

  I nodded. “The first time my father took me over the reef to spear fish, a shark brushed across my thigh. I wanted to climb onto the reef and stay there. The sea was as dark as octopus spit. But my father tied the first fish to my waist and said, ‘Fear is a good teacher.’ After that my eyes never left the water. Another shark began circling. Its fin cut through the waves. Father punched hard at its nose and, like that,”—I snapped my fingers—“the shark was gone. We caught over twenty fish that night. Half of them hung bleeding from my waist.”

  I turned back around and picked up my paddle. “See, Kento, the eastern rim of the sky is brightening. We need to be floating over the coral shelves before it gets any lighter.”

  I paddled with a steady rhythm … raise, dip, pull, lift … soothed by the repetition, the splashless dip of the paddle, the pull of my arm, the glide of the canoe. We passed over a series of coral heads, and I gazed down to watch the shifting colors and shapes. In this first light of morning, the giant globes shimmered like pearls. Black-and-white-striped fish swarmed over the glowing heads, then scattered in an instant as the dark shape of the canoe passed overhead. Schools of flying fish leaped alongside us, skimming the surface in unison like slender silver birds. I watched for parrot fish: brilliantly colored sentinels that guard their underwater territory with their large white teeth. They would be emerging from their night cocoons.

  “Take a look, Kento. The ocean is ours.”

  Kento peered over the edge, then pulled back. “The canoe might tip, Joseph.”

  I laughed. “Don’t worry. The sea is calm. Everything quiets at dawn. The wind, the waves, even the ocean.” But Kento sat like a stone in the middle of the canoe.

  “Fear is good unless it grows too big. Then it is more dangerous than spilled blood.” I echoed my father’s words: “Face your fear; sail through it.” I remembered from my first turtle hunt areas of dark, endlessly deep ocean. I did not admit to Kento that, even today, I steered the outrigger away from those dark, unreadable depths.

  Dawn was spilling light across the waves. Blood-red streaks cut along the wide straight horizon, separating ocean and sky. I set down my paddle, cupped my hands into the water, and splashed myself and the canoe. The beginning of a new day and the beginning of a new hunt—both were sacred. It was time for a warrior to give thanks. “Spirits of the sea, let us travel safely across your back. We give you honor and ask for your protection.” I repeated my father’s prayer, words of respect. “We hunt for the Old Ones; we hunt with humility and to bring food to our families. Guide us with gentle winds. Help us to return home safely.”

  Wings pulsed overhead. “Look, Kento. Fairy terns. A good sign.” A pair of slender white birds circled wider and higher. Their shrill cries called Follow us! I smiled. Yes, a very good omen. Perhaps they brought the sea spirits’ blessings. The pair soared in synchrony, one a pale shadow of the other. They would fly across the open ocean, farther than I had ever paddled, fill their gullets with fish, and return to feed their young ones nested in the cliffs above our village. I shook my head. If war really did come, what would happen to them? Where would they hide? What would happen to us if those soldiers, patrolling every beach, marching on every street, had to fight, to defend?

  The current pulled stronger now, sweeping us away from the island, far from the reef. The gray, hulking warships looked small and far away, not even real. The shimmering surface of the ocean rippled around us.

  The sun climbed, brightening the high ridge that ran like a green arched backbone the length of the island. It rose over Mount Tapotchau, the highest point and the island’s center, and daylight poured across the sea. Cool ocean spray splashed my face as I paddled into the waves. Sunlight warmed my back. The rhythm of the waves quieted my thoughts.

  These first shafts of light now pierced the deep water. Turtles would soon stir, feel the need for air, and start their swim upward. Our hunt would begin.

  I sat upright, scanning. A submerged cluster of coral caves lay a few paddle lengths below our canoe. Carefully I set the paddle against th
e canoe’s side and whispered, “Kento, it’s time. Watch the surface for a round shadow. Or the tip of a beak. Signal when you see something.”

  On my first hunt my father explained that in early morning the Old Ones’ eyes are blinded by the low morning light. All night the turtles sleep in these undersea caves where they are safe. They rest, not breathing. At dawn their need for air forces them to the surface.

  With the grace of great seabirds, the turtles glide upward, using their flippers like wings. “Watch for a dark beak breaking the surface,” my father had instructed. “Drift close until you can see the nostrils flare open. Stay soundless. Hide in the sun’s shadow. The low morning light blinds them, but respect their strength and sharp jaws. One snap and you can lose your hand. Focus on their weakness, their blindness.” I did not want to admit even to myself that I wished my father were here now to guide us. He would laugh, perhaps dive in and ride one of the big ones, holding onto its shell while splashing through the waves. It was strange to be beyond the reef without him. I looked back. Our island felt far away.

  “Kento, be ready. We will drift with our backs to the sun so we are hidden in the sunlight. The turtle will not see us until it is too late.”

  “I understand.”

  I shook out my arms and breathed deeply. Once Kento speared his turtle, I would dive in, take hold of its shell, and use all my strength to help lift it into the canoe. The sun was now above the high ridge of the island, igniting the waves. From our small canoe, the ocean was immense.

  Kento sat straight and alert.

  I whispered. “Relax. We are hunting turtles, not sharks. Be careful not to bump against the canoe. The sound will warn any turtle and then it will surface somewhere else. The first turtle we see, he’s yours. Ask permission to take him. Ask his spirit to give you his courage.”

  “You want me to talk to a turtle?” Kento looked at me, eyebrows raised and mouth open, but he said nothing more and picked up the spear.

  “Good. Throw hard and straight.” I nodded. “The way we practiced. Stare at the turtle. The throw of your hand will follow the focus of your eyes.”