Chapter 6

The sun was rimmed with reddish-orange halos when it first appeared on the horizon to the east. The waves all the way from the shoreline to as far as one could see out to the empty horizon were capped with white froth because the storm from the night before was still lingering near the island that served as both refuge and prison to the main characters in this story. Sharks were in evidence near the rocky point that rose to an impressive height on the south end of the island. They were often there but it was unusually early in the year for them to be swarming and it was suspected it was due to the density of tasty fish migrating to distant lands and following the underwater currents that carried them along much faster than they could swim without assistance.

The soldier sons of the land of the rising sun saw the colorful dawn as an omen of their divine superiority and a signal that the unfortunate war would soon draw to a conclusion with them as the sole rulers of the mother ocean and the thousands of islands that dotted the maps of various countries, both friend and foe. It was a false sense of security with the gathering storm of death and destruction surrounding them on all sides and most of them would not live long enough to regret their mistaken beliefs.

Patrick stirred silently in his vantage point wanting to infiltrate the camp and snatch Sheila from their grasp. He knew it would be suicide at that point in time because they were all on the alert and ready to snuff out any attempt to free their captive. It grated on his nerves to simply stand by and wait for the right moment to rescue his island mate from her precarious situation as a captive of the evil-minded minions of the supposed Godly Emperor. He retreated to the deep brush and relieved himself quickly and then crawled back to his hiding place with a filled canteen of fresh water from the underground spring they had discovered the previous year. The camp was just coming to life and he saw a large group of men doing their morning exercises with lots of shouting and grunting that was more kabuki than organization morale building that military units adopted as a way to promote enthusiasm.

The naked prisoner was led out on a chain to the center of the compound and forced to bow to the east in deference to the Emperor. She seemed a bit disoriented and tearfully aware of her nudity in front of the boisterous group of men. Every now and then some brave soldier ran up to her kneeling form and groped her like some pervert teasing her on a train or bus. Sheila was disheartened by the degrading conduct, but she had no way of stopping it and knew it was just another form of “softening up” to make her behavior circumspect in every respect. She was determined to retain her core sense of dignity despite the public humiliations and offered it all up to God as her earthly punishment in lieu of some delays in purgatory or other holding area before being granted a place in the kingdom of the divine creator. She was still sore from her training the night before and she hoped there would be a period of respite before she was stretched to the limit again so that she could recover her sense of balance and give her flesh some time to heal and be ready for more rough treatment.

Patrick watched and fretted at his inability to intervene to help his island buddy. At least, they were not in a vicious mood and doing damage to her physically. Of course, the effect on her mental state of mind was a consideration as well and he sensed she was on the “breaking point” of losing her will to resist. He was astonished she had held out so long and put it down to her religious training that gave her strength of character a firm foundation. He had half slept through the indoctrination classes that were supposed to bolster the enlisted men’s sense of patriotic duty to divulge only name, rank, dog tag number and date of birth. He never understood the logic of that since the enemy already had their dog tags in their possession and it wasn’t like they were giving them any information they didn’t already know. He was glad he didn’t have any tattoos with names or ship numbers in them because they would likely use that to worm into his brain and get additional details. Patrick hoped they would not find out Sheila was a nun because they would use that against her to crack her and open up her mind to their silly games.

The officer in charge came up behind her with a long, sharp knife and Patrick was momentarily fearful that he was considering separating her pretty head from her shoulders. However, all he did was slice off her shoulder length hair and give her a butch hair cut that probably reminded her of her novitiate days. Civilian females might have been overly disturbed at the loss of their foremost identifying feature that labeled them as feminine but he expected Sheila would just shake that off as par for the course and not something she found particularly disconcerting.

An excited and chattering soldier came running from the communications tent with the huge antenna rising up into the early morning air. It was higher than any of the trees on the island and only the high cliffs on the south end of the island blocked the reception. That fact made no difference because the radio equipment was linked directly to the ship radio room that maintained 24/7 contact with headquarters in Tokyo. The excited young soldier was waving a message form and making a show of how important he felt it was and how crucial it was that the commander read it immediately.

Patrick couldn’t quite hear the words and even if he did, his proficiency in the Japanese lingo was minimal at best. It just seemed a strange interruption, in fact, almost a miracle of sorts because it took attention away from the defenseless Sheila almost prostate on the parked hard sand of the little encampment.

Whatever the message was, it obviously put a crimp in the commander’s fun toying with the new captive. He lost all interest in Sheila and waved a pair of guards to put her back in her corner inside the main tent chained to the iron rails of the commander’s bunk.

Young Patrick took a chance and slithered closer to the jam-packed parade ground. He heard the staccato rapid-fire orders from the commander passing to the subordinates and made out some words that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Apparently, some kind of “huge bomb” had obliterated a couple of mainland cities including one that was the commander’s home town. His demeanor was changed immediately from a victorious conqueror to a defeated military man with no clear purpose in life except to exit it in dignity and grace. The young soldiers were skeptical of the message because they could not conceive of any bomb made by mere mortals, especially the hated white skinned Americans that could lay waste to an entire city and negate the Emperor’s status as divine representative of God on earth. The commander could comprehend the import of the implied reversal of fortune with the winds of war, but the uneducated enlisted men held the conviction that such nonsense was absolutely impossible and most likely a mistake in communications or a trick by the enemy.