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Chapter One
Just before the roosters crowed one day in late March 1944, Sorry Rinamu was awakened by great, angry roars from the sky, louder than rolling thunderclaps Close as the palm-tree tops. Fast moving.
There'd been no warning that dawn. Thick silence; then the sudden, deep growls from above.
Terrified, he jumped off his sleeping mat, and ran outside the family dwelling, which faced the quiet lagoon. He was wearing homemade shorts of sunbleached rice-bag material, his usual clothing day or night.
His mother and younger sister scrambled out behind him like frightened geese, almost falling over each other. Teacher Tara Malolo, who was living with them that week, came out, too. His grandfather and grandmother followed. There were high-pitched wails and the screams of ajiri, small children, from other village dwellings that faced the beach. Everyone had been deeply asleep, accustomed to the lullaby of the surf, the friendly rustle of the palm trees.
In the shallow gray light Sorry could see eight blue aircraft circling far out over the lagoon, single file, like a flight of pelicans. Then they turned back toward the thatch-walled, thatch-roofed houses, flying so low that Sorry could see the outlines of bobbing heads in the open cockpits. The roars grew. again. For a moment as the planes paralleled the beach, then cut sharply over the north end of the island, he thought they'd unload their bombs. Blow up the houses, kill everyone.
His sister, Lokileni, thought so, too. She stood there in a faded cotton nightshirt, screaming. Slender body shaking. Eyes tightly closed to ward off death.
His jinen, his mother,Ruta Rinamu, went to her knees in the sand, praying, eyes closed, the tips of her fingers touching her chin.
Sorry held his breath. His brown eyes were wide with fear. Please do not kill us!
His jimman, his grandfather, Jonjen, stared at the planes as if his look could drive away the evil vultures. He did not seem afraid.
His jibun, his grandmother, Yolo, covered her sunken eyes. She feared ghosts and seldom spoke. She was with the spirits of the wind, the tides, the rains, the fishes. Her skin was like crinkly brown paper stretched over her bones.
Frowning widely, Tara Malolo stared silently at the aircraft.
Others in the village had come out of their houses and were standing or kneeling on the beach in little groups. Terrified. Frozen. Screaming. Praying.
The planes continued their second run, coming even lower.
The first one fired a machine-gun burst at the Japanese weather station, north of the houses. The second did the same.
As they flew over again, the palm and pandanus trees actually quivered. Sorry could feel the heat of engine exhausts and see die flames spitting from them. Explosions always came with the white men.
The free-running Pigs squealed and ran in circles. Chickens screeched, frightened silly, too, by the noise. The island's six dogs ran under the small cookhouses to hide.
Sorry covered his ears but kept his eyes open.
Grandfather Jonjen finally identified the divebombers and whom they belonged to. He shouted happily, "Amiricaans, Amiricaans!..." The planes bad white stars on their sides, not the red markings of Japan.
Tara jumped up and down, clapping her hands.
As the throbbing engine noises began to fade, the shout of "Amiricaans" echoed joyously along the beach. There was laughter and hugging, much excitement. Even the bewildered ajiri were now smiling, though they didn't know why.
Several of the American navy Pilots had waved from their cockpits. One had held up his fingers in a V, the victory sign, new to the islanders.
Americans! White men from the east. Military men.
Perhaps that meant that Bikini, northernmost atoll of the Ralik chain, twenty-two hundred miles southwest of Hawaii, would soon be free of Japanese occupation.
Twenty-six islands and islets, the larger ones palmand pandanus-tree-covered, formed the atoll, an oval lagoon in the ocean rimmed with coral reefs. Bikini, largest and most beautiful of the twenty-six, was four miles long and less than a half mile wide. All the Rinamus had been born on the island. Only Sorry's late father, Badina Rinamu, and Grandfather Jonjen had ventured beyond the lagoon. Sorry hoped to do that someday, sail to the aili&3241;kan, the outside world.
In five days, he would turn fourteen and officially become a man in island tradition with a family celebration. He was already the main provider of food.
He would also become the head of the family replacing Grandfather Jonjen, who had been acting headsince Badina Rinamu died four years ago. Sorry would now be the family alab, representing the Rinamus on the village council, with Jonjen as his legal adviser.
There could not have been a better early birthday gift than those roaring planes and waving Pilots, that gunfire.
Her fright ebbing away, Lokileni asked, "Will we be free?"
The Japanese soldiers sometimes demanded the bodies of young girls. Lokileni was only eleven, but she was in danger when the soldiers had too much beer or palm wine. So there was good reason for her to fear them, good reason for Sorry to protect her.
"I don't know," he answered, mind whirling. "Let's hope so."
As the engine clatter vanished entirely, the planes becoming dots in the western sky, Sorry looked up the beach toward the gray wooden weather station with its big radio antennae on the roof, target of the machine-gun burst.
The Japanese soldiers were standing outside watching aircraft disappear. One man had been killedby the second plane. The others were jabbering excitedly. Sorry could hear them faintly.
Everyone in the village hated them. They never smiled. They were never polite. The islanders called the squat wooden building mwen ekamijak, "house of fear."
