T. Boyle - San Miguel

The first one let out a laugh. “Oh, no, ma’am, you don’t understand — we’re here to help you . We’re to be billeted here and keep watch for enemy activity. And, of course”—and here he tapped the rifle slung over his shoulder—“to serve as protection in the event hostile combatants do appear. Show up, I mean. The Japanese, that is.”

“Yes, we’ve heard of them,” Herbie said in a withering voice. “They’re those little yellow bastards with the buckteeth.”

“Yes, sir,” the other one said, trying out a smile now. She saw that he had acne spots on his face and throat and that his eyes were red, as if he’d been drinking, or — and here she made a leap of intuition — working through the dregs of a New Year’s Eve hangover. “The same,” he said. And then the smile was gone.

“Let me get this straight,” Herbie said, shifting his weight so that he was leaning into the gate now, as if to bar their way as he had with the men from the Interior Department. “You’re going to protect us from invasion — with one rifle between you? And an antiquated firearm at that? We used the Springfield in the first war, or didn’t anybody tell you that? They couldn’t even issue you the M1 Garand?”

“Well, no, sir,” the first one said, ducking his head, “that’s not possible at present. Captain Hill — he’s the one gave us our orders? — says we’re short of small arms and we’ve got to make do with what we have on hand, until we can, or they can—”

“Who can? You talking about rifle manufacturers here in this country gearing up for wartime production? Because if you are, it’s going to be a long wait, I’m afraid.” He shot her an exasperated look, then lifted his eyes to heaven as if to say, How can they expect us to suffer such fools? Out of the corner of her eye she saw the dog come trotting across the yard to investigate, then drop back on his haunches at a safe distance. The breeze came at her, cold and insinuating, and it carried the smell of the sheep. And then Betsy, her hair blowing round her face, sidled over to her father and clung to his leg, shifting back and forth to play peek-a-boo with these fascinating creatures who’d serendipitously appeared on her doorstep. “But you said something about being billeted here?” Herbie said.

“Yes, sir.” And here the one with the gun — Reg — saluted again. “Those are my orders, sir.”

“And who do you think’s going to feed you? Billeted, my ass. You think you can just waltz in here with that Springfield rifle and order us around as if this is some kind of military camp or something?”

The short one, Freddie: “You don’t understand, sir, we’re here to protect you — to serve you, that is. Your whole family. And to watch out for—”

“Suspicious activity?”

“Suspicious activity, yes, right.”

Herbie crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his head back as if he were examining them from a great distance. “Don’t make me laugh. You even know how to use that thing?”

The tall one — and now he was bristling: “We’ve been drilled.”

“You betcha,” the other one put in.

“I’m sure we’ll all sleep better tonight knowing that.” Herbie turned to her, his eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. “Did you hear that, Elise? They’ve been drilled. What a relief, huh?”

* * *

They put them up in the shearers’ room just off the kitchen. The letter the boys carried with them from their commanding officer gave Herbie and her the choice of evacuation — which meant leaving everything behind that wouldn’t fit into one suitcase apiece — or submitting to the Navy presence. Everyone had to sacrifice in this time of need, Captain Hill went on to say, pointing out that the government was pressing all private aircraft into service and any number of seaworthy vessels as well, including passenger liners, tugs, tankers, trawlers and even private yachts, thus it was their duty as Americans and patriots to billet Seaman First Class Bauer and Seaman Apprentice Frederickson, who could be expected to assist with household chores as needed and to patrol the island on a regular basis in order to protect them from enemy infiltration and assault. Further, each man had been provided with ten pounds of rice, ten pounds of beans and a quantity of dried and cured meats, including but not limited to ham, bacon and chipped beef, to contribute to the general stores.

Herbie wasn’t happy about it, nor was she. There were strangers in the house and they weren’t invited guests or members of the Mexican-Indian crew who came out twice a year for the shearing and whom they’d come to know over time as friends and employees both. Where was their privacy? What did these boys expect of them and what were they to expect in return? From the very first night they felt constrained in their own home, but the country was at war and there was a quid pro quo at work here: billet the sailors and stay or refuse and be forcibly evicted. The government held all the power and now more than ever it would be a simple thing for some official to revoke Bob Brooks’ lease, making it an issue of national security, and no one understood that better than Herbie. If that wasn’t enough, there was the appeal to his patriotism. There was no one, not in Washington or aboard any ship still afloat in the Pacific, who could question his loyalty, that was how he saw it — and he let her know it, lecturing on late into the night, airing his grievances, pacing up and down the room flinging out his hands like a soapbox orator, as worked up as she’d ever seen him. “I’m a veteran, for Christ’s sake. I fought for my country and I’ll fight again, if that’s what they want from me. Patriotic duty. Don’t make me laugh. It’s an insult is what it is.”

By the next morning, he’d come around. He was unusually quiet at first, hovering over a cup of coffee and sitting there at the table staring out into the gloom while she stirred oatmeal and sliced bread to toast in the oven. He’d mumbled a good morning when he came into the room, but hadn’t said another word till finally, out of nowhere, he announced, “The Navy’s not the problem. I see that now.” He shifted in his seat, set the cup down and began tracing an invisible figure on the tabletop with the bottom edge of it. “Of course I do. It’s the Japs, the Japs are the problem. And we’ve all got to unite against them.”

It was seven a.m. and the sailors were asleep still — or that was her presumption, anyway. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe they were already out on patrol, trading the rifle between them.

“Still, it burns me up to think they’d send us a couple of idiots like this — babies, that’s what they are, probably cry for their mother the first time a shell goes off. And if they think they’re just going to laze around here like it’s some kind of rest home, they’re nuts. I want you to lay out kitchen duties for them — they’ll wash dishes and scrub this place till it glows, by Christ — and I’ll let them know what’s needed in the yard, wood detail, for one thing. We’re two more mouths to feed now, two more adults, and that means double the firewood, double at least—”

When the boys did come in — at quarter of eight — they looked even more subdued than they had the night before. Their uniforms — their blues — were wrinkled, as if they’d slept in them, but they seemed to have washed their faces and hands and their nails looked clean enough as they sat down at the table and she served out their bowls of oatmeal and set a platter of toast and a jar of jam before them. Herbie was already out in the shed, doing whatever he did on cold damp socked-in mornings like this, and that relieved some of the tension. The girls had already eaten and since the holiday was over, she had them in their room getting ready for school, which would commence as soon as she’d fed the sailors and gone out into the yard to ring the bell.