Trigger warning for slight mention of sexual assault.
Richardson's words bounced around my head a lot over the next few days. Especially after we received news of a bomb dropped on a city and completely vaporized it within a matter of minutes. For a long moment after Mac gave us the news, I had just stared at him. An entire city, just gone.
We finally retreated from the frontlines of Okinawa and onto a small island right on the southern tip the island. This place was called Ryukyu, and it was here that we got the news that the Japanese had surrender a couple of days after two cities got blown to smithereens. That night was being called V-J Day, and the other Marines were losing their goddamn minds.
A bonfire kept the clearing of camp nice and lit, and somewhere a little ways away someone was launching fireworks into the black sky. For once, it didn't feel like rain.
A bottle of wine was forced into my hand by another corpsman from a different company and as I made my way back to my little group, I got stopped by so many Marines who kissed the scar on my head and my forehead a lot. Sheridan, thoroughly drunk, rushed over to me from where he stood with Burke, Smitty, and Gavanoff and Sheridan scooped me up into his arms and swung me around in wide circles.
"We're goin' home, Queen!" Sheridan bellowed into my ear. He dropped me on the ground rather clumsily and he grabbed my face with both hands. "I am so sorry for being an asshole to you. My ma would be fuckin' pissed if she knew what I did."
"I forgave you a while ago, Sheridan." I reminded him, patting his shoulder with my free hand even though he still was holding onto my face. He let go of me with a laugh and hurried off back to his group of friends. I couldn't help but wish that Trager and Perkins were still here, to be here with their friend and with each other.
As I climbed the hill of rocks my friends were perched on, Snafu looked down at me with his eyes glinting in the light of the bonfire and fireworks. "You kept gettin' kissed down there."
"What can I say?" I asked, carefully balancing my way up the rocks and trying not to drop the bottle of wine. "I'm just really popular in this company."
Sledge hummed in agreement from behind his pipe, a cloud of smoke clouding around him. I took a spot on a flat enough rock somewhere between the three of them. With some effort, I got the wine bottle open and took a large swig from it before handing it to the closest man-Burgin.
Snafu reached out and handed me a cigarette. "Wanna smoke?" He asked. I stuck the cigarette between my teeth and Snafu lit it. Soon all four of us were surrounded by a cloud of smoke and passing the bottle of wine around the circle.
A set of fireworks sprang into the air and exploded, shedding orange light on everyone below. For a moment, I thought of home. If we knew about the war being over, surely the rest of the world knew about it. Somewhere out there, Mama and Norman were celebrating the end of the war. Somewhere farther than them, my brother's British wife Velma and their newborn could possibly be getting ready to travel to the States to start new lives.
At the thought of my unknown niece or nephew, I frowned and thought about the children of Okinawa. Without saying anything, I stuck my cigarette in my mouth and reached into my med kit, pulling out the Rising Sun flag.
"What the fuck?" Burgin asked the moment he saw it.
"I think it's time y'all knew about this." I stated, reaching up and handing the flag to Burgin since he was the closest.
"How long have you had that?" Sledge asked, his voice kind of soft.
"The day I came back to Okinawa," I started with a heaving sigh. "The Army company I was traveling with got attacked." I explained the rest of the story, telling them all about the Jap and how he had shot the soldier just four feet away from me, and everything that came after.
There was a long moment of silence after I was done. The flag was in Snafu's hands, and for a moment it looked like he was going to tear it in half. But then he did something more unexpected. He sat the flag down and scrambled down the rocky slope until he had squeezed himself onto the same rock as me. Snafu silently wrapped his arms around me and just held on tightly. After a moment of hesitation, I hugged him back.
"You're okay, Nora. I've got you." Snafu muttered into my ear right as Sledge and Burgin slid down from their own spots and joined us on the one rock.
The flag remained forgotten on the rocks until we decided it was time to leave out perch and join the rest of the company.
The next night we had steaks and Cokes for dinner. I had no fucking idea where they came from, but I was not about to question it. After dinner was a feature film presentation. As I watched the seats and screen get set up, Snafu snuck up behind me and stood so close that his chest was brushing against my shoulder.
"I'm gone be in our tent five minutes into the movie." Snafu muttered, his words slurring so much I almost didn't understand him. But when I glanced up at his face, he winked at me and I caught on.
"I think I'll be in that tent ten minutes into the movie." I replied in just as low a voice.
"Make it fifteen and I'll meet you there." Snafu muttered, pinching my side gently before leaving just as suddenly as he appeared.
I was barely able to focus on the movie as it started up the moment the sun went down. Snafu, having sat himself down in the aisle seat, said something about having already seen this movie roughly five minutes in before getting up and leaving. Sledge, who had been sitting right next to him, just mumbled, "This came out last year."
I waited for maybe more than fifteen minutes into the movie before saying, "I'll be back; I've gotta pee."
"Sure you do." Burgin said, not even looking at me as I left. Sledge was smirking as I moved past him and I snuck off, pleased to see that no one was paying me any mind.
Snafu had been pacing when I entered the tent and shut it up behind me. The moment I turned around, I saw that Snafu was staring at me expectantly. I blinked at him. "Yes?"
Without answering, he took two large steps forward and crashed into me, his mouth falling onto mine and wrapping one arm around my waist and pulling me towards him and the other hand grabbing at my ass, palming and squeezing it hard. I grabbed a handful of his fluffy black hair and held on as Snafu started kissing and biting my neck.
By the time I snuck back into the movie area, it was near the end. Sledge and Burgin gave me looks out of the corner of their eyes but said nothing. When Snafu resumed his spot ten minutes later, Sledge looked at him and asked, "Thought you said you already saw this movie."
"Did I say that?" Snafu asked, narrowing his eyes at the black and white film. "Guess I got it confused with some other film."
Burgin poked a spot on my neck. "You got a pretty bad bruise there, Queen. How'd that happen?"
I slapped his hand away and rubbed at the spot of my neck that Snafu had earlier been biting the shit out of just a while ago. I nodded to the screen. "Oh look, something's happening."
Burgin snorted loudly with barely contained laughter and wrapped an arm around my shoulders, squeezing briefly before letting me go.
The movie ended and normally it'd be time to go to the tents to sleep. But one of the commanding officers lit another bonfire and the Marines and soldiers milled over to it and hung around the fire until it died down and, group by group, people went back to their tents and fell asleep.
Burgin and Sledge acted over dramatic as hell when it came time for our group to go back to our shared tent. "I don't know." Sledge said loudly.
Burgin narrowed his eyes at Snafu. "Y'all sure you're done? Sledge and I can walk around the island a couple more times if you guys wanna try again."
"God, y'all are fucking annoying." I snapped, pushing past the three of them and going inside the tent, which Snafu and I had made sure to leave it the same way we had found it.
As I entered, I distinctly heard Burgin state, "Wow, she's great for you, Snaf."
After a few days of living on Ryukyu, people were starting to get agitated again. I wrote a letter to Mama and Norman, telling them about how I heard about the end of the war, but that I didn't know when we'd be sent home. I wrote about how I'd let them know the moment I found out when I'd be allowed to leave.
But then we received orders to go to China.
There was a moment of long hush as Mac and the other commanding officers explained that we needed to move to the mainland of China to help push the Japanese out of their country.
I stopped listening after that.
When people starting leaving the meeting, there was a sudden scream of the word, "Fuck!" I turned around and saw Burke fuming, looking like he wanted to punch someone. I blinked numbly and continued onwards back to the tent. No one followed me.
When I entered the tent, I slowly got a piece of paper and a pen out. I managed to write the words, Dear Norman and Mama, before feeling the burn of unshed tears right behind my eyes. I started writing a letter, my hands shaking hard as I struggled not to cry. I kept the letter short, promising them any news the moment I got it. When I finished, I addressed the envelope and stared long and hard at it.
Snafu entered the tent and stared at me. "We were wonderin' where ya went."
I gestured at my surroundings. "You found me. Just had to...uh...tell my family 'bout going to China-" My throat got so tight it was hard to say fucking anything right now.
Snafu came over and sat down on the cot beside me. His blue eyes looked tired and it wasn't long before one arm wrapped around my shoulders and pulled me close to his side. I fully leaned into him as he kissed the top of my head.
"Figured that this war would end and we'd go home." Snafu said darkly. I nodded in agreement, thinking about the unfairness of it all, the sheer unfairness of it. From what I understood, we'd only be in China for maybe a month or two, accepting Japanese troop surrenders, and helping Koreans get back to their home country.
The war was over, but we were still barred from going home.